Has the Tiger been leashed by the Dragon?

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China continues to deploy troops in an effort to quell any protests in/over the “disputed region” of Tibet as the Summer Olympics, China’s coming out party, inches ever closer:

Chinese troops and police have tightened their hold on Tibetan areas in the westernmost region of the country as they work to keep anti-government protests from spreading.

Journalists and activist groups have reported large numbers of troops in provinces along Tibet’s eastern border…

Peaceful protests against Chinese rule in Tibet began last week and gradually turned violent.

China says at least 16 people were killed in riots in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa Friday. But the Tibetan government-in-exile says at least 99 people have been killed in the unrest. [Link]

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p>Last week the nation of Nepal bent over for China by caving to a request to shut down all points on Mt. Everest higher than base camp between now and the middle of May. The beginning of May is thought to be a prime time for a summit attempt, groups having spent the few weeks before that steadily climbing and acclimating. Only a Chinese team, carrying the Olympic torch, will be allowed to proceed, without worry that they will be met by Tibetan protestors at or near the top. All those that may have spent years planning for their ascent attempt get screwed. This isn’t as trivial as it sounds since tourism related to Everest brings a large chunk of money and prestige to the impoverished nation. On the brightside, it looks like Nepal might have begun to come to its economic senses in the past few days. They are no longer “sure” about acceding to China’s original request:

“How could they do something so devastating to the economy and to a Nepalese icon?” said Peter Athans, a 50-year-old American mountaineer who has reached the summit of Everest seven times. “A country superior in size and power is grinding under foot Nepal’s small but very important tourist industry.”

An expedition leader who has a group of 14 clients arriving next week said: “We just want to climb. But suddenly we have this other priority. We don’t need the Chinese intimidating us.” The Nepalese Ministry of Tourism backed away from its ban yesterday, with a spokesman insisting that the season’s 25 Everest expeditions would proceed as planned. “You can go any time to Everest,” he said. [Link]

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p>What about India and its role as related to the protests in Tibet? In Dharamshala this past week, India too decided to suck up to China:

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has said he “appreciated” the steps taken by Indian authorities in handling protests by Tibetan refugees in the country.

More than 100 refugees were detained in India while attempting to march to the Chinese border last week.

They were marching as part of the global pro-independence protest.

India has in the past been sympathetic to the Tibetan cause but in recent years Delhi’s relations with Beijing have improved.

India has not allowed large-scale public protests for fear of embarrassing Beijing. [Link]

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Let me understand this. The world’s largest democracy won’t allow peaceful protests because it may embarrass its authoritarian neighbor? That’s an interesting interpretation of democracy. The relationship between India and China is of course a complex one and the issue of Tibet goes back a long ways. The following is an excerpt from a great article in The Hindu Business Line which puts India’s response in a historical context:

When the Chinese People’s Liberation Army occupied Tibet in 1950, the Deputy Prime Minister, Sardar Patel, wrote to Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru on November 7, 1950 saying: “The Chinese Government has tried to delude us by professions of peaceful intentions. My own feeling is that at a crucial period they managed to install into our Ambassador (academic K. M. Panicker) a false sense of confidence in their so-called desire to settle the Tibetan problem by peaceful means.”

Sardar Patel added: “(Throughout history) the Himalayas have been regarded as an impenetrable barrier for any threat from the North. We had a friendly Tibet which gave us no trouble…Chinese ambitions in this respect not only cover the Himalayan slopes on our side, but also include the important part of Assam… Chinese irredentism and communist imperialism are different from the expansionism or imperialism of the western powers, which makes it ten times more dangerous. In the guise of ideological expansion lie concealed racial, national and historical claims”. [Link]

Sumit Ganguly, writing for Newsweek, sounds pissed about India’s blatant appeasement:

India does itself a disservice by not standing up to China over its treatment of Tibet. If India wishes to be considered a great power, it needs to display a greater degree of independence and not kowtow to Beijing. With rapid economic growth, a substantial military establishment and robust political institutions, India should stop behaving in a subservient fashion and forthrightly stand up and defend certain inalienable rights of the Tibetan minority in its midst–rights that should obtain in any humane and democratic state.

New Delhi’s reluctance to challenge China over Tibet goes back to Beijing’s brutal repression of the Khampa revolt 50 years ago, when the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal head of the Tibetans, fled to India. Although China sharply reproved India for providing refuge to the Dalai Lama, India stood its ground. Shortly thereafter, following a breakdown of negotiations over a disputed border, China attacked and defeated India in October 1962. Even though India’s army has since been modernized and prepared for mountain warfare, the memory of this rout still haunts Indian military planners and policymakers. That’s why, when the Chinese army periodically crosses the border, India responds with anodyne criticism. And why India has been willing to publicly and abjectly reassure China that the Tibetan exiles will not be allowed to engage in any meaningful political activity.

