Tibet – not always part of China…
From DNA India, “Tibet wasn’t ours, says Chinese scholar” (by Venkatesan Vembu, Feb 22, ’07) – I wonder what the official reaction to this is.
Some excerpts:
“…In an article in the China Review magazine, Professor Ge Jianxiong, 62, director of the Institute of Chinese Historical Geography and the Research Centre for Historical Geographic Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, states that while considering how big China was during the Tang Dynasty (7th to 10th century), “we cannot include the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, which was ruled by Tubo/Tufan…”
Tubo/Tufan, notes Ge, “was a sovereignty independent of the Tang Dynasty. At least it was not administered by the Tang Dynasty.” If it were not, he argues, there would have been no need for the Tang emperor of the day to offer Princess Wen Cheng in a “marriage of state” to the Tibetan king, Songtsen Gampo.
“It would be a defiance of history,” asserts Ge, “to claim that Tibet has always been a part of China since the Tang Dynasty; the fact that the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau subsequently became a part of the Chinese dynasties does not substantiate such a claim.”
Ge’s article is an exploration of a larger theme of Chinese identity in history — and precisely when it evolved. And his comments on Tibet conform to scholarly accounts that acknowledge that the takeover of Tibet during the Qing Dynasty (17th to early 20th century) was the starting point for “Chinese sovereignty” over the region.
Yet, Ge’s comments are controversial insofar as they deviate from the official Communist Party line that Tibet has always been an inalienable part of China; in the past China has regarded as any weakening of that theory as “anti-national” and “split-ist”. It will be interesting to see how the authorities respond to Ge’s scholarly article.”
Excerpts from Batting for the McMahon Line by Dr Ajai Shukla:
..a scholarly article in a Beijing newspaper has focused China’s spotlight on a troubling British policy retreat that undermines the Indian claim that the McMahon Line forms the Sino-India border in Arunachal Pradesh. This took the form of an inexplicable statement from former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in 2008, that back-tracked from Britain’s long-held position that Tibet was autonomous before 1950, with China having a “special position†but not sovereignty over that country. Miliband abandoned that position as an “anachronism†based on “the outdated concept of suzerainty.â€
…
Why is this vital for New Delhi? The McMahon Line was formalized between India and Tibet at the Simla Convention in 1914, and its legitimacy rests on Tibet’s independence. Beijing argues that Lhasa was subordinate to Beijing and, therefore, not empowered to negotiate its borders. Miliband’s statement could add weight to Beijing’s argument. Chinese negotiators will say: the colonial power that negotiated the Simla Convention has wisely repudiated it.
What makes Miliband’s retreat especially baffling is that London got absolutely nothing out of it, except for a mouthful from Beijing for interfering in its internal matters. Having already given away Hong Kong and forsaken Taiwan with a one-China policy, Tibet was the lone card in the British hand that mattered desperately to Beijing. But London gifted it away without any apparent strategic intent.
…
Miliband’s wobble and Beijing’s skilful hardball raise two big issues for India. Firstly, is China’s economic muscle reformatting foreign policy hard drives in Western Europe? This is especially relevant regarding the UK, where India’s border claim has been impacted by the inconsistency of British policymaking in the face of a resurgent China. Given the haste and secrecy that attended this policy shift, it appears that London’s eagerness to please Beijing overrode the traditional policy review process, including consultations with historical and legal experts.
New Delhi must immediately seek a public clarification from London, which would allow the British government to clarify that the pre-1950 position on Tibet remains unchanged. The big question is: “What is the UK’s current view of its pre-1950 relations with Tibet, and in particular of the Annexures to the Simla Convention of 1914.â€
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Secondly, India must re-evaluate its own Tibet policy. Having provided asylum to the Dalai Lama, the Central Tibetan Administration, a vibrant Tibetan clergy and a hundred thousand Tibetans, India is probably the world’s only country with serious leverage in Tibet. Sadly, New Delhi bends over backwards to convince Beijing that India has no designs on Tibet. This submissiveness has yielded only disadvantages: the Tibetan presence in India cannot but make China deeply suspicious of India; while New Delhi’s periodic clamp-down on Tibetan refugee activity — portrayed as a neighbourly concern for Chinese sensitivities — leads Beijing to conclude that sustained pressure on India will make the Tibet card unplayable.
India must abandon this practice of dealing with China through concessions. Over thousands of years of history, successive Chinese rulers have seen concessions as a sign of weakness. The Chinese Communist Party wholeheartedly embraces this belief.
…
China’s expansive claim over Arunachal Pradesh is hardly backed by history. But it is designed to keep the discussion off Tibet, an increasingly sensitive issue for Beijing as its thuggish militias fail in stamping out a deep-rooted identity struggle.
Rather than continuing to play by Chinese rules, where Arunachal is discussed but not Tibet, and while concessions like Miliband’s reshape the ballgame to India’s disadvantage, New Delhi must begin raising the issue of Tibet in the Special Representatives’ dialogue. As long as talks are about only the border, no settlement is likely. But by strategically repositioning the Sino-Indian dialogue, and shifting at least some of the spotlight onto Tibet, New Delhi can create incentives for Beijing to loosen its untenable positions. India has legitimate and non-provocative interests in Tibet: including the reopening of India’s consulate in Lhasa that was shut down in the 1950s; border trade; religious linkages and tourism and people-to-people contacts.