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Simple truths: the Resolve Tibet Act

June 22, 2023

Truth is the only antidote to lies. That is the heart of the bipartisan Resolve Tibet Act currently under consideration by Congress.

It is no secret that a hallmark of the People’s Republic of China is trafficking in falsehoods thus fulfilling a primary pillar of totalitarian regimes—not the control of facts per se but the erasure of the distinction between truth and lies. This is a defining element of totalitarian regimes because every inch of a society must serve the leader’s ideology and the political utility of the moment.

A proven tool to achieving this phenomenon is repetition. Today, this is an increasingly effective and efficient methodology in a global environment of rapid media cycles, social media networks, and China’s enormous capacity and investment in controlling physical and digital information flow. A deep analysis of Beijing’s internal and external use of propaganda is both beyond the scope of this piece and unnecessary. Like so many truths, the reality of China’s actions are irrefutable: transnational harassment, and an unrelenting and blatant denial of the facts.

The case of Tibet

China has spent seven decades erecting a bulwark of propaganda to hide the truth of its occupation and crimes against humanity in Tibet.

Beijing’s relentless disinformation and only argument for its occupation is that Tibet has been part of China’s domain since “antiquity,” making its invasion under Mao Zedong in 1950 a “liberation.” Here we witness an assertion so easily punctured as to be laughable. In fact, Chinese records, legal analysis and archaeological evidence confirm Beijing’s claims are counterfactual.

More than anything, however, common sense belies any such statement. Simply put, if Tibet had been owned by China since antiquity, why was it necessary to inflict the wave of destruction following its takeover? If the motive was freedom, why did 1.2 million human beings lose their lives? Why were thousands of monasteries demolished and plundered? Why were book burnings prevalent, nuns raped and citizens disappeared?

Perhaps most significantly, why are 6 million Tibetans still suffering in an open-air prison while crimes against humanity are regularly inflicted on the society at large? It would seem genuine “liberation” and subsequent “benevolent” rule would not require these mounting excesses.

This brings us to what the United States can do now to confront Beijing’s attempts to rewrite history, condemn its brutality and codify that US support of Tibet will never waiver until the facts on the ground demonstrate the cessation of acts so gruesome as to approach genocidal, and genuine self-determination for the Tibetan people is reached.

A first step is to remember the oft-cited adage that insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results. Currently, this seems to be the United States’ approach in a nutshell.

This is not to say that the United States is ignoring Tibet. That is not the case and should never be construed as such. The United States often has led the world in chastising China for its inhumane actions and led the way by passing its own important laws, including the Tibetan Policy and Support Act and the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act.

That said, when it comes to countering Beijing’s long-term Tibet stratagem the United States must take the next logical step in bolstering its stance. Specifically, no longer allowing China to simply stonewall any attempt to cement a resolution by abandoning the negotiating table, as it did 13 years ago, leaving potential solutions on the cutting room floor.

We must recognize what China’s refusal to continue talks means. The PRC has telegraphed repeatedly that after the eventual passing of the current Dalai Lama, it intends to install a patently false, handpicked “Dalai Lama” it assumes it can control to serve its political agenda.

Certainly, such a possibility is as transparent as it is recognized. And through six presidential administrations, the United States has called upon China to resume dialogue with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. Here we come to the crux of the matter and return to our famous adage.

China isn’t listening. It is time for the United States—and the global community—to respond accordingly. A starting point is busting China’s myth that “there is nothing to see here.” Which is what the Resolve Tibet Act is all about.

The Resolve Tibet Act

Introduced by Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, in the House and Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Todd Young, R-Ind., in the Senate, the bipartisan Resolve Tibet Act strikes at the core of China’s Tibet strategy in five main ways.

First, it states in unambiguous terms that the situation in Tibet is not yet resolved. This is self-evident, as no agreement between Tibetan leadership and the Chinese government has been reached. This is irrefutable because if an agreement were in place, Tibetan leadership would acknowledge it since negotiating a peaceful solution has been His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration’s stated goal for decades.

We must recognize that China’s waiting game is keyed to the passing of the current Dalai Lama. To counteract this, the global community must make crystal clear its policy is to protect the institution of the Dalai Lama and Tibetans’ right to freely choose their religious leaders, no matter what the particular circumstances.

Second, allowing any ambiguity in the United States policy position and how it is relayed to the public risks, at least partially validating Beijing’s relentless assertions that whatever happens in Tibet is “an internal matter” and any criticism is due to “outside agitators.” Once again, we encounter the totalitarian regime’s need to control all aspects of society—no matter what level of denial it requires. In the case of Tibet, clarifying that the United States does not consider the Tibet crisis settled will only underscore that not only is China’s strategy in Tibet unjustifiable, but its actions also violate international law, which clearly states that crimes against humanity must be condemned and efforts made to halt them wherever they occur.

Third, the legislation defines Tibetans as a people deserving of the human right to self-determination. In truth, this policy provision should never have to be put forward. Without doubt, the Tibetans have shared a common history, language, culture, religion, language and DNA for several thousand years. It is hardly tenable, therefore, to make any assertion otherwise. And once again, international law and basic ethics provide that a people have the right to define their future, i.e. self-determination.

Fourth, the legislation provides a new means to counter China’s lies by mandating that the Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues actively refute propaganda regarding Tibet and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Considering the scale of China’s disinformation campaign and hypersensitivity to matters related to the Dalai Lama, this is yet another essential tool in combating Xi Jinping’s increasingly totalitarian methodologies.

Finally, the bill validates that Tibet’s boarders are defined by proven history, not the artificial carving up of an occupied sovereign state, a well-worn strategy of conquerors and colonialists to isolate communities and disrupt cultural continuity. Below is a map depicting historic Tibet and the segmentation imposed by China over the years. The conclusion is self-explanatory and reinforces the need to state clearly that the status of Tibet is far from resolved.

Conclusion

The point of this exercise is more than demonstrating the import and relevance of the Resolve Tibet Act to the future of Tibet, which is obvious. It also is a challenge to our elected leaders, from Congress to the administration to our international partners, to embrace the truth. Part of that is realizing that what is happening in Tibet is a microcosm of Xi Jinping’s totalitarian goals and transparent agenda to dismantle a world order based on democracy, human rights and free will.

Or in the words of author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “Now is the time to counter lies with facts, repeatedly and unflaggingly, while also proclaiming the greater truths: of our equal humanity, of decency, of compassion. Every precious ideal must be reiterated, every obvious argument made, because an ugly idea left unchallenged begins to turn the color of normal. It does not have to be like this.”

In the end, it’s not very complex. The world must not permit the Xi Jinping regime to turn truth inside out. We cannot afford to imitate China’s cherry picking of what is and isn’t factual based on political expedience.

After all, the truth shouldn’t be so hard to say, should it?

China makes a mockery of 30th World Press Freedom Day

May 3, 2023

Ashwin Verghese

For decades, the government of China has parched media inside the country. Now it’s flooding the media in the rest of the world.

On this 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day, that’s one urgent takeaway from two recent reports chronicling Beijing’s subversion of the free press.

In its annual report this year, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China documents Beijing’s use of weaponized COVID-19 restrictions, surveillance, harassment and intimidation to stymie the work of foreign journalists in 2022. Worse, the Chinese government denied visas to foreign journalists and even kicked some journalists out of the country altogether.

