Claude Arpi
Niti Central
June 28, 2014
Tsering Woeser, a Tibetan blogger living in Beijing, says on her blog that she knew a Chinese traveller who had been told by a travel agency that Tibetans were no longer able to obtain permission to travel in border areas of Tibet such as Purang.
China often says one thing and does another.
In Athens, the visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang declared that China is committed to settling maritime disputes through dialogue and negotiation on the basis of respecting historical facts and international law.
Of course, ‘historical facts’ for Beijing mean its own interpretation of history; ditto for international law.
Li also spoke about Beijing’s views on a ‘sea of peace’ with other countries.
After China installed an oil rig in the South China Sea in what Vietnam considers its territorial waters in May, Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi met with the Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh in Hanoi on June 18, 2014. Though China and Vietnam pledged ‘to rein in maritime tensions’, little has changed after the high level discussions, on the contrary another Chinese oil rig is being set up.
Beijing wants to make clear that China is the most powerful State around and it can send diktats according to its interpretation of ‘history’ to every ‘smaller’ nation, whether it is Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines or India.
It is called the Law of the Bully; and often, it works.
When Li was in London last week, he told David Cameron that if London wanted to do business with China, it should keep quiet on Tibet and human rights issues; the British Prime Minister obeyed.
But is The Bully truly that powerful?
There is no doubt that an aging Europe often has to listen to orders from a still economically strong Middle Kingdom, which however suffers from acute problems — it has miserably failed to pacify its own ‘masses’.
In 1950, Mao sent its First and Second Field Armies to ‘liberate’ Tibet. Nehru’s India acquiesced, Tibet needed to be liberated (though Nehru had doubts, he asked in the Lok Sabha, ‘liberated from what?’).
More than 60 years later, whether it is in Xinjiang or Tibet, the masses are revolting against the ‘liberators’.
While President Xi Jinping speaks to the ‘masses’ about his Chinese Dream, anyone questioning his dream is immediately imprisoned, often without trial.
A recent two-day Xinjiang Work Forum attended by all the members of the Politburo devised new schemes to bring the Party closer to the masses:
» Boosting employment and income levels.
» Encouraging urbanisation and interregional migration aimed at expanding the contact and cooperation between different ethnic groups.
» Strengthening Party organs at the grassroots level in order to eliminate the ‘three evil forces’ — splittism, extremism and terrorism.
» Bilingual instruction to make all minority youth conversant in the national language and culture.
This type of policy has not worked in the past and will not work in the future, for the simple reason that the Party says something and does something else, like for foreign affairs issues.
Just for Xinjiang, authorities last week claimed that they had broken up 32 terrorist groups and arrested more than 380 suspects. In the first month of a ‘security campaign’ … and 13 had been executed.
The outspoken Uygur economist and respected university professor, Ilham Tohti, has been detained since January. He would have been charged with spreading separatist ideas, i.e. promoting the Uyghur language. Is that a crime?
When one closely looks at the situation in China, one realises that the leadership lives in fear.
Take Tibet again. A few days ago, it was reported that Deng Xiaogang, Deputy Party Secretary of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) has been in Purang County, located near Mount Kailash at the tri-junction of India-Tibet-Nepal. He was said to be inspecting security issues faced by the border guards on India’s border.
The International Campaign for Tibet, based in Washington, deduced: “Deng’s visit was likely to be intended to send a signal of vigilance by the Party authorities in the build-up to the Kalachakra in Ladakh. Deng … was cited by the state media as saying that border security checkpoints are key to maintaining social stability in the TAR.”
Is China trembling just because the Dalai Lama is going to give the Kalachakra initiation to tens of thousands of devotees in Leh?
Is it the sign of a great power?
Tsering Woeser, a Tibetan blogger living in Beijing, says on her blog that she knew a Chinese traveller who had been told by a travel agency that Tibetans were no longer able to obtain permission to travel in border areas of Tibet such as Purang.
It is rather surprising, considering the promotion (not to say propaganda), made by Beijing a few months ago about the Mount Kailash.
In February, The China Daily wrote: “2014, the ‘Year of the Wooden Horse’ is the ‘recurrent birth year’ of Kang Rinpoche (Mount Kailash), a holy mountain in west Tibet. Since circling Kang Rinpoche in the Year of the Horse is a sacred tradition among Tibetan Buddhists, this year has seen an endless stream of people flocking to the region to perform pilgrimage.”
What has happened between the Tibetan New Year in February and today?
Just the Kalachakra? The arrival of the Modi government in Delhi?
The powerful Deng Xiaogang has been roaming around the Ngari (Western Tibet) region for the last few weeks. Why?
On June 20, an article in The Tibet Daily asserted: “The TAR Deputy Chairman, Deng Xiaogang inspected the border county of Rutok in Ngari Prefecture and conveyed to the rank and file of the border policemen, the Party’s cordial greetings”. Rudok is a border town close to Ladakh.
Apparently Deng Xiaogang told the local people that the party has “a great trust in those who are stationed at borders, facing cold and lack of oxygen; facing harsh environmental conditions, fulfilling conscientiously their duties, sacrificing without fear or fatigue, in order to defend the national sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the southwest border of the motherland.”
Does China fear some Indian infiltrations or local Tibetans taking refuge in India?
Deng Xiaogang ordered the border guards to “crack down on all criminal activities that endanger national security and social stability, and never let separatism, terrorism and other violent criminals undermine the excellent situation of stability and unity in our region.”
Why should such a senior officer spend weeks on the border?
China is probably nervous about possible infiltrations of Uyghur militants through the Aksai Chin road which enters Tibet via Rutok.
The point is that while China has built a tremendous infrastructure — roads, telecommunications, airports, etc, in border areas in Tibet — the ‘human infrastructure’, so important in case of conflict, is entirely lacking. This is the condition 60 years after the ‘liberation’.
In this field, China is one of the weakest States of the world.
