Dance Troupe from a middle school in Lhasa, wearing 'reformed' Tibetan dresses and the singing propaganda song 'East is Red' during the Cultural Revolution.

In September 2008, Tashi Dhondup — a gifted 30-year-old singer from Amdo in north-eastern Tibet — was detained at gun-point by the Chinese authorities while his wife wept and clung to a police officer’s legs in an attempt to save him. Dhondup was accused of composing ’subversive songs’ with ‘counter-revolutionary content’ in his music album Torture Without Trace. He was detained and beaten for over a week by police in Xining.

In one of the songs titled Unable to Meet Dhondup sings:

When I think about it I am unfortunate
I am unable to wave the Snow Lion Flag
Even though I wish, I have no freedom
If I think about this I am unfortunate

*

Ever since the People’s Liberation Army first marched into Tibet in 1949-1950, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used propaganda to legitimize its occupation of Tibet and educate the masses on the virtues of its version of socialism. One means to achieve this has been music which overcomes the language barrier and has the power to convey any message immediately. Taking a cue from Lenin, who said that literature and art are “a screw in the whole machine,’’ the Chinese authorities have employed music as a core component of State propaganda.

In the 1950s and ‘60s massive public song-and-dance campaigns were staged to disseminate political ideology through lyrics and to convince the people of the supposed benefits the CCP had brought to the people. “Music is no longer an end in itself, but a vital weapon in the struggle,” said Mao while encouraging a ‘cultural army’ of musicians and other performing artistes to carry out large-scale uniformed performances with ‘passion and conviction’ to spearhead the revolution.

Dance Troupes — mostly composed of young Tibetans taken to China and trained by Chinese teachers to sing in high-pitched Chinese operatic style — were used to disseminate ideological and political propaganda. These troupes travelled to the remotest regions throughout Tibet to stage ‘developed’ and highly-sinicized versions of traditional music dressed in hybridized costumes.

Revolutionary songs were taught to adults during PRC’s endless the political campaigns, at meetings, and to children in schools, both to impart ideological education and also to teach Chinese language as the songs were primarily composed in Chinese and then translated into Tibetan. Lobsang Dekyi, who grew up in Shigatse in central Tibet in the 1950s and 1960s, told Tibet Information Network that “these songs were [the Communist Party's] own creation, composed with music and with political meanings and all, but when performing these songs, while inaugurating schools in China or while organising ceremonies, they would say that they were performing Tibetan folk songs.”

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) the traditional performing arts were completely banned. Anyone singing Tibetan songs were forced to undergo struggle sessions and publicly humiliated as harbouring ‘bourgeois habits.’ Even Dance Troupes were ordered to sing only Communist songs approved by Beijing.

Tibetan music and the performing arts never recovered from the years of damage, exacerbated by the decade of political and cultural mayhem in the form of the Cultural Revolution. Even Hu Yaobang’s liberal policies after his historic Tibet visit in May 1980 did little to heal the wounds.

In The Ideological Impact on Tibetan Art, Per Kvaerne — a professor of the History of Religions at the University of Oslo — talks about an official festival of folk culture in a district of Amdo in the late 1980s. During the festival Tibetan folk-performances, Chinese pop, disco and break-dancing dominated the programme in the local Palace of Culture for two full nights. The intention was to showcase diversity and equality between the nationalities’ culture, and to express their happiness under the leadership of the Party. However, Kvaerne writes that there was a “more subtle message, an essential meaning which was conveyed by the dress of the dancers, which was just as gaudy and unrealistic as any to be found… Official folk culture in contemporary China is entertainment, circus, show – nothing more. Further, the personal appearance of the dancers – their heavy make-up and expressionless facial features – conforms to Chinese, not Tibetan aesthetic ideals. What we see there is not Tibetan folk-culture at all, but a modern Chinese cultural idiom masquerading as Tibetan.”

Kvaerne adds that “as row upon row of [Tibetan] young women and men, who were dressed up in imitations of Tibetan chupa, filed before the local nomenklatura, one was struck not only by the incongruity of Chinese pink straw hats as part of Tibetan dress, but on a deeper level one realises that one is witnessing a call to blind political obedience, collective existence and cultural uniformity.”

In today’s globalized world, Tibetan music is still used by Beijing to drive home political messages. Anyone not toeing the official line is barred from public performances, persecuted, arrested and imprisoned.

Beijing, however, maintains a roster of ‘acceptable’ Tibetan singers whose songs they consider exemplary. But, writes Tsering Shakya in The Struggle for Tibet, the list has never changed. “The official diva of the Tibetan song is Tsetan Dolma, who has officially been the most loved of all Tibetan singers since the 1950s. Musical tastes may have changed, but Tsetan Dolma is still championed as the number one singer and appears regularly in every political event, even though many people despise her music.”

On 10 March 1993, Zeng Jian-Hui, vice-minister of the Propaganda Ministry of CCP Central Committee said, “We should expand our sphere of influence; in particular, we should infiltrate our propaganda into the mainstream life of the west. Firstly, we should continue to send Tibetan scholars and Tibetan singing and dancing troupes abroad to lecture and perform.” ‘Singing and dancing Tibetans’ come as handy tools for PRC to expand its influence abroad, to legitimise its rule in Tibet, to prove how happy the Tibetans are in Tibet and finally to show that Tibetan culture is fully protected.

This reverses reality. Like other aspects of Tibetan life, traditional music and performing arts are being stifled by constant official censorship, deliberate distortion and comprehensive sinicization. Tibetan musicians who do not reinforce Beijing’s propaganda and campaigns are persecuted.

In January 2010, the authorities sentenced the singer Tashi Dhondup to 15 months’ ‘reform through hard labour.’ Earlier, in March 2008, another young Tibetan singer, Dolma Kyi from Golog, was arrested for composing and singing ‘reactionary songs’. Likewise, in May this year a list of 27 popular Tibetan-language songs were banned in Tibet, whether in audio or videodisk format, or as digital media files on people’s cell phones.

“Anyone possessing the illegal music or videos will be severely dealt with,” the authorities warned.

Bu no matter how harshly Beijing imposes its crackdown on Tibetan lyrics or how many times the CCP may smash the strings our danyen, songs will be sung and music will flow from occupied Tibet through the ramparts of the Himalayan range.

1) Rangzen advocates and the rangzen movement is the cause of the division within the Tibetan society

That is a huge misconception and unfortunately a common mistake. First of all, I don’t really see a divide in our community as the word might usually insinuate and as one would expect from two fundamentally divergent points of views. And the reason why there isn’t much animosity other than the usual deprecation of each other’s position is the exalted position of Kundun who not only commands the love and respect of all people concerned but also the unquestioning trust that he is doing it with the purest intention. Yet another factor is the general consensus that most people still support the Rangzen movement but owing to their reverence for Kundun, and more importantly, out of faith in Kundun, they dare not disagree publicly. Now coming back to the question of the cause for this ‘divide’ within our movement, one only needs to go back to declaration of Independence on June 20th, 1959 at the border by the then Kashag overseen by H.H the 14th Dalai lama and the subsequent 30 years of Tibetan government’s official stance to throw some light on this dubious claim. Rangzen had been, and rightfully so, the official position of TGIE from the very beginning and there was no ‘division’ within the Tibetan people at that time, at least not on that front. It was only in 1987 with the introduction of the five-point peace proposal and the subsequent Strasbourg Proposal when the Tibetan movement started having two very divergent approaches. Of course, five-point peace proposal was followed by a slew of equally bizarre sounding terms such as ‘Zone of Ahimsa’, ‘Genuine Autonomy’, ‘Meaningful Autonomy’ and so and so forth as if changing the words around would make the difference. Be that as it may, coming back to the assertion at hand, in a logical sequence of things, Middle-path philosophy is the one which created the ‘division’ in the Tibetan movement and thereby Rangzen proponents, having never strayed from the original path cannot be guilty of the charge.

