Sixty Years: From Independence to Invasion
In two days, it will be 60 years to the date that Tibetans
rose up en masse against the invasion and occupation of the Chinese Peoples
Liberation Army (PLA). The uprising was crushed, the Dalai Lama and tens of
thousands of Tibetans fled their homeland and thus began the decades-long
repression of a people by an invading power.
For sixty years, the Tibetan people in Tibet have endured
being patronized and marginalized in their own country by an imperial – despite
all the communist rhetoric of liberation and throwing off the chains of the
oppression of exploitation – and illegitimate, force. The recurring from China
is that Tibet has always been part of China and this is so easily refuted as to
be laughable but for one thing: most people don’t know or simply accept that
this is the case.
To be sure, relations between the two countries has not
always been exactly cozy; the Tibetan Empire expanded and invaded China during
the Tang dynasty and captured the capital of Chang-an; but for most of history,
the borders in Tibet’s eastern regions were porous and quotidian life seemed to
be relatively peaceful. Tibet and China both fell under the sway of the Mongols
and it could be argued that the reason Tibet was never subjugated owes much to the
patronage of the Khan and his relationship with the Sakyapas. Indeed, Tibet was
granted a significant degree of autonomy under Mongol rule. This is something
that the modern Chinese government does not do, by any means.
Tibet did fall under the suzerainty of the Manchu Qing dynasty.
Suzerainty is also not sovereignty, something that China never seemed to grasp.
At any rate, with the fall of the dynasty, the thirteenth Dalai Lama signed off
on the Tibetan Declaration of Independence in 1913, thereby re-establishing
Tibet as her own nation.
However, Tibet’s fortunes were tied to China’s in a variety
of ways. The Panchen Lama held close relations to China until the end of his death;
he also recanted and disavowed what Mao had done to Tibet and I don’t wish to
lay too much blame at his doorstep, but political leadership in Tibet has not
been comprised of men of the most sterling character. The regents that
surrounded the thirteenth and even the current fourteenth Dalai Lama have been
comprised of quislings and duffers, as well as some of decent character.
Pivotal in the years prior to the 1950 invasion(s) was the Reting
conspiracy and the regency dispute of 1947. Albeit that His Holiness the Dalai
Lama was enthroned, he was still a minor. In the meantime, the situation in
Tibet was unstable, at best. Where the Chinese were concerned, the Guomintang
delegation had been expelled from Lhasa as an appeasement to the mounting
threat of “liberation” from the Communist government. That said, the Tibetan
government notified the U.S State Department and Britain that they would defend
themselves with any means necessary should the PRC decide to invade. To emphasize this, Chairman Mao Zedong was
copied on the U.S. missive.
On the Chinese side, by late 1949, the decision had been
made to invade Chamdo in Eastern Tibet. This was less about getting the
Tibetans to give up their independence than to bring the government to
negotiate and the general assumption is, capitulate, thus avoiding outright
war. In September of the following year, a Tibetan delegation met with the
Chinese Ambassador General, Yuan Zhongxian, who laid out a three part plan:
Tibet would be regarded as part of China, China would look after Tibet’s
defense, and China would handle Tibet’s trade and foreign relations. The option?
Outright war.
It is worth quoting Tsepon Shakabpa’s response:
"Tibet will remain independent as it is at present, and
we will continue to have very close 'priest-patron' relations with China. Also,
there is no need to liberate Tibet from imperialism, since there are no
British, American or Guomindang imperialists in Tibet, and Tibet is ruled and
protected by the Dalai Lama (not any foreign power)".
A month later, China began taking Chamdo. Lhasa sent a delegation
to Beijing to accept the first part of the three-point proposition in an
attempt to persuade the army forces to pull out. Later, even this was rescinded
as it would mean – quite simply and obviously – that Tibet would be under a
foreign power.
That said, among the prisoners in Chamdo was the governor,
Ngaipoi Ngawang Jigme, who would be called upon to solicit Lhasa to surrender
to the PRC’s demands.
At this point, it becomes apparent that the world was either
not paying attention or simply did not care. El Salvador issued a complaint on
the matter to the U.N. which was quashed by both Britain and India. One might
assume that from the U.K. side, it was a matter of recusal from post-colonial
affairs in South Asia and in India’s case, because India did not want to exacerbate
issues with her larger and better armed neighbor and/or because Nehru may have
felt that India’s issues overrode whatever the Tibetans might be going through.
In any case, the invasion of Chamdo lead to the establishment of the notorious
Seventeen Point Agreement between the Tibetan government and the PRC.
