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"Earth-shaking struggle" in Tibet

By Daniel Wolfstone | Far Eastern Economic Review

Tibet to some extent provides the key to the forthcoming talks in Delhi between Mr. Chou En-lai, the Chinese Prime Minister, and Mr. Nehru, the Indian Prime Minister. Whether Mr. Chou will prove “compromising”, as Mr. B. P. Koirala, the Nepalese Premier, recently suggested, or intractable on the Sino-Indian border question may in part be determined by the extent to which the Chinese administration has consolidated its position in Tibet in the twelve months since the Rising.

Border reports reproduced by Indian newspapers have suggested that last August there were incidents between Khampas and Chinese troops in western Tibet, and another series of these reports claimed disturbances in the north-west and north-east around September of 1959. A Taipei report in September said that some 130,000 Chinese Army personnel were tied down in Tibet, and Gyalo Thondup (the Dalai Lama’s elder brother) claimed last autumn that 500,000 Chinese troops were engaged in holding down about 50,000 Tibetan guerillas. How much of this is fantasy, how much bearing some resemblance to the truth, is impossible to judge.

Equally imponderable is the question of migration. Unofficial Delhi reports suggested in October that 500,000 Chinese farmers, technicians and roadbuilders had settled in Tibet and 80,000 Tibetans moved to other parts of China. The prominence of both Han and Hui leaders in Tibetan local affairs since last spring has, in the opinion of some observers, lent some weight to this kind of speculation. But there is no way of testing these allegations, or of the varying figures of Tibetans killed in the fighting (the Dalai Lama’s estimates vary from 20,000 in the Rising to 80,000 over the past few years).

During August there were persistent rumours from the Indian side of the border that the Panchen Lama (Panchen Erdeni Chuji-Geltseng) was under house arrest at his Shigatse palace of Dichen Photang. The next that was heard was his journey to Peking in October. On October 14 he addressed the tenth enlarged session of the Standing Committee of the Second National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China in terms that followed entirely the Communist Party line. His speech provided a summary of the Tibetan situation as it then stood.

After declaring that “bliss and joy fill all hearts” in Tibet, the Panchen Lama divided the population into 900,000 in agriculture and 300,000 in stock breeding. Of the former 400,000 had by October been touched by the first stage of the “democratic reforms”. These consisted of the “three oppositions” (to rebellion, to unpaid ula corvee and to slavery) and the “two reductions” (in rent and interest rates). The second stage, of land redistribution, was in progress in “individual places”. Meanwhile the first stage was being prepared for the remaining 500,000 agriculturalists. Democratic reform, the Panchen Lama declared, was an “earth-shaking” struggle which was being carried out “by peaceful methods”. But this did not mean that the masses were not being “mobilised” — “on the contrary, it would be absolutely impossible thoroughly to destroy feudal serfdom … without the masses rising to take part in the struggle on their own initiative”. The reforms, then, were being undertaken by encouraging the revolution of the slaves (5% of the population), poor serfs (70%) and middle and rich serfs (20%) against those of the remaining 5% who had oppressed them before.

During the reforms, “the land, livestock, houses and farm tools” of the rebellious serf-owners were confiscated and distributed to the peasants: those who had not joined the rebellion were bought out and their means of production distributed. This was to encourage the upper strata to gain confidence in the regime. As for monasteries whose income was inadequate after their feudal privileges had been abolished, “an appropriate subsidy will be granted by the state”, but lamas capable of working were expected to work. As a result of this campaign, the Panchen Lama stated, a total of 360,000 serfs and 20,000 slaves had been emancipated by October.

The Panchen Lama thereupon embarked on a series of long tours around China, and did not return to Lhasa until February 15. Eleven days later he chaired a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Preparatory Committee for the Tibetan Autonomous Region which declared that “democratic reforms have completely destroyed feudal serfdom in the Tibetan region” and urged hard work on the spring sowing, afforestation etc. But much had happened in the meanwhile.

On October 29 the Preparatory Committee for the Tibetan Political Consultative Conference had its first meeting in Lhasa. Chang Ching-wu took the chair, and Chan Ching-po and Sampo Tsewong-Rentzen were vice-chairmen. Of the 17 present eleven were Tibetan: the Central Chinese Government’s Representative in Tibet and Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Tibet Working Committee, Chang Ching-wu, was present.

Two months later, from December 20 to 27, the First Tibetan Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference met in Lhasa. This was composed of 134 members, just over half of whom were described as “upper strata and religious circles”. Another 215 representatives from various parts of Tibet attended as observers. The Chairman was Tan Kuan-san, and the eight vice-chairmen were Gahden Tsripa Thubten Kunga, Chou Jen-shan, Namdon Kunga Wongchug, Sampo Tsewong-Rentzen, Yabshi Gonpo-Tsetan, Thubden Nima, Pangda Dorje and Sampo Doje-Phagmo. Chang Ching-wu told the committee that the most important task was to consolidate and expand the democratic reforms: Chang Kuo-hua, the Party vice-secretary, apparently emphasized the priority of agricultural development.