At the same time, Beijing has increasingly polluted news outlets in other countries with its propaganda lies. That’s according to a 2022 report on Beijing’s global media influence by the watchdog group Freedom House, the same organization that recently rated Tibet as the least-free country on Earth alongside South Sudan and Syria.

Press freedom, like most basic freedoms, is virtually non-existent in Chinese-occupied Tibet. But that hasn’t stopped Beijing from exploiting media freedom in other countries to spread its fake news about the Tibetan people.

Lack of media access

In the Foreign Correspondents’ Club report, several foreign journalists say they had less freedom in 2022 to make reporting trips around China than they did in years prior. “Perhaps the most dramatic escalation has been the tendency to be followed by carloads of officials almost every time we report outside Beijing,” says the BBC’s Stephen McDonell. “Apart from harassing journalists, they intimidate and pressure those we are trying to interview.”

But one area where no escalation was needed is the so-called “Tibet Autonomous Region.” That’s because foreign media have long been denied access to the TAR, which spans most of western Tibet.

The TAR is the only region that the People’s Republic of China requires foreigners, including journalists, to get special permission to enter. “Access to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) remains officially restricted for foreign journalists,” the club’s report says. “Reporters must apply to the government for special permission or join a press tour organized by China’s State Council or” Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

However, those press tours are organized to keep journalists from seeing the truth about China’s oppression of the Tibetan people. And the special permission journalists must get is rarely if ever granted.

In the Foreign Correspondents’ Club’s annual survey, three journalists said they applied to visit the TAR in 2022. All three were denied. Even those who were able to visit other Tibetan areas outside the TAR faced restrictions.

No longer trying

Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that so few journalists appear to even be trying to enter the TAR anymore. In 2021, four journalists in the club’s survey said they applied for permission to visit the region; all four were denied. In 2018, there were five applicants and five rejections.

The fact that even this small number has diminished over the years suggests that individual journalists don’t think it’s worth applying because they know they’ll never be accepted. Thankfully, higher authorities have taken up their cause.

In 2019, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club published a position paper calling on China to allow journalists “unfettered access to the Tibet Autonomous Region and all Tibetan-inhabited regions.” The paper adds that foreign governments should protest China’s intimidation of journalists who interview the Dalai Lama and request data from the Chinese government on journalists’ applications to report on Tibet.

The paper followed the passage of a pathbreaking US law, the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act. Known as RATA, the law pressures China to give US journalists, diplomats and ordinary citizens the same level of access to Tibet that their Chinese counterparts have to the United States. Under RATA, the State Department has banned entry to the United States by Chinese officials involved in keeping Americans out of Tibet.

What happens in Tibet doesn’t stay in Tibet

RATA became law in 2018, the same year I joined the International Campaign for Tibet. During my time as ICT’s communications officer, I’ve spoken to several journalists who have tried to visit Tibet for a reporting trip but were physically stopped by Chinese authorities.

Given these experiences, I can understand why some journalists might give up on ever trying to enter Tibet. But Tibet’s story needs to be told.

For one thing, the Tibetan people deserve to have their voices heard around the globe. For more than 60 years, they have lived under one of the world’s most brutal occupations. China has routinely violated their basic freedoms, including religious freedom, freedom of movement and, yes, freedom of the press. In this bleak landscape, it’s not surprising—but nevertheless tragic—that over the past 14 years, nearly 160 Tibetans have self-immolated, lighting their own bodies on fire in a desperate act of protest.

However, it is not just Tibetans who suffer from this repression; as much as China keeps a tight lid on Tibet, what happens there doesn’t ultimately stay there. Beijing’s brutalization of the Tibetan people has spread to other territories under its command, most notably Xinjiang, which Uyghurs know as East Turkestan. China’s genocide of the Uyghurs was initially led by Chen Quanguo, who honed his vicious tactics as the Chinese Communist Party Secretary of the TAR from 2011-2016.

Now, China’s repression in Tibet is fueling Beijing’s repression in other parts of the globe, including here in the United States. I am not just talking about direct threats and transnational repression against Tibetan activists in exile. I also mean China’s efforts to censor the truth about Tibet, spread disinformation and fool media consumers into believing its lies.

State media inside the free media

As Freedom House’s “Beijing’s Global Media Influence Report 2022” states, the “Chinese government, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, is accelerating a massive campaign to influence media outlets and news consumers around the world.” The report adds: “The possible future impact of these developments should not be underestimated.”

While China has long sought to warp global public perception in its favor, according to the report, its efforts increased starting around 2019, when Beijing began to suffer the bad press of its crackdown in Hong Kong, its genocide of the Uyghurs and its attempted coverup of the origins of COVID-19, among other issues.

Rather than try to mitigate this public relations disaster by, say, telling the truth about COVID or respecting the rights of Uyghurs and Hong Kongers, China instead tried to muscle the media into submission. It did this via several methods.

One of Beijing’s primary tactics has been to place content made by or friendly to the Chinese state in news outlets around the world, including print, TV, internet and radio news. Such content appeared in
over 130 news outlets across 30 countries studied in Freedom House’s report. “The labeling of the content often fails to clearly inform readers and viewers that it came from Chinese state outlets,” the report says.

Through these placements, Beijing is able to reach a much wider overseas audience than its own state media would allow. And it can do so without having those audiences know clearly that they are receiving CCP propaganda. Worryingly, China appears to be aggressively pursuing more of such placements in foreign media outlets. Coproduction arrangements in 12 countries allowed China to have a degree of editorial control over reporting in or on China in exchange for providing the foreign journalists with technical support or resources.

China has also resorted to blatant bribery. According to Freedom House’s report, CCP agents offered monetary compensation or gifts such as electronic devices to journalists in nine countries, including Kenya and Romania, in exchange for pro-China articles written by local journalists.

Intimidation of journalists, including Tibetans

Then there are China’s attempts to censor foreign journalists. According to the report, Chinese diplomats and government representatives intimidated, harassed and pressured journalists and editors in response to their critical coverage, at times demanding they retract or delete unfavorable content. The Chinese officials backed up those demands with implicit or explicit threats of defamation suits and other legal repercussions; a withdrawal of advertising; or harm to bilateral relations.

Sadly, those demands have at times been successful. In one glaring example, in August 2021, China’s embassy in Kuwait pressured the Arab Times to delete an interview with Taiwan’s foreign minister from its website after the interview already appeared in print. The interview was then replaced by—and this is not a joke—a statement from the embassy itself.

Even more sadly, journalists from communities that Beijing oppresses—including ethnic Chinese dissidents—have been the target of some of China’s most coercive attempts at overseas censorship. Last year, Erica Hellerstein reported in Coda that a Tibetan exile journalist in an unnamed country was tricked into meeting with a Chinese state security agent who appeared to make vague threats about the journalist’s family members still living in Tibet. A few weeks later, a group of men ambushed the journalist as he walked home, throwing a black bag over his head and forcing him into a van that drove around for hours as the men grilled him for information and searched his phone.

The journalist reportedly quit his media career after that, fearful of what would happen to his relatives in Tibet if he continued his important work.

Social media spread

It’s not just the traditional media that Beijing is preying on; it’s also social media. According to Freedom House’s report, Facebook and Twitter have become important channels of content dissemination for China’s diplomats and state media outlets. However, these state actors are not attracting attention via organic interest. Instead they are purchasing fake followers and using other tools of covert manipulation.

