Airs – Ian Lance Taylor

Tibet

Tibet has been in the news recently, as people are using the fact that the Olympics are taking place in China to protest against Chinese control. I’ve never been to Tibet, and I don’t know very much about it. Tibetans are an ethnic group, they have a long history, they have their own religion, they speak their own language. From my Western perspective, it seems natural that they should have some ability to determine their own fate. Right now they don’t seem to have that. That’s too bad. It’s also not that different from a lot of other ethnic groups around the world–the Kurds come to mind.

Why does Tibet have such strong support in the west? Why do we see so many bumper stickers saying “Free Tibet” and so few saying “Free East Turkistan?” My wholly superficial knowledge suggests that the two causes are very similar: ethnic groups which want more freedom from the central Chinese government. I see two distinct features of Tibet that make it more popular in the West: Tibetans have a charismatic leader, the Dalai Lama, and Tibetans aren’t Muslims. There is no denying that a charismatic leader is very important for these sorts of struggles. Unfortunately it seems that such people are born, not made. Tibet was very fortunate in the man who became the Dalai Lama.

The Chinese government naturally resists any arguments in favor of Tibetan independence. From a Western perspective they do so in a very ham-handed way: restricting journalists, making statements that seem obviously false, accusing the Dalai Lama of being a terrorist. More interesting is that most Chinese people outside of Tibet appear to support the government. It’s hard to imagine that Chinese people trust their government. But it seems that at least on the subject of Tibet, they do. Is Chinese propaganda more successful within China than it is outside of China? Is there a peculiar Chinese perspective that makes them see the Tibetan issue differently from most people in the West? Is it simply that China’s strict control over information prevents people from seeing an opposing point of view?

From a geopolitical perspective, Tibet is unimportant. I hope that Tibetan people get more freedom and the right to elect their own government. For that matter, I hope that everybody in China gets that right. But the brutal truth is that is that the Tibetans are one abused ethnic group among many, and there are several who have it a lot worse.

I find the apparent success of Chinese propaganda within China to be much more troubling. The increased economic freedom in China was expected to bring increased political freedom. I see no signs of that. China is going to increasingly dominate the world economy–or Chinese society is going to fall apart, one or the other. If China doesn’t fall apart, and if Chinese propaganda continues to be as successful as it has been so far, our ideals of free speech and free elections will matter less and less. This is very speculative, and not at all a doomsday scenario. But I think that if we want to retain what we believe to be the strengths of our society, we need a better understanding of how China is keeping itself immune to them–something the Soviet Union was increasingly unable to do.

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Ian Lance Taylor

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18 responses to “Tibet”

  1. Cooka Avatar
    Cooka

    ——–not fully posted? so a second time..
    I am a chinese, considering about the human rights, I do agree with you. But actually, I do hope that you can take a few minutes on the following links. the
    anti-cnn.com //apparently the media distortions of the cnn.
    and a personal travel in Tibet after the 3.14’s riots, (April 6), chinese, but the smiles of the pictures have the same language, I think you do understand.
    http://www.517sc.com/bbs/dispbbs.asp?boardid=14&ID=267963&replyID=267963

    It’s true that china is not a country with such democracy as the US, and the young well educated students, in or abroad, do not fully support the china government. But the Tibet Issue is a different one.
    You said you’ve never been to Tibet, but I have a tibetan classmate in the shanghai Jiao Tong university, and one of my best friends has been there in Lhasa for one year as a volunteer teacher, and even more friends have some impressive memories there . I’m not a communist 🙂 Now a days, the china government blocked some “critical” foreign websites, though, I can freely get the news from the cnn and bbc with both web or on-line tv(using tor of proxy). All the above I want to confirm is that my thought is not a product of the communist china’s propaganda.

