By Tashi Rabgey and Tseten Wangchuk Sharlho
For the East-West Center Washington
Renewed Engagement, 2001
In the wake of Jiang Zemin’s abortive talks, the momentum to reconsider China’s Tibet policies increased. In the summer of 1998, one of China’s most trusted and highest-ranking Tibetan Buddhist leaders quietly defected to the US. As a key member of the state-sanctioned religious establishment, Arjia Rinpoche’s departure was a serious loss for the Chinese leadership.1 This was followed by the dramatic flight of the 14 year old Karmapa to Dharamsala in January 2000. Having been recognized by both the Chinese authorities and the Dalai Lama as the legitimate leader of one of the most powerful lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, the young Karmapa’s collaboration had been one of China’s best hopes for legitimizing its rule over Tibetans. These two highly visible departures indicated that even the most assiduous Chinese efforts to control the Tibetan religious elite had been unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, as the domestic political strategy began to falter, new steps were being taken in the US Congress to institutionalize US support for Sino-Tibetan dialogue.2 In this uncertain political context, China’s senior leaders convened for the Fourth Work Forum on Tibet in June 2001. Outwardly, the meeting projected confidence in the existing policy of rapid economic development combined with the reinvigoration of the Party structure throughout Tibetan areas. But the occasion was also used to readjust the official policy on engagement with the Dalai Lama. While the formal polemics remained unmodified, the senior leadership reversed the 1989 decision, formalized at the 1994 Third Work Forum, to isolate the Dalai Lama from its Tibet policy. Within months, the Chinese leadership established direct contacts with the Dalai Lama’s representatives. Public signs of a more conciliatory stance included the release of six high-profile political prisoners and the publication of a detailed article reviewing the history of Sino-Tibetan negotiations. While the by-lined article reiterated formulaic attacks on the Dalai Lama’s sincerity, it also renewed calls for his return to China.3 As a further sign of Chinese outreach to Tibetans, Gyalo Dondup was invited to make his first return trip to Tibet in July 2002.
After a year of discussions, both sides agreed to a formal visit of the Dalai Lama’s representatives in September 2002. In the first visit of its kind since 1984, a team of two envoys and two aides traveled to Beijing to meet with senior Chinese officials of the United Front. The tour also included a visit to the TAR and meetings with top-ranking ethnic Tibetan officials, including a senior provincial official from Sichuan. In a statement issued on September 29, Lodi Gyari, the head of the Tibetan delegation, gave a cautiously optimistic assessment of this visit, praising the ‘dedication and competence’ of the Tibetan officials they had met, as well as the progress and development evident in the Chinese cities they had visited. Comparing these Chinese leaders favorably to those of the early 1980s, the statement observed that there was ‘much greater flexibility’ displayed now in their ‘mental attitude.’ The statement emphasized that the purpose of the mission had been to create an atmosphere conducive to a continuing dialogue process. To signal the Tibetan government-in-exile’s commitment to the engagement, a circular was issued on September 30 by the office of the prime minister, Samdhong Rinpoche, calling on all Tibetans and Tibet supporters to refrain from public protest during Jiang Zemin’s impending visit to the US and Mexico.
In contrast to this strenuously decorous Tibetan handling of the renewed engagement, the Chinese government formally acknowledged only a private visit of expatriate Tibetans returning to see their relatives.4 Thus, when confirming his hour-long meeting with Gyari to the foreign press, TAR chairperson Legchog not only insisted on the private nature of the exiles’ visit, he also denied knowledge of their status as representatives of the Dalai Lama.5 This initial Chinese refusal to publicly acknowledge the political nature of the visit reinforced fears among Tibetans that the nascent dialogue process was a sham.6 It even prompted suggestions that Beijing had extended the invitation only to preempt the possibility of unseemly protests spoiling Jiang Zemin’s final tour abroad as head of state.7 In light of Jiang’s abortive attempts to explore informal talks in 1998, this narrow reading of Chinese motives seems unlikely. Nonetheless, public resentment against Samdhong Rinpoche’s moratorium on protests contributed to mounting pressure on the exiled Tibetan leadership to produce signs of progress in the dialogue process.
On 25 May 2003, the Tibetan delegation returned to Beijing for a second visit. Hosted once again by the United Front, the two-week mission included visits to Buddhist holy sites and meetings with high-ranking Chinese Buddhist leaders. The itinerary of the second visit did not include a visit to the TAR but the delegation’s request to visit the southeastern Tibetan town in Yunnan’s Dechen Autonomous Tibetan Prefecture was readily accommodated. Most significantly, the visit provided the first opportunity to meet with the new senior officials of the United Front following the succession to power of the fourth generation leadership. In a statement released three days after their return, the Tibetan envoy commended the new officials for their ‘attention and candor’. In an indication that a degree of confidence-building had been achieved, the statement continued: ‘Both sides agreed that our past relationship had many twists and turns and that many areas of disagreement still exist.’
The inchoate process has evidently continued to progress. In an indication of more detailed discussions having transpired, the Tibetan envoy returned from its third visit of September 2004 with a more circumspect, yet still positive, assessment. In a formal statement issued on October 13, the envoy acknowledged that there were "major differences on a number of issues, including some fundamental ones." While the envoy had met with many of the same key officials of the United Front, the latest round of discussions were said to be "the most extensive and serious" to date. Signaling an intention on both sides to continue the process, the statement read, "[b]oth sides acknowledged the need for more substantive discussion in order to narrow down the gaps and reach a common ground." Once again striking a courteous tone and commending, in particular, the competence and dedication Tibetan officials they had met, it would appear that the exiled Tibetan leadership has set their sights on continuing this process of informal talks.
Prospects
The recent breakthrough in Sino-Tibetan dialogue has unfolded in an unprecedented context. Unlike Deng Xiaoping’s overture in 1979, the Chinese have initiated the new engagement fully cognizant of the significance of the Dalai Lama to the Tibetan population. But in contrast to 1988-89, the Chinese leadership is no longer prompted by the spectacle of large-scale outbreaks of ethnic unrest. The policy of accelerated economic development combined with harsh political controls appears, on the whole, to have achieved stability throughout the Tibetan region. Over the past decade, large-scale political protests have disappeared and isolated incidents of unrest have been swiftly crushed. The economy of the TAR is now growing at double-digit rates and there are visible signs of affluence in urban centers. With Tibet effectively under control and the multi-billion dollar Great Western Development campaign now well underway, many observers question why the Chinese authorities wouldeven choose to renew direct contacts with the Dalai Lama.
The mixed signals sent during the recent visits reinforce questions about Chinese intent. On one hand, there have been clear indications that the Chinese authorities seek to be accommodating toward the exiled Tibetan leadership. Key among these was the Chinese acceptance of Lodi Gyari as the lead envoy of the Tibetan delegation. As the Dalai Lama’s Special Envoy in Washington DC and the key figure in the exiled Tibetan leadership’s US strategy, Lodi Gyari had in the past been expressly excluded by the Chinese authorities as a possible participant in any future talks. Likewise, the acceptance of the Dalai Lama’s Special Envoy in Europe, Kesang Gyaltsen, also represented a conciliatory measure by the Chinese. In a relaxation of the 1988 preconditions, the Chinese authorities overlooked the status of one of the aides as a leading official in the Tibetan government-in-exile. Moreover, the second visit followed quickly on the first – notably, within the deadline set by primeminister-in-exile Samdhong Rinpoche in his moratorium on active protests,8 enabling Tibetans to legitimize the dialogue process to their constituency in exile. During the visits, the Tibetans were given a courteous welcome not only in Beijing, but also from elite Tibetan officials in Lhasa who are regarded as particularly hostile to the Dalai Lama. Also, in contrast to the early 1980s, the Chinese did not object when the Tibetan delegation released public statements upon their return to India. Instead, a lengthy interview with Lodi Gyari was published in Dagong Bao, a Hong Kong-based newspaper closely affiliated with Beijing. Finally, some noteworthy departures in Beijing’s official rhetoric to the international press suggests a willingness to entertain the possibility of modifications in their approach to the Tibet issue.9
But while important conciliatory gestures were made toward the Dalai Lama’s representatives, there has been little indication that the Chinese leadership is interested in beginning a serious dialogue process. This was made apparent when Chinese officials immediately began downplaying the significance of the delegation by calling it a ‘private’ visit of Tibetans compatriots returning to meet relatives. The officials with whom the delegates met consistently denied to the foreign press their knowledge of the visitors’ status as official envoys of the Dalai Lama. Moreover, there has been no clear indication of any change in China’s policies in Tibet. The inflammatory public rhetoric inside Tibet denigrating the Dalai Lama has continued unabated while the political campaign to ban his image reached new heights in eastern Tibetan areas. Not only has there been no sign of a relaxation of political controls inside Tibet, the Chinese authorities have also become increasingly belligerent in their conduct toward Tibetan refugees in Nepal.10 They also objected forcefully to the Dalai Lama’s September 2003 meeting with President Bush and to his presence at the international Tibet support group meeting in Prague the following month. These unpromising developments have led to widespread speculation that the new dialogue initiative is no more than a tactical maneuver by the Chinese government to blunt international criticism of its Tibet policy.