As Freedom House states:

“Armies of fake accounts that artificially amplify posts from diplomats were found in half of the countries assessed. Related initiatives to pay or train unaffiliated social media influencers to promote pro-Beijing content to their followers, without revealing their CCP ties, occurred in Taiwan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. In nine countries, there was at least one targeted disinformation campaign that employed networks of fake accounts to spread falsehoods or sow confusion.”

One of Beijing’s most noticeable—and unfortunately most successful—targeted disinformation campaigns has been its deliberate amplification of an edited video clip of His Holiness the Dalai Lama interacting with a young boy in India. The clip, which takes the interaction out of its cultural context and suggests lurid intentions where there were none, went viral over a month after the interaction took place, thanks to suspicious accounts that appeared out of nowhere and helped get the clip coverage in major news outlets.

Disinformation and disbelief

It’s important to note that according to Freedom House’s report, Beijing’s influence campaigns have had mixed results so far. The CCP has failed to get its official narratives and manufactured content to dominate coverage of China in the 30 nations studied in Freedom House’s report. And domestic journalists, civil society groups and governments in the 30 countries have been at least somewhat effective in pushing back on Beijing’s efforts at manipulation.

However, I can’t help but feel concerned about Beijing’s potential for long-term success. On this 30th World Press Freedom Day, the press is in tough straits. Layoffs and closures have ruptured the industry. Vice, which provided some of the fairest, most informative coverage of the aforementioned controversy surrounding His Holiness, apparently gutted its Asia-Pacific news desk and may be preparing for bankruptcy.

As the financial void in journalism grows, China is positioned to step in with bags of money. As Freedom House notes, “As more governments and media owners face financial trouble, the likelihood increases that economic pressure from Beijing will be used, implicitly or explicitly, to reduce critical debate and reporting.”

This softening of the traditional media model comes with public trust already on the decline. As I wrote in a previous blog post, contrarians and charlatans are spreading conspiracy theories that catch fire among the alienated in society. And now the Chinese government is working even harder to sow division. As Freedom House says, Beijing’s campaigns have “reflected not just attempts to manipulate news and information about human rights abuses in China or Beijing’s foreign policy priorities, but also a disconcerting trend of meddling in the domestic politics of the target country.”

On this World Press Freedom Day, we must find ways to buttress free and independent media from China’s attacks, including perhaps by allotting more government and philanthropic funding to journalists. And we must use our own freedom of expression to call out the double standard that allows Beijing to block foreign media from its country while barraging other countries with its fake news.

Next time China lies, Tibet groups will be ready

April 19, 2023

Lesley Rich

2 Comments

It wasn’t that long ago that the People’s Republic of China was calling the Dalai Lama a wolf in monk’s robes and his supporters members of the “Dalai Clique.” A phrasing so comical that ICT had t-shirts made that said, “proud member of the Dalai Clique,” and when an ICT staff person had a baby, they were given a onesie with “Newest Member of the Dalai Clique” printed on it.

The events of the past week show how the PRC campaign against the Dalai Lama in the West has reached new levels of sophistication. The PRC knew that an attack on the moral character of His Holiness, which is unimpeachable, would be hard. The fact that the public meeting that the excerpted clip was taken from was available online for more than a month prior to the clip being released shows that this was not some instant reaction to a specific event. An innocent interaction was taken out of context and weaponized against the Dalai Lama. It was planned and methodical.

The Chinese government is obviously much more in tune with the conspiracy theories of the day and how to capitalize on them. Surely they are aware of what happened in Washington several years ago. I live in walking distance of Comet Ping Pong, where a confused man was manipulated into believing children were being abused in a non-existent basement. My family and I ate lunch there two hours before he entered with an assault rifle, looking to ‘help’ those imaginary children. He is now in prison. One example of how a conspiracy theory was manipulated to a violent end.

The PRC played on the conspiracy theories of the day and knew that by manipulating social media and the news media, they would be able to capitalize on the irrational views held by some who have a loud megaphone. In Tibet however, this particular campaign seems to have backfired. The PRC lifted the ban on talking about the Dalai Lama in China, and he started to trend on social media. The video that the Chinese hoped would lead to Tibetans denouncing His Holiness in shame has led to an outpouring of emotion because they were finally allowed to view video of him publicly and without fear of reprisals. It has also galvanized the Tibetan community in exile to fight even harder now that the PRC has shown there is no bottom to its smear campaign against His Holiness.

The entire Tibet world was shocked by the swiftness of the media (both social and news) cycle that took off with one 40-second out-of-context and misleading video clip. It was especially disheartening that there was so little pushback from Western media saying that there might be a deeper cultural meaning or context to the interaction.

This lack of pushback on the video and failure to see the manipulation by the PRC came as a tremendous shock to me and other allies. This shock led to a delayed response by all of us in the Tibet world, something that made the situation worse and allowed a conversation to continue long after it should have been extinguished. These types of attacks are unexpected, but not just by Tibetans and their allies. The same is true of the US government. The Washington Post recently reported that there were four more Chinese spy balloons in addition to the three that were spotted earlier this year. The US military wasn’t even able to initially identify all the equipment that was being used on the balloons. This new approach to spying on the US (and other countries) is now one that the military is prepared for and will take action against when it happens again.

Fortunately, the narrative is beginning to turn, and people are realizing that only the PRC benefits from this baseless campaign against the Dalai Lama, and we as Tibet supporters will never be caught so unprepared again. The old saying is true—a lie did make it around the world before the truth could put its boots on. We are not going to let that happen again.

When principles clash: Tibet, anti-imperialism and the left

April 14, 2023

John N

3 Comments

The spread of an edited video clip depicting an interaction between the Dalai Lama and a young Indian boy on stage at a recent teaching has provoked intense discussions of cultural differences, children’s rights, and the line between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. The tenor of the coverage of this clip and the discourse surrounding it has, in turn, been deeply distressing to many Tibetans and Tibet supporters, and activists such as Lhadon Tethong, Jigme Ugen, Dhardon Sharling, Tenzin Pema and Tenzin Tsundue have shared their eloquent thoughts on the issue.

I can’t help but notice that some commenters are using the clip as a pretext to advance unrelated attacks on Tibet, the Dalai Lama and the Tibet movement, though. My colleague Ashwin Verghese covered some aspects of this phenomenon in his recent blog post, but given the way the discussion of the video clip has developed this week I want to take a closer look at one commenter: Boots Riley, the musician and filmmaker. In doing so, I want to examine three of the misleading or false claims he’s advancing and explore where they come from and why they appeal to some people.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I didn’t pick Riley solely because of his relatively large reach. I’ve been a fan of Riley since 2009 when I heard Street Sweeper Social Club, his collaboration with Tom Morello. From there I found The Coup, his other band; their single “The Guillotine” has been a constant refrain for me in light of the political developments in the United States over the last few years. Riley’s film “Sorry to Bother You” was also a subject of some discussion in our office after it came out in 2018.

My intention is therefore not to criticize Riley personally but rather to look at how someone with genuine and heartfelt anti-imperialist and anti-racist sentiment can end up so firmly on the wrong side of this issue.

Distorted history

First, Riley has repeatedly advanced false claims about the social status of Tibetans before the Chinese invasion. It’s hard enough to come up with one word that covers the entirety of the very different systems that existed in different parts of Tibet; the lives of farmers in Tsang and nomadic pastoralists in Chabcha and town-dwellers in Dartsedo took place in vastly different political and social contexts.