    So here I want to show you some facts:
    1. by 1950s, the population of tibetan is less than 1.2 million(with the tibetan lived around tibet), now is 2.5 million, and the Han Chinese take about 150,000 of it(6%). The tibetan take no tax, but more assistance compared with the other underdeveloped areas of china. The students can study and write with tibetan language, but the Dalai’s followers now teaching English mostly~
    2. by 1950s, 95% tibetan are slaves, yes. It is 1959( 8 years after the china government took charge of tibet), when the china government wanted to free the slaves(property of the dalai lama’s upper class), the Dalai Lama is angery, and break with the beijing government, then military failed, and then fled to India, till now.
    3. Dalai Lama do not represent the whole tibet, he is only a leader of a big religious faction. But he is supported by CIA from the 1950s, you know the reason.
    4. the recent riots in Lhasa, 18 dead, but mostly Han Chinese(if not all), the police got criticisms: out china as the killers of tibetan “peaceful protesters”?, in, as the inaction when the riots happened, but you know, the police do have no order to shoot.
    5. 99% of the chinese support the government, and 4.9, in San Francisco, during the torch relay, the supporters were 10 times more than the protesters, but the cnn has the rights to carefully cut the screen~ I watched the live tv of nbc and cnn that day, this is a funny dialog happened in cnn
    — a lot people are protesting the human right in China …etc， however, some are there to celebrate, how do you see?
    –(the front reporter) as a matter of fact, most of the people are here to support china and to celebrate. there are a lot of Chinese in sf, they come here to show their support

    ——————————-
    I subscribed your blog for serveral months, your articles helped me a lot, I do think you are a kind man, and I do hope my above words helps.(if not offended you~)

  2. rdb Avatar
    rdb

    ABC Radio National (au): Rear vision: Tibet (Podcast & transcript)

  3. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    Cooka: thanks for the note and the links. A few quick comments.

    1. The Tibetan Resistance have different population figures, arguing that ethnic Tibetans have become a minority–perhaps just in Lhasa, I’m not sure. I don’t know any way to determine the truth. For all I know even the Chinese government doesn’t know the real numbers.

    2. Again, obviously, the Tibetan Resistance has a different view. The Dalai Lama left Tibet after the Lhasa uprising. Land redistribution in the Tibetan Autonomous Region itself was not started until after the uprising.

    3. The fact that the Dalai Lama doesn’t represent all of Tibet seems irrelevant; nobody is seriously proposing that he be put in charge. The Dalai Lama was certainly supported by the CIA during the 1950s and 1960s. At that time the U.S. government did not officially recognize the People’s Republic of China. After Nixon went to China, CIA funding was halted. The CIA gave funding to the Dalai Lama because he was opposing China; this is not surprising. The fact that the Dalai Lama accepted funding at what was presumably a stressful time for him doesn’t really prove anything one way or the other. More seriously, the CIA trained the Tibetan resistance army during the 1950s, a technique which the U.S. also used against the Soviet Union at various different times.

    4. I’m not sure what you mean by the comment about “peaceful protestors.” What I read about is riots. Perhaps some people somewhere described them as peaceful.

    5. I have no doubt that most Chinese people support the government, and I’m sure that many people supported the torch parade in San Francisco. I just took a look at the coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle, and it says clear that there were many supporters of China as well as protestors.

    More generally, I have to say that I feel that your comment supports the main point in my post. Some of what you posted–the population figures, the slavery argument–I see as Chinese propaganda. You posted them as fact, without acknowledging that the facts are disputed. When it comes to an area like Tibet, where there is an active resistance, where there is no independent media coverage, the government has a strong reason to lie. We call those lies propaganda. All governments do this–the U.S. government regularly issues propagand about Iraq. The difference I was alluding to in my post is that very few people actually believe what the U.S. government says about Iraq unless they get independent confirmation from non-U.S. sources. Why do people believe what the Chinese government says about Tibet?

  4. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    rdb: Thanks for the link. Obviously the Chinese government has a different view. I’m not sure it’s fair to stress things like the fact that the Manchu were foreigners–they fit pretty well into the historical pattern of Chinese dynasties, despite some discrimination against the native Chinese population.

  5. Cooka Avatar
    Cooka

    I am not to persuade you to change your mind; so for the 3/4/5 points, I am happy you can share such a view, thank you for the reply.
    and for 1 and 2, I can say a little more.

