Pranjali Bandhu
Renewed Chinese government offensive against Tibetan forces of resistance to the occupation of their country has not found concerted international support for an independent Tibet. This is due to the geopolitical and commercial interests of all major world powers and neighbouring countries. After the People’s Liberation Army of the Chinese Communist Party had invaded parts of Tibet in 1949-50 the Tibetan government had appealed to the UN. But, in the face of lack of support for the issue from any of the major powers, discussion was adjourned, and the question was taken up again only after a period of nine years. This gave the Chinese Communist government ample time to consolidate its conquest. Since 1959 resolutions of the UN have started taking up the Tibet issue from the point of view of human rights violations and the right of self-determination, but, in the absence of back-up actions, these resolutions have been ineffective.
Indian Government Stance
The Indian government’s track record on the issue of Tibetan independence has been singularly lacklustre from the very beginning. The approach of the Congress government of Nehru to the Tibetan crisis was to an extent a follow-on of that of the British colonial government. The latter had recognised Chinese suzerainty in an autonomous Tibet as a buffer zone to the expanding Russian empire, while at the same time trying to gain influence and trade concessions in Tibet in the early part of this century. Friendship with China was a cornerstone of Nehru’s foreign policy. Good neighbourliness and trade relations with the Chinese are till today considered more important than Tibetan independence. Chinese sovereignty in Tibet was accepted in terms of the Sino-Indian Treaty of April 1954 (Panchsheel Agreement). Tibet was referred to as the “Tibet region of China,” and all discussions on the border issue have been with the Chinese government, despite strong protests from Tibetans-in-exile, who point to the illegality and unacceptability of such negotiations.
By appeasing China in this way the Nehru government had hoped that the moving into forward positions of the Indian Army and the extension of administration to NEFA (North-East Frontier Agency, transformed into Arunachal Pradesh later), the no-man’s tribal belt beneath the Mcmahon line (tentatively drawn by the British), and categorical claims to Aksai Chin, without actual occupation, would be tacitly accepted by the Chinese government ‘committed’ to a policy of peace and friendship with India (Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai). However, the Chinese government’s viewpoint was that these forward movements by the Indian Army and extensions of administration were done without prior negotiations as equals. In particular, the claim to Aksai Chin was found totally unacceptable because this would sever the only land route to Sinkiang (East Turkestan) via Tibet, essential for supplies, troop movements, etc.
Occupation of Tibet has tremendous strategic significance for the Chinese government. To the end of extending its borders and of having friendly countries beyond that the Chinese Communist government promotes its interests in Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh (the latter two it does not recognise to be part of India) and so on. It has given aid to Naga rebels and other militant groups in the North-East, and gave at least verbal support to the Naxalbari struggle in North Bengal. However, because of the underlying vested interests this support is withdrawn whenever it suits the Chinese government. For example, it withdrew support to the Kachin rebels in Myanmar and started supporting the Myanmarese ruling military clique. The decisive victory of China in the 1962 border dispute with India, despite US assistance for India, put it in control of Aksai Chin, and this was done without conceding any positions or claims in the North-Eastern border region. India’s retreat in 1987 from the Wangdung Post in Arunachal Pradesh was a concession vis-a-vis Chinese belligerence.
The Indian government has been working hard to normalise relations with China for trade and other foreign political considerations, viz.: that China should not support Pakistan on the Kashmir issue; common opposition to the US on the nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty; meeting of strategic politico-economic interests in Central Asia. Despite escalated protests and repression in Tibet since 1987 in the aftermath of the Dalai Lama’s Strassbourg Proposals, the Indian prime Minister in his 1988 visit to China had reiterated that Tibet is a part of China and what happens there is China’s internal question. On Chinese insistence the Indian government is committed not to permit any anti-Chinese political activity on Indian soil. Since the early 1980s itself Tibetan refugees in India have been repeatedly denied permission to hold demonstrations anywhere near the Chinese Embassy or at the Boat Club and India Gate, the usual locations of political rallies in Delhi. Police crackdown on Tibetan protesters at the time of Premier Li Peng’s visit to India in 1991 was particularly harsh. In the imbroglio over the selection of the Panchen Lama and the ban on the public showing of photographs of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the Indian government remains a silent spectator. In fact, two Hollywood blockbusters planned on Tibet and Dalai Lama with some Indian and Tibetan actors and partly on Indian soil were given the no-no by the Indian government for fear of Chinese government’s displeasure.
