THE POTOMAC CONFERENCE, October 5-6, 1992
SINO-TIBETAN RELATIONS: PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE
October 5, Morning Session
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES I. History Pre-1959
Sino-Tibetan Relations Prior to 1949, 1949-1951,
Seventeen-Point Agreement, Sovereignty,
Chinese policy in Tibet from the 1950s: Interests, Goals
Elliot Sperling, Moderator
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ELLIOT SPERLING
...Our next speaker is going to be Tang Daxian, who has had a rich
career as a journalist in China, including work on the _Beijing Youth
Daily_ from 1979 to 1980, and _China Business Intelligence_ from 1987 to
1989, as well as his work as a researcher for the history of the Chinese
Communist Party which was being compiled; he did that work in 1985 and
1986. He is presently a Ph.D. candidate at the City Universite in Paris,
and it's a pleasure to welcome him here this morning to join us. Tang
Daxian.
[The Potomac Conference translated text; delivered in Chinese, outline
submitted in Chinese.]
TANG DAXIAN
[in Chinese] Mr. Taklha knows a lot about history - just now, he
introduced us to the true history of relations between China and Tibet.
I am surprised that he took this much time in presenting us with a true
picture of history. In this conference, I think that, as Chinese
scholars here, we should face the reality of that. For a long time, we
have not been able to evaluate relations between China and Tibet with
truth. I think this is a shame for Chinese politicians; I think this is
also a shame for Chinese scholars, because the Tibetan question is part
of the question for China.
THE INTERNAL CAUSE OF UPRISING AND SUPPRESSION:
TIBETAN POLITICS, ECONOMY, AND SOCIETY SINCE 1980
Basically the Tibetan issue can be regarded as one of the major problems
in China. Since the beginning of this century, the Tibetan issue has
been put forward because of the strategic position of Tibet as a
political issue. Because of many factors created by the two world wars,
the Tibetan issue has not only not been solved so far but, in fact, has
become more and more complex. After the CCP (Chinese Communist Party)
took power in China in 1949 and sent troops in to Tibet in 1950, the
Tibetan issue became more complex. Before 1949, the Tibetan issue had
two main characteristics: On one hand, the Tibetan political-religious
forces resisted the Western powers, especially the UK; on the other hand,
the Tibetan Government had sharp contradictions with regard to the
Chinese Government and the local forces of some provinces in the border
areas of Tibet (e.g. the army of Ma's family in Qinghai and Liu Wenhui in
Sichuan). However, after 1950, the main characteristic of Tibetan issue
is the direct confrontation between the Tibetan Government and the CCP's
government, namely, as the Chinese Government began to repress the
Tibetan Government, the struggle was between occupation and
anti-occupation.
Around 1959, the CCP began to purge the political-religious forces in
Tibet and abrogated the Tibetan Government. These actions led Tibet's
spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and most officers of the original
Tibetan Government to go into exile in India. Since then, the Tibetan
issue has become ever more complicated and more acute.
Today, due to the unremitting struggle of the Dalai Lama and his
Government-in-Exile, and also, due to the failure of the CCP's rule in
Tibet, Western countries and most democracies of the world have come to
realize more and more the essence of the Tibetan question. After the
Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Tibetan
Government-in-Exile led by the Dalai Lama affirmed a tangible political
principle: the independence and freedom of Tibet. Right now, it is
impossible for Chinese government to solve the Tibetan issue unilaterally
as an internal affair (especially after the CCP's government suppressed
the democratic movement in 1989, the government's ability to solve its
internal social and political problems has been doubted by the world).
Obviously, the internationalization of Tibetan issue has become an
undisputed fact. Under these circumstances, I think, it is necessary to
explain the politics, economy, and society in Tibet since 1980,
especially in recent years.
Because of the time limitation, I cannot be as thorough here as I would
have liked. I had originally planned to introduce you to Tibetan history
since 1950, when the Chinese army advanced on Tibet, but I can give only
a general outline of more recent events. In 1980, the CCP began to
change its nationalities policy particularly with regard to the border
areas. Along with the redress of the inaccurate case of "The People's
Revolutionary Party of Inner Mongolia" in the Cultural Revolution, and
the CCP's placation on the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the CCP
sent a Central Delegation led by CCP Secretary Hu Yaobang to Tibet. In
order to amend the CCP's policy errors since 1959, particularly during
the Cultural Revolution, the Central Delegation held a "Tibetan Working
Conference" and put forward a new Tibetan policy. It included the
following points:
(1) To release the high-ranking officials of the old Tibetan
government and of the upper religious circles from prison, rehabilitate
their reputations, and arrange for new jobs for them step by step. In
this way, the situation in the TAR could be improved.
