http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\09\10\story_10-9-2009_pg3_5
Thursday, September 10, 2009
view: Tibet: wedge or link? -George Yeo
Tibet is both an opportunity and an issue. The economic opportunity is
obvious, but rapid development has brought about great stress to the Tibetan
way of life. This complicates bilateral relations between China and India
The encounter of China and India in this century will change the world.
For thousands of years, the two civilisations were separated by the high
mountains of Tibet. Except for a brief war in 1962, there were no major
conflicts between them.
Together, they make up more than a third of the world's population and
will supply much of the talent for global development in this century. The
concentration of Chinese and Indian talent in Silicon Valley foreshadows what
is coming. How China and India relate to each other in the coming decades will
affect everyone.
Tibet is changing from being a barrier to a region linking China and
India together. Today, there are good roads connecting Tibet to Xinjiang,
Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan. Three years ago, an amazing thousand-kilometre
railroad from Golmud in Qinghai to Lhasa in Tibet was opened. Eighty percent of
it is over 4000 meters in altitude; 50 percent on permafrost. When first
proposed, many foreign engineers said that it could not be built.
Economically, there is much to be gained by improving road and rail links
between Tibet and South Asia. Indeed, the Chinese have suggested that Lhasa and
Calcutta be linked by rail.
The Indian government is understandably apprehensive about moving too
quickly. Scars of the 1962 War are still raw in India. When the Indian Army
moved into then East Pakistan in December 1971, an important factor it
considered was the winter snow preventing the Chinese Army from interfering
through the mountain passes. Thus, the reopening of the 4400-meter-high Nathu
La Pass in July 2006 was politically significant. As part of it, China
recognised India's ownership of Sikkim. Hundreds of kilometres of fibre-optic
cables have been laid in the past year from Yadong in Tibet to Siliguri in West
Bengal with an initial capacity of 20 gigabytes per second.
Trade between China and India has grown rapidly in the last ten years.
China has already become India's biggest trading partner. And this is only the
beginning. Common economic interests are driving the two countries into closer
political cooperation both bilaterally and internationally.
Tibet is both an opportunity and an issue. The economic opportunity is
obvious, but rapid development has brought about great stress to the Tibetan
way of life. This complicates bilateral relations between China and India.
Over long years, Tibetan culture and Tibetan Buddhism evolved in response
to the challenges of extreme physical conditions at high altitudes, developing
in the process a deep spirituality.
However, old Tibet should not be romanticised. It was not Shangri-La. The
political economy was based on the feudal domination of monasteries over rural
serfs. In 1951, Mao Zedong's government negotiated the 'peaceful liberation' of
Tibet with the local Tibetan government, guaranteeing that Beijing would not
force changes to the feudal political economy of Tibet.
But the Chinese revolution had its own internal dynamic. By the
mid-1950s, land reforms had begun in Tibetan-inhabited areas outside Tibet.
Monastic lands were seized and redistributed to peasants. These contributed to
the Tibetan rebellion of 1959. While the Dalai Lama fled to India, the Panchen
Lama remained in China and worked within the system, but not always
effectively. In 1962, he sent a letter to Beijing expressing Tibetan
grievances. During the Cultural Revolution, Tibetan youths, following Chinese
youths in other parts of the country, engaged in an orgy of destruction.
Since then, as in the rest of China, monasteries and temples have been
restored or rebuilt, often to a state better than what they were before,
although some precious artefacts were lost forever. Without land and serfs,
these places can only be sustained with the patronage of the Chinese state.
The marriage of Tang Princess Wencheng to Tibetan King Songtsen Gampo in
the 7th century began a complex relationship between Tibet and Imperial China
which ebbed and flowed with the rise and fall of Chinese dynasties. Mongol
princes during the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty intervened on behalf of the
Yellow Hat Gelugpa (the order of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama), making
it the dominant sect in Tibet.
Because religious and political leadership was fused from the time of the
5th Dalai Lama, the appointment of high lamas often required the approval of
the Emperor. This was certainly so during the Qing Dynasty. It was a practice
carried into Republican and Communist China. Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang
government approved the appointment of the 14th (present) Dalai Lama in 1940
and the 10th Panchen Lama in 1949. At the Forbidden City in Beijing today, the
old buildings still carry inscriptions in the four main languages of the Qing
Dynasty - Han, Manchu, Mongolian and Tibetan.
In the last 50 years, China devoted huge resources to the development of
Tibet because of its strategic importance. Economic growth has been in the
double digits in the last fifteen years. Social indicators like average life
spans have shown remarkable improvement.
But, relative to Han Chinese, Tibetans lag behind especially in economic
performance. This should not be surprising because an entrenched way of life
cannot change quickly within a few decades. As in Singapore, the tensions which
naturally arise when different ethnic and religious groups living side by side
respond at different speeds to globalisation cannot be wished away; they simply
have to be recognised and managed.
Education is clearly the key to the future. Pole-vaulting a medieval
society to the 21st century is however never easy. At the Norbulinka Palace,
the summer residence of the Dalai Lama, devotees still prostrate themselves
before objects once used by him like his bed and sofa.
The 14th Dalai Lama is now 74 years old. In a recent TV interview, he
said that he was born to accomplish certain tasks, and as those tasks were not
completed, it was 'logical' that he would be reincarnated outside China. Many
believe that 'outside China' means Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh where the 6th
Dalai Lama came from, a Tibetan area controlled by India but claimed by China.
This would greatly complicate the border demarcation between China and India.
Beijing, of course, insists on the old rule that the appointment of high lamas
must have its approval.
The 11th Panchen Lama is coming of age. When chosen as the reincarnation
of the 10th Panchen Lama, Beijing gave its approval but not the Dalai Lama. Six
months ago, at the Second World Buddhist Forum in Wuxi, he surprised many
people by giving his speech in English.
It may seem strange that the reincarnation of high lamas should be a
subject of such intense interest today. That perhaps is a reflection of the
past in the present and the importance of the China-India relationship. Looking
ahead, however, Buddhism in Tibet will have to adjust to change as it has in
other parts of Asia where it is enjoying a huge revival in many countries.
Tibet is part of a much larger Asian drama that is changing the world.
-YaleGlobal
George Yeo is the foreign minister of Singapore. He visited Tibet in
August this year, the first foreign minister to do so after the March 14 riots
last year
<<shim.gif>>
<<20090910_ed05.jpg>>