As Riley tells it, though, pretty much all Tibetans were serfs. The issue of serfdom has been very thoroughly investigated and researched, and one of Robert Barnett’s chapters in “Authenticating Tibet” summarizes the results of this research:

Franz Michael and Beatrice Miller argued that the less loaded words ‘commoner’ or ‘subject’ are more accurate than the word ‘serf,’ [while] Dieter Schuh (1988) [shows] that in many cases they were not ‘bound to the land’ and so were not technically ‘serfs.’ W.M. Coleman (1998) has pointed out that in practice the Tibetans had more autonomy than appears in the written documents, and that Tibetans could equally well be described as peasants … Other scholars have noted that such social categories, Marxist or otherwise, are in any case rooted in European history and do not match the social system of pre-1951 Tibet, let alone the very different arrangements found among the people of eastern Tibet.

This may seem like splitting hairs; neither subjects nor serfs have the rights they deserve. But when you push a cartoonish claim that all Tibetans were serfs, meaningful criticism of the actual social hierarchy and human rights in Tibet becomes impossible. The real failings of the socioeconomic systems in Tibet—failings which have been critiqued by Tibetans themselves—fall to the wayside as peasants and nomads are transformed into serfs and then, in the most outlandish form, slaves. Who benefits from distorting the historical record in Tibet? It’s not Tibetans, nor is it Riley.

Second, Riley misstates China’s impetus for invading Tibet. In a tweet he claims that China had been pushing Tibet to reform its society prior to the invasion, but in fact Beijing’s rhetorical preoccupation with serfdom began only after the invasion was complete, and after their original justification—freeing Tibet from foreign imperialism—turned out to be untenable given the lack of major Western involvement in Tibet at the time.

There are keen ironies at play here. Ostensibly anti-imperialist Beijing was trying out and discarding various justifications for annexing another country, a classic imperial maneuver Americans will readily recall from the way the George W. Bush administration pivoted from weapons of mass destruction to ‘spreading democracy’ as a justification for the war in Iraq after finding that Saddam Hussein had, contrary to their claims, discarded his weapons of mass destruction programs. For their part, the only way Chinese occupiers could find armies of foreign imperialists in Tibet was by looking in a mirror.

Social reform as the impetus for invasion is also a poor fit for China’s actions after the invasion was complete. Instead of removing the Dalai Lama and addressing the conditions of Tibetan workers, Beijing gave the Dalai Lama and other senior clerical and aristocratic figures important positions in the new bureaucracy they established—a strange promotion to give someone they now claim was so greatly abusive.

In fact, it seems to be that the only major constituency Beijing was able to develop in Tibet during their first decade in power was among the top echelon of society itself, where some nobles and senior monks were swayed by China’s promises of preserving the status quo and a constant flow of silver. This, in turn, provoked derision and anger from common Tibetans who saw them as collaborators with an occupying force. Khenchung Sonam Gyaltsen, a monk official and to my knowledge the first official beaten to death by the Tibetan masses during the era of Chinese rule, was targeted not because of any social abuses but rather because of his cooperation with Chinese authorities.

Researchers like Benno Weiner and the Chinese writer Liu Xiaoyuan have documented how Beijing quickly alienated Tibetans, with policies formulated by Chinese leaders who had no understanding of Tibet’s culture and society – and little interest in learning. Who benefits from trying to recontextualize an imperial annexation into a war of liberation? Again, it’s not Tibetans, nor is it Riley.

Third, Riley misleadingly portrays Tibetan armed resistance as the result of CIA covert action. It’s well-known that the CIA provided arms and training to some Tibetan guerillas, but Riley’s claim elides the fact that grassroots Tibetan uprisings against Chinese rule in Tibet and the development of a unified resistance movement predated CIA involvement, which was fairly limited in scope. To attribute Tibetan armed resistance primarily to the CIA only serves to fundamentally misrepresent the nature of this resistance. Beijing would have you believe that lamas and aristocrats and CIA agents forced common Tibetans to take up arms, but there’s plenty of evidence that on the contrary many common Tibetans were in fact deeply frustrated that much of the ruling class seemed paralyzed by – or perhaps even permissive of – China’s invasion.

Tibetan guerillas display captured Chinese weaponry.

By late 1955 Tibetans in eastern Tibet had begun planning, without any support from the Tibetan government in Lhasa or any foreign power, to rise up against Beijing’s increasingly abusive rule. By 1956 fighting was widespread across Kham, and in 1958 local uprisings in northern Tibet—again, fueled by popular resistance to Chinese rule and without any assistance from outside parties—were put down with extreme bloodshed by Chinese authorities. The formation of Chushi Gangdruk, the unified resistance army, took place in summer 1958.

In contrast to the underground organizations and mass uprisings led by the Tibetans themselves, the CIA involvement began by training a half dozen guerillas in how to use radios, small arms and guerilla tactics. Although the numbers grew later and America continued to supply them with arms for some time to come, the great popular uprisings against Chinese rule in 1956, 1958 and 1959 were all started and sustained by Tibetans, mostly or entirely with weapons they had purchased themselves or stolen from Tibetan military bases.

If Riley were to ask Tibetans, he would find that there are a wide range of opinions about the CIA’s involvement, and plenty of them are guided by anti-imperialism. Some people are grateful for the supplies, which were put to use including during the Dalai Lama’s flight to India, but many other Tibetans are frustrated that the CIA gave the Tibetans just enough to irritate China but not enough to expel it, spending Tibetan lives in the process. In the words of Gyalo Thondup, one of the chief Tibetan interlocutors with the CIA:

For the twenty-five thousand resistance fighters on the ground in Lhokha, the CIA supplied about seven hundred guns. For the five thousand fighters active in Amdo, the CIA dropped maybe five or six hundred rifles. An area with two thousand fighters got maybe three hundred or four hundred … Had I understood how paltry the CIA’s support would be, I would never have sent those young men for training. Mao was not the only one to cheat the Tibetans. The CIA did, too.

If Riley wants to critique the CIA’s involvement in Tibet, there’s his angle – and straight from the mouth of a Tibetan. But accepting Gyalo Thondup’s perspective would require acknowledging widespread popular opposition to Chinese rule in Tibet, something he is conspicuously unwilling to do. Riley is clear that the CIA cheated the Tibetans. Can he admit that Mao did so, too?

When principles clash

I’ve asked who benefits from portraying pre-PRC Tibet as a uniquely abusive society, who benefits from framing the invasion of Tibet as a ‘peaceful liberation,’ and who benefits from depicting Tibetan resistance as something foisted on Tibet by outsiders instead of growing organically from the conditions on the ground. The answer to all three is the same: China.

It should come as no surprise that these narratives were developed and promulgated by the PRC, which has sought for decades to portray the annexation of Tibet in a manner consistent with the self-professed values of a government dedicated to “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and a country which was repeatedly victimized during the colonial era. To borrow one of Riley’s lines from “The Guillotine,” Boots didn’t write out these lies, he’s just quoting them.

Of course the PRC wants to explain their occupation of Tibet as a civilizing mission and a war of liberation. Empires have always sought to justify their looting and plunder as somehow being compatible with their values, and claiming that occupation and domination are actually beneficial for those who have been subjugated is a classic refrain. Similar claims were made about China itself during the Japanese occupation, but I don’t see Riley racing to endorse them.

