David Alton
In the aftermath of the March 2008 riots, the Dalai Lama trenchantly condemned violence as a means of procuring change in Tibet. He has also accepted (as the British Government did earlier this year, although without any parliamentary debate) that Tibet is part of China – but believes that it should be allowed significant autonomy. He has repudiated any return to feudalism and stated that he is willing to accept a spiritual role, rather than a political one.
With sufficient goodwill and determination on both sides, these four principles could form the basis of a firm settlement with the Government of China.
Since the riots, when an estimated 200 people died and 1200 people were detained, very few visitors have been permitted to enter Tibet. Recent requests for travel visas by the Ambassadors of France, Germany and the United States, have, along with requests from the international media, all been refused.
More than anything, this underlines the significance of the recent visit by Ivan Lewis, a British Foreign Office Minister and, during the week which followed, an all-party visit by four British Parliamentarians – two members of the Commons and two from the Lords.
We did not go with naive expectations – and knew that our opportunities for private discussions and evidence taking would be circumscribed - but we were promised the opportunity to hold frank discussions and to visit notable sites. The Dalai Lama encouraged us to make the visit and the Chinese authorities could not have been more helpful in facilitating it.
Coincidentally, at the end of our visit preparations were taking place in Beijing for the commemoration, on October 1st, of the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. After midnight, close to Tiananmen Square, all of Beijing's roads were closed off and we witnessed an extraordinary rehearsal as a vast convoy of tanks, inter-continental missiles, and military personnel trundled their way into the night.
At one level, any crude, belligerent display of military might can be interpreted as aggressive and threatening and rightly so when it is used against a country's own citizens to crush internal dissent. Lord Mandelson, the British Business Secretary, might bear this in mind in the light of his recent comments in an interview with China Daily when he redefined Britain's arms sales as “equipment sales”: “What you choose to call an arms fair, we would call an equipment fair.” he said.
A second interpretation of the vast display of China's military which we witnessed would be to put it into the context of the humiliations inflicted on China by outside powers – from Britain's role in the Opium Wars of 1839-42, through the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, to the Japanese invasion and seizure of Beijing, from 1937 until 1945. These events still leave a taint of insecurity and, like any other nation, China rightly and jealously guards her sovereignty.
It is conceivable, but unlikely, that the Chinese military might one day be used externally – for instance, to curtail and occupy North Korea, should that small but troublesome neighbour's failure to reform itself lead to internal collapse and a mass exodus of refugees across China's borders; but it is difficult to imagine many other situations where her military might would be used to impose hegemony..
To her credit, China now provides more military personnel for peace keeping operations in some of the world's hot spots than any other country.
These ambiguities underline the sense of China being “a work in progress” - these are, after all celebrations to mark the passing of only sixty years since the revolution - and China today is a very different place from the China of twenty years ago, let alone sixty years ago. What rapidly becomes apparent is that this vast country of 1.2 billion people (half the size of which is equal to the European Union's twenty seven member states) change moves at different rates - with some of the old guard clinging to old attitudes and old slogans.
For instance, when China is criticised for using her military power to intimidate or brutalise dissenters she invariably asserts the frayed doctrine that it is an internal matter – “none of your business.” However, wiser minds at the top of China's government know that this is no longer a tenable position in a world which places a premium on upholding universal human rights, and via phenomenal developments in information technology has the ability to communicate those concerns from person to person, this is no longer a tenable position. China may try to hold back global communications but, in this respect, she has about as much chance of success as King Canute.
In the aftermath of the tragic earthquake in Sichuan Province and in the aftermath of the demonstrations and unrest by China's Muslim Uighur people in Xinjiang in July, China showed commendable openness and transparency.
There are over 24,000 mosques in Xinjiang and around 28,000 Islamic clergy. Learning how to integrate its 56 ethnic minorities is going to be as great a challenge for China as it is for the United Kingdom. Even in overwhelmingly Buddhist Tibet we were told that there are 43 ethnic or religious groups – from the growing number of Han Chinese to a Catholic community of 700 in the Mangkang County of the Chando Prefecture. The need to create social harmony was specifically underlines by Premier Wen and President Hu at the seventeenth Party Congress of China's Communist Party in November 2007
China's openness in accepting this challenge and in dealing with the ethnic problems highlighted by the Uighur unrest contrasts markedly with the way in which she has restricted diplomats, journalists and non-governmental organisations from visiting Tibet. The suspension of the dialogue between Chinese officials and representatives of the Dalai Lama sent many negative signals, both internally and externally.
