I have to tell you, right away, that I am no expert on Sino-Tibetan relations. My entire understanding of the matter comes from watching Kundun and reading Seven Years In Tibet and talking to the owner of China Gardens my local one-stop for spare ribs and eggrolls. So maybe I'm weighing in where I shouldn't, but, what the hell, it's my blog. And I do understand that, if nothing else, Tibet was turned upside down and inside out by the invasion of 1950 and the Dalai Lama's subsequent 1959 exile. The history of China in Tibet has been, unarguably, one of dispossession and displacement. We can argue over what percentage of Tibetans wanted a union with China, and we can argue over how many monasteries were burned and how many people were killed and just how brutal it really was, and we can argue over the wisdom of China's settlement policy of allowing ethnic Chinese to take up residence in the country, but what we can't argue is that these things happened. China owes Tibet an apology, and I'm not speaking of some colorless official statement of regret.
The fact is that China's current policy toward Tibet is inexplicable and is entirely out of step with modern, evolving China. Any government that declares the Dalai Lama to be "dangerous" is a government to whom he is dangerous, a repressive and authoritarian police state whose days are absolutely numbered.
What? Did I hear myself right? China's days are numbered? They sure are. China may be growing into an economic powerhouse, but the more viable she becomes, the faster she will decline. Within twenty five years China will fracture as the Soviet Union fractured and she will become a third rate consumer State deeply in debt to India and Indonesia. The United States will laugh at her as a paper tiger.
Why? Simply because economic freedom cannot be severed from civil freedom. You cannot keep the lid on the boiling pot for long. China's 1.3 billion people will not be satisfied with an empty capitalism, just as they were not satisfied with an empty communism. Life demands more. The spirit demands more.
You can feed the people all the bread you bake and entertain them with endless circuses, and still there will be a fundamental yearning to participate fully in the world. China even recognizes this; her policy of "One State, Two Systems" works in Hong Kong, and it was adopted so that China could reap the benefits of Hong Kong's financial strength. The union changed China, but not enough.
China needs to let go of the tattered flag of Maoism and recognize that, whatever else he may have been, Mao Zedong was a mass killer, a destroyer of traditions, a last holdout from the era of the Great Dictators. Do away with what remains of his Cult of Personality. Bury the man deep.
Grant basic civil rights---the same rights that are guaranteed by China's Constitution---to all people within the country under a Central Government that promotes respect for everyone. Create a "One State, Many Systems" framework, wherein the Tibetans, the Uighurs, the Taiwanese, and other nationalities can rule themselves according to their own traditions within their own lands under a basic charter of universal freedoms and responsibilities.
If China were, as a start, to grant "meaningful autonomy" to Tibet, China could become a model for multiethnic and multicultural governance, a model for a workable world government. Just as ancient China influenced the East, modern China could influence the world. That can be China's greatest legacy.
Instead of destroying the Tibetan culture and language, China needs to recognize that Tibet's unique history has a value and must be preserved---even if Beijing only wants to measure that value in tourism dollars at the outset, it would still mark a sea change in Beijing's policy toward Lhasa.
Instead of declaring the Dalai Lama a dangerous agitator, Beijing must embrace him as the highest exemplar of what Chinese citizens can be, spokesmen to the world. Instead of consigning the Potala to oblivion as a museum, make it a living place where the Buddhist concepts of compassion and lovingkindness can illuminate the world.
Or don't. But the clock is ticking...Twenty four years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds...Twenty four years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 58 seconds...tick tock, tick tock.