    1. the chinese government would do a population survey every 10 years, So here is some official numbers:
    by 1950s the population of tibetan in tibet and areas around it, was no more than 1.2 Million, Dalai Lama would confirm.
    by 2001 (the 5th survey); the population in tibet province only (without the tibetan in peripheral provinces as Sichuan and Yunnan etc), is 2.6163 million (compared with 2.19 million ten years ago, 1991, the 4th survey ), a grownth of 0.42 million, 19.1%.
    The tibetan population is said to be 2.84 million by 2007.
    Tibetan takes 2.4111 million, 92.2%;
    Han chinese takes 0.1553 million, 5.9%;
    Other minority, 49.9K, 1.9%
    Birth rate: 1.74%; Death rate:0.63%;
    Natural growth rate: 1.11%;
    Sex Ratio: 103
    Maternal mortality rate:399/100,000;
    The infant mortality rate: 2.928%
    Average life expectancy of the population: 67 (35.5, by 1959)
    In tibetan there isnot family planning, or so called one-child policy( as a Han chinese, my parents can only have one child in order to control the large population growth in china.)
    Now the Lhasa population is about 0.4745 million, sure han chinese is not a majority there, but many han chinese would go for tourism business in Lhasa during summer and back before winter.
    In order to protect the jobs for the local tibetan, some jobs are only ready for tibetan, for example taxi drivers.
    —————
    2. the Tibetan Resistance has a different view, yes.
    the complete redistribution started after Dalai fled. But the conflict bred for a long time. For example the communist party developed members in the slaves, when the slave owner wanted to punish the slave, a new tibetan party member wanted to get help from the communist party, but the slave owner would insist that slave was just his property. So Beijing hesitated, and said the slave who joined the communist party would have the corvee exemption. And also the Beijing wanted to reduce the number of monks in the temples, as they did not work but the number took about 5-10% of the whole population. Newly built schools and hospitals took place the authority of the temples, etc
    All the things caused the worry of Dalai Lama, so the so called “uprising”( in china, a riot) finally happened.

    In another word, in fact, some of the Dalai Lama’s proposal is unacceptable to the china government, for example the han chinese must leave tibetan and the peripheral provinces to form a Great Tibetan, which takes about 1/4 of china, but in the peripheral areas, the tibetan is a minority.
    The 3.14 riot in Lhasa is mainly participated by the monks in the temples, where the Dalai Lama have religionary controls, but outside the temples, I do not think the independence or “free” of tibet is a serious demand to the tibetan.
    China has human right problems, but in tibet, the condition should be far more better than the other provinces if not the same.

  6. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    With regard to Tibet, the key issue is certainly your second to last sentence: “…outside the temples, I do not think the independence or “free” of Tibet is a serious demand to the tibetan.”

    If that is true, then by all means there should be a vote, the Tibetans will vote to stay inside China, and there will no longer be a Tibetan issue.

  7. Cooka Avatar
    Cooka

    So here is the difference between the western society and china ( or eastern society), that you think an independence of tibet will solve all the problems,( if there are problems); while the chinese, experienced a long time being invaded by first England and France, and then almost all the western nations and then the Japanese, partly because of lack of a powerful and united government, so the chinese hate the word “Split” from the heart. Russia took his Far East areas form China by “erasing” the formal chinese in those lands, and controled Mongolia ( It’s ridiculous that the Mongolia upper class had been to Beijing for help to avoid the so called revolution but fully supported Russia, but when Beijing was weak and had nothing to do with it.) At that time, the England was trying to make Tibet its next “British India”, of coz, by guns and blood. So when the England government now jump out calling “free tibet”, both tibetan and han chinese people would be not so easy…, so is the whole western society. ( in fact a free Corsica is not acceptable to Paris, so is northern Ireland to London, and so on).
    ————
    1st is that the china government has protected the local culture( language and tibetan words) and the religious beliefs, and has made a great improvement in tibetan economy and health and so on. There is no evidences that the normal tibetan were repressed, especially compared with the local indian in US. So there is no human rights problem in tibet but a new social system.