Imperialist Powers and Tibetan Independence
The record of powerful Western governments in support of Tibetan independence is no better. Western European countries have a greater stake in the billion person Chinese market than in Tibetan independence. This is particularly so in the case of the UK because of the future of Hong Kong and the lure of having a powewrful commercial outpost within the boundaries of China itself.
The US government, through the CIA, had given nominal covert military aid to the Khampa tribal people rebelling against Chinese occupation in the 1950s. The aim of this aid was certainly not to help Tibetans achieve national independence. It was to harass a Communist regime, and to gain information on its military methods and plans for its own intelligence analysis. The US was careful regarding control over the weapons supplied in order to be able to impede the guerrilla movement at any chosen point of time. This policy of a little help but not enough continued through the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations. The thaw in Sino-US relations came under Nixon’s administrations when the US opted for utilising trade opportunities with China and decided to back the Chinese Communists vis-a-vis the Russians in the context of imperialist superpower rivalry. This policy is continuing with all the thorns in the relationship represented by Taiwan, Hong Kong and the US stance on China’s human right violations. US investments in China total $ 8.5 billion so far along with $ 9 billion a year in exports and China enjoys MFN status.
The lobbying done by Tibetans-in-exile to link MFN status with human rights violations by the Chinese government has been unsuccessful. Developing and maintaining good relations with China has high priority with Washington, not only for trade and business considerations. Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia is perceived as a current major danger by both, in fact by most governments of the world. China has a substantial Muslim minority within its own territory – the Hui Muslims – apart from the Muslim peoples in East Turkestan. Also, backing China against ‘superpower’ Russia remains an important component of US foreign policy. Even the US Senate Resolution in 1995 on Tibet, which had urged China to support the Dalai Lama’s choice of the Panchen Lama was only an expression of concern and had no legislative clout in terms of an enforcement mechanism. And there has been no let up in the Chinese government’s policy of suppression of Tibetans’ religious and political rights since this move.
Approach of International Communist Movement
The Soviet Russian government did not take up the cause of Tibet in the 1950s. Supporting Tibetan independence would have meant allowing the same in its Central Asian Muslim Republics. In fact, after having formed independent states these Republics are supporting the independence movement in Chinese occupied East Turkestan, with which they have many links over centuries.
Internationally, and in India, the Communists did not support the issue of Tibetan independence. They accepted the theory of peaceful liberation of a backward country. They did not question the exaggerated and distorted Chinese picture of Tibetan society as being an extremely backward system of serfdom, where the degree of cruelty which characterised the exploitation, oppression and persecution of the labouring people by the serf owners was hardly paralleled in any other part of the world. The split in the Communist Party of India was precipitated by the India-China war. The CPI supported the Indian government while others took a pro-China stance. Propaganda material brought out during the Cultural Revolution period on the liberation of Tibet was widely accepted here as in Communist/Maoist circles worldwide.
The Strategies for Tibetan Independence
The Dalai Lama was able to avail of the Nehru government’s wish to present India internationally as a ‘democratic’ country vis-a-vis China, and to get asylum here along with a considerable Tibetan community. The Tibetan cause had been given verbal support by the socialists (like Jayaprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia), and the Hindu Mahasabha. ‘Social-democratic’ leaders like George Fernandes and other political luminaries had organised the First World Parliamentarians Convention on Tibet in New Delhi in March 1994. Like UN resolutions, resolutions passed at such meets have mainly rhetorical value, and are useful for parliamentary opposition groups seeking to project a progressive image. They have had no concrete impact on the status of Tibet. The aforementioned World Parliamentarians’ Meet, for example, had piously urged delegates of respective governments and international funding agencies to see to it that development aid projects are of benefit to Tibetan people and do not encourage the transfer of Chinese civilians into the area. The negative impact and politics of development aid per se as a component of imperialist penetration were, of course, not understood and exposed. In this background it is not expected that with the BJP and allies in saddle, though for how long, government stance on Tibet is going to make any radical departure from past policies.
Tibetans are realising the necessity to seek new allies in their struggle for independence. They are forging links with the other oppressed peoples of East Turkestan and Inner Mongolia, with the activists of the Chinese democratic movement and democratic forces on the subcontinent, like the Burmese democrats. It is certainly more realistic and appropriate to turn to oppressed peoples and nationalities in the third world for solidarity, who, like the Tibetans, are struggling to realise their national aspirations and seeking independence from violent and oppressive state powers.
[Written mid-1996]