Xi Jinping's Tibet Challenge – 60 Years of Failed Policies in Tibet
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Xi Jinping’s Tibet Challenge 60 Years Of Failed Policies In Tibet Introduction With China’s once-a-decade leadership change, the Xi Jinping’s Tibet Challenge highlights China’s 5th generation of Chinese Communist Party leaders failed policies in Tibet; policies that, despite six have inherited both extraordinary power and a decades of unfettered control, have left Tibetans considerable number of major challenges, prominent resolutely opposed to China’s rule. Xi’s challenge is among which is China’s continued occupation of a Tibet in crisis, devastated by four generations of restive Tibet. colonial exploitation but possessing a population whose sense of the Tibetan nation, and whose spirit Tibetans are arguably challenging China’s and diverse resistance to China’s rule is undiminished occupation more strongly today than at any time since the day the People’s Liberation Army invaded since the 1950s. The accumulated effect of decades Tibet over 60 years ago. of failed policies have contributed to a society in which Tibetans’ human rights are routinely abused This report summarizes China’s attempts to maintain and where they are marginalised politically, socially the occupation of Tibet through Three Pillars of and economically. Public protest has taken a tragic Coercive Control – Military Occupation, Colonial turn with more than 100 individuals choosing to Rule, and Fear and Intimidation. Xi and China’s 5th self-immolate as a form of resistance against China’s generation leaders must now recognize that the rule, usually with fatal consequences. Meanwhile, impact of continuing along the same path as previous the cycle of protests crushed by military crackdown generations will only result in greater instability in Tibet that has typified past periods of unrest, is changing. as well as growing international condemnation of China is now discovering that a display of force China’s leadership. is unable to prevent mass gatherings of Tibetans, whether they are praying for those who have self- We are not alone in recognizing that change in Tibet immolated or engaging in more confrontational acts must come. A 2012 Reuters report (ii) wrote “Every of protest. generation of [Chinese] leaders must resolve problems left over from the previous generation,” a source Tibetans are moving beyond fear of China’s violent with leadership ties said. “For Hu, it was Taiwan,” … regime. In recent months increasingly large numbers “For Xi, it’s Tibet”. Another anonymous party official of Tibetans have taken to the streets to demonstrate told Reuters “More and more government spending, their opposition to China’s rule. Meanwhile, Tibetans more and more security, is not going to buy enduring are embracing new forms of creative resistance, stability in Tibet... The high-pressure policies can’t expressed through music, literature and assertions continue forever.” of national identity. China’s policy failures have spurred a new generation Xi Jinping, the leader of China’s 5th generation, of Tibetans, who have never known an independent now has the challenge of Tibet on his hands. Little Tibet but who are showing a deep commitment is known about Xi’s personal opinions on Tibet, but to their nation and asserting their fundamental his father Xi Zhongxun a former vice premier, knew right to political, social and economic freedom. the Dalai Lama and was close to the 10th Panchen Their resistance is threatening the very stability Lama. In July 2011, speaking in front of the Potala and endurance the 5th generation of the Chinese Palace in Lhasa, Xi Jinping’s adherence to the Communist Party so desire. Party line was absolute, vowing to “thoroughly fight against separatist activities by the Dalai clique by Xi’s challenge is to resolve the Tibet issue swiftly firmly relying on all ethnic groups ... and completely and peacefully, or risk creating an even greater crisis smash any plot to destroy stability in Tibet and of geopolitical significance, as Tibetans resist four jeopardize national unity.” (i) generations of China’s failed policies. Tibet is comprised of the three provinces of Amdo, Kham, and U-Tsang. Amdo is now split by China into the provinces of Qinghai and part of Gansu. Kham is largely incorporated into the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan, and U-Tsang, together with western Kham, is today referred to by China as the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Tibet’s traditional territory accounts for one quarter of the landmass of today’s People’s Republic of China. 