Appeasement might not be a bad policy if it actually succeeded in keeping Beijing satisfied, but it doesn’t. There is not a shred of evidence that it has ever moderated Chinese behavior. Whenever Tibetan exiles have engaged in minor protests, Beijing has sternly rebuked India for allowing them to engage in political activities. Faced with Beijing’s continued expressions of discontent, New Delhi has rarely missed an opportunity to genuflect before the Middle Kingdom. The Tibetan crackdown is only the latest example.

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p>This humiliating deference undermines India’s national interests as a rising Asian power and corrodes its credentials as a liberal democracy.[Link]

By the way, if you are curious as to what law in the Indian Constitution allowed India to scoop up these protestors, it is known as “Preventive Detention“:

The Fundamental Rights have been criticised as inadequate in providing freedom and opportunity for all Indians. Many political groups have demanded that the right to work, the right to economic assistance in case of unemployment and similar socio-economic rights be enshrined as constitutional guarantees,[27] that are presently listed in the directive principles of state policy.[46] The right to freedom contains a number of limiting clauses and has been criticised for failing to check government powers[27] such as provisions of preventive detention and suspension of fundamental rights in times of emergency. The phrases “security of State”, “public order” and “morality” are unclear, having wide implication. The meaning of phrases like “reasonable restrictions” and “the interest of public order” have not been explicitly stated in the constitution, leading to frequent litigations.[27] The Maintenance of Internal Security Act (1975) was strongly criticised for giving then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi the authority to arrest opposition leaders following the declaration of emergency in 1975. [Link]

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In any case I, like the Dalai Lama, hope there is no more violence against peaceful protestors.

68 thoughts on “Has the Tiger been leashed by the Dragon?”

  1. For all the faults of the Chinese system of govt. and democracy one topic that fascinates me ( someday I need to study/read abt it more ) that they have managed to western economics and model of wealth generation upside down which even the mighty soviets couldn’t manage. I understand that western folks call it mostly cheating and stealing but did the european colonialist steal less in the past that the chinese have to apologetic about ?

  2. 52 · Bridget Jones said

    For all the faults of the Chinese system of govt. and democracy one topic that fascinates me ( someday I need to study/read abt it more )is that they have managed to western economics and model of wealth generation upside down which even the mighty soviets couldn’t manage. I understand that western folks call it mostly cheating and stealing but did the european colonialist steal less in the past that the chinese have to apologetic about ?

    I meant turn the western…..model upside down

  3. 10 · Prem said

    dealing with its own separatist problems that China could very easily support if it wanted to.

    Dude what made you think they dont??!!

  4. 23 · razib said

    American Indians : US::Tibet : China no. they died, or we killed them. mostly the former due to massive epidemics which preceded european expansion into “virgin” territory (e.g., the pacific northwest tribes in the willamette valley died decades before white settlement, explaining why deciduous forests had regrown). can we note that 90% of the people in the tibetan autonomous zone are still ethnic tibetans? qinghai province is a better analogy, since tibetans might have been a majority there are one time, though it has always been more diverse than the highlands. this is a cultural genocide, not a demographic one (at least since the 1950s, though to be honest most credible sources seem to imply that the tibetan dissent overestimates the number killed by the chinese).

    The distinction you are making is very interesting because it predisposes the value of these people lives is not in the manner of which they live their lives which is exactly what Europeans thought about American Indians.

    Still, is there really a difference for those people who are losing their world?

  5. Sumit Ganguly, writing for Newsweek, sounds pissed about India’s blatant appeasement: India does itself a disservice by not standing up to China over its treatment of Tibet. If India wishes to be considered a great power, it needs to display a greater degree of independence and not kowtow to Beijing. With rapid economic growth, a substantial military establishment and robust political institutions, India should stop behaving in a subservient fashion and forthrightly stand up and defend certain inalienable rights of the Tibetan minority in its midst—rights that should obtain in any humane and democratic state

    Sumit Ganguly is seriously delusional (typical of his kind). India is not a great power by any measure. It certainly is no match for China. India behaves in a “subservient fashion” towards China because it was taught a humiliating lesson by the chinese PLA the last time its clueless leaders (Nehru et al) tried to show some spine.

    India needs to first “stand up and defend certain inalienable rights” of the majority of its own citizens who live in conditions that any tibetan or chinese would find deplorable and dehumanizing, before it lectures other nations on human rights.