Perhaps the decision to facilitate our own visit represents a new willingness for frank, open and objective evaluation – although some vituperative personal comments about the Dalai Lama from some Communist Party officials were neither sensitive or constructive: “When he dies Tibet will go forward much faster. He is a criminal of history”; “he will never be pardoned unless he understands his own crimes well”; “he has never done ay good for the unity of the country.” Mr. Nima Ciren, Vice President of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress in the Tibet Autonomous Region was, however, more conciliatory, stating that he believed dialogue was the way forward: “We will always keep the door open for dialogue with the Dalai Lama.” Such face to face dialogue must surely be the rational way forward. It would match the strides China is making in so many other ways and it would be a constructive move towards social harmony.
Although China has been the second largest economy in the world in 2007 she knows that economic progress can only ever be just a part of the story.
There are phenomenal economic disparities that could lead to social tensions.
Demographic trends have been radically distorted by the coercive one child policy.
And the aspiration to be both proudly Chinese while simultaneously able to exercise genuine autonomy in matters of governance and personal beliefs will be just as important as economic progress.
It would be an unmitigated tragedy for China, and for those who admire and respect her culture and native genius, if the unresolved issue of Tibet became an insurmountable road-block; preventing her emergence as a civilising, great global power. That would be a tragedy for the rest of the world.
In Africa – where she is now the key player – and to dark corners of the world, such as Iran, North Korea and Burma, it is to China that we must look for leadership. Increasingly petty little European countries – such an the Netherlands – who have tried to cling to seats at the economic top tables, thereby denying China her rightful place, need to understand more clearly the shape of the new world map.
We must accommodate the different dynamics which now prevail in international relationships. There have been too many closed doors in China's past.
Between 1966 and 1976, during the disastrous Cultural Revolution, China locked her gates and closed out the world. She followed a ruinous path that inflicted great pain on her own citizens. After the death of Mao Zedong, President Deng Xiaoping ushered in a new era. In the case of Tibet, he famously said that “everything other than independence may be discussed.” Negotiators on both sides need to make a reality of that welcome assertion.
It must also be conceded by those who claim that China has starved the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of resources that there is ample contrary evidence; and militant, inflammatory anti-China rhetoric will only heighten tensions, not bring about a solution.
Millions of Chinese Yuan have been spent in Tibet on the rehabilitation of religious shrines and monasteries which were wantonly destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. The construction of the railway route to Lhasa (on which we travelled) and other major infrastructure projects ( for instance, the impressive new campus of the University of Tibet, which we visited, and programmes to address high levels of illiteracy and primitive housing, should not be dismissed as irrelevant. These are welcome and hugely significant achievements.
The major sticking point, however, still remains the question of the status of the Dalai Lama; what is actually meant by Tibetan autonomy; and the protection of human rights.
In resolving these issues, China is adamant that it does not want outside mediation - such as that provided by Senator George Mitchell in Northern Ireland. But whether it is with the help of third parties, or by direct negotiations, it needs to put more of its time into resolving this situation (as it was able to do with skill and pragmatism in Hong Kong).
While the fourteenth Dalai Lama is alive and able to use his authority to advance his “middle way” China has a partner with whom she can do business. The former British Foreign Minister, Lord Malloch Brown, correctly summed this up when he said: “In the Dalai Lama China has a partner for peace....I say again that the Chinese are looking a gift horse in the mouth: they are remarkably lucky to have a partner such as the Dalai Lama.” Although the Buddhist leader believes in reincarnation, he will not live for ever. Failure to resolve this issue during his life time could have calamitous consequences.
Meanwhile, we must take every opportunity to engage with China on unresolved questions of human rights.
While in Tibet we went to Drepung Monastery - where the 2008 riots began. 500 monks from Drepung staged a demonstration demanding religious freedom and the release of monks arrested in 2007. There was still an edgy and fearful atmosphere and no-one could provide facts about the monks who had disappeared or what had happened to them. A senior official, Pse Pa, told us that “no one is missing in Tibet” but we were unable to obtain details of the whereabouts of individuals whose cases had been drawn to our attention. Around 1200 Tibetans disappeared after the 2008 protests and remain unaccounted for.
