MB Civic

Financial Express, India
November 20, 2006

China’s policies on Tibet should be challenged, not connived at, in particular
the shelter it has provided since 1959 to the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader
of Tibet, and, by now, some 100,000 of his
followers is an outstanding example of
national hospitality. India is still a poor
country that in the 1950s saw China, the
Tibetans’ oppressor, as a “brother”. Yet it
provided a home big enough to
accommodate the dream of Tibetan
cultural survival.

So it is sad to see India follow the West in
helping China by making even the limited
political space available to Tibetan exiles
even smaller. This week, for example, as
India prepares to receive Hu Jintao, China’s
president, from November 20th , it slapped
a travel ban on Tenzin Tsundue, a young
Tibetan activist in Dharamsala, seat of
Tibet’s government-in-exile. Mr Tsundue
has staged protests when other Chinese
leaders have come calling.

India is not alone in shielding Chinese
leaders from protests. It is also far from
unique in submitting to the Chinese water-torture of diplomatic negotiation by
semantic stealth. So in 2003 it moved
from reiterating that Tibet is an
autonomous region of China  to recognising that the Tibet  Autonomous Region (TAR) is part of…China. The seemingly trivial word-tinkering matters.
The TAR is neither Tibet, which historically
was much larger, nor at all autonomous.

That concession, like Mr Hu’s visit, was part
of a gradual thaw with China.  Brotherhood
was exposed as a sham by China’s swift
victory in a bitter war in 1962. Much has
impeded the two countries’ patching-up
since: the lingering suspicions left by India’s humiliating defeat; the unresolved
territorial row that caused the war;
China’s “all-weather” friendship with
Pakistan; and India’s provision of a base for
the Dalai Lama, whose Hollywood stardom,
Nobel peace prize and access to world
leaders have kept alive an issue China
wishes long buried. It is also irksome that
growing numbers of Chinese are interested
in Tibetan Buddhism.

Yet better relations are very much in
China’s interests as well as India’s. As India
emerges as a regional economic power,
there are many in Washington who see it
as an obvious counterweight to China.
The “strategic partnership” India and
America are building is not, both sides
insist, intended to “contain” China. But
China’s fear of that outcome gives India
negotiating power. It need not compromise
on Tibet.

Much as it fulminates against the
evil “splittist” shenanigans of the Dalai
Lama, China knows it is winning the
diplomatic battle. No government on earth
recognises his exiled administration. And
he is 71 and cannot live forever. The Dalai
Lama’s followers argue that this is why
China should take advantage of his
willingness to negotiate with them. No
future leader will enjoy the devotion and
obedience the Dalai Lama commands. He
has always preached non-violence. And he
is asking not for the independence many
Tibetans feel is their birthright, but for “a
middle way”, genuine autonomy, or, put
another way, for China to live up to its
professed policies.Bizarre evidence of the
Dalai Lama’s continued sway over many of
the 6m Tibetans still in their homeland
came earlier this year in the form of tiger-skin bonfires. Wearing the skins had
become fashionable in Tibet, to the alarm
of those seeking to save the species. The
Dalai Lama’s intervention, telling his
people the fashion was “silly”, persuaded
many to give it up.Disaffection with
Chinese rule remains widespread. Up to
3,000 Tibetans still sneak across the border
to Nepal and India every year. A video shot
by a foreign mountaineer in September,
showing a young nun being shot by
Chinese border guards, was a bleak
reminder of the risks they run. Last month,
Tibetan students protested in the capital,
Lhasa, after civil-service examinations had
resulted in 98 out of 100 jobs going to
ethnic Chinese. Tibetans fear that their
cause and culture will soon be swamped by
an influx of Chinese.

If China wants accommodation with its
Tibetan minority, the Dalai Lama’s “middle
way” is an historic opportunity. But despite
five rounds of talks since 2002 with his
representatives, there is little sign that
China wants such an accommodation. It
seems content to rely on the distant hope
that economic development will dampen
nationalist fervour, and the more certain
methods of Chinese immigration and
political repression. There may be little
the outside world can do to influence this.
But it could at least try.