It’s All Just A Ride

June Teufel Dreyer: Economic Development in Tibet Under the People’s Republic of China

Dreyer’s chapter is a great introduction to this part of the book. It outlines the economic policies from the period of Chinese takeover to the present. Notable points include her statement that it is curious that when communes were finally introduced to Tibet in the early 70′s it was long after the drawbacks of them were widely known, which suggests that hard line political ideologues were probably quite instrumental in their creation. Also, she gives a great overview of some of the more popular criticisms of Beijing’s development drive, such as who it really benefits, and if dependence on heavy subsidization from the rest of the country means that Beijing’s development policy in Tibet is doomed to fail simply because it is not sustainable financially. Also interesting is that some CCP cadres are keen to be seen as enforcers of security, and so must encourage some incidents of dissent merely to crack down on them to show their competence, and that Hu Jintao’s relatively poor performance in Tibet economically was excused because he ended the riots in the late 80′s.

Dawa Norbu: Economic Policy and Practice in Contemporary Tibet

Dawa Norbu was known both inside the Tibetan diaspora community and the international scholar community on Tibet as a person who could usually be trusted to give you an even-handed picture of whatever the issue at hand was, and took flak from TGIE supporters at times for being critical of the exile government. In that sense this chapter both confirms that image and yet also in a small way denies it. In the first half Norbu opines about the lack of trustworthy statistical data regarding Tibet, both before and after 1950. Before 1950 there was almost nothing, after there was much, but could not be verified or trusted, and was of little use to anyone but scholars of propaganda. Norbu then spends a few sections correcting that lack of statistical data, giving some interesting numbers on Han migration, economic performance, etc. Then, about halfway through he gets a bit polemical, often referring to “Stalinist-Chinese gigantism” and strays too far into the language of cultural genocide conspiracy theory for my liking, though to be fair he doesn’t reach the lengths of someone like Jamyang Norbu, who has always seemed like the Michael Moore of Tibetans to me (i.e. has some good points but buries them in polemical screeds to the point where the focus becomes more on hyperbole and partisanship than anything else). I can’t fault Norbu’s data, and I havn’t heard much of what he says in this chapter contested anywhere, but it is his later descent into decidedly non-objective viewpoints divorced from much actual data that unsettles me a bit.

Hu Xiaojiang and Miguel A. Salazar: Market Formation and Transformation: Private Business in Lhasa

This article is one that is potentially very useful, and one that serves up some concrete data on a topic that is often at the heart of contention on the Tibet issue; that of Tibet’s development, who is engaged in it, and who it is benefiting from it. The authors use both general data gathered from multiple sources (media, news, etc) and that of the BRD (Business Registration Data). The BRD contains data about the province of origin of the owner, education, etc, that are crucial to the questions being asked. Increased credibility is given to these data by the fact that they were received in raw, untabulated form.

Prior to economic reform in 1980, 100% of business in the TAR were Tibetan-owned (less than 500 registered), due to legal restrictions on inter-provincial trade. Is the larger, yet “less Tibetan” economy of today a negative state of affairs? Is it not the case that urban centers are often composed of a good percentage of foreign-owned businesses in general? Ratio of local:foreign owned businesses in 2000 was 3:7 in Lhasa, 7:3 elsewhere in the TAR. Specialization of crafts based on origin is prominent, i.e. when you want product “A” go to a vendor from a region that is known for making good “A”. Tibetans tend to dominate “traditional” markets in handicrafts and other Tibetan cultural commodities, while immigrants with personal connections to the trade networks tend to dominate non-local commodity markets. However, there is no reason that Tibetans are barred from “modern” commodity markets. Case in point, most internet cafes are Tibetan owned. The market in the TAR generally tends to saturate, then stabilize, as seems logical for a region that is experiencing rapid growth. First comes a big rush, then a big crash, then a leveling out.

Control of trade networks based on personal relations can still benefit Tibetans, who tend to have strong ties with South Asian countries like India, Nepal, etc. Perhaps this is one place where the Tibetan diaspora into India could be a boon.

The article ends by stating that we can only asses the real situation of migration in Tibet when we start looking at it as a migration issue, and not another political issue. Then and only then will the real intricacies become clear. In a wider sense, merely distilling the influx of migrant workers to Tibet as a case of ethnic genocide is too close to the rhetoric used here in the U.S. against migration from Latin America. The old claim of, “they’re takin’ our jobs” assumes that those jobs would otherwise be filled by natives, and done so on the same scale as is currently so.