For some observers, this view is reinforced by Hu Jintao’s tenure as Party Secretary of the TAR (1988-92), during which Beijing reasserted tight control over the region through the implementation of martial law and violent crackdowns on political demonstrations. But while Hu was clearly responsible for sanctioning these hardline measures, the political implications of his endorsement are less straightforward. The TAR was a region already rocked by political turmoil and controlled in significant ways by a military establishment when Hu was assigned to the region as a forty-six year old civilian Party official. Moreover, while Hu’s rapid rise within the Party leadership has not been distinguished by policy innovation, his early links to Hu Yaobang and the Communist Youth League suggest an inclination toward reform. There is therefore considerable uncertainty surrounding the intentions of the Fourth Generation of leadership. This is, moreover, underscored by the fact that the initial decision to reverse the 1989 policy to isolate the Dalai Lama was made under Jiang Zemin in 2001.
Thus, while the current Chinese leadership has yet to demonstrate a serious interest in initiating substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama, it would be imprudent to categorically dismiss the entire process as simply a tactic to thwart China’s international critics. To provide an assessment of the prospects for the current talks, the following survey identifies and reviews the major factors that are likely to impact the dynamics of the engagement between Beijing and the Dalai Lama.
Current Conditions
One of the key factors impacting the dynamics in the relationship between Beijing and the Dalai Lama has no doubt been international pressure. Since the exiled Tibetan leadership turned to the international community for support in 1987, foreign pressure has been a critical aspect of the Tibetan political strategy. Indeed, until the turmoil of Tiananmen intervened, the Dalai Lama’s Strasbourg proposal succeeded in compelling Beijing to consider renewing direct contact with Dharamsala. Likewise, in 1997-98, the weight of U.S. support for dialogue on the Tibet issue prompted Jiang Zemin to engage in informal exploratory talks. Yet while international pressure has been a necessary factor in breaking the impasse in talks, it seems unlikely to have been a sufficient one. The most important effect of the international opprobrium has been to draw the senior leadership’s attention to the far-flung region and to raise its importance on China’s crowded national policy agenda. Hadthere not been other Chinese interests at stake in renewed engagement, it is doubtful that the senior leadership would have initiated the recent contacts with the exiled Tibetan leadership. Given Beijing’s heightened sensitivity to foreign influence on its domestic affairs, it would be impolitic for any Chinese leader to pursue talks with the Dalai Lama solely on the basis of Western censure. But while international criticism of its Tibet policy is for the most part a low-level irritant in China’s relations with other foreign governments, it nonetheless strikes an important nerve with the Chinese leadership. Thus, in order for the process of dialogue to continue and progress, international pressure on Beijing to engage in talks is essential. In the case of the United States, the robust legislative efforts that have enabled the codification of political support for negotiations through the Tibetan Policy Act of 2002 indicates that U.S. pressure on China is unlikely to diminish in the short run.11
Another important factor affecting the Chinese leadership’s decision to open the door to talks with the Dalai Lama is uncertainty about the sustainability of current conditions inside Tibet itself. The stability of the Tibetan region has been secured at an extraordinarily high cost and Beijing is not unaware that this politically driven investment has unleashed a complex set of social and economic forces whose potential repercussions are yet unknown. Chinese economists first observed in the 1980s that the regional economy was dependent on soaring state subsidies to meet the high cost of annual expenditures (Wang and Bai 1986). Since then, this pattern of ‘blood transfusion’ has been exacerbated, leading one Chinese critic to describe the ostensible signs of development as ‘a pretense of modernization’ (Wang 1998:398-404). Moreover, there are indications that the cost of maintaining this artificial prosperity has increased over time.12 The recent launch of the Great Western Development campaign appears to have reinforced these patterns. In 2001, for example, it is estimated that for every yuan the economy grew, government spending increased by two yuan. The massive increase in state spending – 75% in 2001 alone – has been used disproportionately to finance the construction of large-scale state investment projects, such as the Gormo-Lhasa railway, and to expand the government and Party administration (Fischer 2004b).
The social impact of this rapid economic growth has been to increase inequalities throughout the region. In particular, the startling increase in expenditure on the bureaucracy and administration has given rise to unprecedented affluence among Tibetan cadres, administrators, and other salaried government workers. But the dramatic rise in living standards among these elite, predominantly urban, Tibetans has only underscored the impoverishment of the overwhelming majority of Tibetans who remain rural, illiterate, and without access to rudimentary healthcare or primary education.13 The growing sense of dispossession engendered by the widening disparities in wealth is exacerbated by the continuing influx of Chinese migrants into Tibetan areas.14 With their new skills and greater access to capital, Chinese migrants have been better able to take advantage of opportunities afforded by the new economy. The increasing prosperity of Chinese migrants has further heightened awarenessof ethnic differences and has provoked ethnic tension throughout the Tibetan region. If exacerbated, these conditions could lead to instability as a new generation of dispossessed Tibetans turns to more radicalized forms of nationalism. Thus, while the current strategy of combining rapid economic growth with harsh political controls has been successful in undermining political dissidence and social disorder in the short run, it might prove ineffective in maintaining stability over the longer term.
These concerns about the sustainability of the current stability have been reinforced by the pervasive Chinese view that even the most elite Tibetans do not appreciate the state largesse generously bestowed upon them. An acerbic remark commonly attributed to senior leader Li Ruihuan circulating in official circles through the mid-1990s was that there were only two Tibetans the central government could trust: Raidi, the highest ranking Tibetan Party official in the TAR, and Gyaincain Norbu, the governor of the TAR. The Chinese inability to win Tibetan allegiance was dramatically demonstrated by the 1998 defection of Arjia Rinpoche, one of the most trusted Tibetan Buddhist leaders in China’s political hierarchy, and the flight of the young Karmapa, once thought to be key to legitimizing China’s rule in the next generation. The departure of these two public figures, both of whom had been carefully groomed for leadership, signaled a major breakdown in the current Chinese political strategy for Tibet. They pointed not only to the fact that Beijing had yet to resolve the underlying problem of political legitimacy, but also that, even after the aggressive political and economic campaigns of the 1990s, Tibet still remained an unpredictable – and potentially unstable – region.
These public signs of policy breakdown have coincided with calls from various groups within the PRC for rethinking the official Chinese position on the Dalai Lama. Inside Tibet, critics of the hardline policies include members of the first generation of Tibetan communists, a group with considerable prestige and a degree of political capital. Alarmed by the growing repression in Tibet through the 1990s, these retired Tibetan communist elders began to complain in the late 1990s that, unlike previous campaigns, the Third Work Forum reforms had created a tense and inhospitable environment for Tibetan cadres and Party members in particular. Reinforcing their views were some senior military officials of the 18th Army, who, for political and historical reasons, have been critical of the hardline approach. In their retirement, some of these officials have become increasingly critical of the policy to isolate the Dalai Lama. In one recent document circulating among Party officials, it states, "anyone who thinks the Tibet issue should be dragged on until after the death of the fourteenth Dalai Lama is naïve, unwise and [supporting] the wrong policy." It is argued instead that it is in China’s long-term strategic interest to resolve the issue with the current exiled Tibetan leader while the historic opportunity exists.