2) Rangzen is a fool’s dream and Middle-path at least has a shot

In all honesty, more than anything, I would say Middle-path approach created confusion and total lack of direction, in fact creating total apathy for the movement itself. Its main focus seem to be to appease china at any cost without regard for historical facts, logic, or current reality and instead end up muzzling our own movement, disorienting our youth, blacklisting our intellectuals, and blaming the failure of their policies on Rangzen advocates. If only we hadn’t insulted this and that Chinese dignitary and if only we hadn’t demonstrated during the Olympics, we would have found a much more receptive audience in China which will somehow translate into more meaningful dialogue and better understanding between the parties. Eight fruitless talks, needless felicitations, embarrassing pronouncements from our exalted offices and we are still in the quagmire that we started from and China has barely moved an inch or rather they have regressed now that TGIE has legitimized their claim over Tibet. It should be quite evident now that they have no reason or the intention to resolve anything in Tibet and they would be just happy to keep up the charade while bidding their sweet time until H.H passes away and then as far as they are concerned, the issue of Tibet is effectively nullified. No amount of obsequiousness and kowtowing will result in them granting us any special status within China because they know as long as the people of Tibet exist as a separate race and entity, the Tibet issue will never be resolved and China will never have legitimacy over Tibet. They will only be satisfied when Tibet becomes like Manchuria, fully occupied by Han nationals and totally dominated in every aspect of life and identity. This dream of having an autonomous Tibetan area with Tibetan majority is just a dream, much like Rangzen might appear to Middle-Pathers. So, if both paths are dreams, why not dream bigger where you wouldn’t have to lie, wouldn’t have to cringe every time our Prime Minister mentions Tibet as an internal matter of China, and we would at least have dignity and the unity of Tibetan people.

3) Living under China is actually beneficial to us

Now this is a spurious claim which seem to be a natural offshoot of the Middle Path stance where you have already decided Middle-way is the correct course and now are simply engaged in superfluous attempts at trying to spruce up poetic reasons for the merits of the predetermined position and thereby end up making bizarre and illogical claims almost to the point of absurdity. Living under China is beneficial to us? How is that working for us so far? Is this part of the same myth some clever pundits once espoused that once we increase trade relations with China, and the living standards of the Chinese people improve, they will have no choice but to open up the country to democratic ideals. Now, instead of a contained China, we have a more organized dragon with the proverbial tight financial hold on the world’s economic balls. Most people who hold this view seems to think it is a revolutionary idea and we would be somehow hoodwinking China into elevating our nation too. Wait, that would not be our nation anymore, it would be the Chinese nation. We would share in the natural might of a world power, have a permanent seat in the exclusive security council, and be a nation to be reckoned with. Not only that, we would be also affixing our chupa sashes on this financial windfall and catapulting ourselves in their meteorite ascent, all the while trying to hold on to our braided hair. They will also point that the world is getting smaller and smaller and it is an interdependent world and no nation is free to make independent decisions without adversely affecting itself. Europe has formed its own union to compete in the world economy and it only makes sense that such amalgamation would be the norm rather than the exception in the future and we would be simply evolving in that direction in a sense. From a distance, it sounds almost inviting, doesn’t it? Almost like a Utopian concoction where the benign and brotherly assistance from China would catapult Tibet from the feudalistic nightmare into an egalitarian society of mutual respect and cooperation. Where did I hear this before? Oh, that’s right, isn’t this what China has been saying for the last 50 years and we are still oppressed in our own nation and slowly edged out to the fringes of the great egalitarian Chinese society, to the quaint corner of our own cities by Chinese migrants fully backed the Chinese government, relocated to bunkers from the our beloved green pastures and open fields. What most of these geniuses fail to observe is the first clause of that argument which is that it is not one of free will but rather of one nation forceful and brutal occupation of another and the continued oppression of the indigenous people with the ruthless abandon of the Nazi. This particular argument is akin to saying as long as you are getting raped why not try at least to enjoy it. Sometimes, we tend to get too carried away in our earnestness to please, to be the best noblest harmless race on the planet, which we unintentionally end up exhibiting Stockholm syndrome of the acute kind.

4) Tibetans can’t compete in the global economy

This is yet another tickle-down logic which directly stems from the belief that we would be much better off under China due to its economic might and moreover Tibetans are not educated enough, not savvy enough, and not mature enough to handle trade and commerce. If you wait long enough, you will come to realize this is the same arguments used for not granting full democracy to the exile populace. Interesting, isn’t it? First question is why? Why do we have to compete at all? And even if we did compete, why do we have to measure ourselves with mighty nations like China, US, Europe and India? Why can’t we consider ourselves successful for at least having a nation to live in freely, practice whatever religion one desires, pray to any god or gods you wish, and not have to languish in prisons for having the audacity to ask for one’s basic fundamental rights as a people and as a nation. Bhutan is enjoying its gross domestic happiness. Small Tiny nations all enjoy corresponding and resplendent economy based on its natural resources. Tibet has a vast amount of natural resources that is much more than a little country like us needs; we have a huge tourism capacity that alone could more than fill the national coffers. Now add to that, if we declare our country as a zone of peace, conservation, and harmony, we not only have created a sustainable future for our people but for all of humanity. And that is not too hard to do because we have been doing that well way before it became trendy in the 20th century. But the main issue isn’t really that, now, is it? The issue is that we don’t have any confidence or faith in our own abilities and in that of our own people. We are so battered down, been harangued all our lives about what we cannot achieved, been told that we do not deserve to same rights as other people due to the famous and invisible red R in the middle of our foreheads, that we naturally assume it must be true for all Tibetans. Tibetans are natural businessmen and we have a pretty good record of trading with our neighbors like India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China and in any case we wouldn’t have survived without trade. What I am saying is this, we will learn what needs to be learnt and we will become successful in business and trade too. We don’t have to be the best, we just need to hold our own and of that I am very confident in our people.

5) We have a democratic Government

No, we don’t. We have something that resembles a democracy but is not really one in actuality. We cannot have a democracy without a party system. This partyless democracy is really a guise of one party controlling the major decisions and letting people fetter around in a pretend democracy. In such a system, there is nobody to take the initiative on major issues nor another to keep it honest. That would explain why there is such disconnect with the leadership and the populace and most of time all we can do is just throw our hands in the air in bewilderment. We still have some people with two votes and that in itself is a mockery of democratic ideals. It is very basic. That is probably the reason why I can’t seem to be able to make up my mind about the Kalon Tripa election. I don’t deny that what we have right now is much better than what we used to have and is a major step up. But Jamyang Norbu has already written an extensive piece on exile democracy and I don’t have anything extra to add onto that and direct people to peruse his excellent articles on his blog. Although, I must say that on this front, most do agree that we do not have a full functioning democracy at this stage, BUT, here comes caveat, we are not ready for it. It would create discord and disunity in exile that is not going to help our cause. I don’t see how that would be any more damaging than giving up our rightful case for an independent country. There is nothing we can do at this point that is going to screw it up any worse. And who decides when we are ready for democracy? If history has taught us anything, it is that once an institution or a group is in power, they are very, very reluctant to let it go. Moreover, wouldn’t the exile society be the perfect place to really experiment with real democracy? We don’t have to worry about a real state with its various headaches such as military, public safety, national economy, infrastructures etc. and can safely experiment with this ‘new’ system in incubation? This would actually be a perfect place to test it out while Kundun is still alive and he will be there to do a reset if need be. Moreover, I believe, with respect to provincial representation, party system will systematically allow people to group according to ideas rather their locality and although that won’t guarantee an amicable relationship, it would at least take us away from our age-old rivalry and that would be an improvement.

6) Religion and politic mixture is unique and good

If it was so unique and good, what are we doing in exile? Nobody wants to ask this question. It is the confluence of religion and politics that naturally made us vulnerable in the first place. It resulted in closing our society to the outside world and putting it in suspended growth and then having to wake up to the rude realities of the modern world. There is a reason why all democracies are adamantly against the involvement of the church in the political arena. Look at the history of Europe and the involvement of the church in the Middle Ages if you desire to get a glimpse of it and look at the current states with religious heads in power like Iran to understand what it does to a society. Our own history with Buddhism, although not as gory and tyrannical as was practiced in some other faith, hasn’t been pretty either, with suppression of Bon, inter-faith scuffles settled with the use of foreign powers, effete governments which rely on the God to make the decisions, opportunistic regents and the political stagnation resulting from the demise of one head to the discovery of the next reincarnation and the subsequent grooming needed to be deemed ready to head the nation. Many unfortunate accidents have happened even to Dalai lamas who drew the ire of incumbent warlords or who just happened to put a damper on the ambitions of power to be. The wheels of monastic power were so absolute even the great 13th couldn’t do much to improve it during his time and as soon as he passed away, everything reverted to the same old ways. We already have two Panchen Lamas and we are heading toward a future with two Dalai Lamas. With the Chinese propaganda machinery at work and the willingness of the western nations to suspend their beliefs for trade and our own inherent weakness for not making a scene, that future is almost a foregone conclusion. The only way to effectively nullify the two prong Chinese attack is to remove the target altogether. If Kundun completely separates the Church from the secular activities while he is alive and effectively passes the torch to the secular government, China would no longer have the political punch behind the appointment of the next Dalai Lama. That is not to say Kundun would not be a mainstay in Tibetan way of life as that would be impossible and ultimately I believe it would prove to be spiritually beneficial too as it would no longer have to be dragged into the dirty streets of politics. I am not saying the introduction of Buddhism was bad or that it didn’t do anything useful for our nation. Nothing of the kind. I honestly think Tibet provided the perfect place for the complete teaching of lord Buddha to be preserved and the natural harshness and desolateness of the plateau provided the cocoon that it desperately needed. But the degree to which it consumed the whole nation and the resultant shunning of the material world, be it in scientific endeavors, research and keeping abreast of the political development, scientific breakthroughs, military strategy, etc, led the Tibetan nation to the state that it is in today. Religion must be separated from politics to save both the nation and the peerless teachings of the Buddha.