    2nd, the Dalai Lama represented the formal upper class of tibetan slavery society, even the tibetan is independent or “free”, what he could get from tibet is not optimistic. His followers had dreamed to takeover their property, the land and slaves, they lost by 1959, but the reality is impossible. My tibetan friends told me that the most resistance the Dalai Lama should (if he should) face is from “the new tibetan upper class”, who now have good jobs and a remarkable property, so how can they return to or eagerly share with the Dalai’s followers? And so the formal slaves would?
    // when Dalai Lama “uprised”, and failed, and exiled, the Beijing didn’t decided to stop them( which was easy by military force), but left them the open borderline, 50k-100k followed him. The rest history is the CIA supported conflicts on the borderline, and failed again, and then became refugees in India or Nepal citizens after surrendering.

    3rd, the western society always thinks that the tibetan are eager to “free” them, but so as I have expressed, “Dalai Lama + his followers + the caesaropapism ( yes, now the Dalai’s exilian government is, but Dalai may deny, and the exilian government began to vote no sooner than 2001) ” vs “the existing society, autonomous( ok, the western sociey would deny, as the tibetan officials are now communist party members), but part of the china”, how would the tibetan choose? The china government has the confidence of such a vote, but no need, because without a result of a independence of tibet, the western media can say it a cheating vote, the media always has the rights~
    //democratic elections are holding in villages and small communities for a long time, but election for a mayor seems somehow to be nowhere in sight~

    In an another word, free or not, totally that’s none of the business of Dalai and his followers, compared with the china government, they can do nothing for tibetan( I cannot image what, but a monk) but protest shows in front of the western media; while discarding the prejudice of china government, Beijing certainly helps.

    // Long, but I am not intended to offend you…

  8. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    Thanks for the note.

    I don’t believe that independence solves all problems.

    That said, there have been votes in Northern Ireland, and the majority in Northern Ireland prefers to remain part of Great Britain. Opinion polls in Corsica show that the majority prefers to remain part of France; a vote to reorganize the governmental institutions there, which could have been a first step to independence, was defeated by a narrow margin. So I think you need better examples.

    (Your example of the native americans in the U.S. is certainly a better one; I think we can all agree that the way that they were treated was appalling. Fortunately they do have a modicum of independence today, in what amount to autonomous regions under their own control. Unfortunately those autonomous regions tend to be rather small and undesirable pieces of land. The native americans are significantly different from the Tibetans in that there was never a single culture–before the western conquest, the many different tribes spoke different languages and arguably formed different ethnic groups. Those separations continue today, and different tribes pursue different strategies in working with the U.S.)

    The facts you cite about Tibet are, again, disputed. In particular the Tibetan resistance claims that China has not protected the local culture.

    You seem to argue that the Chinese government knows that it would win a vote, but that it does not need to actually hold a vote because a result other than a vote for independence would be cited as a fraud by the western media. If that is what you are saying, then, I’m sorry, but to me that sounds like sophistry. The western media are clearly on record as agreeing with the results of votes which were not desired by western governments, such as the election of Hamas in Palestine or the election of Chavez in Venezuela. The claim that there is no need to hold a vote because the results are known, in the absence of any polling, in the presence of significant resistance, simply does not hold water.

    Obviously, I don’t expect a vote in Tibet any time soon. Equally obviously, I don’t know what the results would be. But there is simply no way to know the preference of Tibetans without a vote or something equivalent. Your claims that Tibetans would vote in favor of the Chinese government are just that: claims. There is no evidence.

  9. Cooka Avatar
    Cooka

    So now the focus of attentions are that
    1st, there must be a vote (sooner or later), and not comparable with the Northern Ireland, and Corsica, and U.S. native americans.
    2nd, as the Tibetan resistance claims that China has not protected the local culture, and no evidence shows that the local culture is saved;