Calls for rethinking Beijing’s policy on the Dalai Lama are also coming from the wider Chinese public. While no doubt there is still an overwhelming aversion to the Dalai Lama among the Chinese, commentaries and discussions taking place on the Chinese-language Internet indicate a growing interest in pursuing talks with the Dalai Lama. Chinese radio call-in shows on foreign broadcasts such as Voice of America and Radio Free Asia also reflect this trend. The most prominent public advocate of dialogue with the Dalai Lama has been Wang Lixiong, a Beijing-based writer whose provocative essay, The Dalai Lama is the Key to the Tibet Problem, has been circulated within the Party.15 In making his argument for a negotiated solution, Wang contends that the situation in Tibet is potentially more volatile now than during the unrest of the late 1980s because resentment against Chinese rule has now spread to the Tibetan cadres and state workers. Predicting the failure of China’s rapid economic development policy in managing Tibet, Wang calls on the Chinese leadership to find a lasting solution in partnership with the Dalai Lama while the offer to relinquish the goal of independence is still on the table. While intellectuals such as Wang are clearly outside the policy-making process, their views are now reaching a larger audience as Chinese political discourse becomes more plural and diverse.
Most importantly, Chinese analysts and scholars of foreign affairs and international studies have in recent years begun pointing out the benefits of renewing contacts with the Dalai Lama from the standpoint of China’s long-term strategic interests. In particular, it has been argued that Tibet constitutes a weak link in China’s political system that will remain vulnerable to manipulation by hostile forces until resolved. Constructive engagement with the Dalai Lama, it is argued, would serve the dual purpose of removing an irritant in China’s foreign relations while opening the door to the possibility of resolving the issue itself. Thus, for example, it was argued by academics from Beijing University at the Fourth Work Forum of 2001 that rapprochement with the Dalai Lama should be sought in order to neutralize the risk to regional strategic interests presented by the Tibet issue in the volatile region of the Indian subcontinent. These pragmatic considerations of China’s long-term strategic interests contrast sharply with the conservative political discourse of the mid-1990s, during which considerable optimism was projected about the ‘post-Dalai Lama period’.16 Now, however, Chinese policymakers have begun to argue that, instead of ending the Tibet issue for Beijing, the death of the Dalai Lama will simply eliminate China’s primary scapegoat for its problems in the region. It is increasingly predicted that by isolating the Dalai Lama, China could miss an historic opportunity to permanently resolve the issue.17
Cumulatively, these disparate factors appear to have paved the way to the recent decision to open a direct channel of communication with the Dalai Lama. Amid these growing signs of support for engagement, however, other factors are further complicating the prospects for dialogue. First, China’s global position has shifted significantly. In contrast to their post-Tiananmen isolation through the early 1990s, China has now become an active participant in the international community, expanding its role in multilateral organizations and deepening its bilateral relationships both regionally and worldwide. While this development has been taking place gradually over the past decade, the transformation accelerated dramatically in the aftermath of September 11. After years of sustained tension in Sino-US relations fueled by differences over Taiwan, the Kosovo war and the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, China has emerged as a strategic partner in the new international order, a role underscored by its diplomatic leadership in managing the North Korean nuclear crisis. While it is possible that these changing global conditions could cause Beijing to become more impervious to international opprobrium, it could also lead to a change in the Chinese framing of the Tibet issue. China’s growing international stature has prompted calls from Chinese strategists and public figures to abandon the narrative of victimhood that has long served as the dominant Chinese filter for viewing China’s place in the world and to embrace instead a ‘great power mentality.’18 The prevailing narrative of Chinese victimization has, until now, impaired the Chinese ability to view the Tibet issue objectively on its own terms. It is possible that a transformation in Chinese attitude could potentially create a political climate more conducive to Sino-Tibetan dialogue.
Another complicating factor are the ongoing shifts in regional strategic balance. In particular, India’s growing prominence in south Asia is likely to affect China’s incentive to reconsider its strategy in Tibet. Following the establishment of the Tibetan government-in-exile in India in 1959, the significance of the Tibetan region as an issue of contention in Sino-Indian relations increased dramatically, setting off a serious border conflict in 1962. While India has long recognized Chinese sovereignty over Tibet and has repeatedly given formal assurances that it will not allow ‘anti-China political activities’ in India, the exiled Tibetan political movement nevertheless constitutes a form of leverage in India’s relationship to China. The Sino-Indian Joint Declaration of 2003 was thus hailed by Chinese analysts as a formal undertaking by India not to use the Tibet card against China’s interests. But while the Sino-Indian relationship has been evolving over the past decade,19 India’s position as a regional power has been steadily growing. This process was significantly accelerated in the aftermath of September 11. While China’s strategic nexus with Pakistan has shown signs of weakening, an unprecedented strengthening of US-Indian relations has begun, leading to suggestions of a new strategic alliance.20 India’s growing stature has led to a reappraisal in Beijing of China’s strategic position in south Asia. Despite the media buildup of the recent expansion of Sino-Indian diplomatic, defense and commercial links, these two nations are increasingly competing for political, economic and strategic preeminence in the region.21 Regardless of whether India becomes an ally with the US ‘in the cause of democracy’ in opposition to China’s regional power,22 or whether India and China form their own ‘de facto geostrategic alliance to counterbalance the West,’23 it is clear that the changing dynamics in the relationship between the two regional competitors will take center stage in the coming decade. In the process, the need for Beijing to find a long-term resolution to the Tibet issue is likely to increase.
Another complicating factor in the dialogue process is the growing prestige of Tibetan Buddhism among the Chinese. Religion has long been a source of considerable ideological awkwardness in the present Dalai Lama’s relationship to Beijing. However, this has become a more complex problem as the rise in overseas Chinese interest in Tibetan Buddhism through the 1990s catapulted the Dalai Lama to a new prominence in the Chinese cultural world. This overseas phenomenon coincided with a new interest in Tibetan Buddhism – and in religion and spirituality more generally – inside China. By the late 1990s, wealthy Chinese tycoons as well as members of the emerging middle-class began to gather around charismatic Tibetan lamas for spiritual instruction. Unnerved by this growing trend, Chinese authorities ordered crackdowns of religious institutions that attracted Chinese devotees.24 In fact, according to one Chinese source, at a high-level CCP meeting in 1998, Jiang Zemin rejected the Dalai Lama’s proposal to visit Wutaishan on the basis that his religious charisma could have unpredictable effects in China.25 Until religion is normalized in the PRC, the question of the Dalai Lama’s return will likely be complicated by concerns about the potential impact of his religious authority. There are nonetheless outspoken voices within the Party such as Pan Yue who are now calling for a rethinking of the Party’s approach to religion.26 If this were to happen, then the Dalai Lama’s religious prestige could play a positive role in the development of the dialogue process.
Institutional factors are likely to play a major role in shaping and circumscribing the process of dialogue. The management of the Tibet issue has become increasingly complex and institutionalized over the past twenty years. Many more stakeholders are now involved in the process of determining China’s Tibet policy. The decision-making process includes a broad range of institutions, including the military, the foreign ministry, the Ministry of National Security, and the State Council Information Office. Through the involvement of these various institutions, there is now a more comprehensive information gathering system in place. Consequently, the Chinese leadership’s access to information about the Dalai Lama and the Tibet issue in general has increased exponentially. There has also been a diversification of the sources of policy analysis from outside the government, as new research centers and thinktanks have begun to provide specialized opinions on Tibet. The effect of this increasing complexity is that the decision-making process is now more decentralized and plural. As this process has become more diffuse and a broader range of interests is represented, Chinese perspectives on the Dalai Lama and the Tibet issue have become more varied and competing interests have emerged.
Not only are there now more stakeholders providing input on China’s Tibet policy, the United Front’s bureaucratic infrastructure for managing Tibetan affairs has also become significantly more complex. As the Party organ formally charged with the task of establishing broad alliances with non-Party organizations and interest groups, the United Front is responsible for managing the affairs of all national minorities. Despite this formal mission, Tibetan affairs is being accorded an extraordinary share of institutional attention and resources. Thus, for example, within the Nationalities and Religion Bureau, or the ‘Second Bureau,’ four of the six departments are specifically designated to handle Tibetan issues, while the interests of the remaining fifty-four minority nationalities are all combined in a single department.27 This prioritization of Tibetan affairs not only gives an indication of the extent to which resources are now being channeled toward Tibet, it also pointsto the increasing bureaucratization of the official handling of the Tibet issue itself. While this institutional expansion suggests an increased professionalization of the Chinese approach to the Tibet issue, it also points to the possibility of greater bureaucratic impediments to change and innovation. Procedural rigidity in the bureaucratic structure and institutional resistance to initiative within the Chinese political system could potentially exert a conservative force over the United Front’s handling of policy toward the Dalai Lama.