7) Ngabo is a patriot

If Ngabo is a patriot, then Hitler is a misunderstood bully. I know this topic has been beaten to death, resurrected, and then beaten to death again, but I needed one more point to make it seven and in any case, I just can’t let this go. I know most people, across the board, whatever their political affiliation, don’t really believe that he is a patriot. Although, some of the creative ones once again try to muddy the water by appealing to the sensible side of you and wonder if we really know everything about Ngabo. There might be some things he might have secretly done which only the highest of the highest officials in TGIE are privy to and we shouldn’t rush to label somebody this or that. In any case, he is shoved aside as a pathetic person of no importance and we are better of not talking about him. I would be fine to do just that if not for the proclamation from the highest office of TGIE that he is a bona fide patriot. That rightfully drew scorns from many intellectuals, both Tibetan and long time non-Tibetan Tibet advocates, that it wasn’t a pretty picture on the blogs and Internet. What education is supposed to do at first is teach you how to think, analyze the evidence, and come to an informed position. Most of the time, you do not have all the facts nor do you need it as it would be just redundant. Some people seem to be struck playing the devil’s advocate in perpetuity and although it is useful in the beginning, it becomes a vicious logical loop in itself and does not lead to independent thinking and the objective end up not about determining the truth anymore but to create an alternate position to everything. And moreover, having formed an opinion, you should be willing to consider other pertinent facts and evidence that hasn’t been divulged yet. I don’t need to go into details as to why I think he is a traitor as there have been extensive write-up on this subject and as of now, there have been no official explanations as to why he is considered a patriot against such overwhelming evidence to the contrary. That should be a big tell tale sign. It is clear to everyone, such bizarre declaration from TGIE, is yet another obsequious gesture, yet another medieval tongue-out head-scratching routine, which as usual, gets no acknowledgement or kudos from the Chinese government.

These are some of the thoughts running through my head and are deliberately brief and by no means attempt to suggest a scholarly presentation. Any criticisms, affirmations, or other overlooked ideas will be most welcomed and appreciated. I also wanted to squash two other ancillary misrepresentations that couldn’t fit with the other Seven. One is that Chinese media will use such essays (I highly doubt mine will fit the bill but they have been using Jamyang Norbu quite a bit) and point out that Exile community is fractured and not democratic. I say their communist thuggery type of governance is a total joke and is similar to a blind criticizing someone who only has nearsightedness. Besides, the very fact that we can openly write about our disagreements show that we are far more progressed than they can ever dream of. Another one is the annoying proclamation that if you are against Middle Way then you are automatically against Kundun. That is a vicious statement and a hurtful one. Just because we disagree on some of the points doesn’t make Rangzen supporters against Kundun. There are many bright and energetic young Tibetans, especially in various NGOs, who love and respect his holiness but still support the Rangzen movement. I would like to think of it more like a disagreement between parents and offspring where love, respect, and gratitude for Kundun shall never diminish. Bod Gyalo!

President Zuma (right).

Well, the World Cup’s over and the teams and visitors have all gone home, but the afterglow of achievement hasn’t entirely faded for South Africans. The people of this struggling “rainbow nation”, especially its new president Jacob Zuma, can be deservedly proud of having successfully hosted this tremendous international sporting event. Over forty years ago Zuma was a player himself, in fact the captain of the Rangers club, one of the teams that made up the Makana Football Association, organized by the prisoners of South Africa’s notorious Robben Island state prison.

An article in the New York Times mentioned that in Robben Island “…soccer brought relief from the exhausting life of breaking rocks in a quarry. It conferred dignity on prisoners subjected to beatings and humiliating body searches.” An inmate, Lizo Sitoto who was imprisoned on Robben island from 1963 until 1978, claimed that “football saved many of us. When you were outside playing, you felt free, as if you were at home.”

Nelson Mandela was kept in an isolation unit and not allowed to play football, but it appears that he somehow managed to keep himself physically fit. On Thursday February 11, 1990, when he was released from Robben island and the whole world celebrated his freedom, some observers noticed how spry and energetic he looked in spite of his 27 years behind bars. His physical and mental fitness, was of course, in great part, the product of his own discipline, political focus and iron will.

But that same year I read an article in The Independent which described how the South African government was very careful with the health of prisoners on Robben Island. As brutal as life could be for the inmates, their diet was adequate and nutritious enough (though reportedly stodgy and unappetizing) and overseen by a government appointed dietician. The prisoners also had regular exercise routines and periodic medical check-ups.

I have interviewed or just talked to hundreds of Tibetans who had been incarcerated in Chinese prisons and labor camp, and no one has yet told me of playing football, basketball, or even taking part in any kind of basic recreational activity. The reason for this sedentariness was profoundly simple. The amount of food a Tibetan prisoner was allotted just about enabled breath to be kept in the body. But prisoners were also expected perform hard labor for twelve to fourteen hour daily, and after that to attend political re-education classes late into the evening. Of course, most of them quickly wasted away and died.

Many hundreds of thousand of Tibetans and millions of Chinese in prison and labor camps (laogai) were quite deliberately starved to death. This was an actual policy of the Chinese government. The death of many Tibetans through starvation, especially in the labour camps, did not happen because of natural events like crop failure or famines (though such catastrophes certainly made the situation worse) but were rather the result of a cold and calculated policy of the Chinese authorities to control prisoners and their productivity through slow starvation.

According to Jean Pasqualini (Bao Ruo Wang), who wrote the classic account on China’s labour camps, Prisoner of Mao, the Chinese authorities had developed the system to such a degree of efficiency and sophistication that Stalinist gulags and Nazi concentration camps were crude and unproductive by comparison. The Chinese did not have to resort to such primitive and wasteful ways of getting rid of people, like gas-chambers or bullets. Instead they simply starved a man to death, and during the time it took him to die, used the powerful incentives of slight variations in the wretched farce of a daily ration to extract the maximum amount of labour and submission out of him. It is probably as horrible a way to die as being gassed to death – and it takes a much longer time for a person to actually die.

Think about it. In the USA condemned criminals are regularly executed by gas or lethal injection, and a majority of the population doesn’t seem to have any problem with it. But if a prison warden deliberately starved a condemned man to death, don’t you think there would be a national outcry, even from hardcore death penalty advocates?

To relieve hunger pangs, prisoners in laogai camps drank so much hot water that their limbs and bellies swelled up with oedema and many died of the condition. Because of the shortage (and often complete absence) of tea or butter throughout the country even those Tibetans not in prison had to adopt the Chinese practice of drinking hot water (kai shui). Lhasa folks, in their mildly sarcastic way, dubbed it “socialist butter-tea” (chizo-ringlu nyakpa). The term nyakpa is used in particular to describe a full-flavoured tea with plenty of butter.

One Tibetan prisoner told me of picking undigested or partially digested grain from animal dung to flesh out his daily ration. Ama Adhe of Kanze told me of the giant labour camp she was sent to at Yakraphug in the high mountains of the baron of Gothan, north of Dhartsedo. The prisoners, about few thousand of them, were supposed to be mining lead, but when Ama Adhe got there most of the inmates were so weak with hunger that they only managed to crawl around the camp looking for scraps of anything edible on the ground. Those slightly healthier, and there weren’t too many of them, hobbled about, supporting themselves on sticks. Ama Adhe herself became so weak with hunger that the guards thought she was finished and they put her in a large pit with the dead bodies. But somehow she hung on to life. At one point, she tried to chew on a dried human corpse by her side but only hurt her teeth biting on the hard desiccated limb.

