[Reader-list] The Hindu

Fri Apr 4 13:27:48 IST 2008

This is a letter I have written to The Hindu in response to Pallavi Aiyar¹s
, How China sees the Dalai Lama and his cause (The Hindu, April 3).  I¹m
posting the original article FYI below.

----------------------------

Pallavi Aiyar¹s , How China sees the Dalai Lama and his cause (The Hindu,
April 3) is full of inconsistencies and errors.  The argument that the
Chinese leadership cannot be expected to engage in talks with the Dalai Lama
because they have portrayed him as the enemy for the last 50 years, is like
agonizing over how the Sangh Parivar can ever embrace Indian Muslims after
demonizing the community all its life.  The only sane answer to this can be:
well, that¹s your problem, now go figure!

Aiyar admits that there is little information about Tibet within China and
then strangely concludes that there is widespread anger at Tibetan protests
based on her readings of Chinese blogs.  How does one accurately ascertain
what people genuinely feel or think under an authoritarian government that
controls information, thought and expression?  Besides, Aiyar seems totally
unaware of the ripples generated by the recent letter to the Chinese
government calling for a direct dialogue with the Dalai Lama by over 30
Chinese intellectuals, many of who are Han.

To assert that the Chinese government has to sell¹ an idea to the public is
specious.  Since when have dictatorships bothered with popularity ratings?
Did the Chinese government assess what 1.25 million of its citizens felt
when they were displaced to make way for the Olympic games, or the millions
displaced in the Three Gorge Project, or what people feel when the
government regularly arrests and incarcerates Chinese intellectuals,
journalists, lawyers and activists who may harbour different opinions from
the present regime?

Aiyar claims the Dalai Lama refused an invitation by China in 1989 in an
effort to re-start stalled talks,¹ and that he chose instead to appeal to
the West to put pressure on China to accede to his demands,¹ and that is why
the Chinese view him as a chronically unreliable negotiator.¹ What is her
source of information?  Why does she fail to mention concrete Tibetan
efforts of preceding years that include the Dalai Lama¹s 5-point Proposal
(1987) and Strasbourg Proposal (1988), and an invitation for talks in Geneva
in 1988?  

The Panchen Lama died on 28 January 1989.  The Chinese invitation to the
Dalai Lama came unexpectedly on Feb 7 to attend the cremation on Feb 15.  Is
it reasonable to expect him to jump at an invitation from hostile forces
with just a week to prepare for thirty years of absence?  Incidentally, when
the Dalai Lama subsequently asked to visit Tibet and to meet Premier Li Peng
during his visit to New Delhi in 1991, both were denied.

The Chinese government¹s stonewalling of the Tibet issue and issues of human
rights within China cannot be viewed as a sovereign state¹s legitimate
rights over internal matters¹.  These are acts of hubris which will sooner
or later force those in power to weigh what is more important, absolute
power for the Communist Party of China or the very existence of China
itself?

Sonia Jabbar

------------------------------------

How China sees the Dalai Lama and his cause
Pallavi Aiyar 

What those urging China to negotiate with the Dalai Lama fail to recognise
is the fact that Beijing's main constituency is not the international
community but its own domestic public. For Beijing to appear 'soft' on the
Dalai Lama would be as politically unpalatable domestically asit would be in
the United States were Washington to decide to engage in dialogue with Osama
bin Laden.  

With tensions in Tibet continuing to bubble, pundits and politicians in both
India and the West are increasingly calling for talks between the Chinese
government and the Dalai Lama.
One argument supporting the utility of talks between the Chinese leadership
and the pre-eminent Tibetan Buddhist leader reasons that contrary to the
dominant belief in Beijing, the Dalai Lama is in fact China's best bet for a
long-term and stabl e solution to the Tibet issue. Only the Dalai Lama has
the stature and authority to convince the Tibetan population at large that
its interests lie within rather than separate from China, this line of
reasoning proceeds. Thus it is argued that if Beijing loses out on the
opportunity to reach an accommodation with the exiled leader now, it may end
up with an even more unpredictable and hard to control situation regarding
Tibetan aspirations for self-determination after the Dalai's death.

Others are urging the Chinese leadership to negotiate with the Dalai Lama to
prove to the world that it "deserves" to host the Olympic Games. Beijing
will be able to boost its international image and prove its critics wrong if
only it would agree to talks, it is claimed.

What neither of these arguments takes into account, however, is how strongly
divergent perceptions of the Dalai Lama within China and abroad, combined
with the deep vein of government-stoked nationalism that runs through
contemporary Chinese society, make it virtually impossible for Beijing to
sell any potential deal reached with the Dalai Lama to its public. While in
the West the Dalai is widely seen as a Nobel prize-winning, peace-loving
figure of moral authority, within China the monk is regularly projected as
not only a separatist but also a duplicitous trouble-maker not above
unleashing violence.

