Communist China’s founding father, Mao Zedong, called Tibet China’s right palm, and described its ‘five fingers’ as being Nepal, Sikkim, Ladakh, Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh, all to be ‘liberated’. Decades later, none of the so-called ‘fingers’ are part of modern China, while the legitimacy of Tibet itself remains testy and irksome for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which just celebrated its 100th anniversary.
The public face of that ‘questioning’ over Tibet is the manifestation of Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and the patron saint of Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama. He is connected to the foundational intrigues surrounding Tibet’s forcible occupation by China when, as a 14-year-old, he escaped to India in 1959. Much before his escape, Mao had cavalierly played down the prospect of any threat, “Shall I feel aggrieved at the desertion of one Dalai? Not at all...What harm will his departure do to us? None whatsoever. He can’t do more than curse us.” But the 86-year-old Dalai Lama has disproved Mao’s nonchalance as he remains committed and relevant to Tibet’s unsettled status and consciousness.
President Xi Jinping is often bandied about as the ‘new Mao Zedong’ for his authoritarian, expansionist and hegemonic instincts that drive him to routinely bare his fangs, especially to aggressively assert China’s legitimacy and ownership of credentials on Tibet. Threatening the Chinese narrative on Tibet is the globally popular cry of ‘Free Tibet’, championed by the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan Government-in-Exile in Dharamshala, India— internationally recognised as an Unrepresented Nations and Peoples’ Organisation (UNPO). Though it is not recognised by any nation officially, countries like the United States support it financially and allow for private donations to it. Time, distance, and multiple Chinese manipulations notwithstanding, the reverence for the Dalai Lama in the Tibetan imagination, both in Tibet and within the global diaspora, remains undiminished. The ‘Free Tibet’ sentiment, delegitimising Chinese control over it, has survived decades of continuous attempts to diminish the Dalai Lama’s appeal by using sectarianism, the brutal ‘cultural revolution’ of the 1960s and 70s, by forcing demographic changes, persecutions (an estimated 260,000 Tibetans died in prison/labour camps between 1954 and 1984), and by constantly interfering in the Tibetan religious-cultural practices, for instance, the abduction of the 11th Panchen Lama (second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism) duly appointed by the Dalai Lama, and his forced replacement by a Beijing appointee.
Now, amidst the ensuing Indo-Sino border tensions, as also the US-Sino dissonance across the board, the consequential conflation of Indo-US efforts to contain China is gaining currency. The conceptualisation of strategic platforms like the Quad (entailing the four Sino-wary nations US, India, Japan, and Australia), the exchange of military wherewithal, interoperability exercises and cooperation in multilateral forums are shaping the aligned responses of Delhi and Washington towards checkmating Chinese belligerence.
Expectedly, lending a favourable ear and voice to the cause of the beleaguered Tibetans is a natural tactic that upsets the Chinese efforts to stitch the Tibetan narrative in its favour. On Tibet, the Chinese are routinely on the defensive as it remains a sensitive, unsettled and polarising reality in its so-called Tibet/Xizang Autonomous Region, as also internationally.
Arousing Beijing’s latest concerns was the significant meeting of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken with the representative of the Dalai Lama, Ngodup Dongchung of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), while Blinken was recently on a visit to Delhi. Seen in the backdrop of the continuing Indo-Sino stand-off and the recent passing of the Tibet Policy and Support Act by the US Congress, the implied message of calling the Chinese bluff on Tibet is unmistakable. China is rattled by the deliberately curated optics and the CCP’s mouthpiece, Global Times, reported Blinken’s move as ‘playing the Tibet card’ and alluded to the same as, “a mechanism to contain China in the Indo-Pacific region.”
For a country struggling to project a benign façade with its combination of ‘cheque-book diplomacy’ and charm offensives, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, the reality of the Covid pandemic, tensions over Hong Kong and Taiwan, along with the historically weak storyline in Tibet, remain eyesores to the Chinese narrative. The Chinese have upped the ante with Xi himself making a historic ‘first’ visit to Tibet as President, raising a new un-uniformed Tibetan youth militia (separate from the already existing Special Tibetan Army Unit of the PLA) as a possible counter to the Indian Special Frontier Force (SFF), which did exceptionally well in the recent border tensions, much to the discomfiture of the Chinese.
The Indian side, too, did its own bit of posturing, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi making it public for the first time that he had spoken to the Dalai Lama and making sure that the latter’s birthday was celebrated with gusto in Ladakhi villages, just across from the Chinese-held territories.
But the Dalai Lama’s ripe age is a key determinant, as the appointment of his successor i.e., the 15th Dalai Lama, is expected to be contentious. As China did by propping up its own Panchen Lama, it is expected to similarly prop up a puppet 15th Dalai Lama while the current Dalai Lama may choose a different person!
Whoever succeeds him, however, will certainly not have the same emotional resonance on the Tibetan issue as the current Dalai Lama, given the formative umbilical cord of his existence and relationship with the Tibetan movement. The ability to invoke Tibet for naming-and-shaming the Chinese regime may weaken post the 14th Dalai Lama, with two claimants to his position.
With the recently passed Act, the US has already mandated sanctions against China if it meddles with the appointment of the next Dalai Lama. Since the entire Tibetan movement is predicated on one man, the sitting Dalai Lama has consciously posited appointment reforms that may facilitate the leadership transition, to the detriment of China. Ironically, the Dalai Lama remains a moderating, pacifist and only the moral face of the Tibetan struggle, which could take more violent expressions after him. For now, the battle for Tibetan credentials between China and the ‘Free World’ will only ratchet up.
(The writer is a former Lt-Gov of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)