Bhutan is an interesting country. A small Buddhist kingom situated between India and China, many know it for its flouting of the GDP standard in favor of GNH (Gross National Happiness) as its economic indicator. Still others might know it as a famous tourist destination. Indeed, the tiny Himalayan kingdom has been lauded for its controlled tourism policy, which only allows a certain number of visitors per year to reduce the environmental and social impacts that come with huge waves of tourists.

Few, however, know the side of Bhutan that created a huge refugee crisis, one that has serious ethnic (almost racist) implications, or, as recent news shows, the side that strips the rights of newspapers to publish freely. Some know that the government of Bhutan has decreed that all Bhutanese citizens must wear traditional dress, and that it takes great pains to preserve its cultural heritage, but I wonder how many seriously question the idea that a government that dictates the very clothes you can wear is all that wonderful.

The only reason this is that interesting to me (there are plenty of other repressive governments to look at, after all, many of whom are far more repressive) is this: When I hear many people talk of Tibet, the Himalayas, etc, (Bhutanese are very closely related culturally to Tibetans) they do so with this argument that had China not invaded Tibet in 1949, and had the Bhuddist theocracy that preceded the takeover been left to its own devices, Tibet would still be a wonderful place where monks and lamas cultivate spiritual mana from the roof of the world for the greatness and benefit of all mankind, pouring rivers of enlightenment down to the soulless masses of the industrialized world below.

Ok, now I’m getting condescending, sorry.

Anyway, I guess to me Bhutan is simply a lesson that while Bhuddism may be a great philosophy, a Bhuddist heart can still wield  unbelievable hypocrisy and do things just as dirty as the rest of the members of the human race (yeah, “duh”, I know, seems really elementary). There is no reason to think that simply because a government professes to be Bhuddist that it somehow would intrinsically be on a moral high ground above all others. But then, in my experience, many Western converts to Buddhism embrace it with just as much unquestioning blindness and newly rose-tinted glasses as those who fervently embrace any other of the worlds many religions.  I’ve listened to many a student of Bhuddism criticize Christianity, while simultaneously ignoring the pitfalls of Bhuddism. Some like to think that Bhuddists are somehow incapable of doing evil, though even Bhuddists have had their share of nasty warlike periods (in certain periods of Japan’s feudal history monks were just as fearsome as any Shogun or Samurai). The unabashed Orientalism that I’ve been witness to sometimes embarrasses me, though I will admit that I too had that period in my studies where I thought anything Eastern was just the bees-knees.

Perhaps that is why the government has added a stipulation that forbids Bhuddist monks to run for elections after the new democratic reforms get into swing.

I jest, of course. The goal seems to be more to protect Bhuddism from politics, rather than to protect politics from Bhuddism. Maybe in that sense some fervent religious types in this country could take some pointers.

Coming to me via Del.icio.us is a link to a fabulous photo gallery featuring some stunning portraits of Tibetans circa 2004 and 2006. Some of these images are just gorgeous. Favorites include #10, 13, 14, 23, and 27. #10 actually gives you a pretty good idea of what a typical modern Lhassan dresses like.

Contemporary Tibet: Politics, Development, and Society in a Disputed Region

by Barry Sautman and June Teufel Dreyer, 2006

Contemporary Tibet is a collection of essays by some of the foremost scholars on Tibetan politics, religion, and anthropology in the field today. Barry Sautman impressed me a fews years ago with an article. Other notable contributors include Robert Barnett, Wang Lixiong, Melvyn Goldstein, and Tom Grunfeld and a host of others. In the introduction, Sautman and Dreyer make it quite clear that the book was intended to provide perspective and a wider breadth of viewpoints on a subject that has remained quite polarized for some time now. the first section of the book is entitled “Politics and Representation”.