Above the United Front, a ‘leading small group’ has been established to coordinate high-level management of Tibetan affairs. The creation of this high-level interagency coordinating body points to the policy importance of Tibetan affairs for the Chinese leadership.28 Presently, the Tibet work leading small group is led by the chairperson of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and includes not only the head of the United Front, but also the Minister of Public Security, pointing to the significance of the Tibet issue to national security. In 2003, the foreign minister was also added to the membership of the group, a move that underlined the significance of the Tibet issue to China’s foreign policy. The establishment of the leading small group indicates not only that Tibet is now regarded as a key policy issue, it also suggests that the senior leadership intends to manage the issue through an institutionalized process of broad and formal consultation. As with the expansion of the United Front’s bureaucratic structure for handling Tibetan affairs, it is possible that this new form of high-level coordination will allow for less flexibility in the decision-making process on engagement in dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
In addition to this increased complexity in the policy-making process, uncertainty has also been heightened by the significant overhaul in personnel that took place after the 16th Congress. In one of the major surprises of the Tibet-related personnel shifts, the director of the Second Bureau Zhu Xiaoming was transferred to a post at Beijing’s Socialist University. While this move was formally a promotion within the ranks, it effectively removed Zhu from any position of influence in the decision-making process for Tibet policy. This is significant because Zhu had played a key role in formulating the official Chinese policy toward the Dalai Lama through the 1990s. In particular, he had taken the lead in outlining the basis of rejecting the Dalai Lama’s Middle Way doctrine.29 As a highly effective and articulate policymaker with close links to the TAR military establishment, Zhu had been widely expected to be promoted to a deputy head position within the United Front with responsibility for Tibetan affairs. The transfer of Zhu Xiaoming follows on the earlier retirement of Jiang Ping, the deputy head who had been in charge of Tibetan affairs for well over a decade. A rigid and conservative old-school communist, Jiang was widely perceived as particularly insensitive toward Tibetan concerns during the first round of Sino-Tibetan talks in the early 1980s.
With the departure of these two key figures, an entirely new team has been assembled to manage Tibet policy. Following the 16th Party Congress, Liu Yandong, a highly competent and skilled administrator with links to Hu Jintao, has been promoted to the head of the United Front. Zhu Weibi, an outside official who is known to have strong connections to former senior leader, Li Ruihuan, has been appointed as a deputy head with responsibility for Tibet. Zhu Xiaoming was replaced as director of the Second Bureau by Chang Rongjun, an official of the United Front formerly responsible for relations with intellectuals. Importantly, neither of the two officials responsible for Tibet has any direct background in Tibet policy. This new team assembled under Liu’s leadership suggests the possibility of a new institutional environment for the handling of Tibet issues within the United Front. But while the United Front itself might now seem more hospitable toward the possibility of dialogue, key personnel shifts outside this managerial institution send a more mixed message about the direction of Chinese policy on the Tibet issue. Thus, for example, Chen Kuiyuan, the former first TAR Party Secretary and one of the leading architects of the hardline policies of the 1990s, has recently been promoted to the position of vice-chairperson of the CPPCC, as well as to president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. Presently, among its five members, the powerful leading small group on Tibet work includes Jia Qingling, chairperson of the CPPCC, Zhou Yongkang, the minister of public security, and foreign minister Li Zhaoxing. While their specific views on dialogue with the Dalai Lama are largely unknown, these officials are widely perceived as unlikely to be proactive in advancing the Tibet issue. It therefore remains to be seen how these numerous personnel changes will affect the prospects for the ongoing engagement.
On the Tibetan side, Dharamsala has also made some important modifications in its approach to handling its relationship to Beijing. In 1979, having been caught off guard by Deng Xiaoping’s overture, the Tibetan exiles apparently dispatched the fact-finding missions to Tibet without first defining a clear set of objectives and developing a comprehensive strategy for their engagement. A decade of sporadic contacts later, the Tibetan leadership’s indecisiveness in dealing with Beijing indicated that the exiles were still ill prepared for serious talks. This was pointedly demonstrated by the uncertainty of their response to the invitation to Beijing in early 1989. Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, the key Tibetan figure in the contacts with Beijing was Gyalo Dondup, the Dalai Lama’s elder brother and the chosen conduit for Deng Xiaoping’s initial outreach. Educated in Nanjing and closely linked to the CIA in the 1950s and 60s, Gyalo Dondup brought his experience and the force of his personality to bear on his role as intermediary in the process of engagement. But while he was able to maintain the lines of communication with Beijing, Gyalo Dondup’s strong will and political views led him to controversy within the exiled community, eventually undermining his effectiveness as a conduit for the Sino-Tibetan talks. Dharamsala itself was charged by its exiled Tibetan constituency with lack of transparency in its pursuit of talks with Beijing.
In contrast to the highly personal nature of their earlier contacts with Beijing, the exiled Tibetan leadership has, over time, become considerably more systematic and professionalized in its approach to engagement. Throughout the 1990s in particular, Dharamsala sought to develop a more disciplined and consistent mechanism for developing channels of communication with the Chinese leadership. These efforts included, for example, the express designation of Lodi Gyari as the principal person authorized to act on the Dalai Lama’s behalf in the pursuit of formal talks with the Chinese government.30 In addition, a high-level task force was established to coordinate on matters relating to the process of engagement. While these efforts have no doubt served to clarify and formalize Dharamasala’s decision-making process – as much for their own domestic constituency as for their Chinese counterparts – it remains to be seen whether these new institutional arrangements will necessarily mean greater effectiveness in the pursuit of substantive negotiations.
Issues
Over more than two decades of intermittent talks, Beijing and Dharamsala have remained in fundamental disagreement about the substance of what is – or should be – in dispute between them. The exiled Tibetan leadership has consistently raised two key issues in their efforts to open talks with Beijing: the unification of all Tibetan-inhabited areas and ‘genuine autonomy.’ For their part, the Chinese have been publicly adamant that there is no ‘Tibet issue’ for discussion. Rather, they have characterized the dispute as solely a matter of the Dalai Lama’s personal return.31 Beijing’s insistence on this point is, to be sure, consistent with the general pattern of Chinese negotiating strategy (Cheng 1999). In the short run, it is likely that the differences between the parties on the issues under discussion will preclude the possibility of substantive talks. To assess longer-term prospects, the following section examines the issues raised by Dharamsala more closely in the context of recent Sino-Tibetan history and contemporary politics.
Unification
Since the early 1950s, Tibetans have made a consistent demand for the unification of all Tibetan-inhabited areas into a single administrative and political unit. This has been a contentious claim because much of the eastern and northeastern parts of the Tibetan region had been outside Lhasa’s political control when the communist Chinese forces first entered Tibet.32 The Chinese have, at various times, pointed out the difficulties of unification not only on this historical ground, but also because of the vastness of the territory in question33 and the differences in the socioeconomic stages of the various Tibetan areas.34 But while the Chinese authorities have been publicly dismissive of this issue,35 it is significant that throughout the intermittent process of Sino-Tibetan engagement, the Dalai Lama’s official representatives have consistently been permitted to travel to ethnic Tibetan areas outside the TAR. Knowing the exiled Tibetan position on the issue of unification,it is unclear why Beijing would authorize such provocative visits unless some scope existed – however limited – for its discussion in a dialogue process.
If in fact a decision were made to seek a resolution of the Tibet issue through dialogue, there would clearly be some incentive for Beijing to include all Tibetan-inhabited areas within that solution. Since Tibetans throughout the region share common concerns and political interests, it seems unlikely that a selectively applied solution could prove to be a lasting one. This was in fact the historical lesson from the Tibetan national uprising of 1959. During the 1950s, central Tibet was guaranteed a measure of political autonomy under the terms of the 17 Point Agreement while the rest of the Tibetan region was incorporated into neighboring Chinese provinces. The discrepancy in the political and socio-economic conditions across the new boundaries played a major role in precipitating the outbreak of large-scale ethnic dissent. As revolts broke out in 1955-56 against local land reforms in the eastern region of the plateau, many eastern Tibetans fled to central Tibet where thediscontent spread and eventually precipitated the March 10th uprising. The chaos that ensued effectively destroyed any hope of success for the 17 Point Agreement. If Beijing were to seek a new Sino-Tibetan accommodation, it would have to give consideration to the fact that ethnic grievances are no more likely now than in the 1950s to stop at arbitrarily drawn political borders.
