The Dalai Lama in Dharamsala

Some followers consider him a living god. The Chinese describe him as a "traitor," a "splittist," and "a wolf in monk's clothing." The Dalai Lama himself chuckles disarmingly, "In reality, I am just an ordinary human being."¹ Perhaps, but in addition to his spiritual duties guiding Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama heads what he and many others consider to be Tibet's government-in-exile located in Dharmsala, India.

Tibet is a large land of 470,000 square miles (almost twice the size of Texas), located 15,000 feet high in the Himalayas between India and China. Population figures are uncertain, but perhaps 2.5 million Tibetans (and up to an equal number of Chinese) live in Tibet. Another 2 million or so Tibetans either live in adjacent areas in China or are refugees, living mostly in northern India. China claims them as Chinese, but the Mongolian-stock Tibetans are distinct from the Han, the dominant Chinese ethnic group. Also, the Tibetan language is related more to Burmese than it is to the major variations of Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, Fukienese).

History of Tibet
Tibetans are Buddhists, but their form of Buddhism has its roots in India, not China. Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan ethnonational identity are closely connected. Perhaps one-sixth of the adult male population of Tibet were monks (lamas) in 1950. For over a thousand years, Tibet was a theocracy, ruled spiritually and politically by the Dalai Lama and other lamas. The current, fourteenth Dalai Lama was just 5 years old when he was enthroned in 1940.

Tibet was an independent kingdom from the 800s to the 1300s. It then came under the sway of the Mongols of Ghengis Khan. The dynasty founded by his grandson, Kublai Khan, also ruled China. The Mongols were expelled from China after about a century, but they continued to rule their homeland and Tibet. As Mongol power ebbed, Tibet exercised increased autonomy, and in 1577 the Mongol emperor Altan Khan gave political authority in Tibet to the ranking lama, So-nam gya-tso, and designated him Dalai Lama (lama of all within the seas). The new temporal powers of the Dalai Lama eventually led to increased spiritual authority of the Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism. Soon, however, Tibet's autonomy was eclipsed. Chinese influence grew, and a massive invasion by China in 1751 firmly established the Chinese emperor's suzerainty over Tibet.

What this history shows is that Tibet was clearly independent for about 600 years, then for another 600 years was in a political twilight zone, neither fully sovereign nor completely subordinate to the Mongols, then to the Chinese. A new era of Tibetan independence began in 1911, when imperial China collapsed, and lasted until 1950, when Chinese forces again seized control. At first, the Dalai Lama remained in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, and exercised some local authority. Then in 1959 the Tibetans revolted against China. They were crushed, almost 100,000 Tibetans were killed, and the Dalai Lama and a large number of supporters fled south to India and established a government-in-exile at Dharmsala. Subsequently, the Chinese revoked Tibet's autonomy and demolished or converted to other uses almost all of its important monasteries and nunneries in an effort to wipe out Tibetan religion and culture. The Dalai Lama claims (and China denies) that, overall, 6,000 monasteries have been closed or destroyed and 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed by the Chinese since 1950.

The Issue of Independence
The issue of Tibet is complicated. One difficulty is that concepts such as independence and sovereignty have been less clear-cut in Asia and other parts of the world than in the more legalistic West. Without any sense of irony, the communist government in Beijing traces its authority back through centuries of Chinese emperors, who, depending on their own fortunes, exercised greater or less control over Tibet. The Tibetans concede that they long were subjects of the Ming and Manchu dynasties, but the Tibetans argue that they were autonomous because of the loose way that imperial China dominated subordinate regions. Moreover, the Tibetans argue that even to the extent that they were subordinate, they were under the suzerainty of the emperor, not China. This point relates to the fact that the connection between monarchs and national countries is a relatively modern phenomenon, as discussed elsewhere in this text. In an earlier era, emperors ruled subjects in various lands, and while the emperor's court was physically located in one place or another, that did not necessarily connect all the subjects of the emperor with territory where the imperial court and capital were located. The Tibetans' claims also rest on their cultural distinctiveness, including the nearly inseparable spiritual and temporal intertwining of the Dalai Lama and Tibet (Kolarings, 1996).

The Chinese Influence
China also contends that its control is valid because Tibet was long ruled by an oppressive theocracy that kept the country backward and in poverty. In a defense of its policies published in 1996, Beijing claimed, for example, that "when the Dalai Lama ruled Tibet there were few schools in the region, and 95 percent of the people were illiterate." By comparison, the New China News Agency story went on, "Tibet now has thousands of schools... drastically reducing the illiteracy rate."² Perhaps, but there is no firm evidence that the Tibetans are better off now than they might otherwise be. More important, few Tibetans feel liberated by the Chinese. "We will wait for our moment, you'll see," says a female stallholder in a Lasha market. "As soon as we can, we'll regroup, demonstrate, and drive the Chinese out."³

China is trying to deal with the issue of Tibet in a number of ways. One is to oppose vigorously efforts to raise the status of Tibet as an international issue. Typically, Beijing angrily characterized one international attempt to discuss Tibet as an "open, flagrant violation of international law and a serious case of interference in China's internal affairs."⁴