    As for the equivalency between India’s stranglehold over Kashmir to China’s over Tibet, a better comparison is India’s rule over the tibeto-burmese northeastern states. Its sheer hypocrisy to condemn China over Tibet but give India a pass over its own occupation of the northeastern states.

  6. 44 · Al beruni said

    …the disgusting hypocrisy of the Hindu newspaper….

    What would you to say to the paper’s large “stable” of “progressives and intellectuals”? Sainath, Khare, Smita Gupta, Kalpana Sharma, S. Varadarajan (whose craven fealty towards the Chinese Commies is almost close to Ram’s), Vidya Subrahmanyam, and many others? You wonder if they have any inner voice at all.

  7. no. they died, or we killed them.

    Who is this “we” Razib? Since when did you become a white european? Its amusing to see a colored immigrant like you identify with the whites who did those things to the natives americans 🙂

    Perhaps it was “you” also who enslaved the indian subcontinent and kept south asians segregated in America during the Jim Crow era?

  8. Its worth noting here that its the western liberals and leftists who are agitating for Tibetan rights and confronting China over this issue.

    Bush on the other hand insists that he will go to China for the Olympics.

  10. 58 · Vyasa said

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    blockquote>no. they died, or we killed them. Who is this “we” Razib? Since when did you become a white european? Its amusing to see a colored immigrant like you identify with the whites who did those things to the natives americans 🙂

    This is a good topic of discussion. What is the relationship of the Indian immigrant who swears fealty to the nation founded by the original settlers? Can he reject the sins of the original settlers yet share in the fruits of their toil?

  11. 56 · Vyasa Sumit Ganguly is seriously delusional (typical of his kind). India is not a great power by any measure. It certainly is no match for China. India behaves in a “subservient fashion” towards China because it was taught a humiliating lesson by the chinese PLA the last time its clueless leaders (Nehru et al) tried to show some spine.

    India needs to first “stand up and defend certain inalienable rights” of the majority of its own citizens who live in conditions that any tibetan or chinese would find deplorable and dehumanizing, before it lectures other nations on human rights.

    As for the equivalency between India’s stranglehold over Kashmir to China’s over Tibet, a better comparison is India’s rule over the tibeto-burmese northeastern states. Its sheer hypocrisy to condemn China over Tibet but give India a pass over its own occupation of the northeastern states.

    India is in the process of becoming a great power. All things considered it’s development track as a nation is following a normal pattern after independence. The next 20 years of it’s progress will focus on infrastructure particularly in areas of governmental efficiency and transportation. As for it’s geo-political standing in the world, slowly it’s gaining a weight of importance.

    India and China probably will have major conflicts in 2040-60.

  13. As an Anglo-Indian, born, bred and educated through the system of the RAJ..I understand the imperialistic attitude of China, lets follow Britians lead and abuse every one and everything as nobody will say or do anything to stop us, if by chance they do it will only be of Lip service..nothing that cannot be handled.

    When will we learn, look at what the Nazi’s did..nobody said or did anything till it was too late. Countries invaded, cultures destroyed, genocide practised, All it takes is for one to stand up and be recognized..at this point in time it’s Tibets turn..she will be decimated and her people scattered..but she will prevail. we should all hold our heads down in disgust at what we have let China get away with. Yes all countries have their skeletons in the closets, but none so blatant as China.

    I am 10 years old and wonder what the world will be like..When China does become a superpower..

  16. Kush@41 :

    the Indian government also is struggling with the fact that many Tibetans here, especially youths, have grown increasingly militant in favor of independence for their homeland. The Dalai Lama, however, endorses greater autonomy for Tibet under Chinese suzerainty

    How scary it is for India to have so many disgruntled youth , especially the ones who feel they don’t belong to India. What happens if the Dalai lama’s influence wanes & theres still no deal ?

  17. Beijing must be happy to know it has legions of communist lickspittles in Kolkata and elsewhere to come so vigorously in defense of its policy of killing Tibetans.

  18. Thanks for pointing to the disgusting hypocrisy of the Hindu newspaper on the tibet issue. In the last five years, they havent printed a single article on the chinese destruction of tibetan culture or anything like that at all. Most of their coverage on China sounds like it is translated from Chinese govt reports. At the same time these folks want to pretend that they are progressives and every third editorial is a condemnation of the western powers (often deserved, but where is the balance in all of this?).

    I remember reading articles in Frontline praising the worker’s paradise that North Korea is. These guys are beyond ridiculous. But I am curious if there’s any evidence out there that the communist parties are arm-twisting Congress on this issue. I won’t be surprised if the Congress didn’t need any arm-twisting.