While the issue of unification will no doubt prove highly contentious in any prospective talks, there are indications that the Chinese might not be as inflexible on the question of administrative restructuring as is commonly assumed. This was demonstrated, for example, by the significant revisions made in the administrative structure of Inner Mongolian areas in the early 1980s. In recent years, high-level discussions have been ongoing inside the government as well as among influential academics about the possibility of fundamentally revising the provincial administrative structure.36 Of course flexibility in administrative restructuring does necessarily mean greater regional autonomy. Indeed a revision of the current political structure might in fact serve to further fragment the Tibetan ethnographic region. Currently, the region is divided into a system of Tibetan autonomous administrative areas and units. While the Tibetan autonomous areas outside the TAR have been distributed to the neighboring Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan, these smaller units have nominally been given special administrative status within these provincial structures. Thus, the entire region of ethnographic Tibet is already, in a sense, treated by the Chinese state as administratively distinct. In the liberal political climate of the early 1980s, Tibetan cadres and intellectuals began to formally propose the consolidation of these existing autonomous Tibetan areas into a single administrative entity.37 It has been argued by Chinese-educated Tibetans that the political fragmentation of the Tibetan region is a legacy of an ill-conceived divide and rule strategy.38
These proposals for consolidation have coincided with an impetus within the existing political system toward increased regional integration. In nearly every aspect of social, political and economic life, the various Tibetan autonomous areas share far more in common with each other than with the Chinese provinces to which they have been assigned. At the administrative level, the policy challenge this has engendered has led to the development of the bureaucratic concept of wushengqu (‘the five provinces and region’).39 Composed of representatives of the TAR as well as each of the four provinces, ad hoc wushengqu bodies have facilitated the coordination and implementation of policies across the Tibetan region, particularly in the areas of religion, culture, education and the media. More recently, the concept of shezang (‘involving Tibet’) has been increasing in circulation within official administrative discourse to signify the commonality of interest throughout Tibetan autonomous areas. The emergence of these administrative concepts suggests that there is some basis for greater regional integration of the Tibetan autonomous areas from the standpoint of policy management.
Ironically, the integrative forces at work at the administrative level have been powerfully reinforced by the Chinese state itself in its drive to modernize and integrate Tibet with the rest of China. The revitalization and mobilization of myths, traditions and cultural symbols across the Tibetan plateau in service of the official minority policy have inadvertently created a momentum toward greater cultural integration. This process has been accelerated by the aggressive promotion of the tourism industry in the development of the regional economy. As the commodification of Tibetan culture has proliferated and expanded to the furthest reaches of Tibetan-inhabited areas, shared ties to language, history and religious culture have been strengthened throughout the region. Propelled by the engine of the media as well as by advances in technology and transportation links across the plateau, these forces have reinforced a pan-Tibetan identity and provided a new cultural logic for the concept of a ‘Greater Tibet’. This internal compulsion toward greater regional integration suggests that the question of Tibetan unification is one that will remain a concern for the Chinese state regardless of the demands of exiled Tibetans.
Genuine Autonomy
While the idea of political independence is pervasive among Tibetans, the Dalai Lama firmly maintains that he seeks only ‘genuine autonomy’ within the framework of the PRC. Over the protracted course of Sino-Tibetan engagement, the Dalai Lama has elaborated his political vision in various ways, but he has nonetheless remained committed to the core principle of pursuing autonomy over outright independence. This has raised the possibility of adopting the ‘one-country two-systems’ model in resolving the dispute. Ironically, a prototype of this formula was embodied in the 17 Point Agreement, the Sino-Tibetan accommodation forcibly imposed on the Tibetan government in 1951. While the Dalai Lama repudiated the document upon fleeing to exile in 1959, it is regarded in Beijing as an important legal milestone in Sino-Tibetan history. Thus, when the Dalai Lama’s representatives raised the ‘one-country, two-systems’ formula during the 1982 exploratory talks, the Chinese distinguished the Tibetan case from that of Taiwan and Hong Kong on the ground that Tibet had already been ‘liberated’ by the 17 Point Agreement.
Overseas Chinese commentators have subsequently suggested that the agreement should serve as the basis for prospective Sino-Tibetan talks on local autonomy.40 This would likely be a politically untenable course of action for the exiled Tibetan leadership since its constituency has long vilified the agreement as an historic compromise of Tibetan sovereignty. But having publicly pursued the limited goal of political autonomy since 1988, it should not be entirely unfeasible for the Dalai Lama to draw on the agreement as a means of advancing the dialogue process. However, the real question is not whether exiled Tibetans might find reason to return to the 17 Point Agreement, but rather whether the Chinese leadership could ever be persuaded to uphold its terms. The paradoxical situation at present is that while Beijing insists on the legitimacy of the 1951 agreement, it has been steadfastly unwilling to countenance the political arrangement embodied in its provisions. Indeed, despite the formalities of the Chinese legal system, there is less autonomy in Tibet than there is in any other region or province of the PRC. The high degree of Tibetan autonomy promised by the 17 Point Agreement would require a major devolution of power from Beijing, an unlikely prospect under current conditions.41
There is in fact no indication at present of any interest in Beijing in devolving power regionally to Tibetans. Indeed, the State Council declared in its recent White Paper on Regional Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet that the existing framework for regional autonomy has long provided the Tibetan people equal rights within "the big family of the Chinese nation and [the] right to autonomy in Tibet."42 Issued May 2004, the White Paper establishes in no uncertain terms that the current Chinese leadership is staunchly resolved against any discussions regarding the institutions of autonomy in Tibet. While it is not insignificant that the document acknowledges, in passim, that autonomy "needs to be improved and developed in the course of implementation," it concludes forcefully that, "Any act aimed at undermining and changing the regional ethnic autonomy in Tibet is in violation of the Constitution and law, and it is unacceptable to the entire Chinese people, including the broad masses of the Tibetan people."
It is noteworthy that the larger question of the appropriate distribution of power between the center and the regions is now being raised in the margins of public discourse within China itself. Both scholars and policymakers alike have observed that in a political entity of the PRC’s magnitude, a high concentration of power at the center is antithetical to the state’s long-term interests.43 It has been pointed out that since highly centralized decision-making processes discount the diversity of interests in local areas, the concentration of power in the current political structure has led to inefficiency in management. In overlooking ‘natural conditions, cultural traditions and economic interests,’ the prevailing power configuration tends to trigger resentment against the state and fuel ‘local separatism.’44 Policymakers have thus been actively exploring plans to revise the current administrative structure to find a more reasonable distribution of power between the centerand provinces.45
If this drive to create greater efficiency in the structure of management were to continue, it could eventually have the effect of reinforcing centrifugal forces within the Chinese political system. Some Chinese political theorists argue that in order to preserve the unity of a ‘mega-state’ like the PRC, it is in fact essential to allow for greater power-sharing through a federal system of government.46 If at some point momentum toward federalization were to develop, the prospects for a high degree of Tibetan self-rule would not appear unfavorable. Indeed, Tibet would present an ideal test case for the implementation of the principle of local autonomy within the PRC. Not only is the Tibetan region defined both by physical geography as well as a distinct cultural-linguistic world, it is also the only region that had its own formal government prior to incorporation into the PRC. Tibetans are thus the only official minority group with whom the Chinese were compelled to conclude a formal agreement in order to validate the imposition of their rule. Moreover, in no other region does Beijing continue to confront a similarly consistent and cohesive challenge to the legitimacy of their rule. Distinguished by its history as a separate civilization-state emerging in tandem but independently of the Chinese cultural world, Tibet is sui generis within modern China. Unless a political arrangement for a measure of genuine self-rule can be found for Tibet, it is difficult to believe that any future attempt to formulate a principle of local autonomy within a less centralized Chinese state can prove to be meaningful.