And of course independent Tibet has to be portrayed as uniquely abusive, because Beijing hopes that every abuse it claims of the old regime—real ones and exaggerated ones and entirely fabricated ones alike—will encourage people who believe in communism and anti-imperialism to allow their support of the former to overrule the latter. For every human rights abuse they’re documented committing in Tibet, Beijing feels the need to present an equal but opposite abuse from the past which they can claim to have stopped.

In reality, Tibet also produced its own iconoclastic thinkers and political figures who leveled serious criticisms against the old systems, people like Gendun Choephel and Phuntsok Wangyal. Their existence is deeply inconvenient for supporters of Chinese imperialism because they show that Tibet had the potential to reform itself from within, a possibility that Beijing cannot acknowledge if it wants to justify Chinese rule in Tibet as a necessity. The idea that an independent Tibet in 2023 would look identical to Tibet in 1949 is completely absurd, but Beijing desperately wants the rest of the world to take it as a given.

Reconciling principles

I was planning to close by encouraging Riley to read about Phuntsok Wangyal, the founder of the Tibetan Communist Party. To my surprise, Phuntsok Wangyal actually came up on Riley’s twitter feed while I was writing, although unfortunately not in a way that accurately reflects his story.

In response to Tibetans begging Riley to consider their perspective on the occupation of their homeland, Riley shared a tweet from Carl Zha, a Chinese podcaster who is a steadfast supporter of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Zha had quoted Phuntsok Wangyal’s early criticism of the Ganden Phodrang government, but there’s much more to his story than that quote might suggest.

Phunwang, as he was known, grew up idolizing the Tibetans who defended their lands from Chinese invaders and became a fervent believer in communism. He pushed for an independent eastern Tibet and later for a socialist revolution in central Tibet, and when the PRC invaded he set aside his Tibetan nationalist ideals to help them overturn the old order. After the invasion Phunwang had outlived his usefulness to the Chinese authorities, however, and he was sentenced to 18 years in solitary confinement in a Chinese prison after warning the Chinese leadership that the actions of one of their officials in Tibet was likely to spark further conflict. With Tibet firmly under Chinese control, they had little need for a homegrown revolutionary who firmly believed in Tibetan rights.

The cruelty Phunwang endured during almost two decades in solitary confinement was handed out not by lamas or Tibetan aristocrats but by the Chinese Communist Party, which turned on him as soon as he displayed signs of being a “local nationalist,” an imperial euphemism if I’ve ever heard one. If even the Tibetans who supported reforms found themselves purged and imprisoned – and Phunwang was not the only one to suffer this fate – it becomes very clear that there’s more to this story than Beijing’s cheery propaganda about “serfs rising up” would suggest.

Perhaps Riley is simply irritated by the Dalai Lama or the existence of his institution. He’s free to cast his judgment, but it’s a mistake to let his opposition to one man blind him to the reality of what Chinese rule has entailed for the Tibetan people. Communism and anti-imperialism are at the center of Boots Riley’s politics, and they sit in contradiction here for Riley and others who hold these values. Attempting to square that circle by praising China’s annexation of a neighboring country is a betrayal of anti-imperialism and an attack on a subjugated people who deserve solidarity.

It’s the customary tendency of imperialists to put forward a claim to someone else’s land, and it’s the duty of anti-imperialists to judge that claim and find it lacking—regardless of whether or not it’s phrased in a way you find pleasing.

Tibet contrarianism is “dum”

April 13, 2023

Ashwin Verghese

4 Comments

Years ago, at a different job, a coworker asked if I had always been a contrarian. The question struck me like an apple falling from a tree. I had never seen myself as a contrarian, but perhaps that one word could explain why as a young man I so often felt at odds with the world.

Invigorated by the potential for self-understanding, I went to Barnes & Noble and began reading Christopher Hitchens’ “Letters to a Young Contrarian.” The book, Hitchens writes in the first chapter, is addressed to those who feel “a disposition to resistance, however slight, against arbitrary authority or witless mass opinion, or a thrill of recognition when you encounter some well-wrought phrase from a free intelligence.” My ego was tickled.

But a few pages later, I encountered a splash of iconoclasm that stopped me in my tracks. After assailing anti-Semites and racists and the atom-bombing of Japan, Hitchens shifts his aim to a very different target: the Dalai Lama. Quoting a speech in which the Tibetan leader relates his belief that we are all seeking happiness, Hitchens sneers: “The very best that can be said is that he uttered a string of fatuous non sequiturs.”

“[H]uman beings do not, in fact, desire to live in some Disneyland of the mind, where there is an end to striving and a general feeling of contentment and bliss,” Hitchens writes, adding: “Even if we did really harbor this desire, it would fortunately be unattainable.”

Suddenly, I was off the contrarian train almost as quickly as I’d hopped on.

Spared by the Dalai Lama

It turned out “Letters to a Young Contrarian” was not the only time Hitchens, who died in 2011, sicced his estimable wit on the Dalai Lama. In a piece for Salon in 1998, he dismisses His Holiness as a “[creature] of the material world.” Elsewhere, he maligns the Dalai Lama for claiming to be a “hereditary king appointed by heaven itself” and enforcing “one-man rule” in his exile home of Dharamsala (more on that later).

I, for one, don’t believe anyone is beyond reproach. Good-faith criticism can be made of the Dalai Lama—his words and actions, as well as his status and followers.

As one of those followers, I hold myself up for critique—though my behavior shouldn’t reflect on anyone else—in part because I see how far short I fall of His Holiness. I can’t deny I’m prone to pessimism and hand-wringing; I tend to be doubtful of attempts to improve the world while simultaneously mournful over the state of it. (I’m also too self-critical, if you haven’t noticed.)

And yet, even before I joined ICT, I never felt the need to doubt His Holiness. In fact, the Dalai Lama and figures like him—Gandhi and John Lewis come to mind—have helped spare me from a life of total cynicism. If it weren’t for them, I might not believe in anything. That’s not because I think they’re unimpeachable. It’s not even, for me, whether they achieved their overall goals or not.

Instead, the mere fact that a person like His Holiness exists in this world helps sustain my faith in humanity. From his humble living quarters to his transcendent wisdom to his innumerable displays of kindness—let alone his remarkable ability to forgive and seek reconciliation with his Chinese antagonists—His Holiness lives much the way you’d want everyone to live.

Who could ever be cynical about that?

Contrary to facts

It seems Hitchens was motivated to ‘take down’ His Holiness not just because Hitchens was an anti-theist and a libertine, but because His Holiness is a popular leader around the globe. The public generally loves the Dalai Lama, so Hitchens, driven by a need to look down on the herd, felt compelled to diminish its “witless mass opinion.” I can’t say that for certain, but it’s the impression I get reading Hitchens’ work and knowing other people like him.

There’s no denying Hitchens’ eloquence, and often, he trained his sights on deserving victims, especially politicians and people in government. But one of the problems with contrarianism—with preferring to disagree and express unpopular views—is that it prevents you from seeing things as they truly are (the same can be said of partisanship). Hitchens’ Salon piece, for instance, relies more on breezy suppositions and tendentiousness than on objective reporting.