(2) To implement new policies in Tibet, yet to keep all the
then-current Chinese and Tibetan officials who took power during the
Cultural Revolution in order to maintain the stability of Tibetan
politics and the continuity of administration.
(3) To put forward a new economic policy including power transfers
to the lower local decentralized level, relief from the agricultural tax,
a reduction of the administrative budget, as well as giving more
subsidies and enabling more protection of private agriculture and animal
husbandry, and private industry.
In particular, they agreed that they would not talk about the "three
kinds of peoples." During the Cultural Revolution there were
counter-rebellions, they had been trained by the CCP for all those years.
So it was decided that these kinds of people would not be dismissed or
purged. A lot of cadres then remained in place in Tibet.
Meanwhile, the CCP's government contacted the Dalai Lama and his
government-in-exile through various channels. By many meetings, the
CCP's government hoped that the Tibetan government-in-exile could accept
the CCP's current rule, and give up its antagonistic policy. In other
words, the CCP's government hoped to finally solve Tibetan issue, and
thereby to relieve the international political pressure.
With this policy as a guide, in March 1984, the CCP held a "Tibetan
Development Conference" in Beijing and further confirmed that the CCP
government would keep the lenient policies towards Tibet in place for a
longer time than originally proposed. This lenient policy included:
extending the policy of requisitions by purchase to 1990; eliminating the
state purchase quotas of grain, butter, and meat; not stipulating or
apportioning to the masses any work or ask for any human resources or
material resources; stipulating that life of "the five kinds of families"
should be guaranteed by the social relief fund of the government rather
than by the local masses; ensuring that the CCP's administrative
personnel at the grass-roots level, including the leaders from the
villages, should be subsidized by Tibetan local finance.
The CCP's government hoped that this policy could make the Tibetan
people have a better chance of living and working, and hoped that the
index number of living [consumer index?] for peasants and herdsmen in
Tibet could double within three to five years. This has been a very
important measure which would serve to confirm the CCP's legal status of
ruling and hopefully moderate the contradictions between China and Tibet
since 1959.
On the surface, this policy seemed to be a good political strategy by
which the CCP could attempt to safeguard its rule and reform. However,
there were some very serious drawbacks to the policy. Because of its
flaws, the policy has resulted in the critical social crisis in today's
Tibet.
First, I will analyze how the policy's flaws affected the economy. One
of the biggest drawbacks under the new policy was that, as the CCP
extended the private economic sector and affirmed once again private
property rights, it did not keep the original economic foundations of
Tibetan society. Without funding, collapsed, and then reorganized out of
existence, the workers in the old public service sector were dismissed;
all the institutions perished swiftly. Under these circumstances, a lot
of heavy burdens resulting from years of bad policies were heaped onto
the Tibetan peasants and herdsmen who had nothing to begin with. The
private sector, free to arise spontaneously, ran aground quickly into
very difficult conditions.
For example, the price structure of agriculture and animal husbandry did
not change with the economic reform policy. Because these prices had
been set too low, many [Chinese] inland businessmen or business
organizations illegally bought huge quantities of grain, oil, consumer
goods, and precious medicine, and transported them _out_ of Tibet.
Facing this rampant problem of opportunism and greed which caused only
more scarcity of goods and price inflation, the CCP's government in Tibet
officially forbade this, but simultaneously encouraged these kind of
businesses. With prices for products so low, and prices for goods so
high, many people could not replace or upgrade their working tools nor
enhance their means of production, so they adopted a mode of production
in which they sat idle. For instance, when large amounts of domestic
animals could not live through the winter, many herdsmen slaughtered the
young, the weak, and the female animals in order to lower the number of
livestock on hand. Consequently, the Tibetan production in terms of
animal husbandry shrank year by year.
