The Hindu Business Line : Tibet uprising and its implications for national security

In September 1987, the Dalai Lama proposed a demilitarised and denuclearised Tibet, while realistically recognising that independence for Tibet is no longer an option and that the most that the people of Tibet can aspire for is genuine autonomy, within a united China, says G. PARTHASARATHY.

When the Chinese People’s Liberation Army occupied Tibet in 1950, the Deputy Prime Minister, Sardar Patel, wrote to Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru on November 7, 1950 saying: “The Chinese Government has tried to delude us by professions of peaceful intentions. My own feeling is that at a crucial period they managed to install into our Ambassador (academic K. M. Panicker) a false sense of confidence in their so-called desire to settle the Tibetan problem by peaceful means.”

Sardar Patel added: “(Throughout history) the Himalayas have been regarded as an impenetrable barrier for any threat from the North. We had a friendly Tibet which gave us no trouble…Chinese ambitions in this respect not only cover the Himalayan slopes on our side, but also include the important part of Assam… Chinese irredentism and communist imperialism are different from the expansionism or imperialism of the western powers, which makes it ten times more dangerous. In the guise of ideological expansion lie concealed racial, national and historical claims”.

The 1959 upspring

China’s guise in concealing “racial, national and historic claims” soon manifested itself after the 1950 occupation of Tibet. The Tibetans were compelled to sign a 17-Point Agreement affirming Chinese Sovereignty over Tibet on May 23, 1951. This agreement contained explicit Chinese assurances that the Central Authorities would not alter the existing political system in Tibet.

The Chinese also pledged that they would not alter the established political status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama, with Tibetan officials continuing to hold office.

Finally, the Chinese pledged to protect the freedom of religious beliefs and the income of monasteries and promote the development of the Tibetan language and culture. The Chinese violated all these assurances and Tibetan anger and frustration resulted in a full-fledged uprising in 1959, which led to the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers fleeing to India.

Chinese Sovereignty over Tibet

India also paid a very heavy price for disregarding Sardar Patel’s warnings on Chinese intentions. By 1954, Chinese incursions into Indian Territory began along the UP-Tibet border, just after India signed the infamous Border Trade Agreement between “The Tibet Region of China and India,” on April 29, 1954, which conceded Chinese Sovereignty over Tibet.

China’s occupation of Tibet was thus sanctified, without securing any assurance on the border issue from China.

The Agreement also led to the handing over of Indian properties, the withdrawal of Indian military escorts and the handing over of telephone, telegraph and communications equipment and facilities in Tibet, to China.

When Prime Minister Nehru took up the wrong depiction of borders on Chinese maps with the smooth and suave Chou en Lai in October 1954, he was assured that the maps in question “were really reproductions of old ‘pre-liberation’ maps and that he (Chou) had not time to review them”.

Nehru was also assured in 1956 that though Chou found the term “McMahon Line” repugnant, China would recognise this border with both Burma and India. Chou, however, had no more intention of fulfilling these assurances any more than he had of fulfilling Chinese commitments of May 23, 1951, to the Tibetans.

Genuine autonomy within a united China

The Chinese describe the Dalai Lama to be a “splittist,” determined to secede from China. The reality is somewhat different. In September 1987, the Dalai Lama proposed a demilitarised and denuclearised Tibet, while realistically recognising that independence for Tibet is no longer an option and that the most that the people of Tibet can aspire for is genuine autonomy, within a united China. In his address on the 49th Anniversary of Tibetan National Uprising Day on March 10, 2008 the Dalai Lama said: “Since 2002, my envoys have conducted six rounds of talks with concerned officials of the People’s Republic of China to discuss relevant issues. These discussions have helped to clear away some of their doubts and enabled us to explain our aspirations to them. However, on the fundamental issue there has been no concrete result at all. And during the past few years, Tibet has witnessed increased repression and brutality. In spite of these unfortunate developments, my stand and determination to pursue the Middle-Way policy and dialogue with the Chinese Government remain unchanged”.

Tibet has since witnessed yet another uprising, which has been crushed by the People’s Liberation Army of China. China evidently believes that use of brute force and a massive settlement of Han Chinese, reducing Tibetans to a minority in their own homeland, coupled with its status as a permanent member of the Security Council, gives it the right to do as it pleases in Tibet.

Chinese ‘sensitivities’

While addressing the EU Parliament in November 2003, India’s former Ambassador to Bhutan, Dalip Mehta has alluded to the continuous weakening of India’s position on Tibet. Referring to the assertion in the Joint Declaration signed during Prime Minister Vajpayee’s visit to China that the “Tibetan Autonomous Region of China is part of the territory of China, Mehta noted that by referring exclusively to the “Tibetan Autonomous Region”, India had further damaged the Tibetan cause, as Amdo and Kham, regarded by Tibetans as part of Tibet, were excluded, and by implication their absorption into neighbouring provinces of China accepted.

Sensing India’s weakness, China has only upped the ante and stepped up its rhetoric that the whole of Arunachal Pradesh is a part of China, as it has historically been a part of “South Tibet”. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in turn, was deterred from visiting Tawang during his recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh, quite evidently because of Chinese “sensitivities”. The Chinese, however, responded with an unprecedented protest on the Prime Minister’s visit to the State. Sardar Patel’s observations about Chinese ambitions are proving prophetic.

New Delhi’s statement on the recent repression unleashed by China in Tibet is welcome. The Government has forthrightly stated that India was “distressed by reports of the unsettled situation and violence in Lhasa and by the deaths of innocent people”. The time has come for India to state that while it regards Tibet as an autonomous region of China, it hopes that China will abide by the assurances it gave in the 17-point agreement it signed with representatives of the Dalai Lama on May 23, 1951.

India has to take an independent position on this issue and not be seen as a western cat’s paw. American policies on China swing like a pendulum and India has periodically been at the receiving end of Sino-American collusion during the Nixon, Carter and Clinton Presidencies. India will have to learn that the Chinese only respect others when they have national power and display a resoluteness to exercise it in the pursuit of legitimate national interests.

Racial discrimination

An astute observer of developments in Tibet observed that Tibet is the least autonomous of all of China’s autonomous regions. The international community cannot ignore the elements of racial discrimination involved in the manner in which Han Chinese entities such as Hong Kong are granted extensive autonomy, while Tibetans are reduced to a minority and their traditional institutions dismantled, in their homeland. Moreover, if China can propose a policy of one China, two systems in Han Chinese-dominated entities such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, why can it not offer the Tibetans a similar deal?

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan.)

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