 "Nancy Pelosi meets Dalai Lama as America shows eagerness to engage India on Tibet")
For Tibet watchers, the past few weeks have been special; one does not know which side to turn one’s attention to.
Apart from the ‘courtesy calls’ to the Dalai Lama by some of the candidates during the campaign for the legislative elections, an announcement about renaming some places in Tibet has been making the rounds (this, however, remains irrelevant as nobody has seen the new names yet).
More important was the news from Washington that the US Congress has passed the ‘Resolve Tibet Act’, now waiting for President Joe Biden’s signature to become law.
Among other things, the Act mentions that the “claims made by officials of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party that Tibet has been a part of China since ancient times are historically inaccurate”.
It has serious implications for India’s northern border, which for millennia had been with Tibet; unfortunately, after Tibet’s invasion in the early 1950s, it ended up being the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.
The Act also speaks of Beijing’s current policies, which “are systematically suppressing the ability of the Tibetan people to preserve their religion, culture, language, history, way of life, and environment”.
Since 1959, when the Dalai Lama crossed the Indian border into Arunachal Pradesh (then the North East Frontier Agency), successive governments in Delhi have supported the Dalai Lama and his followers in this regard and ensured that India was their second home. Today, projects such as the Nalanda University in Bihar could further strengthen the relations between Tibet, where the ‘Nalanda Tradition’ was practiced for centuries, and India.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThen, the Act says that Beijing “is failing to meet the expectations of the United States to engage in meaningful dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives or to reach a negotiated resolution that includes the aspirations of the Tibetan people”.
It is doubtful that concrete progress will be seen in this regard in the near future for the single reason that Beijing is today not in a mood to listen to any ‘advice’ from the US (or India).
Perhaps more meaningful is the following point: “The US public diplomacy efforts should counter disinformation about Tibet from [Beijing], including disinformation about the history of Tibet, the Tibetan people, and Tibetan institutions, including that of the Dalai Lama.”
Delhi should emulate this.
US delegation visit to India
Apart from the new law, the visit to India (and Dharamsala) of former United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with other members of a Congressional delegation and their audience with the Dalai Lama, needs to be looked into as it raises several questions.
Why did the US delegation visit Dharamsala just a few days before the Dalai Lama leaves for the US for knee surgery? Could not the delegation have met the religious leader in the US? But perhaps Washington was keen to involve India in the Tibetan issue? That Delhi agreed to this is clear, as the same delegation was received in Delhi by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Jaishankar on its return from Dharamsala.
Xi Jinping visits a Tibetan Monastery
The media missed another visit, which was certainly not a coincidence.
Xinhua News Agency reported that on June 18, the day the US delegation arrived in Dharamsala, President Xi Jinping conducted an ‘investigation’ at the Hongjue monastery in Xining City (Qinghai province): “to understand the Tibetan Buddhist community to carry forward the fine tradition of patriotism and love of religion, and to promote national unity and progress”.
For Xi, Tibetan Buddhism obviously limits itself to ‘patriotism’.
The Hongjue monastery, which belongs to the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism (like the Dalai Lama), is located at the border between Tibet and China. Xinhua said: “This thousand-year-old temple has witnessed the course of cultural exchanges and blending between Chinese and Tibetan cultures.” It added: “In the 7th century A.D., Princess [Chinese] Wencheng and [Tibetan Emperor] Songtsen Gampo, passing through Xining, built a soil altar used as a throne for Shakyamuni Buddha’s twelve-year-old statue, …this thousand-year-old temple witnessed the Tibetan Buddhism patriotic tradition.”
The article concluded: “Entering the New Era [of Xi Jinping’s rule], Hongjue monastery has always adhered to the direction of the Chineseization of Tibetan Buddhism and has continuously explored the contemporary connotation of the Chineseization of Tibetan Buddhism.”
It says it all.
An important visit to Tibet
The visit of the US delegation to India came two days after the 39th EU-China Human Rights Dialogue took place in Chongqing on June 16. Prior to the meeting, a rare two-day visit to Tibet was organised for the European delegates.
During the Chongqing meeting, the EU stressed, “The selection of religious leaders should happen without any government interference and in respect of religious norms, including in the case of the succession of the Dalai Lama.” The message was clear and similar to the American one.
The EU also reiterated its concerns about the very serious human rights situation in China, in particular in the Tibetan areas. A statement mentions: “The EU further raised persistent concerns over the restriction of fundamental freedoms, labour rights, and the use of forced labour, limits on due process rights, and the lack of judicial independence in China.” The EU is said to have raised the issues of freedom of expression, assembly, religion, or belief with the Chinese, who may have listened; however, it is doubtful if any action will follow.
The fate of Wu Jingjie
Another very significant news item has been missed by the media as the Tibet Autonomous Region’s former Communist Party Secretary has been put under investigation.
Though a Han Chinese, Wu Yingjie spent 47 years in Tibet, including five years as the TAR Party Secretary (the seniormost Chinese official in Tibet). He is now under the lens of the dreadful Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission. What he has done wrong is not clear, but the 67-year-old apparatchik, who was recently posted in the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country’s top political advisory body, is said to be undergoing disciplinary review and investigation. Though the CCDI did not release details of his crimes, it speaks of “serious violations of discipline and laws,” a euphemism for corruption or political misdeeds.
It needs to be noted that Wu was a rather mild Party Secretary compared to his predecessors and successors. But is it perhaps a political crime to be mild in China?
US Act and India
To come back to the US Act, it is important for India; from immemorial times, India’s northern boundary has been an Indo-Tibet border. The eastern sector (known as the ‘McMahon Line’), has been agreed upon by British India and independent Tibet in March 1914 during the Simla Conference. If one accepts the Chinese contention that Tibet has been part of China since immemorial times, the McMahon Line loses its validity. In this sense, the new Act and the visit of the US delegation are significant for India, as they revalidate the fact that Tibet was an independent nation before 1951.
Regarding the other issue mentioned in the Act (pressing China to resolve the Tibet dispute by providing a ‘genuine autonomy’ to Tibet), it has no immediate relevance because the Chinese regime is not ready to provide any ‘autonomy’ to the Dalai Lama and his countrymen, and the Tibetans have no muscle power to force anything on China. Moreover, the visit of the US delegation will certainly infuriate Beijing further; in these circumstances, there is hardly any question of negotiations.
We could ask: Where is India in all this?
Recently, in an interview for The Week, Penpa Tsering, the Tibetan Sikyong (president of the Tibetan administration in exile), was asked, “Do you think it is time the Indian government openly declared that the Dalai Lama’s successor will be chosen by the Dalai Lama himself or the Tibetan government in exile?”
Tsering said, “To some extent, it is taken for granted as to where India stands on this, whether it says it vocally or not. I am sure the Indian government is concerned about these issues and developing its own strategy. I am sure that the Indian government will also be seriously thinking about this, even though I have not had concrete conversations about this.”
It is unfortunate that the Indian government and the political leaders have not been more vociferous about their ‘Tibet’ conviction. Can India find its own Nancy Pelosi? Can the Indian MPs come together like in the 1950s or 1960s, as they did around a leader like JP Narayan? It is a big question, but it will be more and more necessary to contain the bully on the other side of the Himalaya. Indeed, we live in interesting times.
The writer is Distinguished Fellow, Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence (Delhi). Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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