    ——–
    1st: England won the vote in N.Ireland, but it’s totally fair? Hundreds years ago, when there were merely Irish, but now? Irish is still majority? Of coz not, so how can London lost the vote? The result is now the English majority take control of Northern Ireland legally. And I should note that the N.Ireland issue follows a hundreds’ years of wars and blood, but the tibetan issue doesn’t(there was a war in 1959, but short and small, and it was a war between Beijing and Dalai, not tibetan vs Han chinese).
    I’ve also seen that the Corsican was unhappy when Paris separate the island by two province (no need, but an cunning way to avoid the trend of whole Corsican’s independent wishes.) And you think the poll is reliable, so I don’t think my tibetan friends are cheating me.
    Now the local residents in tibet is still tibetan’s majority, han ethnic group takes only 15/261, can be neglected. In N.Ireland, it is said that the English descent and Irish community lived separately, which means after a hundreds’ years of neighbor-life, there’s still hate between the two ethnic groups. Compared with the chinese history, it’s unbelievable, You know the Manchu’s Qing dynasty replaced Han’s Ming dynasty as different ethnic (at that time Han and Manchu are enemys to each other), but now after only 300 years, Manchu is just a symbol, no differences with Han. Han ethnic is a most complex group, there is evidence shows that the Han and Tibetan have partly a common ancestor ethnic group, Qiang. By A.D.200s, the Qiang is a significant power in chinese history, but then hundreds years later, most Qiang became a part of Han, and some became the nomadic Tibetan. And now, the tibetan is also hospitable, without the worries that the Han will take their land away.
    You said that the difference between tibetan and native american indian is that the tibetan formed their own culture, while the native american indian not. So if there wasn’t one indian tribe took control of the WHOLE American, then the lost of their small pieces of land was deserved? and the European had the right?

    ( When China’s President (or so called chairman) Mao Zedong decided to redistribute the land, and free the slaves, the formal slaves treated him as a god when he was alive, and even now a lot of local tibetan keep his portraits to pray for his protest sincerely. But when Beijing said he was dead, the tibetan found that Mao didn’t reincarnate like Dalai Lama ( I’d wonder you believe Dalai’s reincarnation or not).)

    2nd: as the Tibetan resistance claims that China has not protected the local culture, and no evidence shows that the local culture is saved;
    However, at this time, I’m confused, I’ve said that the tibetan language and character and temples( some were destroyed in 1966-1976, but repaired afterwards ) are all properly saved and protected, if someone claims that China has not protected teh local culture, can they provide the evidence?
    If the slavery society was part of the culture, yes, it’s no longer protected; if the Dalai’s caesaropapism authority was part of the culture, yes, it’s gone. And I think you’ve seen the flags of the Dalai’s exilian government, I’d point out that the two lions mean the integration of religion and politics( or union of the temples and the state), which is not acceptable in the western society.
    I do hope that Dalai can show some evidence in detail that china hurt tibet, otherwise, the claims make no sense to the tibetan people.
    After the riot on 3.14, Dalai said 100s tibetan dead, while Beijing showed that 18 han chinese dead without a single tibetan. However the western media would rather trust Dalai even with the number thousands or millions of tibetan killings but the facts that several young girls were burnt just by the tibetan monks. So they claims that China government was slaughtering in Lhasa, oh my god.

    //about the tibetan protesters, here are some stories
    1. 4.7, a girl with leg disablity participated in the torch relay in Paris, when a tibetan protester attacked her rudely, the event and photos made all the chinese feel angry. Then further pictures showed that he also protested in London on 4.6, and even got arrested by the London police (thank goodness, he didn’t miss the next day’s job). And then the netizens dig out that he actually lives in U.S., named Lobsang Gendun. (how busy he is)
    http://www.tibetoffice.org/en/index.php?url_channel_id=7&url_subchannel_id=58&url_publish_channel_id=1545&well_id=2
    Mr. Lobsang Gendun, Sercretary
    Phone: (801) 322-2088
    Email: tcvlogun#yahoo.com
    http://www.holt.org/tibet/uta.html
    you can google for more.

    2. in Paris, some protesters even shouted out “free Japan”(sound like tibet?), then the confused chinese students asked him and learnt that the “protesters” can got 300 euro a day!

    ———-
    additional, I think the most important thing, the freedom of the tibetan slaves from Dalai’s formal government by Beijing, Is there an even great “human rights” can campared or provided by the Dalai’s followers? The now protesters are mostly the formal tibetan slave owners or their sons/daughters, isnot it ridiculous that they call for human rights and culture protections for tibetan?

