Lateral Thinking and the Tibet Conundrum
Chair: Maj Gen Dipankar Banerjee, Director, IPCS.
Speaker: Ravi Bhoothalingam, Chairman, Manas Advisory
Discussant: Mohan Guruswamy, Chairman, Centre for Policy Alternatives
Maj Gen Dipankar Banerjee
Ravi Bhoothalingam’s paper offers a new perspective on the Tibet question by using a multi-disciplinary approach that combines psychology, sociology and anthropology. Lateral thinking provides a realistic and possible resolution to the Tibetan question, but this aspect is unfortunately absent in most governments’ thinking. Tibet is an integral part of China and this is universally recognized, hence it is for the Chinese themselves to handle the Tibet issue. But nevertheless, as a think tank, we need to analyze the possible options and implications of China’s Tibet policy.
Ravi Bhoothalingam
As far ago as 1986/87, the Dalai Lama renounced the goal of independence for Tibet and reiterated that he was willing to consider any arrangement wherein Tibet would remain a part of the People’s Republic. Around 1990, Deng Xiao Ping, in his inimitable way, summarized the whole episode as “anything short of independence”. One probably felt at the time that the problem was within the reach of human ingenuity to resolve, since a solution would serve everybody’s interest. China would be greatly relieved of its border problems and ethnic issues, if there were stability in the region and it would also drive away the damaging PR on the Tibet issue from which it had suffered for thirty years and continues to suffer even today. Tibet is more an international people’s problem than an intergovernmental problem and for the Tibetans, even some degree of amelioration of their conditions would be welcome. From India’s point of view, although it is not a direct party, any kind of solution to the Tibet issue would help remove the sting from the border issue, thereby, enhancing and smoothening its relations with China.
A solution has not yet been reached, firstly, because Tibet is a geopolitical bomb on the world stage and is being used as a piece in a chess game involving the US and other great powers. The recent world financial meltdown has lead to a swing of geopolitical power in favour of China and other emerging countries. Within China itself there are different schools of thought regarding the Tibet question. While one school of thought is willing to talk, the second prefers to wait for the demise of the Dalai Lama and believes that China will go through turbulence and things will eventually settle down. And so far, it is the latter which has prevailed. The third hypothesis is that the whole issue is predicated on the wrong premise. Lateral thinking can help re-formulate it properly by identifying the core issues of the Tibet problem.
The first core issue is the preservation and prosperity of the way of life, culture, language, religion and environment of the Tibetan people. The other core issue, which is not stated in the Tibetan dialogue with the Chinese is that of the survival of the tradition of the Dalai Lama. There are also two constraints in which these issues have to be addressed. The first, which is explicitly declared as non-negotiable by the Chinese is that the solution must respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of China. The second constraint, not stated by the Chinese, is that any solution must not destabilize or dilute the supremacy of the Communist Party.
The Memorandum of Genuine Autonomy, circulated by the Tibetans in the 2008 negotiations has been rejected by China because the problem formulation creates a further problem instead of offering or leading the way to a solution. For instance, there is the problem of a “single administration for Tibet”, otherwise known as Greater Tibet, which means that the Tibetan Autonomous Region in addition to all the autonomous prefectures and counties should be aggregated in one administrative unit. Greater Tibet is problematic on a practical level since it would account for an aggregate 25 per cent of China’s land mass if one were to add TAR, parts of Xinjiang, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu into one administrative region, in a sensitive border area with a history of problems from the Chinese point of view.
The Chinese have not really taken high-risk solutions so far. Greater Tibet also involves a lot of new innovations that the Chinese have not tried elsewhere, even in the developed counties in the provinces along the eastern seaboard. Thirdly, Greater Tibet would actually not solve the core issues of religion, language, culture and environment because the huge area of Greater Tibet is very diverse. Apart from the Tibetan people, it is also home to the Hans, Mongols, other Chinese minorities in Yunnan and Sichuan, and also has different sects of Buddhism that thrive within the region.
If one were to apply the lateral thinking technique of inversion, it would require inverting the entire problem and thinking of multiple tiny Tibets. The whole Chinese experiment has been based on this principle of taking small units and experimenting with them, whether through economic development zones, village elections, or consultative democracy. And where these experiments prove successful, they are expanded throughout the provinces of China. A better solution would have been to choose six to eight autonomous counties, provinces or even smaller units and try some of these things in much greater and granular detail. The issues need to be addressed at a micro scale and then managed. Tibet already has an institution which can do that – the Troika at the village level, which comprises the village council chief, village Communist Party head and the abbot of the local monastery.
