122 a History of Modern Tibet, Vol. 2, the Calm Before the Storm

122 Book Reviews / Numen 56 (2009) 118–136

A History of Modern Tibet, vol. 2, Th e Calm before the Storm, 1951–1955. By Melvyn C. Goldstein. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. 639 pp. ISBN: 978-0-520-244941-7 (hbk.). US$60.

By their power, they expelled them, By their powerlessness, they were brought here. Whether they are peaceful or violent We shall see gradually. (Lhasa street song, 1951, cited p. 170)

Th e popular uprising that occurred in Tibet in March 2008 brought the Tibetan question to the front pages of Western media. It was quite clear that the press’s attempts to explain the historical background of this situation sel- dom escaped the tendency of off ering merely a simplistic picture using a ste- reotyped representation of the factors involved. In contrast to this common approach, Goldstein’s studies on the history of modern Tibet, of which the fi rst volume was published in 1989 (A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1951, Th e Demise of the Lamaist State, Berkeley: Univer- sity of California Press), provide a well documented and balanced picture of the political events in all their complexity, bringing a most wanted light to a period that has, for the most part, not been studied in depth. Goldstein avoids taking sides with either the “pro-Tibetan” or the “pro-Chinese school”, sides in which, as he noted in the preface of the fi rst volume, “impartiality often takes third place to polemical oratory and political expedience, with selected international events used in isolation to substantiate one position or the other” (xx). Further, Goldstein clearly shows in the volume under review the limitations of subscribing to stereotypic generalizations in terms of “the Tibetans” and “the Chinese.” As he notes with regard to the 1950s: “In gen- eral, the period has been viewed simplistically as a confrontation in which Tibetans faced Chinese Communists in a showdown doomed to fail because the Chinese were intent on destroying Tibet” (xii). His study reveals however a much more complex situation: neither side is homogenous, and “[n]ot only did each side have signifi cant internal factions representing confl icting points of views, but these internal factions allied themselves with factions on the opposite side, creating a far more complex situation than had been previously realized” (xii). Th e present volume is a continuation of Goldstein’s previous study (Th e Demise of the Lamaist State), which covered the years 1913 to 1951, including the capitulation of Tibet after the fall of Chamdo (Eastern Tibet) in October 1950, the signing of the Seventeen-Point Agreement, and the return of the

Dalai Lama to Lhasa. Th ese events are treated more extensively in the fi rst part of the present volume, which focuses on the years 1951–1955 and is planned as the fi rst of a two-volume study on the 1950s. As Goldstein notes, “Th is Seventeen-Point Agreement dominates the history of the 1950s and even today continues to have an impact in Sino-Tibetan relations” (20). Th e fi rst half of the 1950s is hence marked by the signing of the agreement — followed by the arrival in Lhasa of the fi rst troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) — and the attempts to implement it. Goldstein describes these years as constituting the “high point in Sino-Tibetan cooperation and rapproche- ment” (xi), a period of relative calm “before the storm.” Th e years 1955 to 1959, which will be the subject of the forthcoming volume, see indeed a decline in Sino-Tibetan relations, leading to the uprising of 1959 and the fl ight of the Dalai Lama into exile. Th e present volume introduces the events chronologically in 22 chapters organized in three parts:

Part one, “Th e Road to a Sino-Tibetan Agreement” (19–165), describes the fi rst interactions between the new Chinese Communist government and Tibet, and the indecision of an “ill-prepared and weak Tibetan government” (20) concerning the course of action to follow. It discloses the Chinese eff orts to present Tibet’s “liberation” as both attractive (the Seventeen-Point Agree- ment off ered Tibet special conditions and promised a gradual implementation of reforms) and inevitable (that it would be, if necessary, realized through a full-scale military invasion). Th is section is also revealing as to how few alter- natives were left to Tibet after the disappointment of its failed appeal to the United Nations and the absence of positive feedback from Britain or the United States. Although the United States did expend a certain amount of eff ort to persuade the Dalai Lama to fl ee Tibet, their off er was never com- mitted enough to match what looked at the time to be the most reasonable option — negotiating and collaborating with the Chinese under the terms of the Seventeen-Point Agreement, which appeared to grant Tibet the preserva- tion of its social and religious institutions. Part two, “Th e First Two Years: Confrontation and Adjustment” (169–396), examines how both sides experienced the fi rst contacts and implementation of the Seventeen-Point Agreement. Goldstein describes the relations between the fi rst Chinese offi cials in Lhasa and the Tibetan government, whose members’ attitudes ranged from overt opposition to good-willed collaboration. Th e main event in this period was the arrival of the PLA in Lhasa, whose presence caused strained relations with the population and generated a serious food crisis. Th e years 1951 and 1952 saw important changes in political organization,