Finally, in January, the First Lhasa City Conference of People’s Deputies was held. A Tibetan, Tsuiko Donhchu-Tseren, was made acting Mayor, but the two Vice-Mayors, Chang Chen-sheng and Wang Pei-sheng, are said to be both Hui, the latter a Moslem. Tsuiko himself is a deputy head of the Military Government of the city. It was said that representatives of 170,000 people attended the meeting (pre-Rising estimates of Lhasa were around 60,000, but it is not clear if the area covered is the same: there is some speculation that this may indicate the extent of immigration from other parts of China). “To date,” the conference declared, “democratic reforms in the agricultural areas have been virtually completed. In the pastoral areas democratic reform is proceeding smoothly.” (Hsinhua, Lhasa, January 25, 1960). It sounds as if the key word was “virtually.”

The distinction between the farmers and the shepherds is explained in a long article by Chang Ching-wu himself in the Jen-min Jih-pao, Peking, on March 1, 1960. “During the democratic reform,” he states, “the prime function of the Party in the pastoral area is to adequately mobilise the masses, launch the “three-anti” and “two-benefit” drive (beneficial to both cattle owners and their employees), establish the people’s dictatorship, and properly arrange for the livelihood of the herdsmen with a view to all-out development of the cattle-raising economy. As pastoral areas are different from agricultural areas, apart from confiscating the assets of rebellious cattle-owners for the benefit of the poor herdsmen, there should be no struggle, no redistribution of cattle, no class distinction between cattle-owners and employees in pursuance of the mutual-benefit principle in order to boost activism on the part of both groups.”

Chang goes on to describe the democratic reform campaign, Tibetan and Han cadres working together with the masses in the “three-togetherness and one-communication” system (eat, live and work together with the masses “and communicate their innermost thoughts with them”). The Tibetans were pictured by the Panchen Lama in his Peking address last October as saying to themselves that they were the same as the Han liberators, although the latter spoke no Tibetan, and were different from the Tibetan feudal lords although they spoke the same tongue. As Chang asserts, “the launching of the revolt and its suppression should by no means be looked upon as ‘a war between nationalities’ but a war between social classes.” Probably this has to be hammered home rather frequently.

Chang concludes his article with an assessment of the “favourable” development of the revolution in Tibet. Democratic reforms had been launched by January 31 in 57 of the total 78 hsien (i.e. among 790,000 people), and of these 40 hsien (610,000 people) had completed the “three-anti and two-reduction” routine. The same routine “is” being launched among 70,000 people in 12 hsien in the pastoral area. In other words it is still necessary, particularly among the herdsmen, to preach “anti-rebellion”, and the conclusion seems inescapable that the danger is not yet past.

Border reports reproduced in the Indian press have suggested a great number of airstrips being constructed along the Nepalese frontier, together with military build-ups in the same area. The Sining-Tibet road (described by one Chinese reporter as the local people’s “Golden Road to Happiness”) was opened in 1954. A highway from Tingri, in the shadow of Mount Everest [Tib: Chomo Lungma], to Gartok in western Tibet is planned to be completed by July of this year, and another one is to be built from Tsethang, in south Tibet and already linked to Lhasa by road, to the border near Tawang in the Indian North-East Frontier Area.

Work on the 7,500 kW hydro-electric power station near Lhasa was begun in October of 1958: recent reports state that 4,000 Tibetan and 3,000 Chinese Army workers are engaged on its completion. In December, 1959, work began on another 1,000 kW station at Chamdo, with 3,000 people at work. At present there are apparently only three small hydro- and steam stations in Lhasa, Shigatse and Chamdo producing 800 kW between them.

In February of this year the authorities were described as rushing 136,000 new farm implements from Changtu and Lanchow to Tibet, and there are numerous references in Hsinhua dispatches to the distribution of new ploughs. In December the first agro-technical training class was reported to have been opened with 80 “newly-liberated Tibetan serfs” attending. Nor has education been overlooked. In November it was reported that there were 72 film projection stations and mobile projection teams in Tibet (four times the pre-Rising number) and audiences in October alone totalled 437,000. Savings accounts were claimed to be being operated by peasants.

All in all the position seems far from resolved to Peking’s satisfaction. The non-Tibetan element in the political leadership, the frequent exhortations to Han-Tibetan amity, the failure after almost a year to spread the “anti-rebellion” campaign throughout the land — all these suggest that the Chinese do not yet feel secure. On the other hand construction work is proceeding rapidly, there is considerable emphasis on assisting the Tibetan to improve his agricultural yields, and it should not be supposed that China’s position is precarious in Tibet.

The Lhasa dispatches of Hsinhua still refer to Indian “violation” of the border, and it is of particular interest that one old man of 78, Laman Chingring Lobu, has been found who is claimed to have been an attache to the Tibetan representatives at the Simla Conference. “We officials of the Tibetan authority,” he told a Hsinhua reporter in Lhasa on September 14, “set out for India in August, 1912. We took part in several conferences, but none of the documents was signed by the representative of the Chinese Central Government. That so-called McMahon Line was not mentioned at those conferences. It was decided on secretly by the British imperialists and individual Tibetan officials. The majority of the officials of the then Tibetan local government did not know of it.” One wonders if Laman Chingring will be produced at the border talks, when they begin.

• Previous FEER Report from April 1959
• Previous FEER Report from May 1959

Copyright © 1959 Far Eastern Economic Review

Published in Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. 28, No. 14, p. 727