  10. Cooka Avatar
    Cooka

    Please forgive me that my somehow unpleasant words take you a lot of time.
    In fact I do admire your concern about china, the huam rights and voting rights and tibetan issue and so on.
    However, the differences of our views may never be erased. I should say that, the chinese have just solved the requirement to live, and then the security requirements partly, and we are trying to love and to be loved, it’s still hard for chinese to have the final self-realization like U.S.. The human rights is good, so is the right to vote, both to me and chinese/tibetan. We desired, but we(han chinese and tibetan chinese) do not want to get hurt.

  11. supereic Avatar
    supereic

    Hi, I am a college student from China.
    I come here to get some infomation about GCC.

    Maybe you could have a look about this link, 🙂
    http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/56147

  12. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    cooka: Thanks for the notes. I’ll try to respond to a couple of points.

    Yes, it was unfair for the English to move in hundreds of years ago, but we have to deal with this situation as it exists today. Note that the differences in Northern Ireland are not normally expressed as English vs. Irish, but as Protestant vs. Catholic. There are people with both ancestrys on both sides.

    There is clearly a difference between a poll with some statistical validity and what some of your friends think.

    Obviously I don’t think that it was right for the native americans to lose their land just because there were many different tribes. Do you really think that I would think that? I already said that the way they were treated was appalling. I mentioned that fact because it makes analogies more difficult between the native american situation as it exists today and the Tibetan situation as it exists today.

    It’s not ridiculous for former slave owners (using your terminology) to call for greater human rights if they are sincere. In fact, it’s commendable.

  13. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    supereic: thanks for the link, but I’m not sure what you are pointing out. If you are trying to show me that some organizations are working against the Chinese goverment, then: yes, I know.

    Obviously it was inappropriate for the lecture on other sides of the Tibet issue to be cancelled. We have seen similar things in this country when pro-Palestinian lectures have been cancelled.

  14. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    I went back and reread my original post. I said “I hope that Tibetan people get more freedom and the right to elect their own government. For that matter, I hope that everybody in China gets that right.” I didn’t say Tibet should be handed back to the Dalai Lama. I didn’t say that Tibet should be treated differently from the rest of China. Which part of that statement do you disagree with? Do you think that elections are a bad idea? Do you think that the Tibetan people do not deserve to have their own elections?

    The main point in my post had nothing to do with Tibet. It was the one about how successful Chinese propaganda is, at least within China. It seems to me that your comments tend to support that point. Perhaps I am being unfair.

  15. Cooka Avatar
    Cooka

    ah… Ok.
    Finally, I do appreciate your concern for the Chinese people’s right to elect.
    This is the reality of China, but not particularly in Tibet.
    If someone think the Tibetan have no right to elect, and owe it to the racialism of China or Chinese. It’s unfair, we chinese desired the right, too~

    Meanwhile, I should have the additional words an “N”th time: I do think Dalai Lama has no right to represent the Tibetan people. As he is the byproduct of the former dark slavery society, his mission is over.

    So there is no “free tibet”, but only “free china”. If China is free, Tibet is.

  16. ncm Avatar
    ncm

    China’s domination of Tibet is bad for ethnic Tibetans. China’s successful propaganda program, exercised on the Tibetan topic, is bad for Chinese subjects everywhere. An effective propaganda apparatus can be turned to sorts of mischief.

    I don’t think one can conclude that freedom in China would lead directly to freedom in Tibet. That would depend on what Chinese people (who overwhelmingly outnumber Tibetans, even in Tibet proper) feel like they want. They might prefer to keep Tibetans as slaves, just as much of the U.S. preferred to keep its African abductees and their descendants as slaves long after it got independence.

  17. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    ncm: note that whether the Han Chinese outnumber the Tibetans in Tibet is a matter of dispute. The Tibetan resistance says they do, the Chinese government says they don’t. Both sides have an incentive to exaggerate. I don’t know how to determine the truth.

  18. ncm Avatar
    ncm

    Anyway their votes count more. In China (as, increasingly, the U.S.) the votes that matter are cast with currency.

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