It is difficult to think of another historical document that
resulted in a greater scam than this. The Louisiana Purchase is a benign
gentlemen’s agreement in terms of what the greater of the two parties got out
of such a deal. That I know of, no lives were lost as a result of the acquisition
of Louisiana. For Tibet, this agreement was a rigged fait accompli; there were
no negotiations allowed by the PRC’s delegates and the Tibetan’s were not
allowed to contact Lhasa to confer on any points along the way.
There was confusion within the Tibetan government whether to
accept the conditions of the agreement or flee into exile. By this point, the Dalai
Lama had assumed responsibility and elected not to flee. However, he formally
accepted the 17 Point Agreement in October 1951. A short time later, the PLA
entered Lhasa and Chinese state media proclaimed “the peaceful liberation of the
Tibet”.
Beginning in 1956, with the PRC’s experiments in land reform
in Kham, militant reaction began in earnest. By 1958, the Chushi Gangdruk
Volunteer Force would be established (and eventually funded and partially trained
by the C.I.A.) and continuing a guerilla insurgency against the occupying PRC
forces.
What stymies a great many people is why was Nehru and India
so reluctant to assist Tibet? To be sure, in 1956, His Holiness told Nehru that
he was considering seeking asylum in India, but Nehru was assured by Beijing
that in a year’s time, half the cadres in Lhasa would be back in China. Nehru
assured the young Tibetan all would be well and to return to Tibet. Nothing
changed, of course, and surely, by this point the Indian Prime Minister must
have been having second thoughts about how to deal with China in the future. There
would be three years of intense border wars with China in the near future, and it
is safe to assume that Nehru no doubt then learned that in dealing with the Red
Dragon, one watches for how it coils before it strikes.
India aside, it’s a damning indictment of the world that
Tibet received little but verbal support – and at that, minimal – in meeting the
threat of invasion and subjugation from China. It continues to damn us all; for
sixty years, China has had her way with the Tibetan people and the environment.
The Seventeen Point Agreement is a disputed document on a number of legal
fronts and the ensuing capitulation to China as an economic giant has only
served to underscore the world’s apathy to the suffering of the Tibetan people.
What happened on March 10? And afterward?
Originally, I was going to save this for the March 10 post,
but let’s get a preview.
Bear in mind that by 1958, 80,000 Tibetans were now engaged
in resistance fighting. His Holiness sent a delegation to talk people down from
additional fighting and, well, that delegation joined the guerillas! In the meantime,
refugees from Kham and the eastern areas were flooding Lhasa bringing with them
tales of violence and the horrors of war in the east. And a hearty anger for
the Chinese. This was not unnoticed by Beijing’s representatives in Lhasa.
Additionally, religious leaders were disappeared in Kham and
Amdo, so that when His Holiness was invited to attend a dramatic performance at
the Chinese military barracks on March 10, it was readily transparent that he
would be one of them. The invitation was issued on March 9, not too subtle, and
it was requested he not bring his security detail with him.
Three hundred thousand people turned out to ring around the
Norbulingka to protect His Holiness. At this point, it needs to be said; the
Dalai Lama is part of Tibetan DNA. It’s not anything as simple as laying down
one’s life for king/queen and country, it’s not about nationalism, even. The
institution of the Dalai Lama is the heart-blood of every Tibetan. Even the
ones who disagree with him on policy, politics, or philosophy are unlikely to
denounce him willingly or say a negative word (too loudly to be heard?)
In a nutshell, the Dalai Lama is an emanation of the
bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara in Sanskrit, Chenrezig in Tibetan. The
legend is that Tibetans are the descendants of an ogre (Avalokiteshvara) and a
monkey (she who liberates; Tara or Drolma). This Great Compassion flows through
their being, so it is said (bear with me, I’m not reporting history now) and while
there are many rinpoches who have been emanations of Chenrezig, it is the Dalai
Lama who is most deeply burrowed into the Tibetan psyche.
But I would argue it
goes even deeper than I can make plain. Why would this be when we consider that
the Dalai Lama tradition is a relatively late development in Tibetan religion and
politics? I sometimes think it begins with the Great Fifth who unified Tibet
and was one of the genuinely, well, great leaders of any country; shrewd,
piercingly intelligent and charismatic, and a profound yogi, to boot, he was
very much admired and loved by his people (at least in Central Tibet…those
forced conversions of Nyingma and Kagyu didn’t go over so well). Or maybe the
love of the Tibetan people was solidified with the Sixth Dalai Lama; poet,
romantic, man-about-town who never took full ordination and frankly, didn’t
want to be Dalai Lama (in fact, he renounced his sramanera vows to the Panchen
Lama after his regent was assassinated). He mysteriously vanished at
twenty-three years old, en route to China.
Between these two, I sometimes feel Tibetans understood that
whether one is ordained or lay, compassion is within all. It manifests in the great
state leader and the poet and pleasure seeker; the ruler and the man of the
people. At the end of the day, maybe the inculcation of the Dalai Lama into the
fabric of every Tibetan’s being makes more sense than any superficial form of
hero, or even deity, worship.