In fact, in 1985 in Lhasa, there was a meeting on the status of economic
development in Tibet. A number of economists produced statistics stating
that both the quantity and the quality of livestock in Tibet were lower
than that _before_ [the Chinese takeover] in 1959. This is worth
ruminating on. The conclusions of this conference, and the conference
itself, were highly confidential and nothing about it was published.
Until now, the international community and scholars have known nothing
about this conference. The figures available for Shigatse, Shannan, and
Nagchu demonstrate that animal husbandry has entered into a vicious
circle because the local government adopted a policy of a 23 percent
livestock slaughter rate. I know that the local government decided this
percentage without authorization for the sole purpose of transacting
business in other parts of the country. Let me mention a few more
examples of this kind of vicious cycle following.
Since 1985, in order to fit the reforms that had been implemented in
China to Tibet, the CCP's Tibetan government had decided on a 3-year
course of reform for government organizations. However, the reform of
administrative organizations did not fit the actual status of conditions
in Tibet; some persons in power simply took it for granted that they
should draw up reform measures. Consequently, some service organizations
which should have been strengthened (e.g. the post-office, the grain
[purchasing] bureau, trading agencies, livestock exchanges) were closed
down or were merged. So here you had an entire society that had been
"reformed" out of its basic infrastructure.
When these problems were finally recognized officially, many
organizations could not be reestablished immediately. This fact proves
not only that personnel and funds were reduced, but also that efficiency
was greatly reduced and morale was seriously low (especially in light of
the fact that some figures demonstrate that administrative funds had
actually increased 60 percent from 1985 to 1990!). Moral and working
attitudes were at an even lower ebb than during the Cultural Revolution.
For example, long-distance bus transportation service has been very bad
for a long time and has gotten worse. Moreover, the manner of obtaining
the service has worsened. If a customer wants to take the long-distance
bus, he has to give both the driver and ticket seller cigarettes and wine
when he buys the ticket. Otherwise, it is very difficult to guarantee
the arriving time. Another example: the Commerce Department of the
Tibetan Autonomous Region could not formulate a reasonable purchasing
plan so that a quantity of the necessities of life would have adequate
outflow. Consequently, grain, oil, foods, and general merchandise in the
main cities had been in very short supply from 1985 to 1989. Even the
main food of Tibetan people, butter, had to be replaced by margarine
transported from Shanghai! Even so, the supply of margarine was limited
- each person could get 1 jin (500 grams) per month. Cheese could not
even be found in the state-owned stores - yet on the black market, the
price of cheese was so high - up to 50 times as high as the official
price - that ordinary people could not afford it. And the Tibetan
economy, now no longer self-sufficient, drove down into a blind alley.
Because of the collapse of the service infrastructure that resulted from
the economic reform policies in the TAR, since 1984, many inland
enterprises, business organizations, and individual firms have
participated in very predatory economic activities in Tibet. For
example, the Zanggan Trade Company (in fact, one member of a unit of the
armed police forces is the legal counsel to this company), with some
inland individual businessman, bought a great quantity of butter, grain,
meat, fur, and wood at very cheap prices. Also, this company cooperated
with the local government to illegally cut trees in the forest. In fact,
the forest cover was reduced from 98% to 30%. Over 153 enterprises and
some 38 factories all closed down. There were, and are, shortages in the
cities. Development is in fact completely stagnant. These illegal
predatory behaviors made it impossible for Tibetan enterprises and
service organizations to obtain either a means of subsistence or maintain
their means of livelihood. This was deliberate. From 1987 to 1989, many
factories of sheep wool and wood as well as some grain stores went
bankrupt. These predatory behaviors were not prohibited until the
Tibetan masses in Nagchu intercepted and captured the illegal business
vehicles of the armed police forces and the people demonstrated in Chamdo
and Dulongdecheng County. Because of the serious lack of means of
livelihood and even the barest means of subsistence, industry and
business in some important centers of production cities in Tibet have
been at a standstill since 1985. Another statistical document
demonstrates that because a lot of peddlers could use fifty jin (1 jin =
500 grams) of rice in exchange for one fat sheep, the livestock
population on hand in Gongga, Nagchu, and Chamdo was drastically reduced
to 40 percent in 1987. However, in fact, some government officials even
went so far as to assist in this illegal peddling. So far the CCP's
Tibetan government has definitely not prohibited this behavior. This is
a very strange phenomenon of rule. From this we can see to what extent
the CCP's government has been corrupted.