The Chinese face a dilemma regarding the Dalai Lama because he has been consistently demonized in the last several years, making the very idea of engaging in a dialogue with him, rather complex. Dealing with him and making him an ally has advantages both for China and the Dalai Lama and can tactically be done. It would enable China to develop its “spiritual civilization” mentioned in the 16th Party Congress as a way to moderate the ill effects of capitalist development. It would also add to China’s “comprehensive national power”, which lacks the spiritual dimension or moral legitimacy. Finally, history has shown that governments have always negotiated with people they swore never to negotiate with. China could have cleverly used the various opportunities that presented themselves – the Qinghai earthquake and the funeral of the tenth Panchen Lama were opportune moments for reconnecting with the Dalai Lama.
In conclusion, the two-track approach to be adopted to solve the Tibetan issue is – micro-level attention to these issues (not abstraction) on the basis of micro-level geography, using current governance methods, with no radical changes and simultaneously, preparing ground for a macro-level reconciliation between the key players. India has an important role to play in moving this forward, in a quiet, discrete way.
Mohan Guruswamy
One should note that the problem is also that of the primacy of the Chinese Communist Party. The occupation of Tibet coincided with the ascendant phase of the Party. Today, the Chinese find themselves in a situation similar to the one India finds itself in vis-à-vis Jammu and Kashmir. Both are sensitive to any third party intervention. Of course, one can always argue that communism is not the basis for a modern state, because it is a theocracy of its own kind. But ideologically, it would be very difficult for them to compromise with any other system.
There is also another aspect mentioned in the paper, which is the ideology of the Tibetan hard-liners, who reject any compromise with the Chinese. The Dalai Lama still enjoys a very high status in India. India has a problem with regard to its border with China and essentially, the border problem was raised by the Tibetans; the essence of this border problem was the 1947 letter from the current Dalai Lama to the Government of India to claim Tawang. It took India 50 years to persuade the Tibetan government in exile to repudiate that letter.
Discussion
India’s Role
The Tibet question is an issue which is intimately linked with China’s sovereignty and India therefore, cannot, for instance, ask Beijing to talk to the Dalai Lama, since the Chinese, in a similar manner, could ask New Delhi to speak with Mr. Gilani. Respecting China’s sovereignty on this issue is a comfortable position for India to take. Nevertheless, while some regard the Dalai Lama’s presence in Dharamsala as an obstacle to good relations between India and China, others compare the issue with Kashmir – resolving the Kashmir issue for instance, would not resolve all Indo-Pakistan issues.
The Evolution of China’s Political System
The evolution of the Chinese political process, whether towards greater democratization or not, is crucial. In the last twenty years, a lot has changed in China; even within the political structure, there is no one all-powerful individual who takes political decisions. Even though Hu Jintao, who was the Party Secretary for Tibet and who had been blamed for the harsh measures adopted, at the 17th Party Congress in 2007, under his leadership, the party’s constitution was amended to include “religious freedom”, which also included property of religious institutions. Hu Jintao is incidentally the same man who has consistently argued for and encouraged the preservation of the environment and ecology of Tibet.
How prepared is China to build its hegemony? China has been operating according to what has come to be known as its “peaceful rise”, whereby it has quietly gone about its nation-building tasks. The economic crisis however, has suddenly catapulted it onto the world stage in a way that the Americans had been around the time of World War II. In this given context, there is a real opportunity for the Chinese to engage with the Dalai Lama and exercise their soft power. If there is to be a Chinese vision of the world, then this vision has to extend beyond raw power projection, which is insufficient.
Future Prospects
Assimilation has historically been the Chinese way. Tibet is heading in the same direction as Manchuria; there is no ethnic area called Manchuria now, except the old, discarded geographical-ethnic concept. Even the Dalai Lama has recognized that a nomadic way of life is not economically sustainable. He admitted that development was good, as long as the Tibetans were included in developmental processes. A new balance has to be established between modernization on the one hand and identity on the other. In other words, while one cannot go back to the old state of aristocracy in Tibet, one has to ensure that modernization does not wipe away identity.
Chloe Choquier
Research intern, IPCS
e-mail: chloe_choquier@yahoo.fr
