M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India — Nine years after China's
Peoples' Liberation Army occupied Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama followed the
example of his predecessor and escaped into India. While the 13th Dalai Lama's
sojourn was brief, the present stay has extended over 49 years, with little
chance of a return to Lhasa.
China's leaders are unlikely to heed the
incessant calls of the United States and the European Union, now joined by
India, to talk with the Dalai Lama till such time as His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso
abandons the three core conditions that he has laid down for a reconciliation.
These are: (1) only powers of defense and foreign affairs will be vested with
Beijing, the other responsibilities of government remaining in the hands of the
Tibetans; (2) the regions of Kham and Amdo will be added to Tibet, thus
creating a state that would almost equal India in area; (3) Han settlers will
leave this vast territory.
For the Chinese Communist Party -- whose
core principles are a monopoly over temporal power and the claim that only the
CCP can assure the Han people the pre-eminent position they enjoyed till the
previous five centuries of European global dominance -- the conditions that the
Dalai Lama has put forward for a dialogue to commence are a poison pill. If
swallowed, it could lead to the extinction of the party's rule over the entire
country.
For the Dalai Lama, acceptance of anything
less would mean an abdication of his spiritual responsibility toward 6 million
Tibetans, who even today have created a nightmare for the CCP by giving him
primacy over the party. Fortunately for Beijing, the Dalai Lama has from the
start been yoked to non-violence -- for there is little doubt that a call by
him for active resistance would make Tibet, as well as the provinces of Gansu,
Sichuan, Qinghai and parts of Yunnan, ungovernable
Apart from the pacifism of the Dalai Lama,
who has remained committed to non-violence despite the steady extinction of
indigenous traditions and culture in his native land, the other advantage that
Beijing has is India. Since the 1950s, New Delhi has been supine toward the
occupation of Tibet, following the example of Pakistan by recognizing Beijing's
untrammeled right to administer the region the way the CCP deems fit. The
latest visible sign of this complete adoption of the CCP line on Tibet has been
the open pressure exerted by the Sonia Gandhi-led ruling coalition to muzzle
the Dalai Lama. Any statement on the situation facing the Tibetan population is
deemed to be "political" and declared out of bounds for the Dalai
Lama.
This was also the case at the University of
Washington in Seattle last week, where the university president and provost
sided with China's Consul-General in commanding that the Dalai Lama make no
reference to the situation in Tibet, but confine himself to beatific
expressions of faith. The condition was accepted by the religious leader, who
may be at risk of losing the devotion of his people because of his reluctance
to express in public what he feels in private about his land and its people.
While symbols of support such as the U.S.
Congressional Medal of Honor indeed have a glitter that resonates within the
international conscience and the media, these do nothing to change the ground
reality facing the Tibetan people. They face a continuing choice of becoming
Han-ized, in the manner of the Manchus and the Mongols, or remaining at the
margins of activity and relevance in a region that was their own until 1950.
Within the expatriate Tibetan community,
the view is widespread that the Dalai Lama's non-violent response to CCP rule
has had about as little impact on conditions inside Tibet as a Richard Gere
movie. The combustion seen on March 10 and 18, and which has flared ever since,
does not mark a success for the Dalai Lama -- as the CCP would like the world
to believe -- but a snapping of his ability to ensure that Tibetans remain
passive and rely on the international community for justice rather than on
themselves.
The security organs of the CCP can keep
under control the Tibetan population, which is concentrated in the western and
southwestern parts of China and is distinguishable by accent and appearance
from the Han people. What will be worrying those in charge of public order in
Beijing is not even the spread of "Tibet flu" to the Muslim province
of Xinjiang, for the system has within its multiple capabilities the means to
deal with the Uyghur population as well.
The situation will become uncontrollable
only if the Han population follows the Tibetans in overt restiveness. The segment
most at risk is the growing Catholic community in the People's Republic of
China, now estimated at over 40 million, as compared to the 20 million that
follow the officially sanctioned "CCP Church." The inability to
openly practice their faith and receive sacraments and other spiritual
offerings from bishops anointed by the Vatican is becoming a burden on the
faithful, leading to resentment and anger, although not yet acts of defiance as
have been witnessed in recent weeks among the Buddhist Tibetans.
The CCP has worked out channels to render
harmless to its monopoly on power the desire for material advancement among the
Han people. But the party has proved deficient in creating similar safe and
sanitized channels to keep in check the growing hunger for faith in the PRC.
These urges are particularly extant within the very educated middle class that
is the bedrock of CCP support.
A severe economic downturn or a flare-up of
anger as a result of some heavy-handed action in the future may lead to
Poland-style demonstrations among the Catholics in China, almost all of whom
are Han. For a party that has based itself on Han pride, this would prove a
disaster.
Small wonder that the guns and truncheons
are out in Tibet. The question is: for how long will they be effective? Unless
the CCP can integrate faith into its system of governance, the way it has
commerce, its stability may be at risk from "Tibet flu."
-(Professor M.D. Nalapat is
vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and
professor of geopolitics at Manipal University. ©Copyright M.D. Nalapat.)
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