We went to Lhasa's Johkang Temple where monks from the Sera Monastery were beaten and arrested. During our own visit we visited Sera and witnessed a fascinating debate between novice monks. At the meeting with Mr.Nima Ciren we specifically appealed for clemency in the cases of Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak – both arrested for arson and sentenced to the death. We raised the detention of the film maker Dhondup Wangchen, whose film “Leaving Behind Fear”, has been shown in 30 countries, and we called for the release of Wangdu, a Tibetan public health official, who relayed events in Tibet to the outside world, and has been given a life sentence as a consequence. We registered concern about the use of torture to extract confessions and a palpable lack of due process in dealing with a number of cases which have come before closed courts have simply led to an increased sense of alienation and marginalisation. We raised the programmes of “patriotic re-education” for monks and other dissenters (which smacked of the “struggle sessions” of the Cultural Revolution) and we questioned the decision to ban citizens from keeping photographs of the Dalai Lama.
Back in Beijing I was able to hold talks at the Foreign Ministry with Dr.Shen Yongxiang, who is responsible for the Chinese-British dialogue on human rights.
I believed him when he said he had been given a mandate to “deepen and extend human rights.” He gave an extensive response to cases I raised – including the imprisonment of the blind barefoot lawyer, Chen Guang Cheng. Chen was given a four year prison sentence for exposing the forced abortion or sterilisation of 30,000 women in Shandong. Dr.Shen told us that “those allegations were basically true and local officials were punished.” However, Chen remains in jail, convicted of organising a gathering of people and damaging a police car. His lawyer was beaten up and left on the roadside.
I also raised the plight of the twelve “underground” Catholic bishops held in Chinese jails and the recent arrest of house church leaders such as Hua Huiqi and human rights lawyers, like Gao Zhisheng, as well as the repatriation of North Korean refugees who face imprisonment or execution for leaving their country.
The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee was right to suggest that it is futile to go on raising cases such as these unless we have benchmarks to note where progress – or the lack of it – takes place.
Although it may seem like two steps forward and one step back, the willingness of officials like Dr.Shen to listen to these concerns is encouraging. There are other straws in the wind.
The decision of the Vatican and Beijing to both recognise Joseph Lishan - whom I met during my visit - as Catholic Bishop of Beijing, is a hopeful sign. But the arrest and incarceration of Bishop Julius Zhiguo, Bishop of Zhending, in Hebei Province, and the slow progress in normalising relations between Beijing and the Holy See, illustrates the patchiness of China's approach to religious liberties.
China needs to disentangle religion from politics and to disentangle the insistence of religious registration (State control) from regulation (issues such as planning permission for buildings). China needs to liberate her religions, enabling them to become an engine of charitable and social endeavour, and not seek to suffocate them by rigid control. At one stroke, by implementing the provisions of her Constitution, which guarantee religious freedom, China could create a new plurality and undermine those who exploit religion or ethnicity to destabilise the State.
At a series of high level meetings in Lhasa and Beijing our delegation argued that, from our own experience in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, the use of excessive and lethal force, and suppression of human rights, exacerbates the problem rather than solving it. The banning of pictures of the Dalai Lama, the searching of thousands of people's homes, compulsory re-education programmes, attempts to suppress internet and mobile phone communications, closure of house churches and the imprisonment of bishops and priests, should have no place in the modern China. Such actions only allow China's enemies to discredit her.
In January of this year the Lhasa Evening News said a “strike hard campaign” had been launched. Perhaps a “think hard” campaign would be more apposite.
In the case of Tibet, China should be fearful that, in the absence of a wise conciliatory figure like the Dalai Lama, future opposition could be radicalised and degenerate into long term terror and instability. How much better it would be if the Dalai Lama were invited to direct discussions in Beijing with President Hu Jintao.
How much better it would be if the wonderful Potala Palace in Lhasa was given status comparable to that of the Vatican - and the Dalai Lama allowed to return there as a great religious leader. And, how much better it would be if genuine autonomy, accompanied by the Dalai Lama's stated renunciation independence, could become a model for other equally fraught situations in our troubled world. Genuine friends of China will be hoping for a display of hard thinking and diplomatic might which matches the awesome display of military hardware which was evident at the sixtieth anniversary events.