From: joe@astro.as.utexas.edu (Joe Wang)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china,alt.politics.elections,soc.culture.usa
Subject: Re: Tibet (Re: A few questions for President Bush)
Date: 6 Apr 92 06:33:19 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.china
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin

Note that followups have been directed to soc.culture.china

Let me being by quote from Melvin Goldstein (who seems to be one of
the few objective writers on the subject) in the introduction to
"The Dragon and the Snow Lion" he writes:

  The pervasive tendency of both the Tibetan exiles and the Chinese
  leadership to describe events in Tibet in either black or white-
  horrendous oppression or magnificient reform and development-
  pressures the nonspecialist to choose one side and accept its
  version in entirety.  This chapter attempts to provide an 
  alternative; an interpretation in which shades of gray are explored
  and the complex historical antecedents of today's situation are
  presented.

(below are my words)

I'm now going to present a brief recent history of Tibet.  My main
source for this is Melvin Goldstein.  I strongly distrust anything
written by the Tibetan exile community or by the Chinese government.

Whether Tibet was part of China before 1951 is often the subject of
long and pointless debate.  The problem is that both sides generally
agree on the historical facts but disagree on what they mean.  For
example, you can point out the fact that in 1911 Tibet issued a
declaration of independence and was out of the control of the Central
Government until 1951.  On the other hand, you can also point out that
that doesn't mean anything because almost every province in China
issued a declaration of independence in 1911, and there were many 
provinces which are out of the control of the Central Government till
1949 when the Communists took over.  

And so it goes back and forth.  I try and stay out of this particular
debate because it's useless.

Tibetan rule under the PRC can roughly be divided into four periods.
1951-1959,1959-1980,1980-1989, and the present.

In 1951, the Communists who had taken over in 1949 signed an agreement
with the Dalai Lama which promised a great deal of local autonomy.  It
was an agreement which was strained to begin with because it attempted
to match orthodox Maoism with Buddhism.  What ultimately broke the
agreement was in part the ambiguity in the word "Tibet."  The
Communists believed that the word Tibet meant areas which were under
the political control of the Dalai Lama before 1951.  The Tibetan
government understood Tibet to mean areas which had large numbers of
Tibetans.  Thus when the Communists started land reform in areas with
large numbers of Tibetans but which were outside the control of the
Dalai Lama before 1951, and refugees from these areas started flowing
into Lhasa, you had a explosive situation which ended in riots, the
Dalai Lama fleeing, and direct control by the Chinese government.

The years 1959 to 1980 were some of the darkest and insane periods in
Chinese history.  First you had the Great Leap Forward, which was a
attempt at industrialization which left millions dead, and second you
had the Cultural Revolution, which was an attempt to destroy
traditional Chinese culture and replace with something new based on
Marxist.  As an example of what went on.  My mother's side of the
family had their house destroyed and looted by Red Guards, and my
father's side of the family fled their home province in order to avoid
being killed.  

This sort of thing also occurred in Tibet.  The bug difference is that
the Tibetans tended to see things there as Han versus Tibetan, whereas
Han Chinese didn't see things in ethnic terms.

By 1976, the Cultural Revolution was finished, and in 1980 the
government reevaluated its Tibet policy.  Monasteries were reopened,
and lots of capital was directed toward Tibet, partly as compensation
for the Cultural Revolution.  This lead to problems as the booming
economy in Tibet encouraged Han settlers from surrounding parts of
China to move into Tibet.  There were relatively few such settlers,
but they moved almost exclusively to the cities, and the result of
this was that the Tibetans in the major cities felt threatened with
becoming a minority there.  This lead to tensions which exploded in
1989 which a riot that began when local police beat up a monk.
Martial law was declared in Lhasa and things went downhill.  

A few comments.............

1. The most important thing to remember in understanding the Chinese
attitude is that the PRC government has not been systematically more
oppressive within Tibet than in other parts of China.  There have been
arbitrary detentions, accusations of torture, and supression of free
speech in Tibet.  These things have gone on the other parts of China
too.  Thus, pointing to human rights abuses in Tibet as justification
from Tibetan independence will just make the average Chinese person
mad at you.

2. The PRC government has not tried to supress Tibetan culture per se.
Chinese money contains Tibetan script, and the various human rights
groups which have visited Tibet have found little evidence of cultural
suppression.  Elementary schools are taught in Tibetan, and the plan
to teach junior high schools in Tibetan by 1993, senior high schools
by 1997, and colleges by 2000.  Chinese regulations say that all
official communications should be written mainly in Tibetan.

3. The human rights situation in Tibet, while not good, is MUCH, MUCH
better than it was in the 1960's and early 1970's, when all of
Mainland China was mess.  

4. While the use of torture and arbitrary detentions is evil and to be
deplored, they are a far cry from genocide.  It has often been stated
that one to two million Tibetans have killed by the Chinese
occupation.  The problem with this figure is that every time one
traces the source of this number, it ends up at the Tibetan
government-in-exile, who obviously has a vested interest in the
matter.  So far, I have not heard the charge of genocide come from a
neutral observer, such as Amnesty International, the International Red
Cross, or the United Nations, even though these groups have been
active in charging the Chinese government with torture, arbitrary
imprisonment, and surpression of free speech.  Unless someone presents
evidence for genocide which is not connected to the Tibetan
government-in-exile, I would tend to discount such charges.


Newsgroups: soc.culture.china