Because of all the problems mentioned above, and because of the
profiteering by the government, the army, and [Chinese] inland business
organizations since the economic reform, the Tibetan economy has been at
a dead standstill since 1985. This has resulted in the dissatisfaction
of a large segment of the Tibetan people. The consecutive independence
movements against the CCP in 1987, 1988, and 1989 had various, and
complex, causes; however, I am certain that the failure of economic
reforms is one of important causes of the social instability in Tibet.
Since 1959, because of its hard-line political ideology, the CCP
basically has not changed its political stance in Tibet. Even though the
CCP appears to have adopted a moderate political attitude towards the
Tibetan government-in-exile and some religious practices and people, the
method of rule has not altered in the main. Of course, the strategic
importance of Tibet is another excuse for the CCP not to change its
political policies toward Tibet. The CCP has not only not been
interested in sitting down to discuss and resolve the historical problems
including the antagonistic relationship between Chinese and Tibetan, but
they also continue to use high-handed measures, and have even arbitrarily
used the army to suppress the dissatisfied people. Because of the
hard-line measures, the antagonisms have been intensifying to the point
that the CCP government cannot solve the Tibetan issue. Right now, the
Tibetans in Tibet and the people of the inland Tibetan regions generally
adopt a non-cooperative attitude.
In addition, the feeling of "the end of Tibet" has occurred in
governments and armies. Many governmental officials, military officers,
even soldiers pay much attention to money. They have lost any essential
occupational ethics. This paying attention only to money has a very
corrosive effect. Corruption has become a very common phenomenon -
almost a way of life in Tibet. Because there are a lot of loopholes in
the system, it has become a common sight that the administrative head of
any department takes over everything. A document from the Tibetan
Political Consultative Conference in 1988 demonstrates that it is so
common as to be countless; it admitted that this behavior is so rampant
that it cannot establish prohibitions on administrative heads from being
involved in illegal businesses simply by writing instructions on a piece
of paper. For example, many organizations and army units manipulate
their authority and manipulate public funds to build their own private
houses and recreation centers. They also engage in illegal or unofficial
businesses using public money and resources, and then they seize all the
profits personally. Some units of the military police take advantage of
their special position, and use military vehicles to illegally transport
and resell the countryside's allotment of planned materials (e.g. steel,
wood, cement, and other goods in limited supply) at a profit. Many units
of government and army use "official instructions" to earn money.
According to some documents, a little piece of paper including a high
official's name and signature can be exchanged for more than 10,000 yuan
cash, and also, can legalize an illegal business (that many individual
businessmen can engage in illegal business activities in Tibet is closely
related to this kind of "official instructions").
This overt corruption inevitably influences other professions. For
example, after working responsibly for years, now many medical personnel
just want to earn money, totally losing their ethics of healing the sick
and saving the dying. What they then pursue is pushing prescriptions and
quantities of medicines for profit. However, many legitimate patients
cannot get medicines at the going rate even though they have
prescriptions, or they might get medicine but many of these medicines
turn out to be useless. Also, in the business streets of Lhasa city,
many tax collectors and policemen accept bribes so that this place is a
paradise for illegal business. Swarms of businessmen and companies
openly engage in illegal trade by depending on these public personnel to
look the other way or to protect them.
Recently I came to know that certain departments of the Tibetan
government unexpectedly and inexplicably agreed that an inland timber
company accompanied by an army unit could fell trees in Chentang, a
well-known scenic area in southern Tibet. From this I can affirm that
the CCP's corruption has taken a definite turn for the worse.
Because of the time constraints here, I could not give a review of the
present status of Tibet as comprehensively and in detail (i.e., the
problem of population and the relationship between religious culture and
political society), as I would have liked. However, from the information
I have mentioned above, we can see that even though the CCP's regime has
on the surface adopted a number of good policies, the intrinsic
characteristics of its governing concepts have decided the real fate of
these policies: they have fallen into dire straits.
Without a democratic system and a socio-political environment which
represents the will of the Tibetan people, I think Tibet's future will be
as gloomy as it is today. However, I still believe that due to the
valiant efforts and struggles of the Tibetan people, a new Tibet will
eventually emerge.
ELLIOT SPERLING
Thank you. I apologize for my less-than-democratic ways in running
this, but it's imperative that we keep to a semblance of a time schedule.
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