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![]() ![]() Bringing down the Great Wall Contacts between Tibetan exiles and pro-democracy Chinese
By Thubten Samphel, editor of Tibetan Bulletin, examines the contacts between the pro-democracy
China built the Great Wall to keep the barbarians out. But the barbarians kept breaking through the Wall and setting up camp in the imperial capital, some for centuries. Even the Tibetans, in their warlike days, managed to install a puppet on the imperial throne in the Tang capital of Chang'an, present-day Xian. Tibetans named their puppet Tashi. It means auspicious. Emperor Auspicious did not live up to his name. He ruled Tang China for a mere fifteen days, a flash in China's recorded 5,000 years of history. But for the dispirited Tibetans of today, they can at least say, for one brief shining moment in Tibet's history their forefathers ruled the Middle Kingdom. But the Tibetan rule by proxy of the one of the greatest empires of the day ended when a reorganized Chinese imperial army thundered back and chased the Tibetans out of the capital and beyond the Great Wall into barbarian-land again. Besides serving as an ineffectual defence system, the Great Wall constituted China's true and effective borders. For centuries, China looked to the territory within the Great Wall as the Middle Kingdom, and that outside the wall, as a no-man's land, beyond the pale of civilization and Chinese influence. Today, encouraged by the peaceful collapse of the former Soviet Union, both barbarians and Chinese are cheerfully chipping away at the great wall of their common suffering. The barbarians are chipping away to re-define what passes for "China" and the Chinese to redefine "the mandate of heaven" from which the rulers of China traditionally received their legitimacy to rule the most populous na-tion on earth. According to some observers, the common effort to bring down the "Great Wall" of totalitarian China has the poten-tial of turning into a loose collaboration between Tibetan exiles and pro-democracy Chinese. The prospects of Tibetans and Chinese cobbling together a "united front" have dangerous implications for the old men in Beijing, said Michael van Walt, a lawyer by profession and the au-thor of the Status of Tibet: History, Rights, and Prospects in International Law. Given the bad habit these days of the former Soviet Union to keep breaking into ever smaller independent republics, this is one issue on which pro-democracy Chinese are putting a lot of thought. In a different context of democracy sweep-ing China, Haipei Xue said, "If Big Brother can change, so will smaller brother." However, to establish their democratic credentials to the outside world, most pro-democracy Chinese do not wish to alienate their mass constituency back in China by supporting Tibetan independence. "Many Chinese students are not for Tibetan independence," said Haipei Xue, director of the Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars, a human rights organization based in Washington, D.C. "We definitely know how the Tibetan people feel about the status of Tibet. However, many Chinese students are not aware of the complexity of the Tibetan situation. They know nothing about Tibet." Haipei Xue is a Tibet hand of sorts. In 1984 and 1985, he took foreign tour groups to Tibet. He said he trained Tibetans in hotel management. On the issue of Tibetan indepen-dence, he went to great lengths to distinguish his personal feeling from that of his organization's. "My bottom-line is that we should respect the choice of the Tibetan people. However, I often say, half jokingly, half seriously that I would like Tibet to remain a part of China because then the spiritual breeze blowing from the high Tibetan plateau will be good for China. We need the spiritual goodness and the moral capacity of the Dalai Lama." Though this might be a disingenu-ously diplomatic comment on the status of their embattled homeland, Tibetan officials consider the frequent contacts between Tibetan exiles and pro-democracy Chinese important. "The fact that the Chinese students are pro-democracy is a positive development, potentially good for China and Tibet," said Tenzin Namgyal Tethong, a former minister of the Tibetan administration. "Tibetan officials, members of organizations and individuals have been meeting Chinese scholars and students for a number of years," Tenzin Tethong said. This was done at the suggestion of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. "His Holiness believes that by talking and having open communications, we can not only have good understanding but the truth of the Tibetan issue will change the minds of the Chinese people," Tenzin Tethong said. The first of these open communica-tions was held in 1991 at New York's Columbia University. The second was held in Washington, DC in 1992. Again a smaller but much more intensive dialogue was organized by the Washington, DC-based Multi-Track Diplomacy Institute in 1994. Several rounds were held in Europe. The most recent dialogue was held in Bonn in June this year. In history of relations marred by mutual animosity, these meetings be-tween Tibetans and Chinese constitute a landmark in the unofficial Tibetan-Chinese dialogue. In the early 1950's Tibetan refugees streamed into central Tibet, bringing with them horror stories of Chinese communist atrocities in east and north-east Tibet. Those Tibetans in central Tibet who had never seen a Chinese communist before thought that the fleeing refugees were talking about monsters. The derogative Tibetan term for the Chinese, "gyami la-lo" - Chinese barbarians - originated since Tibet's first contacts with China, but the term has acquired greater currency since China's occupation of Tibet. In fact, through the centuries, peoples on both sides of the Great Wall have been accus-ing the other of being barbarians. To go beyond the mutual stereotype image and face each other across the table is a measure of how far Tibetan exiles and pro-democracy Chinese, victims of a common foe, have come in recent years to undo their tragic fate. "Although what the Chinese students said at the conference might not be representative of the views of most Chinese students, their presence at the conference indicates that more Chinese students, especially the intellectuals, are beginning to understand the Tibetan issue. This is exciting and significant," said Tseten Wangchuk, a reporter with the Tibetan service of the Voice of America. Tseten Wangchuk was formerly a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. Michael van Walt, the lawyer, said the fact that such conferences take place at all is a quantum leap for Tibetans. The views ex-pressed at the meetings are representative of a growing number of Chinese intellectuals. "It's not a large number, but still, it's growing. And the significant thing," Walt stressed, "is that these views are expressed by the most important leaders, important in moral leadership." One of the important moral leaders Walt was referring to is Fang Lizhi, China's Sakharov. Fang Lizhi gave the keynote address at the Columbia meeting in 1991. The soft-spoken, bespectacled astro-physicist said, "The Tibetan people should have the right to choose their own destiny." And Chinese human rights activists look to Tibetan exiles for the creation of a more effective movement. While they more than make up for their organization's weakness by their sheer presence in the world, they have a lot to learn from Tibetan exiles in organizational effectiveness and cohesion. Xiao Qiang, executive director of the New York-based Human Rights in China, said the frequent dialogue between Tibetans and Chinese dissidents, scholars and students would give them an opportunity to learn how to make their own organizations cohesive. On their part, Tibetan scholars consider Chinese students of great importance. "There has always been the tradition of intellectuals being agents of social and political change in China," said Ngapo Jigme, a former China specialist at the International Campaign for Tibet, a human rights organization based in Washington, D.C. "Zhou En-lai, Deng Xiaoping and others had studied in the West. Even Li Peng studied in the Soviet Union. Most of the top ranks of the Chinese leadership are people who had studied abroad," Ngapo Jigme said. One way or the other, the present Chinese scholars in the West will direct the course China takes in the future, Ngapo Jigme said. There are about 80,000 Chinese students abroad, more than 50,000 in the United States. Their numbers make them a formidable intellectual force.
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