Although Hitchens disdained religion, he was just as zealous as some fundamentalists in overlooking facts that got in the way of his faith. Take his claim about the Dalai Lama’s “one-man rule” in Dharamsala. That is simply, demonstrably false; ask the democratically elected Indian and Tibetan governments in the city if you have any doubt.

Hitchens’ assertion that His Holiness claims to be a “hereditary king appointed by heaven itself” is also easily refuted by the evidence. As Andrew Goodwin writes in Tricycle, the Dalai Lama

“has said, repeatedly and in plain language, that he is not a special person or a supernatural being, but an ordinary man. The second point of significance is his comment that if science proved Buddhist teachings incorrect in any way, then Buddhism would have to change. One might have expected that a book written by a well-informed journalist [Hitchens] who is appalled at the irrationality of religion would have found space to mention this.”

Hitchens is famous, among other things, for “Hitchens’s razor,” the belief that “what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” Heaven forbid his razor should be applied to his own writing on the Dalai Lama.

Rebels without a cause

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Hitchens, who has been dead for over a decade. But unfortunately, his vapid views on the Dalai Lama have found voice in some contrarians of today.

Take, for example, media personality Max Blumenthal, who is almost comical in his contrarianism. Blumenthal doesn’t just criticize the US government—which is totally fair and appropriate, as I argue below—he actively defends the governments of Russia, Syria and, yes, China. In fact, he has appeared several times in Chinese state media to dispute accusations of atrocities by Beijing, including the claim of genocide against Uyghurs.

In a 2019 article in MintPress News, Blumenthal ahistorically describes the Dalai Lama as “the head of a relatively minor Buddhist sect until it was exploited by the CIA as a weapon against communist China.” He also asserts that “Tibetan Buddhists seek a return to theocratic feudal rule in the [Tibetan] plateau.”

That might be news to Tibetans in exile, who had a voter turnout of over 70% in 2021 when they elected Penpa Tsering the Sikyong (President) of the Central Tibetan Administration, the position to which His Holiness devolved political power in 2011 in line with his belief in the separation of church and state. Before China forced him into exile in 1959, the Dalai Lama even tried social and land reforms inside Tibet, but the Chinese blocked his efforts. It seems the Tibetan Buddhist leader does not seek theocracy or feudalism after all. (One gets the impression Blumenthal has never actually spoken to a Tibetan Buddhist in his life.)

Blumenthal is founder and editor of The Grayzone, a news website that’s also home to Aaron Maté, a fellow Chinese state media contributor and the son of world-famous doctor Gabor Maté. Blumenthal, for his part, is the son of a former senior advisor to President Bill Clinton, and he graduated from Georgetown Day School in Washington before matriculating to the Ivy League.

I don’t know Blumenthal or Maté or their motives, but it’s not surprising to me that two of the most aggressive apologists for China in US media are wealthy, White—Blumenthal’s claim about Tibetan Buddhists seeking feudal theocracy is racist and colonialist—children of famous parents. Part of contrarianism is rebellion, and these two sons of privilege fit the part of rebels without a cause.

Rewriting history

Sadly, a parade of contrarians, useful idiots and CCP shills have come out in full force recently in the wake of a misleading video clip showing His Holiness with a young boy in India. The video clip understandably provoked controversy and a flood of news coverage, and the Dalai Lama’s office quickly responded with an apology on his behalf.

As I write above, good-faith criticism of His Holiness is fine. But several commentators have sickly exploited this incident to rewrite history and justify China’s brutal occupation of Tibet. For some, that’s likely because it serves their brand to do so. But others seem to have genuinely let their critique of the United States blind them into drinking China’s Kool-Aid.

Indeed, long before the current headlines, I saw several self-proclaimed progressives write off Tibet as a vehicle for America’s foreign interference and imperialism, conveniently ignoring that China’s rule in Tibet is imperial. (In fact, it seems quite likely China lackeys helped engineer this recent controversy by purposefully spreading an out-of-context clip from over one month ago to manipulate the news cycle and discredit one of Beijing’s oldest foes without concern for the effect this would have on the young child.)

Don’t be a dum dum

No one can deny our leaders in the US have done horrible things and lied about them. Many institutions in this country—from government to media to banks to schools to houses of worship—have betrayed the public trust, leaving people feeling powerless and atomized. In this environment, it’s easy to give in to a nihilistic urge to tear everything down or an ego-wish for moral superiority.

I get the allure, but it is a siren call. I’m reminded of a statement from the late YouTube host Michael Brooks, who tragically died three years ago. I never met Michael in person, but I did interact with him a couple times online, and he was kind enough to engage me on Twitter, perhaps out of solidarity with Tibetans and perhaps because of his long interest in Buddhism. (One of his video clips inspired my previous blog post about human rights.)

Brooks was a true man of the left, but in one of his most enduring segments, he called out what he termed “the dum dum left”:

There is, unfortunately still, a dum-dum left who confuse moral posturing with revolutionary fervor. Who confused ahistorical throwing anything at the wall and endless whining about the Democrats for a real radical stance towards politics … And I get why that’s emotionally appealing to people because we live in absolutely disgusting times and the governing class of this country and the globe is disgusting. It’s abusive, it’s cruel, it’s abusive, it’s stupid, it’s arrogant, it’s insular and they need to be mocked, ridiculed, debunked, and they need to be taken out, to keep it simple. But not too simple. We need to keep it as simple as it can be, but not simpler than that.”

Working toward a vision

It’s too simple to think: America bad, therefore China good. It’s too simple to believe the whole world is bad, so let’s just blow everything up. You have to have some positive, humane vision to work toward. In my opinion, His Holiness and Tibetan Buddhist culture provide that.

In my own case, I don’t think I ever truly was a contrarian, just someone with a perspective shaped by an immigrant, minority, lower-income background. I have no problem holding contrary views on sacred cows like Winston Churchill, for instance. I am still skeptical of mainstream politics and business, along with a litany of other things.

But I am not so skeptical that I can’t recognize a good person, however imperfect, when I see one. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a good person, to say the least, and Tibet is a good cause. There are many things in this world worth taking down, but the Dalai Lama’s vision is worth building up.

Instead of contrarianism that leads to cheerleading the invasion of Iraq (like Hitchens) or parroting Chinese government propaganda (like Blumenthal, Maté and other online critics of Tibet), His Holiness offers a superior radicalism for today’s world. As the Dalai Lama says: “Compassion is the radicalism of our time.”

My thoughts on Mongolian spiritual leader Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa and Dalai Lama

April 7, 2023

Bhuchung K. Tsering

4 Comments

Following the public appearance of the young 10th reincarnation of the Mongolian spiritual leader Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa at a teaching by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala on March 8-9 this year, a section of the non-Tibetan international media has been misreporting on it. In the process, quite a few of them have unfortunately provided a distorted perspective on the Jetsun Dhampa and the significance of the 10th incarnation.

The 10th Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa making the Mandala offering to H.H. the Dalai Lama on March 8, 2023. Photo: Tenzin Choejor/ OHHDL

First, a brief history of the Jetsun Dhampa institution. The first Jetsun Dhampa Lobsang Tenpay Gyaltsen (also known as Zanabazar) was recognized in the 17th century with the involvement of the Fifth Dalai Lama and the Fourth Panchen Lama and came to be accepted as the spiritual head of Mongolian Buddhists. The subsequent incarnations may have been involved in predominantly spiritual matters, but the eighth incarnation came to be known as the Bogd Khan and also became the political head of Mongolia. While the first two incarnations were Mongolians, the next six have been born in Tibet. The Jetsun Dhampa was also recognized as the reincarnation of Taranatha, head of the Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Following the Communist takeover of Mongolia in the 1920s and after the passing away of the eighth incarnation, the then-Mongolian government banned the recognition of the Jetsun Dhampa.