Even now prisoners in Tibet and in Chinese appear to be routinely underfed, though starving a person to break or eliminate him doesn’t appear to be the current policy of the penal system. But they have other methods, one being to lock you up in a cell with terminal TB cases, and keeping you there till your lungs show up a nice solid black on the X-ray machine. Your family is then contacted to take you away. The onus on the state of you dying in prison is hence neutralized. A more modern, even scientific way of breaking you is the subject of a whole book by Human Rights Watch* which I have discussed in my own work Buying the Dragon’s Teeth. Dissidents are locked up in state psychiatric units (Ankang) where you would be injected with an array of psychotropic drugs or, if the need arose even undergo psycho-surgery.

But the recent case of Karma Samdrup, sentenced to fifteen years in prison, seems to indicate that starvation, as a method to break prisoners, hasn’t entirely been relinquished in the PRC. Named “philanthropist of the year” in 2006 by CCTV, and embraced by the Chinese Communist Party for his environmental work and his willingness to give the government pieces from his art collection, Karma was arrested last August along with two of his brothers. He was brought before a People’s Court court in Xinjiang this year on 22 June. His wife Dolkar Tso wrote an appeal to the Chinese government which has been translated into English by highpeakspureearth.com.

Dolkar Tso and Karma Samdrup.

Karma was a big man, and Dolkar Tso writes that he was tall and heavyset even a “little chubby”. But when she saw her husband in the People’s Court she did not recognize him immediately as he had lost so much weight and had become “small and skinny”. He claimed that he had been beaten and tortured so that he bled from his orifices, and that he gone deaf in his left ear, probably from a blow that had ruptured the ear-drum. But he also said that he had not been allowed to sleep and “he had not been given any food.”

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*Munro, Robin. (August 2002). Dangerous Minds: Political Psychiatry in China Today and its Origins in the Mao Era. New York and Geneva: Human Rights Watch/Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry.

Nirupama Rao

A group of young Tibetan artists, intellectuals, writers, translators and activists living in Dharamshala submitted on Saturday July 10th, 2010, a memorandum to the Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao during her visit to the Tibetan capital in exile. Below is the full text of the Memorandum.

Dharamsala
Dated: 10 July, 2010

To 
Ms Nirupama Rao
Foreign Secretary,
Government of India

Your Excellency,

We are a group of young Tibetan artists, intellectuals, writers, translators and 
activists living in Dharamsala. Some of us are born and raised in India while 
others have escaped from Tibet and since then living on this side of the 
Himalayas. We welcome you to Dharamsala as you arrive with the fresh rain of 
monsoon.

When Tibetans first sought asylum in India following the footsteps of our leader 
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan freedom struggle was in its formative 
phase; there was neither the international awareness nor was there political 
education and understanding within the Tibetan community. It was the kindness of 
India and her people who opened the doors of their homes to us and we made it 
our second home.

Today, after 50 years of being in exile, Tibetan youngsters grow up in India 
like most young Indians with modern education and outlook, but we are always 
aware of our identity and responsibilities towards our struggle and our leader 
His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It is partly because of India’s support to our 
cause that the Tibetan struggle not only survived the difficult period but got 
resurrected to this level of international awareness and confidence within the 
struggle. We are grateful to the government and people of India. Please accept 
our deepest gratitude.

The Tibetan struggle is not just to find a temporary arrangement for the exile 
Tibetans to return home, but to seek a long-term interest for the survival of 
the Tibetan people and the nation. And therefore whatever may be the policies 
being held by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the exile government; we believe 
very strongly that the goal of the struggle cannot be anything less than 
Independence. Only an independent Tibet can guarantee the survival of the 
Tibetan people, our culture and the nation. The 2008 uprising in Tibet is a 
clear public mandate that the Tibetans in Tibet are willing to even die, but not 
live under Chinese colonial rule.

We understand that His Holiness the Dalai Lama – the Buddha that he is – is 
guided by his universal concern and therefore he has not been insistent for the 
independence of Tibet, and the exile government’s policy seeking autonomy within 
China is bound by its relationship with the Government of India which still 
supports the One China policy.

The difference in the political stands between His Holiness and us doesn’t 
divide us on our principled belief in Nonviolence. The Tibetan freedom struggle 
is based on the Buddhist principles of nonviolence, and when we hit the streets 
with our direct action campaigns we are inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha.

We understand that the Government of India is dealing with People’s Republic of 
China as a neighbour today. We are also aware that the Indian government still 
holds its decades old policy on Tibet saying: “Autonomous Region of Tibet is a 
part of the People’s Republic of China”, and that has not been reviewed all 
these time while there is a mounting Chinese military, political and 
environmental pressures on India.

Between the 1947 founding of Indian independence and 1949 Chinese invasion of 
Tibet, India and Tibet shared two years of friendly relationship as independent 
nations. So long as China continues its occupation of Tibet India will never be 
able to solve its border issues amicably with China. Therefore we urge you to 
take this petition to the Government of India – our plea for a review of India’s 
policy towards Tibet. Only by recognizing the historical independence of Tibet – 
with whom the Himalayan borders were decided through bilateral treaties – can 
India validate its legal and historical claim over its Himalayan states which 
have been challenged time and again by the People’s Republic of China.

We the younger generation Tibetans see in India a significant role she can play 
in re-establishing the independence of Tibet and maintain a brotherly 
relationship with future Tibet.

We wish you a very pleasant stay in Dharamsala.

Namaste

1. Tenzin Tsundue         2. Lukar Jam                  3. Shingza Rinpoche

4. Lobsang Yeshi           5. Lungrik Gyal               6. Phuntsok Wangchuk

7. Karma Sichoe              8. Tenzin Choeying          9. Karma Choekyi

10. Tenzin Choedon       11. Tenzin Chokey         12. Buchung D. Sonam

13. Tenzin Nyinje        14. Namlo Yak               15.  Yungdrung Tsering

16.Tenzin Norkey         17. Tseten Gya             18. Zung Zhuk Kyi

19. Drukbey                   20. Pema Choedon       21. Kalsang Rinchen

Few pleasures can beat the funeral of someone you loathe. It is, I admit, not a very Buddhist sentiment, but I think karma (the hardcore, not the new age version) will, this once, overlook my rancor, when I add that the someone in question is the late Kim Il-sung.

Time has softened the image of this genuine monster, who modeled himself on Mao Zedong. Starting off as a Stalin protégé, Kim along with Pol Pot, became one of the most enthusiastic and successful practitioners of Mao’s theories of social engineering. In essence, this was to destroy or mutate everyone who presumed to individual aspirations, and bring society to the condition of a “blank sheet of paper” on which the leader could then brush-stroke in his new concept of a classless society. Kim’s deeds are not as well known as those of Pol Pot, primarily as Kim, his cronies and progeny have managed to hold on to power in the same way as the Chinese Communist Party has done.

Like Mao’s monumental mass murders, Kim’s crimes will probably be played down and gradually forgotten in the interests of international trade and diplomacy. What does it matter that Mao probably slaughtered more people in peace time than Stalin and Hitler put together? The victims were Chinese (and Tibetans), who don’t really feel pain the way a white man does, or understand or appreciate abstract concepts like freedom and democracy. Look at Hong Kong. An average person there would rather have a Mercedes than be free of Communist Chinese rule. But that’s all by the by.

Kim’s enthusiasm for Chairman Mao and his teachings seemed boundless. In the late sixties and seventies “The Great Leader” even attempted to physically look like “The Great Helmsman” and managed as well as anyone possibly could, short of undergoing plastic surgery. Bearing in mind that Kim had the considerable disadvantage of nowhere resembling Mao in the first place, it was quite the coup de théâtre.

I saw Kim’s funeral on TV. What I found particularly hilarious was the sight of North Korean marshals and generals — hundreds of them — beating their breasts in frenzied mourning, and flinging themselves before the colossal statue of the “Great Leader” in the main square in Pyongyang. Till then I had assumed that “beating one’s breast” was merely a figure of speech. All those North Korean military leader had their chest completely covered, à la Marshall Zhukov or Timoshenko, with rows upon rows, én echelon, of medals and other decorations. I suppose there must have been a lot of bruised knuckles after that funeral.