Lessons
This study indicates that the conditions for Sino-Tibetan engagement are in many respects better now than during the first round of talks in the early 1980s or during the eleventh-hour effort to restart discussions in 1988-89. In contrast to earlier initiatives, there is now significant pressure from both international and domestic sources to enter into dialogue with the Dalai Lama. While this pressure is unlikely to have been sufficient to compel Beijing to revise its policy on dialogue, it has nonetheless ensured that the chronic issue of Tibet has been kept on the crowded national policy agenda. As well, there are now growing concerns about the longer-term effects of the accelerated economic development program in the Tibetan region. Contrary to expectations, there are indications that rapid economic expansion is giving rise to widening disparities in wealth and a heightened sense of ethnic cleavage and dispossession among Tibetans. At the same time, however, a number of factors – such as China’s role in the global order, the regional strategic balance and the role of religion – will have less certain effects on the prospects for Sino-Tibetan dialogue. Among these complicating factors, one of the most striking has been the recent institutional restructuring of Beijing’s decision-making process in managing the Tibet issue. These recent developments might in fact have a negative impact on the progress of Sino-Tibetan engagement. Moreover, there are still fundamental differences between the two sides on the substantive issues on the table. Until this gap is narrowed, the prospects for finding a negotiated resolution to the Sino-Tibetan dispute appear daunting.
In view of these unpromising circumstances, many Tibetan exiles and international supporters have reacted to the recent Sino-Tibetan initiative with considerable skepticism. It is widely believed within these communities that the Chinese government is insincere in their efforts to restart discussions with the Dalai Lama and, moreover, that they are in any case incapable of meeting Tibetan demands under current political conditions. In this analysis, it makes more sense for the exiled Tibetan leadership to wait for a better historical moment to pursue a deal with Beijing. This option turns on the assumption that fundamental change in China – whether through a transition to a new political system or through internal collapse – would put Tibetans in a better position to bargain. Until then, it is argued that Tibetans should continue to expand the international campaign to build momentum for future Tibetan self-determination. Political capital and resources could then be concentrated not in advancing a half-hearted process of sporadic engagement but rather in strategically gathering more international support and preparing Tibetans for an historic opportunity to retake control of their homeland. By turning their back on Beijing altogether, the exiled Tibetan leadership’s key asset – the legitimacy conferred by the Dalai Lama’s return – would be preserved for a better day and a better deal.
There are of course important risks and costs inherent in this strategy. One is that, with the passage of time, the exiles will likely become further distanced from the reality of ordinary Tibetans inside Tibet. It is unclear how sustainable the political movement will be if the Tibetan constituency in the diaspora continues to become integrated into their host societies and further isolated from contemporary Tibetan politics. Second, after the passing of the current Dalai Lama, the unifying force for the Tibetan movement will disappear. The nature of the Tibetan political campaign will change, becoming more decentralized and possibly fragmenting into competing factions. In this scenario, there is likely to be – at least in the short run – no clear authority capable of providing leadership and effectively representing all Tibetans in seeking a better political deal with the Chinese. Moreover, the emergence of extremist groups promoting violent resistance to Chinese rule would not be implausible (Goldstein 1997:116).
The second option for Tibetans is to continue the current policy of engagement regardless of the sincerity of China’s interest in resolving the issue. By entering a dialogue process, there is at least the possibility that Tibetans can become a player in the deliberations over the future of contemporary Tibet. But it is widely feared that this would also undercut the international movement, an important leverage for Tibetans in the dialogue process. Bolstering this fear is the widespread suspicion that Beijing has no intention of pursuing substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama and that this process of intermittent talks is simply a ploy to buy time until his death (Sperling 2002). If the Dalai Lama passes away while a dialogue process is underway, Beijing would be in a better position to claim legitimacy in the race to recognize the next Dalai Lama. The fact that Beijing has already established a committee to begin preparations for the fifteenth Dalai Lama suggests that Tibetan suspicions of Chinese motives are not unwarranted. The Dalai Lama’s policy of engagement therefore carries a significant risk. If it fails, the idea of peaceful coexistence within the framework of a Chinese state will have been discredited. The next generation of Tibetans will be less likely to be responsive to his moderate approach.
From the Chinese standpoint, negotiating with the Dalai Lama is likely to be viewed as only one of several options available to them in resolving the Tibet issue. Tibet is now firmly under Beijing’s control and, under current conditions, the regional economy can be propped up for the foreseeable future. Politically, Beijing has both the will and the requisite authoritarian system of government to enforce draconian measures to maintain stability. Internationally, the criticism of China’s Tibet policy represents only a mild irritant in its foreign relations. Under these relatively secure conditions, it would appear to the Chinese leadership that they are in a strong position to choose on their own terms how to manage the Tibet issue. However, viewed from a longer-term perspective, it is clear that Beijing is also faced with some difficult choices.
One option the Chinese leadership is likely to be considering is to continue expanding its current strategy of accelerated economic development in hopes that growing prosperity will erode nationalist sentiments and increase acceptance of Chinese rule. This strategy assumes that as Tibetans become more affluent, they will become assimilated to mainstream Chinese norms and grow increasingly averse to disruptions in the status quo. But there are strong reasons to doubt the success of this strategy. First, the pattern of China’s economic development has been to widen socio-economic disparities. In the Tibetan context, the highly unbalanced growth has benefited only a fraction of the population while the vast majority of Tibetans have been sidelined in the expanding economy. Since Tibetans view the widening inequalities through an ethnic lens, the main impact of rapid economic growth has been to heighten ethnic cleavage and tension. Second, the large-scale sinocization of Tibetans would require a serious investment of resources in developing education throughout the entire region, an undertaking for which there has been little official interest. Since resources have thus far been concentrated on the education of a small elite, there are rural Tibetan communities throughout the plateau where, even after fifty years of Chinese rule, no fluent speakers of Chinese can be found. But even if education were improved dramatically throughout all Tibetan areas, there is no guarantee that a Chinese education would lead to a diminishing of Tibetan national sentiment. In fact, as Tibetans become more educated in Chinese, the tendency has been for a heightened sense of Tibetan identity to develop. There are indications that a new generation of Tibetans – bilingual and bicultural – is increasingly willing to publicly articulate Tibetan sentiments to a wider Chinese-language audience.
Alternatively, the Chinese leadership could be considering the option of demographically overwhelming the Tibetan population. This has been the dominant pattern of Chinese settlement in frontier regions throughout history. The plausibility of the demographic solution for Tibet is frequently bolstered by the analogy to the European settling of America. However, in contrast to the Europeans who were obliged to cross an ocean, the Chinese have inhabited land contiguous to the Tibetan plateau for several millennia. The fact that Chinese migration onto the Tibetan plateau did not occur until recent decades points not only to the inhospitable geography of the region, but also to natural limits on the potential for productive economic activity. A more illuminating model for understanding Chinese migration into Tibet is the Soviet settlement of Siberia.47 In both Siberia and Tibet, political motivations have driven the settlement of large numbers of people into a harsh, distantregion where market forces would never have brought them. In the case of Tibet, the influx of migrants has been driven by the massive state-subsidization of economic activity in the region.48 The Soviet example suggests that in addition to the short-term costs associated with maintaining the artificial prosperity, the strategy of population transfer might also burden Beijing with painful long-term costs as well. Even if Beijing were willing to bear the economic costs of a massive resettlement of people, recent Chinese research indicates that the physical pressure of such an increase in population would have devastating consequences for both the environment and economy of the region.49
Despite the strong likelihood of undercutting China’s long-term interests, however, Beijing is likely to regard these options as the most rational and expedient strategies forward. The alternative of pursuing a negotiated settlement with the Dalai Lama, in contrast, would require the Chinese leadership to take seriously the Tibetan demand for a degree of genuine self-rule within a consolidated Tibetan ethnic homeland. This does not seem a likely scenario under present circumstances, as China’s political system of one-party rule would appear to preclude the possibility of any real devolution of power to a regional authority. Even so, the economic and demographic solutions to China’s Tibet problem would require a considerable length of time, possibly generations, to succeed. In the meantime, a host of unpredictable factors could destabilize the region, whether directly by strengthening Tibetan nationalism or indirectly by weakening the central Chinese leadership. Either way, the door to ethnic unrest in the region would remain open. The vulnerability of the plateau is thus likely to be a drag on China as it seeks to rise to a position of international preeminence.