A second approach is to undermine Tibetan identity. As noted, many monasteries and nunneries were destroyed or closed, and political activity is ruthlessly repressed. "Everyone is so nervous here," says a Lasha shopkeeper. "No one knows what the Chinese are going to do next. They have destroyed the underground movement. All the monks and nuns are terrified."⁵ Beijing is also trying to mute Tibetan identity by diluting the population with emigrant Han Chinese and their culture. The Dalai Lama condemns the "mass influx of Chinese" along with "the destruction of [Tibetan] cultural artifacts and traditions" as "cultural genocide."⁶

The most recent episode in the struggle between Dharmsala and Beijing began in 1989 after the death in Tibet of the tenth Panchen Lama. Becoming either the Dalai Lama or the Panchen Lama is believed to be based on direct reincarnation. Two competing groups, one composed of the Dalai Lama and his supporters, the other consisting of a group of Tibetan lamas influenced by Beijing, each searched for a young boy to be proclaimed the reincarnated eleventh Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama announced success in May 1995 in the form of a five-year-old Tibetan boy, Gedhum Cheokyi Nyima. The Chinese government responded by allegedly spiriting the boy off to China and by claiming that he could not be the Panchen Lama because his family was "notorious among their neighbors" and because he had reportedly drowned a dog, "a heinous crime in the eyes of the Buddha." Soon thereafter, China announced that monks in Lhasa, under the watchful eye of a Chinese official, had found the true Panchen Lama, six-year-old Cyaincain Norbu. According to one study, "This was not the first time in Buddhist tradition where opposing views [have been] strongly held about the reincarnation of major Lamas.... Nor is it the first time in Tibetan history where foreign powers [have interfered] to support one particular reincarnation... over another" (Constantinou, 1996). What makes these competing boys important is the authority that would accrue to the Chinese if their selection as Panchen Lama prevails. Success would also mean that the Chinese would have set a precedent to be involved in finding the next reincarnation of the Dalai Lama when the current, now aging, incarnation dies.

For now, though, the Dalai Lama is very much alive, and with China's oppression of the Tibetans largely hidden from the outside, the Dalai Lama is the most effective tool that the government-in-exile has to rally public support. He has traveled extensively, and his self-effacing demeanor and his advocacy of nonviolence have won Tibet considerable sympathy. One indication of this came when the Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

The Dalai Lama has also worked to win official support for Tibet. During his trip to Europe in 1995, for example, the European Parliament passed a resolution that noted that "throughout history Tibet has succeeded in maintaining a national, cultural, and religious identity distinct from China," and that "reaffirm[ed] the illegal nature of the invasion and occupation of Tibet by China in 1950."⁷ Over China's protests, the Dalai Lama also spoke to Germany's parliament. Similarly, Germany's main legislative body, the Bundestag, passed a resolution condemning China's human rights record in Tibet.

What neither the current Dalai Lama nor any of his earlier incarnations have been able to do is win international support for Tibetan independence. For instance, in 1909, with the Chinese imperial court in its death throes, the thirteenth Dalai Lama appealed to Great Britain for support. This was rejected by London, according to a British document, on the grounds that Tibet was a "worthless piece of territory" (Heberer, 1995:303). The British were not alone in this view. During the 1911-1950 period of Tibetan independence, no country extended diplomatic recognition to Lasha. Thus, by the standards of the international system, a key element of what would make Tibet a state was missing.

The view of Tibet as strategically and economically unimportant, especially compared with China, continues to govern policy in most capitals. On a trip to the United States, the Dalai Lama was able to appear on Ted Koppel's Nightline and even meet with Vice President Gore, although Chinese protests precluded a visit to the Oval Office. Similarly, the sympathetic resolution in Germany's Bundestag prompted worried near-apologies by the government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Concerned about German exports to China ($18 billion in 1995), a Kohl spokesperson hastened to reassure Beijing that "We'd like to see cultural autonomy" for Tibet, but "that is in no way recognition.... We want Tibet to continue to belong to China." ⁸

The Future of Tibet
It is difficult to assess the future of Tibet, but the omens are ominous. The Sinocentric political culture of China discussed in Chapter 4 means that Beijing will not surrender its claim to Tibet or even grant it significant autonomy. It is also unlikely that China would allow the return of the current Dalai Lama, given his political activity. Indeed, China is so alarmed by the Dalai Lama's influence that it threatened the Disney Corporation with economic sanctions in 1996 if the company proceeded with a planned movie about the spiritual leader. China's willingness to tolerate a future Dalai Lama in Tibet will probably rest on Beijing's influence over the fifteenth reincarnation when that occurs. On the Tibetan side, there is some indication of a growing militancy among younger Tibetans. "This generation," one analyst writes, "has grown up under Chinese rule, is no longer familiar with traditional Tibet, and does not necessarily orient its activities to values such as peaceful opposition" (Heberer, 1995:307). These militants reject the Dalai Lama's insistence on nonviolence and even question his political leadership. When, for example, the Dalai Lama offered what he called "the middle way" of domestic autonomy, but not sovereignty, for Tibet, not only did China reject the proposal as "a disguised form of independence" but younger Tibetans urged that he support an armed insurgency.⁹

Notes

1. Time, April 11, 1994 p.58.

2. New York Times, May 4, 1994, p.A4.

3. New York Times, October 19, 1994, p. A1.

4. New York Times, October 20, 1994, p. A4.

5. New York Times, October 23, 1994, p. E3.

6. New York Times, July 9, 1994, p. A10.

7. Time, September 20, 1993 p. 28.

8. Time, January 24, 1994 p. 38.

9. Hartford Courant, January 1, 1994, p. A3.