2 China’s military occupation February 2013 saw the centenary of the 13th Dalai “thrust Tibetans into such depths of suffering Lama’s reassertion of the Independence of Tibet and hardship that they literally experienced hell from the Manchu Empire (1a). Chinese forces were on Earth” (1j). This statement starkly contrasted driven out of Tibet until 1949, when the newly with the CCP’s claim to have liberated Tibet from triumphant Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sought the “oppressive, feudal rule of the Dalai Lama” to consolidate its victory by rapidly spreading its (1k), a medieval, oppressive society consisting of influence as widely ‘landowners, serfs and slaves’. Ultimately, Beijing’s as possible. condemnation of Tibet’s ‘feudal’ past is a classic colonialist argument – ‘backwardness’ serving as On 7 October 1950, 40,000 People’s Liberation a justification for invasion (1l). Pre-invasion, many Army (PLA) troops crossed the Drichu [Yangtse] river Tibetans recognized inequalities in their system and into central Tibet. Overwhelmingly outnumbered, the Dalai Lama had begun to promote reforms (1m). the Tibetan army were forced to surrender (1b) and The exiled Tibetan government is now a democracy Tibet became an occupied state (1c). The CCP to which the Dalai Lama has devolved his political claim is that Tibetans are among China’s 56 ethnic authority (1n). nationalities (1d) bound together by a common destiny (1e) – a fabrication rooted in China’s deep historical After 60 years China is still reliant on its military ethnocentrism. But Tibet, a clearly defined nation, and paramilitary forces to maintain control of Tibet, had fulfilled the criteria of a sovereign state three with estimates of between 150,000 – 500,000 PLA decades before the founding of the People’s Republic troops stationed on the Tibetan Plateau. The visible of China (PRC) (1f). China’s leaders however classified presence of security forces is stepped up around Tibetans as ‘barbaric uncivilized’ peoples that sensitive anniversaries and periods of unrest (1o), should be ‘assimilated or eliminated’ (1g). Tibetans, but China has been unable to entirely suppress fiercely proud and independent, showed no signs of mass demonstrations, notably in 1959, in the late assimilating and thus the CCP pursued policies to 1980s (when Tibet was placed under martial law) eliminate the Tibetan nation. and in 2008, when more than 150 separate incidents of protest were recorded across the plateau. China’s persecution steadily increased, as did Tibetan Despite the crackdown that followed the 2008 resistance, and in March 1959 popular protests Uprisings, public protests have continued and take erupted in Lhasa. When the PLA began shelling the place regularly, especially in eastern Tibet, often in city the 14th Dalai Lama was forced to escape Tibet conjunction with self-immolations by Tibetan monks, and, according to China, 87,000 Tibetans were killed nuns and laypeople (1p), demonstrating that China’s or arrested as a result of the Uprising (1h). Exactly 50 military occupation cannot suppress the Tibetan years later the Dalai Lama said that Beijing’s policies people’s will to be free. 3 Self-immolation case study, Tsering Kyi On 3 March 2012 Tsering Kyi, a 20 year-old student from a nomadic family, poured petrol over her body, marched into the vegetable market of Machu town in Amdo [Chinese: Maqu, Gansu Province] and set light to herself, raising her fist above her head. She died at the scene. As a child she had lived a nomadic way of life, following the yak herds and sleeping under the stars, but that ended with the fencing of the grasslands and Tsering Kyi – described by teachers as an “example” to other children – gradually found herself at the centre of political unrest. In 2008 Machu erupted in protests and hundreds of Tibetans were detained in a brutal crackdown. Two years later students from Tsering Kyi’s own school staged protests calling for freedom and independence. Shortly before her final act of defiance, Tsering Kyi told friends and family, “We should do something for Tibet – life is meaningless if we don’t do anything for Tibet” (I). Tsering Kyi’s self-immolation was the 24th confirmed to have taken place in Tibet. Such protests now exceed 100, across all regions of Tibet. China now spends more on public security than it Like other oppressed people around the world does on international defence (1q). A Human Rights whose freedom movements have recently toppled Watch study in 2011 found that security spending authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and in the Ngaba region of eastern Tibet [Chinese: Aba, North Africa, the Tibetan people are pushing for Sichuan Province] – at the epicentre of the current their own freedom. Tibetan resistance within Tibet wave of self-immolations – has been outstripping that has become increasingly diverse, with a renewed of non-Tibetan areas of Sichuan Province since 2002. determination to promote the Tibetan national identity through the spread of a home-grown With a “strike hard” campaign and a new “anti-terrorist” movement called Lhakar, or “White Wednesday”, unit established in 2007, Human Rights Watch argued in which Tibetans consciously engage in and that China’s provocative policing contributed to the promote uniquely Tibetan activities. unrest of 2008 and since. By 2009, security spending in the Ngaba region was five times the average of the A widespread cultural renaissance is also rest of Sichuan.