While a negotiated resolution to the Sino-Tibetan dispute appears to be out of reach for now, Beijing might well seek to involve the Dalai Lama in a dialogue process as a part of a mixed strategy to contain any potential conflict in the Tibetan region. As a moderate leader who brings both international prestige and the weight of history, the Dalai Lama’s involvement is capable of transforming both the Tibetan and world perception of China’s rule in the region. Moreover, the devotion he commands would ensure that the high-risk enterprise of dialogue does not spiral out of control, but rather proceeds systematically with the consent of the Tibetan population. It is likely that the real question is not whether the Chinese leadership is aware of the significance of this singular opportunity, but rather whether they are willing to accept the risks associated with entering a dialogue process. The force of inertia and conservatism that currently pervades the Chinese political system suggest that the leadership will be averse to taking these risks. But while Beijing can perhaps afford to put off other high-risk political issues, the Dalai Lama’s lifespan concretely defines the window of opportunity available to work toward a political solution for Tibet.
If Beijing and the Dalai Lama were to seriously pursue the option of dialogue, both parties would have to become fully committed to the process. At present, Beijing has evidently adopted a dual strategy of pursuing direct contacts with the exiled Tibetan leadership while maintaining a high degree of political repression inside Tibet. This strategy has peculiar consequences, such as the contradiction in the United Front’s self-proclaimed duty to ‘oppose the Dalai Lama’ and its role as host to the exiled leader’s official representatives. The continuation of repression inside Tibet is driven primarily by Beijing’s fears that a relaxation of policies could lead to renewed ethnic unrest as it did in the 1980s. But this strategy inevitably reinforces China’s negative international image and triggers new waves of condemnation. This in turn has the effect of discrediting the dialogue initiative among Tibetan exiles and undermines the Dalai Lama’s efforts to seek a negotiated solution. To break out of this cycle, the Chinese leadership would have to send clear signals of its commitment to a dialogue process. Toward this end, the first step that can be taken is to normalize the Dalai Lama in its public discourse by ending officially sanctioned political campaigns against him. This would require a public reversal of the formal condemnation of the Dalai Lama in the mid- 1990s. A second preliminary measure would be to legitimize the dialogue process by formally acknowledging its existence. Only under these conditions would it be possible for the Dalai Lama to begin to play a constructive role in building domestic Tibetan support for a new political solution.
While it is clear how Beijing would benefit from such a dialogue process, it is less apparent what Tibetans would stand to gain. Indeed, one of the challenges before the exiled Tibetan leadership is to provide its constituents a convincing rationale for its pursuit of talks with Beijing under present circumstances. While Dharamsala has pursued the goal of dialogue with discipline and tenacity over the past decade, it has yet to publicly articulate a political vision that can provide a conceptual framework for its political strategy. In the absence of a coherent theory for its current political project, the exiled Tibetan leadership will likely find itself in an increasingly awkward position as the dialogue progresses. Thus, for instance, if, as it is widely hoped, the Dalai Lama were to make a symbolic visit to China as an interim measure in the dialogue process, Dharamsala would likely find itself hard-pressed to explain to the Tibetan public precisely what Tibetans had gained from the exchange. With Tibetan self-rule still nowhere near within reach, the Tibetan leadership would, at minimum, have to identify other forms of quid pro quo for its participation in the process.
If Dharamsala were to continue with the current strategy of engagement, one possible interim goal might be the expansion of public space inside Tibet. This would entail Beijing alleviating repression in the region by lifting the legal measures and contending with the local political mechanisms that have enabled the restrictive conditions to exist. By relieving the pervasive sense of fear among Tibetans, it would become possible to legitimately raise questions of local interests and local autonomy in normal public discourse. Once these discussions are no longer driven underground, it might then be possible to involve local Tibetan officials, policymakers, community leaders, educators, researchers, scholars and other stakeholders in a broad conversation on the pressing concerns of Tibetans across the plateau. These could include issues ranging from language protection, land rights, and education, to urban development, the sustainability of rural economies, and the control oflocal resources. By providing a mechanism for systematically identifying these needs, it might then possible for the dialogue process between Beijing and the Dalai Lama to become not only a risk management strategy for the Chinese leadership, but also a structuring activity for both parties toward future substantive negotiations on Tibet’s autonomous future.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the two sides will see fit to seriously pursue the process of give-and-take bargaining. In light of the unpromising conditions for earnest negotiations, it seems more likely that the parties will prefer to continue to talk about talks for the foreseeable future. This would not be without real benefits. For over two decades, the prospect of formal talks has provided a means and a structure for the two sides to develop a better understanding of the position and constraints of their respective counterparts. Indeed, the open-ended process of talking about talks has enabled Beijing and Dharamsala to explore the risks of engagement and reduce the uncertainty of political stakes without, for the most part, the pressure of public scrutiny. The question now surely being asked on both sides is how to make the most of the latest round of talks about talks. For Tibetan exiles, the key question is whether they will be able to credibly maintain their political leverage – the legitimacy conferred by the Dalai Lama’s return – if and when the talks run aground. This would become particularly important if the Dalai Lama were to pass away while talks were actively in process. For Beijing, the conundrum is whether they should start taking real political risks on a solution to a problem that has yet to even manifest. The alternative, of course, is to accept the unknown risk of ethnic unrest in a post-Dalai Lama Tibet. While it is too soon to speculate on the consequences of the most recent discussions, there is no doubt that the prospect of dialogue will continue to play a powerful role in shaping not only the relationship between Beijing and the Dalai Lama, but also the character of the Sino-Tibetan dispute itself.
1 A standing committee member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and deputy chairman of the state-controlled Chinese Buddhist Association, Arjia Rinpoche publicly stated in March 2000 that he left China because he could no longer uphold his responsibilities in the repressive conditions in Tibet.
2 The Tibetan Policy Act was introduced to both houses of Congress on May 9, 2001, coinciding with the Dalai Lama’s visit to the US. Among the range of issues addressed by the bill was the codification of the position of the Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues at the State Department. As such, the bill offered practical support from the US toward the Sino-Tibetan negotiations.
3 ‘Fresh comments on negotiations between 14th Dalai Lama and the central government,’ China’s Tibet, as cited in ‘Inside story of negotiations,’ in Xinhua, February 2, 2002.
4 This was the reason given in the only mention of the visit in the Chinese media. China Daily, March 2003. On the second day of the visit, foreign ministry spokesperson Kong Quan repeated this official position and furthermore denied knowledge of the visitors’ identity. New York Times, September 10, 2002.
5 Reuters, September 17, 2002.
6 ‘A crowning sheen to China’s 50-year rule?’, Tibetan Review, October 2002, vol.xxxvii, p.1.
77 Tsering Shakya, RFA interview, mid-September 2002; Jamyang Norbu, (2002).
8 This appears to rule out the argument frequently made by Tibetan exiles that the first invitation had been extended simply to neutralize embarrassing protests before Jiang Zemin’s final state visit to the US.
9 For example, in his formal remarks in Paris in January 2004, Hu Jintao pointedly left out Jiang Zemin’s precondition that the Dalai Lama recognize Taiwan’s status as a province of China; Ming Pao, January 28, 2003. Jiang established this as a precondition to talks during the joint Clinton-Jiang press conference in June 1988. See also Premier Wen Jiabao’s comments to the press in his November 2003 visit to the U.S.; Washington Post, November 23, 2003.
10 For example, the Chinese government prevailed upon the Nepalese authorities to deport 18 Tibetan refugees.
11 The Tibetan Policy Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush on September 30, 2002, as part of Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2002 and 2003 (H.R. 1646). The Act represents a milestone in the institutionalization of U.S. political support for Sino-Tibetan dialogue. Under the heading "Tibet Negotiations," the provisions of section 613 of the Act require the president and the secretary to encourage the Chinese government to enter into a dialogue with the Dalai Lama. It also provides for a presidential reporting mechanism on the specific steps taken toward "a negotiated agreement on Tibet" and the status of any discussions between Beijing and the Dalai Lama. It is noteworthy that in his formal statement on the Foreign Relations Authorization Act as a whole, President Bush expressed concern that a number of provisions of the Act "impermissibly interfere with the constitutional functions of the presidency in foreign affairs." But his statementof intention "to construe as advisory" those provisions that "direct or burden the conduct of negotiations by the executive branch" appears not to have been directed at the provisions concerning Sino-Tibetan dialogue. See statement by the President, Office of the Press Secretary, September 30, 2002.