How genuine was all that display of grief? When someone, no matter how evil, has been your absolute leader, role-model, father-figure, teacher, bogeyman and God, continuously for over forty years, it is more than probable that you would succumb to some degree of trauma on his death. Genuine sadness? I think not.

Tibetans who were in Tibet at the time of Mao’s death (1976) told me that even before fully absorbing the implications of the news, their overriding concern was not to reveal their feelings to those immediately around them. Decades of practice had, of course, made them skilled at this. But now and then someone would slip up. A friend of mine from Lhasa (who is still there in an official position of some consequence, so no names will be revealed) told me that his work unit had to stand at attention, out in the sun for a full day, as a mark of respect for the departed Chairman. They stood lined up in formation. Just in front of my friend was someone with a large bald patch on the crown of his head. No hats or caps were permitted, of course. As the fierce Tibetan sun got higher and stronger, the back of the bald man’s head began to redden, and beads of sweat started to trickle down. My informant was standing alongside a friend of his who on noticing the discomfort of the person before them, started to go into a fit of giggles. This affected my informant too, who desperately tried to control himself. His friend unfortunately lacked similar resolve, for after a desperate struggle he burst out in a fit of laughter. He got eight years of “Reform through Labour”.

Another friend of mine, a former incarnate lama now living in New York, told me this story. As an ex-prisoner he was part of a probationary labour unit (laeme rukha) in a village outside Lhasa. Their team leader was an older woman, who was a real stakhanovite (Ch. jijifenzi), or hurtsunba as they are known in Tibet. Although no better off than the other wretched ex-prisoners in the unit, she was an absolute enthusiast for the party-line. This was in the period following the Cultural Revolution when everyone in the PRC had been reduced, mentally and physically, to near yidak (preta) state and Tibet was in the grip of a second famine. The work team heard the news of Mao’s death over the loudspeakers when they were out in the fields. Everyone responded predictably, doffing their caps, lowering their heads, and keeping their thoughts to themselves. Except for the hurtsunba.

She started off predictably, weeping and wailing loudly. Gradually she worked herself up into a hysterical frenzy, screaming and shrieking at the top of her voice, and climaxing in a total collapse. She then lay spreadeagled on the ground, foaming at the mouth, only an occasional convulsion or moan indicating that she had not completely left this world. Her co-workers, including the Lama, carried her to her bare hut in the village and laid her on her bed. One of them pointed out that her “wind” condition (Tibetans believe that an imbalance in the “wind humour” or loong is the cause of hysteria) had to be lowered. Someone else volunteered the traditional cure for “wind imbalance” — massaging the temples (Tib. yama) of the head with butter. The supine hurtsunpa paused a moment in her moaning. Raising her head she wailed “There is no butter in this house”.

* * *

*The title refers to the ancient Etruscan and later Roman practice of holding lavish gladiatorial and wild beast games (where many prisoners were slaughtered) as a funeral rite to honor a dead leader or dignitary.

It was with interest that we read Lobsang-la’s February 23, 2010 article, “Kalon Tripa Election Reform.” The essence of Lobsang-la’s article is that the Tibetan voting process should be made easier. As we discuss below, some of his suggestions are good, but some seem politically naïve. His focus on process also ignores the big picture of substance, which suggests that Lobsang-la has not yet displayed the political maturity and vision necessary to be Kalon Tripa.

I. Suggestions on Process: the Good and the Bad

The problem that Lobsang-la’s article chooses to tackle is the historically low voter turnout among the Tibetan electorate. We critique his article based on how well it addresses this problem.

Most Tibetans will agree that the goal of a democracy should be to maximize voter participation, with the caveat being the need to prevent voter fraud and preserve the legitimacy of election results. Within this framework, Lobsang-la raises both good and bad ideas.

A. Registration Processes: A 2 Out of 3

With respect to its first point – registration processes – the article suggests eliminating registration requirements. This presents a problem because the risk of voter fraud increases dramatically without voter rolls. Lobsang-la admits that this proposal is “somewhat radical,” and for good reason. Without a voter registration list, there is greater risk of irregular procedures such as double-voting or voting under false identities. (This is not the kind of increased voter participation anyone should want!)

Lobsang-la makes a better suggestion on early and same-day voter registration. There is no good reason why, in the modern world, voter registration needs to close two months before an election. Once a voter has proven their identity and eligibility, they should be permitted to vote the same day. On this point, we agree with Lobsang-la.

We also think Lobsang-la is has an interesting idea when he advocates significantly lowering the fee for the Rangzen Lakhdeb/Gyalthon Mangul for people with financial need. Ideally, the right to vote should not be dependent on any sort of a “poll tax.” Given that Tibet’s exiled government does not have the same power to tax income as a typical government, it may not be feasible to entirely eliminate these fees. Lobsang-la strikes the proper balance here.

B. Voting Processes: A 1 Out of 3

With respect to the article’s second point – voting processes – Lobsang-la’s suggestions are mail-in ballots, e-ballots, and proxy ballots. Here, only one out of three ideas are well-founded.

Mail-in ballots are a good idea, and are used throughout the democratic world. Provided there are controls in place over the distribution of ballots and verification of eligibility of the returned ones, mail-in ballots can serve to dramatically increase voter participation.

E-ballots, however, present a serious problem in the form of cyber-security. As any Tibetan who is involved in the struggle knows well, there is a swarm of specially-designed computer viruses emanating out of Chinese cyber-war laboratories directed against the Tibet movement. It would take just one virus, just one slip-up on the Election Commission computers, just one Chinese hacker to seriously compromise our election results. We cannot afford to ignore this serious threat. Is this major risk worth the marginal gain in voter participation? We do not believe so. The e-ballot proposal seems ill-conceived in light of China’s demonstrated ability to hack the Tibetan government-in-exile’s computers.

Proxy voting presents another problem, this time to the principles of the secret ballot and “one-person, one-vote.” These principles are imperiled when a voter delegates his or her vote to another person. There is no way of knowing whether a delegation is voluntary, nor can one ensure that the delegate will vote according the voter’s wish.

For example, one need only consider an abused spouse, dependent parent, or adult child being intimidated into allowing an abusive head of household to cast a proxy ballot on their behalf. The Kalon Tripa should be especially concerned with helping the most vulnerable members of the society. Unfortunately, Lobsang-la’s proposal would do the opposite. Lobsang-la surely does not intend this, which means instead that his proposal was not thought out from a practical standpoint.

C. The Theory: Unexplained and Divorced From Reality

Lobsang-la frames the above proposals through the theory of what he refers to as “law and behavioral economics.” Actually, Professor Cass Sunstein, who developed this theory, calls it “behavioral law and economics,” being an offshoot of a school known as “law and economics.” It seeks to use economics and psychology to determine how laws can be structured to achieve particular goals by essentially recognizing people’s predictable irrationality. This theory can be applied to the goal of increasing voter turnout by changing the rules to make voting easier.

We would have preferred that Lobsang-la explain how this theory shaped his proposals rather than simply cite it without explanation. It is possible that the linkage is self-evident in Lobsang-la’s mind. However, a good leader brings people along by persuasion, so he or she needs the ability to explain their ideas to the electorate.

We are also concerned that Lobsang-la might not be properly applying his chosen theory to the real world. We believe it is important to temper academic theory with an understanding of how particular proposals might work in reality (like e-ballots being hacked). It is important not to be so enamored with an academic theory that one loses perspective. Our next Kalon Tripa must not be a political novice who is unable to mix theory with reality.

II. Focusing on Process Misses the Big Picture of Substance

Taking a step back, Lobsang-la’s article tries to solve the problem of low Tibetan voter participation. In this respect, unfortunately, it falls short. It prescribes small-scale procedural tweaks; what is really called for is addressing the big-picture issues facing the nation to give voters a meaningful choice in this election.

In diagnosing the problem of low voter turnout, Lobsang-la asserts that there has been a “collective failure on the part of the government and the people.” He says that the people have become “complacent.” Is this accurate? We do not believe so. Anyone who has spent time in a Tibetan tea-house, or debating Tibetan politics over beers, knows that Tibetan voters are not exactly “complacent.” There are many exciting ideas, many frustrations, and many strong patriotic feelings.

Why does this “sha-tsa” not translate into action through the ballot box? Low voter turnout should not be attributed to the failure or complacency of the Tibetan people. Rather, it should be attributed to the fact that, in a democracy, elections have to be about something in order to mean anything.

