Political monks
I was struck by coincidental statements made last week, from Washington and Beijing, about the question of whether senior Tibetan monks do have, or should have, political roles.
In these two cases, the governments of the United States and China are applying contradictory positions on this topic. Perhaps a common and consistent approach could nurture progress on the Tibet issue.
Case #1: the Dalai Lama. Before Congress on March 3, Assistant Secretary for East Asia Kurt Campbell went out of his way to characterize the Dalai Lama’s February 18 visit to D.C. as spiritual: “We’ve also had an important meeting, a spiritual meeting with the Dalai Lama.”
But according to the White House’s statement on the meeting between President Obama and the Dalai Lama, the agenda was the politics of the Tibet issue. The President “stated his strong support for the preservation of Tibet’s unique religious, cultural and linguistic identity and the protection of human rights for Tibetans,” “commended the Dalai Lama’s ‘Middle Way’ approach,” and “encouraged both sides to engage in direct dialogue to resolve differences.” If spirituality was discussed, it wasn’t reported.
It has long been custom for the U.S. government to receive His Holiness as a religious leader, as officials repeatedly characterized it before last month’s visit. But everyone knows that the discussions will be about Tibet, given the long-standing corpus of U.S. policy and programmatic interests in Tibet.
I assume the purpose of this ritual of protocol is not to further deepen Beijing’s angst. But it is not a cost-free gesture. Last December, as his government was kowtowing to Chinese pressure on the status of Tibet, the Danish Prime Minister issued this excuse: “I have met with the Dalai Lama once. It was an exciting meeting. I met him in person as a cultural and a religious leader. I’m not even Buddhist, and so I have no particular need to meet with him again.”
Governments should take care to reflect on whether justifying their engagement with the Dalai Lama solely on a spiritual basis is in their own interest. It opens them up to charges of hypocrisy, and allows Chinese authorities to foment nationalism by suggesting a hidden Western complicity in the Dalai Lama’s alleged effort to split China, as evidenced in the March 4 remarks by a National People’s Congress spokesman: “Some foreign politicians said the Dalai Lama is a religious figure, but in fact he is a political exile … a political monk.”
The U.S. government, and many others, has a long track record of concern and advocacy for the fundamental rights of Tibetans. One would hope they would be proud enough of that record, based on universal principles, to allow it to serve as a justification for meeting with the universally (outside of the Chinese Communist Party) acknowledged leader of the Tibetan people.
Case #2: the (Chinese-appointed) Panchen Lama. The Chinese government criticizes the Dalai Lama as a “political monk” with the implication being that a monk’s vows require him to stick to spiritual matters and to abstain from political affairs. This was the sermon preached to group of foreign journalists visiting Lhasa on March 5, who were told by a senior monk that “politics and religion should be separated.”
So, in a dose of irony matched in size only by its newfound jarring assertiveness, the Chinese government last week announced, with pride and fanfare, that the country’s most senior (officially recognized) monk had been awarded a prestigious political position. Gyaltsen Norbu, the person hand-picked by the government to be the 11th Panchen Lama (after the boy recognized by the Dalai Lama was disappeared by authorities) “made debut in China’s political arena as a political advisor” (Xinhua, March 4) pursuant his appointment as a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
The hypocrisy here is obvious, as is the message. Politics are OK for favored monks. As the Party implements its strategy for controlling the reincarnation of the next Dalai Lama, does it really think this message is going to work with ordinary Tibetans? While we don’t have any surveys from inside Tibet, it’s hard to imagine that this appointment will gain any legitimacy for Gyaltsen Norbu among ordinary Tibetans. One wonders how the Chinese government thinks it can strengthen its hand among the Tibetan people by simultaneously claiming that political roles for high-level monks are legitimate and illegitimate.
These contradictions over political monks give the U.S. and Chinese governments a rare point in common on Tibet. Given the mutual desire for deepened and broadened relations, is it too much to imagine that they could work together to define a common approach on the political activities of Tibetan monks?
PHOTO: President Barack Obama meets with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the Map Room of the White House, Feb. 18, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
3 Responses to “Political monks”
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ask those in exile here in the US
If you want to know “what ordinary Tibetans” think, ask those in exile here in the US! Those in Tibet are under duress not to say.
If you want to know “what ordinary Tibetans” thing, ask those in exile here in the US!!!!!