‘Rising Dragon’: Chinese art of arrogance and avarice in Tibet

Rising Dragon, a massive fireworks explosion carried late last month by Cai Guo-Qiang, a Chinese artist, in collusion with Arc’teryx, a Canadian outdoor company part-owned by Chinese Anta Group, on a Tibetan mountain, is an outrageous act of disrespect for the people, animals and land of Tibet.  

The scale of the fireworks was so huge that Tibetan elders, who had experienced the initial years of Chinese invasion of their country, would likely have had their traumas triggered by the smoke and noise of the explosion. As far as the animals, birds and all the insects living on this serene mountain are concerned, the terror they experienced on 9/19 can aptly be compared to the horror New Yorkers felt during the 9/11 terrorist attack. Just imagine, what the animals and birds, so used to the silence and tranquility of their mountain kingdom, would have felt when a sudden blast of massive fireworks and smoke shook their home and shattered their little hearts.

Their life will never be the same again. The explosive stunt had caused serious damages to the flora and fauna on which they depend. Owing to the high altitude and aridness of the region, plants have very short growing season and once destroyed, the soil can take decades to recover fully. Often the damage leads to desertification. In addition to that, there are chemical residues that will settle into the soils causing further harms to the ecosystem.

For the right reasons, people world over, including Chinese netizens, criticised this irresponsible act for the destruction it has caused to the ecology of the mountain—forcing the artist and company to issue face saving apologies.

However, for the Tibetan people, besides the environmental hazard, this is also a blatant attack on our land, culture, spirituality and dignity as a people. Tibetans, who developed and nurtured one of the most ecologically conscious cultures in the world, do not share the conquering and exploitative attitude of the Chinese colonisers and Western corporations toward nature. In our cultural belief, the mountains are abodes of the mountain deities and spirits, and home to many animals and birds—with whom we coexist in harmony and with respect. This ‘explosive art’ goes against the very essence of this spiritual, cultural and ecological ethos of Tibetan people.

Therefore, more than an ad campaign, it was meant to inflict humiliation and violence on an occupied people and their land—that it is not the Tibetans, the true custodian of the land, but the Chinese colonisers who can decide what can or cannot be done on the Tibetan land. The geographical violence, a main feature of colonialism, against Tibetans and their land is most apparently manifested in Chinese activities like  deforestation , rampant  mining ,  damming  and diversion of rivers and  wildlife poaching  and  persecution of Tibetans  who raised these issues. If anything, Cai Guo-Qiang’s Rising Dragon represents the arrogance of a colonial power and the violence it can unleash on a colonised people and their land.

Moreover, the dragon is a symbol of Chinese power and nationalism, its symbolism is not lost on anyone. For the people of Tibet, the image of a Chinese dragon raging on their sacred mountain with noise, fire and smoke is a close re-enactment of occupation of their country as the invading Chinese forces bombed and burned our towns and monasteries. It is not a coincidence. It is a calculated and choreographed display of power by the coloniser over the colonised. The participation of an international company in this exploitative stunt is to show both the international legitimisation of China’s colonial rule in Tibet as well as its deep insecurity about the same rule.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that a Chinese artist and international corporation used Tibetan land as a stamping ground to project their power and image. In 2020, another Chinese artist called Zhang Huan and French company Dior  trampled  on Kailash, which is holy to Buddhists, Hindus and Jains, as a stage for similar promotional stunt. He also boasted it as ‘Land Art’ with an installation called Noah’s Ark which he, later, dumped in a lake below the sacred mountain. He came in a luxury car bearing a Chinese flag on it—signalling his background and flaunting his power as a coloniser member.

The similarity in the projection and the manner in which the two Chinese artists behaved is too obvious to ignore. So is their coloniser’s gaze which considers the land of Tibet including sacred ones like Mount Kailash as some kind of war trophy that they can play with as they wish without any regard to the local Tibetan cultural sensitivity and ecological concerns.

They came wearing their nationalism and chauvinism on their sleeves—Zhang Huan with Chinese flag and Cai Guo-Qiang with a fire-breathing dragon to create ‘art’ on a stolen land. They brought notable international brands with them as varnishes to mask the political and commercial nature of their works. And both claimed that they used biodegradable materials for their works. Both desecrated on sacred mountains and disrespected Tibetan culture and left behind their rubbish arts as if the Tibetan lands were their dumping grounds.

What is so glaring, in both the cases, is the double standard in the implementation of Chinese law on environment protection. Tibetans are too familiar with the racism and politics of discrimination associated with it. In the name of environmental protection, Tibetans, especially nomads have been displaced from their ancestral lands. This supposedly ecological concern, however, disappears into a black hole of hypocrisy when it comes to Chinese entities or individuals. Whatever destructive activities they carry on against the Tibetan environment, as if touched by some magic wand, turn into leaps of progressive developments or masterpiece of arts.

However, in the eyes of Tibetans, there is nothing artistic about their works. These are vulgar expressions of arrogance masquerading as arts. And in this shameful act, the Western corporations have joined hands with the Chinese cultural imperialists to form a nefarious front of colonialism and capitalism to feed their own avarice.

(The writer is an independent researcher and political analyst. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)