In the aftermath of the recent riots and protests in Tibet, Internet chat
rooms in China are abuzz with anger and indignation at what many see as the
biased portrayal of the situation by the western media and the
'hypocritical' actions and statements of the Dalai Lama. Revealingly, many
Chinese have even lashed out at the authorities for their ostensible
leniency in dealing with the protests, in sharp contradistinction to the
'repressive crackdown' most commentators abroad have criticised Beijing for.

The majority of Chinese have little awareness that there is a Tibet problem
at all. Although a relatively high-profile issue abroad, thanks in part to
the efforts of Hollywood, within China Tibet is usually far less prominent
in the consciousness of the average Chinese than Taiwan. In school, Chinese
youngsters are taught how the region has only benefited from Communist rule.
The feudal theocracy of the Dalai Lama was replaced by the enlightened
policies of the People's Republic, they are told, with the result that Tibet
has enjoyed rising living standards and economic development.

While the Dalai Lama is portrayed as a sinister figure working to split
Tibet from the Chinese nation, he is also described as having little support
among the Tibetan population at large. When I gave a lecture to a class of
about 50 students at one of Beijing's top journalism universities a few
years ago, I discovered that not one of the bright, young things I was
talking to was aware that the Dalai Lama had won the Nobel prize.

Moreover, many Chinese regard Tibetans as being unfairly privileged since
they are granted certain special subsidies and benefits from the government
because of their ethnic status. For example, they are exempted from the
one-child policy that restricts urban Han Chinese families to a single
child.

Given this background, the TV footage and photographs of rampaging monks in
Lhasa and elsewhere attacking Han civilians and security forces have
bewildered many Chinese. They are particularly outraged at western media
stories that consistently blame the Chinese government for its handling of
the situation while bolstering the Dalai Lama's version of events.

With the Olympics being held in Beijing this August, 2008 was intended as a
year for the Chinese to showcase their new globalised and friendly face to
the world. Instead the reaction of the West to the Tibet issue, widely
publicised daily in all official media, is leading to feelings of
victimisation among the Chinese and a correspondingly sharp response from
the authorities. "If the terrorists insist on carrying out their attacks on
lives and properties of the Chinese nation," opined one netizen on the
English language China Daily website chat room, "[the] next step would be to
exterminate them, like so many cockroaches." He added: "The Olympics is only
a party to celebrate China's successes. It is not a goal in itself. Allowing
the terrorists to run amok would jeopardise the 30 years of successes from
all that hard work and smart work of the Chinese citizenry." What those
urging China to negotiate with the Dalai Lama fail to recognise is the fact
that Beijing's main constituency is not the international community but its
own domestic public. The Olympics, important though they may be to the
country's prestige, are seen as far less important than China's territorial
integrity.

There is a range of scholarship on contemporary China that demonstrates the
fundamental utility of nationalism as a source of legitimacy to the
country's ruling party. Given this fact, for Beijing to appear 'soft' on the
Dalai Lama would be as politically unpalatable domestically as it would be
in the United States were Washington to decide to engage in dialogue with
Osama bin Laden. 

The door for dialogue and genuine compromise between the Chinese government
and the Dalai Lama was open briefly in the 1980s. The two sides held secret
talks in Beijing in 1982 and 1984. At the time however, the Dalai Lama was
less clear than he states he is today on the issue of how far he was willing
to accept Chinese rule over Tibet. The exiles repeatedly insisted that any
solution must entail the governance of Tibet under a totally different
political system than what the rest of China had. This would mean
transforming the region into a self-governing democratic entity, something
that was patently unacceptable to Beijing.

When in 1989 the Chinese authorities invited the Dalai Lama to participate
in a religious ceremony in an effort to re-start stalled talks, the exiled
leader refused. He chose instead to appeal to the West to put pressure on
China to accede to his demands. For Beijing this move branded the Dalai Lama
as a chronically unreliable negotiator. Since then the Chinese leadership's
preferred approach is to wait for the monk's passing. The idea is that any
successor of the current Dalai is unlikely to inspire similar veneration in
Tibetans and would thus lack the clout enjoyed by the current leader.

Thus while Chinese leaders have repeatedly, in recent weeks, stated that
they are open to talks with the Dalai Lama, they reiterate the caveat that
he must give up his demand for independence. The Dalai Lama in turn has
repeatedly insisted that he has no such claim. The Chinese respond by
pointing to the riots in Lhasa and hence the Dalai's 'obvious insincerity.'
And so on it goes, in circles. Even were the government persuaded to attempt
a compromise with the exiled leader, its room for manoeuvre is slim given
the way the public views the situation. Any change in Beijing's position,
including talks with the Dalai Lama, would appear as bowing to foreign
pressure and failing to respond firmly to violence.

In 1989 the Dalai Lama won the Nobel peace prize. However, beyond symbolic
gains for his cause, his strategy of appealing to the West for support
failed to make China compromise on Tibet. In fact, it precipitated a more
hard-line policy on the issue, which persists till today. With the recent
protests and the upcoming Olympic Games, the Dalai and Tibet are once again
in the international limelight. However, given the Chinese reaction there is
little cause to believe any fundamental shift in Tibet's situation will be
precipitated.