This is why 300,000 people turned out to protect Tenzin
Gyatso.
By March 15, the PLA had the palace in their sites; artillery
was in place and Tibetan troops had an escape route plotted. Two days later,
two shells struck the His Holiness’s summer palace and he and his ministers
began the overland trek to India, to exile, and to a kind of freedom but one
not willingly chosen.
Four days later, the real fighting began. It was over in two
days. Outgunned, outmanned, the Tibetans and Tibetan armed forces were
seriously disadvantaged. To say it was a slaughter is underselling the
devastation. No one knows how many people were killed in the Norbulingka
itself. But this began the looting, plundering, and vandalizing of Tibet. Artworks
were stolen, if not burned, monasteries razed to the ground. And the cost in
lives? 87,000 were killed, around 80,000 fled to other countries; more tried to
flee and didn’t make it. The Dalai Lama’s remaining security forces were
executed, as were any Tibetan found with arms.
I won’t go into the tales of torture, the mass
incarcerations in Drapchi and other gulags across the plateau, the mass
executions. I won’t recount the starvation that hit Tibet with Mao’s edict to try
new approaches to farming, to plant rice where it won’t grow. I won’t go into detail
on all these. But I will tell you that I’ve met Tibetans who were captured,
tortured, beaten until almost dead, some until they went mad.
I will tell you about a friend of mine who – when we met with
the Gyuto monks some decades back, casually mentioned that her brother had been
a monk. When I asked where he was, she simply said, “he was killed”.
I will share this brief anecdote about one of my teachers
who was imprisoned shortly after Lhasa fell, for twenty years. He found his
root lama in prison and was healed of life-threatening injury; but what he said
bothered him the most was that one day a guard came and tried to take a necklace
holding a small picture of His Holiness the Dalai Lama from him. “I slapped the
guard!” he said with amazement, and then sorrow.
Or another friend of mine, a lama, who had been caught –
twice – attempting to escape Tibet. Jailed twice, beaten more times. He said
during one interrogation that they called him arrogant and beat him for that.
He said, “well, they were right”. Then later, after shattering his knee, they
threw him out and he eventually made it out of Tibet. His only observation is
that “Chinese people are very nice, really; but their government is very stupid”.
There are other tales to be told, but I’ll turn those over
to you on Sunday. Sixty years.
References
There are so, so many, but the most vital are face to face
encounters. In Dharamsala, I was honored to meet a number of volunteers for Gu
Chu Sum and use their resources. Taking tea with Lhasang Tsering was enlightening,
to say the least. I won’t name the folks I’ve mentioned above because if they
read this, they’ll know who they are and I know that they’d rather not be “outed”.
I wish I could share more stories because one can say that they ended happily
with the witnesses having escaped and lived to tell the tale. What isn’t stated
there is something that I suspect every Tibetan feels. I’ll quote Lhasang-la on
this. One day, I asked him casually how he was doing. He replied, “Sir, I feel
like a man who has lost his country and will never see it again.”
Following is a pretty general reading list. I do recommend
digging deeper. When so many people are at risk in this world, Tibet is a
cautionary saga about the kinds and varieties of imperialism that still exist
under the guise of attempting to improve the lot of the subjugated. She remains
an example that genocide need not be a quick and sweeping measure, but rather a
targeted and well-planned out erasure of a culture over a period of decades. Erasure
is insurance that the history of the conquered will be rewritten by the victor.
Tibet is a reminder that apartheid still exists, systematically,
cunningly, surgically. She foreshadows China’s current disappearing of Uyghurs
and other undesirables within the PRC’s borders. Her fate betokens the fragile
state of the countries that form borders with China. Oh, they may profit and
enjoy a certain level of economic and/or infrastructural support from China,
but again, watch for how a dragon coils.
On general Tibetan history in the twentieth century:
Avedon, John. In Exile from the Land of Snows: The
Definitive Account of the Dalai Lama and Tibet Since the Chinese Conquest
(1994), New York: Perrenial. ISBN 13-9780-06097574-6
Goldstein, Melvyn C. A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1951:
The Demise of the Lamaist State (1989), University of California Press. ISBN
978-0-520-06140-8
Powers, John. History as Propaganda: Tibetan Exiles versus
the People's Republic of China (2004), Oxford University Press. ISBN
978-0-19-517426-7
Shakya, Tsering. The Dragon In The Land Of Snows (1999),
Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-11814-7
Strong, Anna Louise. Tibetan Interviews (1959), Peking: New
World Press (contains Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme's account of the Chamdo battle and
his conversations with the author)
The text of the Seventeen Point Agreement: http://www.tibetjustice.org/materials/china/china3.html
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