Voters are not foolish. When an election makes a difference in their lives, they will vote (e.g. the high turnout in the 2008 United States presidential election.) On the other hand, when elections will not make a significant difference, voter turnout will be predictably low. This is regardless of procedural changes like e-ballots. Voters have to care in order to vote, no matter the voting process.

Currently elections do not appear to make much of a difference in how Tibet’s government-in-exile functions, so Tibetan elections become about personality, not policy. Tibetans discuss which candidate is more “patriotic” or “honest,” but not what that candidate’s positions are on the major issues facing the nation, or whether that candidate has the professional qualifications to manage the government bureaucracy. Lobsang-la’s prescription of procedural reforms will not address this larger substantive problem.

What are the substantive issues facing the nation? There are many, and the Kalon Tripa candidates must not be silent on them.

First, of course, is the direction the government will take with respect to the Middle Way policy in the face of repeated rejections by the Chinese government. With Samdhong Rinpoche stating that further concessions on the Tibetan side are impossible, and with the Chinese side flatly rejecting any movement on their end, it appears that the Middle Way is at an impasse.

We would like to hear how candidate Lobsang-la would deal with this impasse. How would he advance Tibet’s political cause while keeping his eyes on the ultimate goal of a Tibet by and for Tibetans? On one hand, he serves on the negotiation task force. On the other hand, he recently wrote approvingly about Tibetans’ wish to “witness the unfurling of our national flag… on the rooftop of the Potala Palace.” This candidate should take the opportunity to explain his position to the voters.

There are other critical issues that are not yet being addressed in the Tibetan political discourse: How will the next Kalon Tripa counter Chinese subterfuge over the Dalai Lama’s next reincarnation? What will he or she do about improving the quality of Tibetan education and the economic situation in the settlements? How will the Kalon Tripa improve standards in the Tibetan civil service, which requires making entry, compensation, and advancement more competitive? What about ways the government’s financial base can be strengthened? How will the candidate view and shape Tibetan immigration to the West? Will the candidate promote any changes in how Tibetan democracy is structured, including how chitues are selected and what role political parties should have?

These are all big-picture issues that, so far, have not been addressed by the potential candidates for Kalon Tripa. Therefore, it is not fair for Lobsang-la to blame the voters for complacency, when the potential candidates have given the voters little to be excited about.

III. What Does His Article Tell Us About the Potential Candidate?

It is possible to draw some preliminary conclusions about this candidate from his article.

A. Questions of Political Maturity

First, this candidate has not yet shown an ability to diagnose political problems and develop effective cures. This candidate chose to address the issue of low voter turnout. However, he proposes procedural tweaks rather than necessary big picture solutions. Moreover, of those insufficient tweaks, some are politically naïve or poorly thought through. Tibetans do not need to be reminded that the nation is at a critical juncture, especially with His Holiness’ advancing age and stated desire to retire. There are many “big picture” issues that need serious engagement and plans. Tibetans need a Kalon Tripa with vision and political maturity.

B. Questions of Sincere Idealism

Second, Tibetans need a Kalon Tripa whose leadership will inspire the best in the Tibetan people. That leader must encourage idealism, fight cynicism, and deftly meld the highest principles with the realism necessary to get things done. In that respect, we are bothered by Lobsang-la’s argument that Tibetans should embrace democracy to “directly challenge Zhu Weiqun and the Chinese government.”

Tibetan democracy is about the political future of the Tibetan nation. Tibetans should not define themselves simply in opposition to their enemies, especially people as vile as Zhu. That only drags Tibetans down.

Tibet is presently in an existential struggle with the People’s Republic of China, but democratization must be undertaken for its own merits, not as a cheap public relations tool. One day when Tibetans regain their homeland, democracy must be about the highest ideals of freedom, not a tainted political weapon against some long-forgotten hatemonger. Lobsang-la appears to lose sight of that.

C. Questions of Nuanced Thinking and Ability to Unify

Third, we are troubled by Lobsang-la’s invocation of former President George Bush’s formulation of either being “with us or against us.” President Bush did immense damage to unity and goodwill among the American people, and people worldwide, by insinuating that anyone who disagreed with him was on the side of the “evildoers.” The last thing Tibetans need is a Kalon Tripa who adopts a simplistic, black-and-white worldview.

IV. Conclusion

In conclusion, Lobsang-la has wrongly suggested that democracy is a public relations tool, rather than a higher principle in its own right. He has unthinkingly or – even worse – purposefully invoked a cynical and simplistic worldview. And he has not shown an ability to diagnose the big-picture issues that the Tibetan nation must deal with. On technical issues that he focuses on, he has some good ideas. But other ideas display an undue emphasis on abstract theory and a lack of real-world political experience.

Lobsang-la tells us in his article’s autobiographical blurb that he “earned Ph.D. degree and became not only the first among six million Tibetans but also from Himalayan region including Bhutan, Nepal and Mongolia.” But serving in the highest elected office of the Tibetan nation requires more than academic qualities divorced from the big picture and on-the-ground realities. It also requires political adeptness, principled idealism, and political vision. The next Kalon Tripa will need all of these qualities to lead the Tibetan people.

* * *

Article originally published in The Tibetan Political Review, on June 11, 2010.

The Tibetan people are confronting a series of critical issues including the Kalon Tripa election, improving democratization, independence versus autonomy, and visions for the future of Tibet. TPR is an attempt to create a forum where these issues can be subjected to reasoned, analytical, and unhampered discussion.

The journal’s current featured issue is the Kalon Tripa election. TPR sets out all the nominated candidates for Kalon Tripa and their available policy positions, provides editorials and an open forum for public commentary, and offers a chance for the candidates to respond. The journal’s only rule is that unfounded personal attacks are not permitted.

The journal’s goal is to ensure that political debates are about issues, not personalities. The Editorial Board members do not hold themselves out as any sort of “experts” but simply as Tibetans who hope to contribute to the national discussion and who invite all other Tibetans to join them.

TPR is run by an Editorial Board consisting of Nima R.T. Binara, Wangchuk D. Shakabpa, Bhuchung D. Sonam, and Tenzin Wangyal.

Illustration: Cüneyt Arikan

With Dharamshala’s foreign policy being shaped almost exclusively by Beijing’s hide-and-seek strategy, anticipating its next move can be safely done through a simple reading of China’s public statements. One of these was made in early June in Oslo and most likely will be regarded as a “key” announcement by the Tibetan government-in-exile. It came from the new Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying, who declared during a lecture on China’s development at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs that the door for Tibet talks always was open and that there was sincerity from the Chinese side to continue the dialogue.

What is doubly interesting about Fu’s statement — or troubling, depending on your perspective — is the coincidence: not only did it happen on the exact day the Task Force was meeting in Dharamshala for the twenty-second time, but also during a three-day visit to Norway by Penpa Tsering, the Speaker of the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile, who attended Fu Ying’s lecture.

Considering how enthusiastic Dharamshala is about any “positive” signs sent by the Chinese regime, the Vice Foreign Minister’s declaration must come as a relief. This at least is what came out from Penpa Tsering, who met Fu Ying after the lecture. According to him, she seemed to be “sincere” and her move “could be a possible positive shift” to continue the dialogue.

Personally, I find it tragic that after twenty-two years of fiasco, there still could be some Tibetan leaders and officials who believe in Beijing’s “sincerity” and desire for talks. After all, everything has proved them wrong. What frightens me the most is that these advocates of a dialogue gradually have become completely hermetic to alternate advice, no matter where it comes from. Their stubbornness now is proportional to their failures; the more Beijing shatters their hope, the more they are convinced of its values.

Indeed, for some time, the Tibetan government-in-exile seems to have chosen to disregard advice and opinions that it itself had asked for. As a reminder, in November 2008, the Dalai Lama called for a special meeting “to understand the real opinions and views of the Tibetan people.” Although the vast majority of opinions gathered from Tibetan communities abroad were in favor of following the Dalai Lama’s guidance, the final recommendations presented by the delegates insisted on a specific validity point: to “stop sending envoys and to pursue complete independence or self-determination if no result comes out in the near future.” Now, I don’t want to sound sarcastic, but I’ve heard this “near future” stuff just too many times in my twenty-five year involvement with Tibet’s struggle for independence; I tend to find it rather nauseating.

