These are guesses as to why the Chinese media are embarrassing themselves with the ridiculous, intelligence-insulting way they try to vilify the Dalai Lama. This level of hysteria is astonishing, and baffling. While I am still trying to understand it, I gather it must come from a place of deep fear, whose reasons are not evident.
The author of that diary (Q&A on Tibet w/poll), rjones2818, asks a good question:
Does each ethnic/religious/native group deserve it's own homeland?
While the diary does represent the Chinese view of the situation, I think it is crucial for everyone to become familiar with that point of view, if there is any hope for constructive and peaceful engagement on this issue.
There is another good background diary, mentioned in that thread: Buddhism is so cool. But.... by Zwoof.
In a comment, says:
I think the problem is that China does not trust him. They need to have a chat.
That is an understatement. But it is the heart of the issue. For that lack of trust is rooted in the bizarre existential fear that the Chinese ruling class seems to have of Tibetan self-assertion.
beijingbetty, in the Q&A on Tibet w/poll diary, points to the more obvious reason for China's fear about Tibet:
I do think independent Tibet means that Xinjiang, which also borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, will explode into violence.
Zwoof adds that PRC policies towards "Tibet" go beyond the PRC-designated province known as the Tibet Autonomous Region --
--
and have direct implications for "Greater" or
ethnographic Tibet, including the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu Sichuan and Yunnan
While this map is misleading in suggesting that the entirety of the provinces highlighted in yellow are dominated by Tibetans and/or other ethnic minorities who would be pleased with more autonomy or independence, the recent unrest in Gansu and Sichuan provinces (including alleged killings last night in Ganzi, Sichuan) attests to the wider consequences that Tibet-related policies will have.
A separate point that Zwoof makes is that China wants control of the Tibetan plateau on account of its being a huge source of water:
The map shows six of the worlds largest rivers draining from the Plateau... The plateau is occupied by about four million Tibetans who raise yaks and sheep on tundra above the timberline, but over half of the worlds population lives in the drainage basins of these six rivers. <...> The world is already bent over the barrel by fundamentalist religious extremists with political power that fortuitously sit on most of the planet's oil. Some were our friends in the past. Now they are not. The only positive is that they don't also have control of 1/2 of the world's water as well.
The map shows six of the worlds largest rivers draining from the Plateau... The plateau is occupied by about four million Tibetans who raise yaks and sheep on tundra above the timberline, but over half of the worlds population lives in the drainage basins of these six rivers.
<...>
The world is already bent over the barrel by fundamentalist religious extremists with political power that fortuitously sit on most of the planet's oil. Some were our friends in the past. Now they are not. The only positive is that they don't also have control of 1/2 of the world's water as well.
(It would also have been nice if he had sourced his map and the paragraph he quotes.)
See "China taps Tibetan waters" from 2006 August,
and "China's water supply could be cut off as Tibet's glaciers melt", as picked up by Magnifico in a Salon last June.
The first time I noticed this was three weeks ago in a comment by margouillat:
"I've never understood why China insists on owning Tibet. After all, it isn't as if it will ever be a cash cow." Maybe because of the Quinghai province that is the origin of the Yangzi Jiang, the Huang He and the Lancang Jiang, know usually as the "Three rivers" ! It's all about water as elsewhere!
Maybe because of the Quinghai province that is the origin of the Yangzi Jiang, the Huang He and the Lancang Jiang, know usually as the "Three rivers" !
It's all about water as elsewhere!
It is true that the three great rivers of China start in Qinghai. However, of the traditional Tibetan provinces only the Eastern ones of Amdo and Kham are actually in the basins of the Chinese rivers, and those were annexed by China no later than 1928. The province of Ü-Tsang, around Lhasa, roughly coinciding with the present-day Tibet Autonomous Region is mostly an endorrheic basin (roughly meaning "inward-flowing" in Greek) which means it has no direct significance for China's water resources. It was pointed out by Margouillat that the Brahmaputra also starts in Tibet, but the basin of the Brahmaputra only extends to the southern edge of Tibet though it does include Lhasa. (source: wikipedia)
So Tibet is a buffer state between China and India, of which China had already annexed early on the parts with strategic water importance. The only reasons for China to be interested in taking over the entire Tibetan plateau would then be 1) paranoia over India taking control of the rest, especially on the excuse that the Brahmaputra starts there; 2) the fact that the province of Amdo (in Qinghai) was a spiritual/cultural centre of Tibet even if politically Tibet was ruled from Lhasa, and so China asserting control over Amdo and imposing Maoist reforms in the 1950s couldn't help but cause problems in the whole of Tibet (also, the current Dalai Lama was born in Amdo). It'd be nice if the battle were only against the right wingers, not half of the left on top of that — François in Paris
I had not read your exchange with margouillat. I never said that Tibet was all about water. And I quite specifically said that "I am still trying to understand it" and that these were only "guesses".
But thanks for your information, which as always is very helpful.
Lesson learned (again): when coming across new information, first search to see if it has been discussed on EuroTrib before posting it anew.
While I'm persuaded that water scarcity is probably not a major factor behind Chinese government/media hysteria with respect to the Dalai Lama, I wonder, is it conceivable that the increasingly dire water shortage could give an endorheic basin, provided that it is large enough, significant value in the eyes of the Chinese government?
More than its value as a buffer region with India, I believe what is more important, now, is Tibet's potential as a powerful symbolic precedent for Tibetans in provinces outside the TAR and for Uighurs in Xinjiang. Also, securing Tibet -- which, as Zwackus pointed out, off and on has been represented a rival pole to China for more than a thousand years -- represents a securing and reaffirmation of Chinese identity and Chinese "integrity", in the eyes of Chinese who see themselves as victims of over a century of foreign meddling, despoliation, and abuse. On top of that, the government has become a victim of its own propaganda: any concessions to "secessionist" demands now would not only look weak and insult Chinese national pride, but it would sow doubt and suspicion about the government's -- and media's, and schools' -- grasp on history, and reality.