Robert Barnett: Beyond the Collaborator-Martyr Model: Strategies of Compliance, Opportunism, and Opposition Within Tibet

Robert Barnett, Professor of Modern Tibetan Studies at Columbia, is the author of Lhasa: Streets With Memories, and has taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Tibet. This first essay by him is an effort to move beyond the dichotomy of collaborator/martyr when thinking about Tibetans inside the TAR. Barnett argues that thinking in these binary terms ignores the multi-faceted relationships between Tibetan cadres and the PRC. He points out that even within the CCP there exist factions and differing viewpoints that are simply not seen in the public face of the party simply because of how secretive it is, so it is unfair to simply generalize Tibetan officials as “collaborators”. Similarly, the martyr model is reductionist in that it ignores the ways in which supposed “martyrs” have attempted to work within the system the PRC has set as well. The most famous example being the previous Panchen Lama, who tried very hard to moderate the political landscape of Tibet during some of its most tumultuous times. In those days he was seen by many exiles as a traitor to Tibet. Even throughout his imprisonment for being labeled as a dissident during the Cultural Revolution, his legacy was somewhat ambiguous. It wasn’t until his publication of a paper critical of the PRC, and then soon after his somewhat suspicious death, that his legacy became that of a martyr to the cause. Fundamentally, his strategy never really changed that much, but how Tibetans viewed him did.

He Baogang: The Dalai Lama’s Autonomy Proposal: A One-Sided Wish?

He Baogang’s article on the disparity between what the Dalai Lama sees as a genuine autonomy proposal and Beijing’s insistence on the current arrangement of limited autonomy rooted in the Marxist ideology that ethnic issues are fundamentally class issues, and that such issues would disappear as class struggle played out. He points out that the concept of a “one country-two systems” autonomy that the Dalai Lama envisions is not acceptable to Beijing for two basic reasons: previous concessions to a “one country-two systems” model that were made with Hong-Kong and Taiwan were done so for political pragmatism and expediencies sake, as they came from an outside position and needed to be integrated into the Chinese system, and the position that the Dalai Lama puts forth would entail many concessions on the side of the Chinese that would effectively pave the way for a fully independent Tibet. Ultimately, the Chinese concept of autonomy operates with the implication that while regions may be defined as autonomous, the primary emphasis is that of a unitary state, thus any threat to the security of that unitarian ideal is grounds for restriction of autonomy.

Amy Mountcastle: The Question of Tibet and the Politics of the “Real”

This chapter focuses on the power dynamics of the actual debate on Tibet itself, and who defines what the “real” question is, and thus what methods of debate are valid. Mountcastle argues that discussing the debate in terms of which questions are “real” brings in a whole other power dimension. Scholars assume that their methods of dispassionate analysis are getting at fundamental questions, and presenting “real” analysis, and thus they have tried to extricate the debate from an internationalized human rights issue. However, Mountcastle suggests that to invalidate the method of arguing for Tibet as a human rights cause denies those who do not have access to the scholarly debate any agency. She points out that such strategies are one of two options for dispossessed peoples, the other being terrorism. She also points out that there is a growing international forum for these kinds of human rights discourses, and as such it has the possibility to influence the real world politics substantially.

Wang Lixiong: Indirect Representation Versus a Democratic System: Relative Advantages for Resolving the Tibet Question

Wang is a somewhat controversial figure in Tibetan studies as far as I can tell. There was an exchange between him and Tsering Shakya (author of The Dragon in The Land of Snows, a very detailed account of the 50 years during and after the Chinese takeover of Tibet). That exchange was chronicled in the essay by Wang titled, Reflections on Tibet, and Shakya’s response, Blood in the Snows, and was extended in the publication The Struggle for Tibet.

Wang can’t exactly be considered a PRC apologist as such, since he himself has had many a run-in with the censors for dissident political content in his writing. However, in this chapter Wang lays out his arguments as to why both independence from China, as well as the Dalai Lama’s current autonomy proposal are unacceptable, both by the PRC and by himself. Wang takes the debate into territory that I have not heard many Tibet activists venture into (and I’ll concede that this may simply be my own ignorance), asking what would become of Tibet after independence, or even after autonomy, and the issues that Tibet would face if the Dalai Lama’s vision of democracy were to be realized. Wang sees a system of indirect representation as the solution to these potential problems, which would both allay the PRC’s fears of separatism, and still allow for Tibetans to assert their own needs within the system. Wang points out the difficulties that the Exile government’s insistence on the establishment of a “Greater Tibet” cause. He also presents practical limits to a wholly democratic Tibetan political system, such as the need for education and literacy to improve before such a system would be effective, and the logistical problems with holding elections in a region where the population is spread so thin as to necessitate great traveling distances. Distances which not only remove citizens from polling stations, but also from the people they are electing. Wang favors a system of local elections, leading to indirect elections of higher officials by those popularly elected local officials.

While it is easy to see that Wang’s position is probably not appealing to the Exile Tibetans by and large, he does raise important questions that should be considered.