Then, nine months after this special meeting, a Sino-Tibetan Conference was held in Geneva under the auspices of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. This time, the Tibetan government-in-exile wanted to get the opinion of the Chinese intelligentsia. Though the conference echoed discordant opinions and included some pro-independence Chinese intellectuals such as Cao Changqing, author of “Tibetan People’s Right to Independence,” only one Chinese speech was made available on the conference’s web site. This was a lecture from Yan Jiaqi, probably the Dalai Lama’s best Chinese friend. Yan Jiaqi was the former political advisor of Zhao Ziyang during the 1980s and was one of the leading intellectuals supporting the student movement in 1989. Now, guess what Yan Jiaqi had to advise? That “representatives and delegations should no longer be dispatched for further negotiations.”

So, what are we supposed to make of Dharamshala’s deaf ear? In terms of political choices, it is most disturbing that “positive signs” from a brutal regime that never bothered to keep its word are given more considerations than the true aspirations of the Tibetan people or, for that matter, the advice of a high-ranking Chinese advisor with a solid insider’s experience. Why the hell did Dharamshala call these people if their opinions have no value?

But, beyond delegates’ recommendations and intellectuals’ advice, in fact beyond anything else, the Tibetan government-in-exile should seriously reconsider the true aspirations of the Tibetan people. Despite the fact that much has been undertaken to tailor and manipulate public opinion and give a semblance of support for the Dalai Lama’s policy, the picture is pretty clear: for most Tibetans, in occupied Tibet or in exile, the Middle Way is a dead end that benefits only Beijing.

For many years now, in addition to being forced to witness the disgraceful surrender and dismantling of their nation, the Tibetan people also have been sternly instructed to strive toward a “conductive atmosphere for negotiations” and to refrain from any anti-Chinese activities, with the declared intention of showing “the world that all Tibetans can stand united when it comes to our fundamental cause.”

Naturally, these measures have infuriated many people, especially when the Prime Minister made an appeal in October 2002 urging Tibetans and Tibet supporters not to demonstrate during Jiang Zemin’s visit to the United States, a call reiterated in April 2006 for Hu Jintao’s visit. Other attempts were made by the Dalai Lama to tame public opinion, such as appeals not to demonstrate against the Olympic Games and the Torch Relay, or not to proceed with the March to Tibet, but to no avail; much to the chagrin of the Tibetan leadership, ordinary Tibetans refused to pay attention to these pleas and demonstrated by thousands all over the world.

In fact, right from the beginning, the Tibetan people showed little support — and even less enthusiasm — for the Dalai Lama’s efforts toward a reconciliation with China. In the late 1970s, long before the disastrous Strasbourg Proposal was issued, long before this surrendering policy was referred to as the “Middle Way Approach,” the rapprochement aimed by Dharamshala already had been heavily condemned by Tibetan intellectuals and activists.

By 2005, however, grassroots discontent became so widespread and embarrassing that the Tibetan government decided to launch a “massive public awareness campaign on the Middle-Way Approach of His Holiness the Dalai Lama”. Not surprisingly and to avoid any form of real debate, Prime Minister Prof. Samdhong insisted on reminding everyone at the campaign launch that as long as the leadership of the Dalai Lama remains “there may not be any change in the policy of the Middle-Way Approach,” and that the exiled Tibetan community “must demonstrate a conspicuous majority support for the Middle-Way policy.”

But imposing capitulation and submission is not without consequences. One cannot ban nationalist slogans from public events, stop hunger strikes, prevent demonstrations against Chinese leaders, outlaw actions against Beijing’s propaganda machine, attempt to enforce political orthodoxy in literature, and expect a genuine desire of reconciliation without facing the risk of being accused of treason.

Dharamshala is about to face a major crisis if nothing is done to change the course of events. At present, the legitimacy of the government’s policies relies almost exclusively on the faith and loyalty shown by the vast majority of Tibetans toward the Dalai Lama. Without him, the Tibetan government will be in no position to defend the actual policy of appeasement and surrender. The inevitable passing away of the Dalai Lama won’t bring an end to the Tibetan struggle, as many believe, but it definitely will bring serious damage to Tibet’s governmental institutions if the status quo is sustained.

Forget about the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister’s declaration; her words are worth nothing but disillusion. Forget also about foreign governments’ support for dialogue; their relations with China are far too beneficial to hope for any kind of objectivity. Let’s look ahead. It’s time for a major shift in Dharamshala’s foreign policies, a rebranding of the Tibet issue and a call for a nationwide civil disobedience campaign. It’s high time to put independence back on the agenda.

We need your help with this walk to cover the expenses. We will not ask the walkers to help pay expenses as they are already giving up their time, and leaving their jobs and families to participate. Please consider helping by:

1. Contributing any amount of money you can. We need about $6000 to cover the expense of renting a van, gas, 10-days of food for the walkers, etc. Donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by U.S. law. Checks can be sent to ITIM, PO Box 592, Fishers, Indiana 46037 USA. You can also donate through paypal by visiting our website.
2. Purchasing a walk t-shirt ($15 US dollars plus shipping). Details also can be found on our website.

The International Tibet Independence Movement (ITIM) is coordinating this walk with the assistance of the Indiana Tibetan Association, Tibetan Association of Philadelphia, Capitol Area Tibetan Association, Capitol Area Regional Tibetan Youth Congress, and Regional Tibetan Youth Congress-Minnesota.

Please note that ITIM has no paid staff and is managed by volunteers.

Thank you for considering this request.

Larry Gerstein
President, International Tibet Independence Movement
PO Box 592
Fishers, Indiana 46037 USA
www.rangzen.org
rangzen@aol.com

With a population of 1.3 billion, which is expected to grow well into the 21st century, China is enlarging its cities and building new urban centers, expanding its manufacturing capacity, investing in a national highway system, building cars and encouraging car ownership. China does not have sufficient domestic energy reserves to support this growth, so the state has embarked upon a multi- dimensional strategy, which include a vast development campaign entitled “Xi bu dai fa”,or, “Opening and development of the Western Regions”, to develop Xinjiang and the Tibetan Autonomous Region, which together comprise one half of China’s land mass. The Great Leap West will also provide access to newly discovered oil reserves in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries.

The Disaster of the Great Leap Forward

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was founded in 1949 after the Communist armies defeated the nationalist Kuomintang party and Generalissimo Chiang Kai -shek took flight to Taiwan. The China that the Communist leader Mao Zedong inherited was desperately impoverished and corrupt, crippled by two centuries of decay in the late Manchu period.

The 1911 revolution of Dr. Sun Yat Sen introduced new ideologies of governance into China, but corruption prevailed over reform. The Japanese occupation in World War 2, first of Manchuria and then costal and central China, was swift and brutal, and left many cities in chaos. The peasantry, and the majority of China’s citizens, supported the Communists. Stirred by the utopian promise of Marxist ideology, and the urgent need for modernization and reform, the communists moved swiftly to adopt the collectivization policies of the Soviet Union.

Historians can only speculate as to whether any accurate information about Stalin’s terror-famine of the 1930’s the first disaster of collectivized farming, was ever known to the new Chinese government. Nevertheless, in I958 Mao launched his second Five Year Plan, an ambitious modernization drive called the Great Leap Forward, based on imported Soviet science.

The Great Leap Forward was a planning disaster wherein an estimated 40 to 80 million people perished in a state sponsored famine, a human tragedy comparable to the terror-famines of Stalin. “The History and Sociology of Genocide” by Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn,(Yale University Press, 1990, pp.300), detailed how private property was outlawed, peasants and city dwellers were forced to melt their cooking and faming utensils in collective kilns, which resulted in mass starvation and death, a catastrophe that went virtually unreported in the western press at the time.

From 1966 until Mao’s death in 1976, Chinese society was further embroiled in the Cultural Revolution, the final chapter of Mao’s legacy, wherein millions of citizens, condemned as “bourgeoisie rightists”, were exiled, imprisoned or murdered. After Mao’s death in 1976 Deng Xiaoping returned to power after many years of exile in a labor camp, and steered China away from Soviet style collectivization and towards a new policy which Deng himself called “socialist market economics” and which came to be popularly known as “Dengism”. Dengism allowed fiscal decentralization, a diversified banking system, the creation of a stock market and opening China to foreign investment and trade, which created the most rapid economic growth in modern history. In 2005 China was ranked as the second largest economy in world, just below the United States and above Japan, China’s two largest trading partners.

