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Why has Beijing taken such a tough line on Tibet?

By Dr. Xiaoxiong Yi | Times Recorder

Dr. Xiaoxiong Yi is a professor at Marietta College, Ohio, US, and director of the China Programme. Marietta College/USA

China’s angry outburst over French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Dec. 6 Gdansk, Poland meeting with the Dalai Lama, the 73-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader in exile, was unprecedented.

Fury over a European welcome — President Sarkozy also holds European Union’s rotating presidency — for the Dalai Lama had led China to cancel the 11th EU-China summit scheduled in France. “Despite the strong opposition of China’s masses and the Chinese government’s stern representations, Sarkozy persisted in meeting the Dalai Lama in the dual capacities as French and EU president,” lashed out Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister He Yafei, “the meeting grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs, severely undermined China’s core interests, gravely hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and damaged the political basis of China-France and China-EU relations .”

Chinese consumers have also begun to boycott France-made goods to express their anger against the Dalai-Sarkozy meeting, and internet forums and cell phone text messages, often the only two forms of open expression in China, have been awash with anti-French and anti-Dalai Lama comments. “The Tibet issue touches China’s central interests. Anyone crossing that line will have to pay for it,” wrote Qiu Jianming, a “netizen” in China, adding that the Dalai Lama was a “political hooligan.”

During the latest round of talks between the Dalai Lama’s representatives and Chinese officials, the Tibetan envoys presented a memorandum to the Chinese that proposed to protect Tibet’s culture, religious and educational traditions within the autonomy provisions of China’s Constitution. However, Beijing, the New York Times reports, “spurned the memorandum, and it continues to claim that the Dalai Lama’s real plan is to break Tibet away from China. The Dalai Lama has repeatedly endorsed autonomy. And the memorandum could not have been plainer: ‘We remain firmly committed not to seek separation or independence’”. “His stances toward China have been very soft,” says Vijay Kranti, editor of Tibbat Desh, a newspaper for the Tibetan community in India, “now he may have to take a stronger stand.”

Why is China so thin-skinned about any issues related to Tibet and works so hard to suffocate the most moderate Tibetan voice? Why do Chinese leaders have to refuse a compromise with the Dalai Lama without any consideration?

Some China-watchers see the Tibet issue as “Beijing’s blind spot.” As a New York Times editorial highlights, “It is in Beijing’s clear interest to pursue serious negotiations while the revered, 73-year-old Dalai Lama is still able to persuade his followers to accept a peaceful compromise. Instead, China’s leaders seem to be betting that the problem will go away when the Dalai Lama dies. That is a cynical and dangerous gamble.”

From Beijing’s perspective , however, there are ample reasons to take a hard-line stance on the Tibet issue.

As China is becoming a major locomotive of the world economy and the “the big man of Asia,” a nationalistic wave is sweeping through China as well. The Chinese have an old saying: when you ride a tiger, it is hard to dismount. For rulers in Beijing, they are now riding the tiger of Chinese nationalism. If anyone of them, Perry Link, professor emeritus of Chinese studies at Princeton University, observes, “were to appear ‘weak’ on the issue of ‘splitting the motherland,’ he could be attacked by rivals and suffer a loss of power. Hence none are willing to. Moreover, for the ruling group as a whole, trouble with the Dalai Lama is not a bad thing. In recent years Chinese people have been protesting in increasing numbers over corruption, land seizures, environmental destruction, a growing gap between rich and poor, and other issues that specifically raise questions about the government’s performance. For the government to be able to make an issue of the ‘jackal-hearted’ Dalai Lama who would split the motherland not only diverts attention from these complaints but also positions the rulers as heroes of Chinese nationalism.”

Beijing’s stinging response to the Dalai-Sarkozy meeting should also serve as a warning shot to world leaders and Chinese foreign policy watchers. Given China’s growing economic strength and emerging military power, Chinese leaders are in a position to become more assertive in China’s foreign relations. As a result, Beijing is ready and willing to suppress any outside support for an independent voice in Tibet.

Copyright © 2008 Times Recorder

Published in Zanesville Times Recorder