The 9th Jetsun Dhampa

But the 9th Jetsun Dhampa Jampal Namdol Chokyi Gyaltsen was in anyway discovered in Tibet, having been born in 1932. When he was four years old, he was recognized by Radreng Rinpoche, who had by then become the Regent of Tibet after the 13th Dalai Lama passed away in 1933. But given the Mongolian political situation then, the recognition was not made public even though the reincarnation underwent his spiritual education. It was only after Mongolia became a democracy and its monastic emissaries went to India to request the Dalai Lama for information about the 9th Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa. Subsequently, His Holiness had this to say, “After Mongolia became free once more, I formally recognised and enthroned him where he lived in Madhya Pradesh” and the 9th Jetsun Dhampa’s public recognition took place on Jan. 13, 1992. As an aside, the 9th Jetsun Dhampa and I shared a train cabin at one time in 1993. We were in Sikkim for the Kalachakra Initiations that H.H. the Dalai Lama bestowed there and were returning to New Delhi by train. Following his public recognition, he was invited to visit Mongolia for the first time in 1997, eventually being settled in the country in 2010 and was given citizenship by the government. He passed away in Mongolia in 2012.

Although the Dalai Lamas in general have had a special relationship with the Mongolian spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama says his family had a close connection with the Jetsun Dhampa. In 2013, during a teaching in south India, he explained this by saying people in his birth region of Kumbum were in fact closer to Jetsun Dhampa than to the Dalai Lamas. While he was growing up in Lhasa, His Holiness told the gathering that he would often find the young Jetsun Dhampa with his mother when he went to visit his family.

After the 9th Jetsun Dhampa passed away in March 2012, His Holiness the Dalai Lama took part in a memorial prayer gathering held in Dharamsala then. He also composed a prayer for the Jetsun Dhampa’s speedy rebirth and also publicly mentioned his belief that the reincarnation would be born in Mongolia.

Those who follow the issue of the Jetsun Dhampa would know that for the next few years thereafter, the Dalai Lama continued to update the public about the Mongolian spiritual leader at teachings that he gave in different places.

During special teachings for devotees from Mongolia who had gathered in the Indian capital New Delhi on Dec. 4, 2013, the Dalai Lama gave a reading transmission of his prayer for the swift return of the Jetsun Dhampa. At the end of the same month, the Dalai Lama was giving a teaching at Sera Monastery in South India, where again he referred to the Jetsun Dhampa and the prayer he had composed, saying, “This prayer refers to his previous lives and makes the wish that he come back in Mongolia as a scholar able to teach.”

In December 2014, at yet another teaching requested by Mongolian devotees, this time in Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama gave the reading transmission of his prayer for the swift rebirth of the Jetsun Dhampa. The Dalai Lama also “mentioned that he had encouraged him to take his next birth in Mongolia,” according to His Holiness’ website.

In 2016, on Nov. 23, during a visit to Mongolia, the Dalai Lama publicly spoke about the rebirth of the Jetsun Dhampa, telling the media then, “the boy is very young right now, so there is no need for haste in making an announcement. When he is 3, 4 or 5 years old, we’ll see how things are. Placing a small child on a high throne is not what’s important. What is much more important is that he is able to study and become learned so he will be able to contribute to the flourishing of the Buddha dharma.”

The Dalai Lama addressing the media in Mongolia on Nov 23, 2016 on the Jetsun Dhampa, flanked by Mongolian monastic leaders. (Photo: Tenzin Taklha/OHHDL)

The Dalai Lama also outlined his special reason for his interest in the Jetsun Dhampa. He told the media in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar then, “Previous Jetsun Dhampas have been close to the Dalai Lamas in the past. I knew the 9th Jetsun Dhampa from childhood. As the time of his death approached, he asked me where and when he should pass away, which surprised me a little. However, during our last meeting, when he was already in poor health, I told him that it was important for him to be reborn in Mongolia. Considering the significance of his reincarnation and bearing in mind that he is a personal friend, I feel I have a responsibility to look after his reincarnation.”

Therefore, this is the background to the public appearance of the young 10th Jetsun Dhampa in Dharamsala in March. The occasion was a two-day Buddhist teaching on the Krishnacharya lineage of Chakrasamvara (part of the higher tantric practice) by the Dalai Lama that was requested by the main Mongolian monastery, Gandan Tegchenling, which is located in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. The 10th Jetsun Dhampa was among the 600 or so Mongolians who had arrived in Dharamsala for the teachings.

While it was certainly the 10th Jetsun Dhampa’s first public appearance, it was not an announcement of his recognition, as can be discerned from developments in 2016. This can also be seen from how His Holiness refers to the young reincarnation at the beginning of the teachings on March 8. His Holiness is seen reading from a note (whether by himself or by the organizers) placed on his table, “The reincarnation of (Khalkha) Jetsun Dhampa is here.” He then looks around and asks, “Where is he? Does he understand Ukay (central Tibetan dialect)?” His Holiness continues reading from the note, “He is here to receive the empowerment of Krishnacharya lineage of Chakrasamvara. The reincarnations of the Khalkha (Jetsun Dhampa) have been adopting the Krishnacharya lineage of Chakrasamvara as their main practice and so this is an auspicious occasion without having planned for it.”

The Dalai Lama reading from the note about the 10th Jetsun Dhampa’s presence at the teachings in Dharamsala on March 8, 2023. (Screengrab)

The reincarnation is later seen participating in some of the ritual procedures as part of the empowerment.

This was certainly a newsworthy story, given that the young reincarnation is the spiritual leader of Mongolian Buddhists. But there were a few distortions.

The Jetsun Dhampa is not the successor to the Dalai Lama, as some media reports implied, nor is he “traditionally one of the Buddhist leaders who recognize the Dalai Lama’s successor,” as another one contented. While making this latter misleading assertion, one news outlet even inserted just below it an ad for its own newsletter, ironically stating, “Don’t let yourself be misled. Understand issues with help from experts.” Neither conventionally nor historically have the Jetsun Dhampas had any roles in the search for the Dalai Lamas.

Yet another misunderstanding was that the Jetsun Dhampa was “the third most important spiritual leader in Tibetan Buddhism.” While Tibetan Buddhism is traditionally clear that the Dalai Lama is the supreme leader, there is no clear system that describes the hierarchy thereafter. The Tibetan government does have a system of classifying reincarnated masters into levels of ranks, made use also to determine seating during public events where the lamas might be gathering.

If the Mongolian Buddhists are the sources for this assertion of the Jetsun Dhampa being the third most important spiritual leader, then a possible reasoning could be from the particular history of the institution of the Jetsun Dhampas, whose initial establishment was connected to the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, the two most well-known Tibetan masters. But in any case this would not be the case for the overall world of Tibetan Buddhism.