12 For example, a Chinese research study found that the fixed capital cost of increasing workers in Tibetan areas has increased 7.5 times over the past decade. In the 1980s, the cost to increase one worker was 3,508 yuan, while in the 1990s it was 29,510 yuan. Wang Tianjin (1998:94).
13 The average household income per person among the rural population of the TAR in 2001 (predominantly ethnic Tibetan) was the lowest of throughout the PRC, estimated at 1,404 yuan (US$170). National Bureau of Statistics of China, Statistical Yearbook of China 2002 (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 2002), 331, 345. For an analysis of the rural/urban divide from the 2000 census, see Fischer (2004a).
14 According to the 2000 population census, most of the rapid urbanization in the Tibetan region has been due to Chinese and Chinese Muslim migration; Fischer (2004a).
15 ‘China and the Dalai Lama must negotiate,’ Taipei Times, November 6, 2000.
16 Throughout the mid-and late-1990s, officials of the United Front routinely asserted at large meetings that China’s problems in Tibet would disappear after the Dalai Lama’s death. Personal interview, Washington D.C., June 12, 2003.
17 There are indications that this view has begun to win supporters among the centrist reformers within the Party. The receptiveness of the Party’s centrists to the possibility of renewed engagement has been suggested by Pan Yue’s reported public espousal of talks with the Dalai Lama. See Chinaaffairs.org, August 9, 2002. For a discussion of centrist reformers, see Zhong Nanyuan, ‘Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao and their Political Advisers,’ in China Strategy, vol.1, January 30, 2004, pp.1-7.
18 In Chinese, daguo xintai. Medeiros and Fravel (2003).
19 After the strategic alignments of the Cold War came apart, the first tentative steps toward Sino-Indian rapprochement were taken, leading to the diplomatic breakthroughs of the 1990s.
20 The outlining of a strategic-partnership initiative in January 2004 signaled India’s emergence as a strategic ally of the US. ‘US boosts ties with India, pushes defense and trade initiatives,’ Wall Street Journal, 20 January 2004.
21 US Council on Foreign Relations Task Force Report, as cited in ‘China, India competing for influence: US Council,’ The Times of India, May 23, 2003.
22 David van Praagh, The Greater Game: India’s Race with Destiny and China (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003).
23 US National Intelligence Council projection, as cited in ‘India to be a major power by 2015,’ The Times of India, December 6, 2003.
24 The best known example is the 2001 crackdown on Serthar Buddhist Institute, a Tibetan Buddhist colony in eastern Tibet. An estimated eight thousand devotees were forcibly evicted and two thousand retreat huts were demolished while the abbot Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok was held incommunicado.
25 Personal interview, Washington D.C., May 7, 1999.
26 Pan Yue’s recent article on the need to transform the CCP’s attitude toward religion sparked an energetic discussion both in the Party and in the wider public. Pan Yue, ‘Makese zhuyi zongjiao guan bixu yu shi jujing,’ (Marxist view on religion must change with the times), Huaxia Shibao, December 15, 2001.
27 This is commonly referred to as the ‘combined department’, or zonghe chu. The sixth department within the Second Bureau is designated to manage religious affairs (zongjiao chu). Of the four departments designated to handle Tibetan affairs, two are designated to handle foreign-related issues while the other two handle domestic issues.
28 Leading small groups have also been established for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as for national security. See Medeiros and Fravel (2003).
29 Zhu Xiaoming argued that the Middle Way doctrine was a three-step plan toward independence; first, to unify the entire Tibetan region; second, to achieve autonomy for the region; third, to separate from China.
30 The Dalai Lama formally made this authorization in May 1998.
31 A recent elaboration of this point can be found in an article that appeared in a lengthy article in China’s Tibet. It is asserted that, "Strictly speaking there would have no ‘Tibet issue’ in the world, just as there have been no ‘Washington issue’ or ‘New York issue.’" Hua Zi, ‘What is the real intention of the United States,’ as cited in ‘Bylined article refuting US report on Tibet’, Xinhuanet, June 9, 2003.
32 Some Tibetan areas were associated Chinese warlords while many others were independently governed by tribal chieftains and local rulers. All of these areas, however, maintained interrupted relations with Lhasa through religious and cultural ties.
33 This was also the Chinese reply to the Tibetan delegates in the early 1980s; see Dawa Norbu (2001:322).
34 This was expressed by the Chinese during the Sino-Tibetan discussions before the 17 Point Agreement was signed; Phuntsok Takla, personal interview, Dharamsala, February 3, 1993. It was also later repeated during the talks of the early 1980s; see Dawa Norbu (2001:322).
35 ‘Dalai tuixing ‘Da Zangqu’ qitu weibei Xizang renmin yiyuan,’ Tibet Daily, August 21, 2002.
36 Li Zhaoqing, ‘Zengshe shengfen, xingzheng quhua tigai tansuo jianjing,’ Caijing Shibao (China Business Post), Beijing, November 29, 2003, vol. 552.
37 In one joint petition to the Central Party Committee, a group of Tibetan cadres from Qinghai and Gansu exhaustively argued the benefits of consolidating the existing autonomous areas in a single administrative entity. Petition on file with authors.
38 Derong Tsering Dondup (1995:222).
39 The equivalent Tibetan term is zhing-chen dang rang-skyong-ljongs lnga.
40 Song (1998:67). This point has also been made by Chinese analysts based inside China, including former political strategist Wu Jiaxiang.
41 In fact, there are indications that the concentration of power at the center is increasing. Jiang Zemin’s order to amend the 1984 Regional National Autonomy Law focused on measures to strengthen the ability of the state to implement its ongoing Western Development strategy. Kate Saunders, ‘National autonomy law revised to support Western Development policy,’ TIN report, March 13, 2001.
42 ‘White Paper on Regional Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet,’ Xinhua, May 23, 2004.
43 According to Bo Guili, deputy chair of the National County Level Administrative Management Research Association, the ‘structural reforms’ of the past twenty years have been, in essence, an attempt to reform the high concentration of power in the structure of management and to establish a reasonable system for power-sharing. Also, see Wang Yi ‘Zhongguo xiangzhen de zizhi he xianzheng,’ (China’s township autonomy and limited governance), Dangdai zhongguo yanjiu (Contemporary Chinese Research), 2003, vol. 83, no.4.
44 ‘Zhongguo sheng ji jianzhi keyi she wushi – liushi ge,’ Zhongguo Zhanlue, January 30, 2004, vol.1.
45 There are indications that the new central leadership is reviewing proposals to overhaul the regional administrative system; Li Zhaoqing, Caijing Shibao, November 19, 2003.
46 For example, Liu Junning, ‘Lianbang zhuyi: Ziyou zhuyi de daguo fang’an’ (Federalism: A Liberal Solution for a Mega-State), Ziyou yu chengxu: Zhongguo xuezhe de guandian (Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2002). See also Wu Jiaxiang, Tou Dui zhe Qiang: Daguo de Minzhuhua (Staring at the Wall: The Democratization of a Mega-State), (Taipei: Shiying Chubanshe, 2001). Formerly a prominent advocate of new authoritarianism, Wu Jiaxiang now argues that in order to democratize, China’s political structure must first be transformed to a federal system.
47 Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2003).
48 Since these migrant Chinese essentially provide services for the expanded and newly affluent government and Party administration, it is unclear what productive activity would be possible for these settlers in the absence of state largesse. For an analysis of the impact of Chinese migration patterns, see Fischer (2004a).
49 One collaborative research project recently pointed out that in some Tibetan areas the sustainable population capacity has already been surpassed and is causing irreversible environmental damage. Wang Tianjin (1998). The example of Inner Mongolia suggests that in order to demographically overwhelm the Tibetan population, it would be necessary to induce many millions of more non-Tibetans to settle in the region.
The paper was commissioned by the East West Center, a thinktank based in Washington D.C. The complete paper is available on Amazon.com and also free online as a PDF document the following address.
Tashi Rabgey, LL,M, is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University. Tseten Wangchuk Sharlho is presently a journalist based in Washington, D.C. Previously, he was a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.
The paper was commissioned by the East West Center, a thinktank based in Washington D.C. The complete paper is available on Amazon.com and also free online as a PDF document the following address.