China’s Growth Tilts the Balance of Power

China’s population has also doubled in the past quarter century, and is now at 1.3 billion, making China the world’s most populous nation, after India, China’s neighbor, where human population also doubled in the same period. This growth in population occurred simultaneously with the policy shift to a market economy and capital investments in technology and infrastructure, education, transportation, medicine and research.

As China’s population soared, so did opportunities for its energized young citizens, just a generation after their parents and grandparents suffered famine. Today China is a manufacturing giant which now supplies the world, in particular the United States, with consumer products of every variety, from children’s toys to computers. On July 10, 2006, the New York Times reported that China had just posted “record trade surplus with the rest of the world, the largest monthly trade imbalance any country has ever recorded…the surplus in June reached $14.5 billion…this year China overtook Japan to hold the world’s largest foreign currency reserves, now about $875 billion, and is on track to reach reserves of $1 trillion by the end of the year. That figure would represent nearly half of China’s gross domestic product.” On the same date, July 10th, 2006, the International Energy Agency’s executive director Claude Mandill spoke from his Parisian headquarters; “Every two years, China adds as much power generation capacity as the total in France or Canada. The country is now the biggest electricity consumer in the world after the United States and its needs are still growing.”

A quarter century ago, did any economists or Asia hands foresee China’s stunning transformation, over a mere quarter century, from chaos and famine to the world’s second largest economy? Perhaps Napoleon deserves the credit for remarking; “When China wakes, the world will tremble”. China is now the 21st century’s emergent superpower, and is in direct competition with its new trading partners and neighbors for what remains of the world’s oil, coal and gas reserves.

China’s Energy Needs

Tsangpo Hydropower Station

The one resource China lacks is sufficient domestic energy reserves to support its projected growth. During the Mao period China’s industrial growth faltered, and there was sufficient oil, gas and coal for domestic usage. In 1993, China’s growing consumption overtook domestic production (3). While China’s 1.3 billion people at present consume only one half the energy of 290 Americans, China’s population and economy are growing much faster than the United States. Today the PRC has over 200 cities with over one million residents.

In the past decade Chinese oil demand has grown 15% each year to 6.7 million barrels per day, about one third the daily usage in the United States. (Hearing on EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook for 2005, U.S. Senate, 3 Feb, 2005, Testimony of Jeff Logan, Senior Analyst and China Program Manager, IEA). The US Department of Energy predicts that China’s net petroleum demand will continue to grow by 4% a year, to an estimated 12.8 barrels of oil per day while output will remain at 3.4 million barrels, which means China will have to import 9.4 million barrels a day, five times more than it’s present import level. The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2004 predicted that by 2030, developing Asia will account for 42% of the increase in energy demand worldwide, that China’s oil imports will soar from less than 2 mb/d today to 10 mb/d, reaching h 75% by 2030.

China is moving northwest through Tibet and Xinjiang into the oil-rich fields of Central Asia, and southwest via oil tanker, towards Sudan, Iran, Venezuela and elsewhere, to capture more oil. As Michael Klare writes; “To quench its growing thirst for petroleum, China will have no choice but to turn to the same sources the United States has; the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea basin, and Africa. And because Beijing is no less concerned about the security of its imports than Washington is, it will likely pursue a similar policy of plying oil-producing regimes with arms, advisors and military technology…China’s growing need for oil is the wildcard in this contest.”

The Great Leap West

To secure resources within its borders and to stabilize access to Central Asia, China has implemented an ambitious new development strategy entitled “Xi bu dai fa”, the “Opening and development of the Western Regions.” A key factor in the resource strategy of the PRC is development of the Western Regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, an area of study often obsfuscated by legend and propaganda. Observers are oftentimes puzzled by China’s especially harsh control over its western territories, its repression of the indigenous peoples of this vast region, the secrecy of operations and the oftentimes perverse language from the Politboro about Tibet’s exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, whom Xinhua, the official news agency of the PRC, has for decades called “a counterrevolutionary splittist with bad intentions who seeks to divide the Motherland”. But an examination of the enormous resources and strategic advantages gained by the capture of Tibet and Xinjinag and a reading of official Chinese statements about the Great Leap West shows the policy that shapes the Politboro’s actions.

A special feature of the PRC in the context of Chinese history is its size. Never before in China’s long history has a central mainland government ruled an empire stretching from the fertile southern coasts, up to Manchuria, across the Gobi desert and beyond. Only the Mongols had once such an empire. After consolidating power in the Middle Kindgom and Manchuria to the north, by 1949, Mao Zedong moved swiftly to annex China’s ancient neighbors on the western highlands, first Xinjiang in 1950 and Tibet in 1951. This doubled China’s landmass. China is now.

In popular folklore Tibet and Xinjiang were for centuries known as “The Western Treasure Houses”. They are the source of many riches; wellspring of the Ganges, Jumna, Mekong, Brahmaputra, Yangtze and Yellow rivers, a vast repository of wildlife, minerals and timber. They can potentially provide living space for Han people migrating from the congested, overpopulated cities of the costal and central regions. And a secure military annexation of these territories gives China a unique strategic advantage in Asia; a continuous border with India, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhastan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan (see map).

A New Chapter in the Great Game

The Qing Dynasty maintained a relaxed, oftentimes sporadic military supervision of Xinjiang and Tibet, requiring occasional tribute and taxes from the many warlords in East Turkestan, Tibetan clan leaders, and the Dalai Lama. Before the Hydrocarbon age, sustaining any kind of firm central control over the west was virtually impossible for Central China, given the vast distances, extremes of climate, and the largely nomadic population of many ethnicities, customs and religions. Mao failed to provide wealth and stability for his subjects, but he succeeded in institutionalizing a disciplined military administration of the vast, newly formed nation, and consolidated Beijing’s of control of Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang.

The Tibetan Plateau and Xinjiang also connect the Middle Kingdom to the lands of the Silk Road. With a modernized and united China poised on the edge of old Turkestan, a new chapter has opened in the Great Game. The Great Game concept was popularized by British author Rudyard Kipling in his 19th century novel “Kim” about the British Raj in India and the quest for control of the vast lands of Central Asia. Central Asia has always been a prize and a hazard, filed with riches, kings, warlords, nomads, scattered across an enormous and ferocious range of climates. For centuries many of the tribes and dynasties of the region maintained autonomy under a vassal relationship with the Russian Tsars. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Soviet Union annexed most of Central Asia and even seized and subjugated Mongolia. The USSR imposed strict military control, Russofication and communist ideology on a complex group of people, similar to the Sinofication and communist militarism imposed upon Mongol, Tibetan and Turkic peoples by the PRC. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, five new sovereign nations emerged; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan. Mongolia also won its independence.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization VS. NATO?

In the post Soviet era these new nations have struggled to stabilize their political institutions, liberalize their economies and develop their natural resources. Having observed a growing US presence in the region Russia and the PRC moved to develop closer ties with their neighbors by creating the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). First entitled the Shanghai Five in 1998, the group was renamed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization after the inclusion of Uzbekistan in 2001. The official website for the SCO states; “SCO security cooperation focuses on the fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism. The SCO was among the first international organizations to advocate explicitly the fight against the three evil forces.” Almost all the articles in this elaborate website also point out; “The total area occupied by the SCO member states is about 30 million 189 thousand kilometers, or about three fifth the territory of Eurasia, with a population of 1.455 billion people, or about a quarter of total world population.”

In the early years of Dengism many western investors confidently predicted that capitalism would engender a democratic evolution and liberalization of China’s centralized socialist government. The opening of China to the world and the unloosening of the Chinese people’s entrepreneurial gifts has created a boom which parallels the expansive growth of the United States following the Allied victory in World War 2. But the Chinese Communist Party, which controls the People’s Liberation Army and the State Bank of China, determines policy and administration. And control is more extreme in the “minority regions”, where restive native populations still try to challenge the legitimacy of Han rule over non-Han peoples.

The historical parallel for China’s Western Development Campaign is the development of the American West, a large migration of settlers and the efficient exploitation of resources and growth of industry and technology. For many years, in international gatherings and in official statements, the PRC has vigorously defended itself when questioned about its’ subjugation of Tibet, by pointing out the parallel with America’s 19th century history.

But unlike America in the 19th Century, the Hydrocarbon infrastructure in China cannot expand upon a wilderness; China is old, crowded, depleted. An although China’s western possessions are the poorest in China, continued subjugation is policy, to prevent the non-Han regions from breaking from the center and thus fragmenting the empire.