As for the China connection, which some media outlets projected in different ways, in general anything connected to the Dalai Lama somehow seems to invite some sort of China context whether there is relevance or not. This is further fueled by the tendency of Beijing to go to any extent to reduce space for the Dalai Lama, and not because they have a stake in the Jetsun Dhampa. But the Jetsun Dhampa is connected to an independent nation of Mongolia, and if the Mongolian Buddhists have acceptance of the reincarnation, that is what is relevant. At best the Communist regime in China might only be in a position to sow confusion by causing internal dissension in Mongolia. It cannot claim authority over the recognition of Jetsun Dhampa, just as we cannot think of any China connection to the reincarnation of Zhabdrung Rinpoche, a prominent lama in the Drukpa Kagyu lineage in Bhutan. Zhabdrung Rinpoche was a Tibetan lama who settled in Bhutan some centuries back.

The 10th Jetsun Dhampa is significant because he symbolizes the aspiration of the Mongolian Buddhists for their spiritual renewal, a process that began following the downfall of the Communist regime there. This is the only relevant angle to the public appearance of the reincarnation. To me, His Holiness the Dalai Lama was only helping in the realization of this Mongolian aspiration, nothing more and nothing less.

Losing Tibetan identity in the West

March 20, 2023

Ashwin Verghese

6 Comments

Tibetan activist and poet Tenzin Tsundue (right) speaks at ICT’s Washington, DC office on March 15, 2023.

It’s well known that China’s government is forcibly assimilating Tibetans inside their Asian homeland. But coercive assimilation can happen in the West too, and although it’s less overt, it’s still destructive.

I was reminded of that last week when ICT welcomed Tenzin Tsundue, a renowned Tibetan activist and poet, to our office in Washington, DC. I had been excited to meet Tsundue la, both because I am a (very amateur) poet myself, and because he seems to have led the kind of authentic activist lifestyle I’ve always admired. The man has been in jail 16 times, after all.

Tsundue joined us for a lunch discussion with NGO representatives and government officials. The sight of this goateed Tibetan protestor, dressed in traditional garb and a red bandana that he says he won’t remove until Tibet is free, mixing with members of the dapper DC professional class was striking enough. But Tsundue also showed a sharp contrast in thought to what echoes through the halls of power in the US capital.

In his remarks, Tsundue criticized consumerism, one of the bedrocks of American life. He noted that US consumption of cheap Chinese goods helped fuel China’s rise to superpower status, threatening American dominance around the globe.

Consumer trap

Consumerism is also harmful to the Tibetan movement. In fact, it can be an even bigger threat than repression, Tsundue warned (I’m not using quotation marks because we didn’t record his speech and I didn’t take notes, so I’m recalling as best I can from memory).

Inside Tibet, China’s abuses are so visible that the Tibetan people likely see constant reminders of it. An ordinary Tibetan under Chinese rule must live with the awareness that she is a second-class citizen, that her country is occupied and that her community is being assimilated against its will.

It brings to mind an anecdote from Barbara Demick’s excellent 2020 book, “Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town.” Demick shares the story of a young man named Tsepey, who “was into partying, not politics” growing up. However, the condescension he faced from Chinese tourists and coworkers—including a boss who told him, “You need to behave more like the others”—led to a political awakening. Tsepey eventually took to the streets during the 2008 pan-Tibetan protests, got arrested and eventually escaped into exile.

Tsepey’s life—sadly he died from flu a few years ago—shows how systemic repression can, counterintuitively, harden a person’s attachment to who they are. But in a consumer society like the US, where you can supposedly choose your identity as easily as buying a new shirt, who you are can get lost in a sea of false choices. I speak from experience.

Personal story

After the lunch at ICT, I spoke with Tsundue la for a few minutes to dive deeper into his thoughts. I shared that I was born in Chennai in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. When Tsundue tried communicating with me in Tamil, I had to admit that I couldn’t speak it. (For the record, my ancestral language is Malayalam, a relative of Tamil and the official language of the neighboring state of Kerala, where my family is originally from.)

Though I was born overseas, I moved to the US at just four months old. Growing up in suburban Pennsylvania in the 1990s and early 2000s, I mostly tried to distance myself from my ethnic background. While I likely couldn’t have embraced Indian culture even if I wanted to—the world was less digitally connected in those days—I mostly sought to ditch my identity because I felt the pain of being different.

Looking back, I of course feel ashamed now of being ashamed back then. But I was responding to the pressure I faced in that situation. Whether it was classmates mocking my dark skin, girls telling me they would never date a non-White guy or teachers accidentally calling me the name of one of the few other Indian students in my school, I was frequently reminded of my separateness at an age when many of us are desperately trying to fit in.

Freedom to destroy

But there was more to it than that. As a teen and young adult, I internalized the American belief that where you come from shouldn’t matter, and that you have the right to be whomever you want. The problem with me being Indian was not just the discrimination, but the fact that it limited my freedom.

In other words, I wanted to assimilate because it felt like the way to be free and happy. But a few decades later, I’ve found that the abundant freedoms this country provides can do as much to restrict your sense of self as to liberate you.

For one thing, if you are a person of color, assimilation will never be easy. No one will ever miss your otherness when they look at you. (Although, like Tsepey, direct discrimination might lead you to double down on your identity, something I’ve definitely experienced in life.)

Moreover, the differences between you and the majority will almost inevitably pop up, whether it’s through a contrast in values; a condescending remark that reminds you how other people truly see you; or just the inescapable feeling that you’re not like everyone else. No amount of effort to fit in can erase that, it seems to me.

International desert

Perhaps worst of all, if you try to abandon where you come from—geographically, culturally, religiously, etc.—you’ll have nothing but fragments to hold onto when you get older. Internally you’ll feel divided and unsure of who you really are. Rather than finding the freedom to be happy, you’ll only get the freedom of a balloon without a string.

I threw away being Indian as a kid so that I could be American, but today, I don’t feel fully like either, or anything. Thankfully, when I touched on these topics with Tsundue la, he seemed to grasp what I was saying immediately.

It’s tempting in a country like the US to walk away from your origins and seek to remake yourself as a free individual. But if you do that, Tsundue cautioned, you’ll end up in an international desert.

Empowering Tibetan American youth

That’s a fate I want to help Tibetan American youth avoid. Obviously, I am not saying all Tibetan American kids need to adhere to their ancestry, nor am I calling for anyone to avoid engaging with the wider world. But I know how important cultural preservation is and how difficult it can be in this society, and I at least want Tibetan American youth to have the opportunity to stay true to their roots, because I believe it will help them when they’re older (not to mention that it’s a crucial part of keeping the Tibetan struggle alive while China continues to occupy Tibet).

To be sure, Tibetan Americans seem to do a great job of that already. In my five years at ICT, I’ve been so impressed by how well the community comes together not just to advocate for their homeland but also to pass their culture to the next generation. Especially important, in my eyes, is the Tibetan Sunday schools that help teach Tibetan American kids the ways of their people. It’s a stark contrast to the Chinese boarding school system that has separated 1 million Tibetan children from their families, religion, language and culture.

I’m also pleased that ICT has so many programs that empower Tibetan Americans. In fact, we just started accepting applications for our 2023 Tibetan Youth Leadership Program. TYLP gives Tibetan American college students a unique, hands-on learning experience in policymaking and advocacy right here in Washington.

Having participated in the program the past few years, I can attest that it is a remarkable opportunity for Tibetan American youth. If you’re a Tibetan American undergrad or graduate student—or know someone who is—I encourage you to check out the application process.

Learn more and apply for TYLP.

My take on messages from the Tibetan National Uprising of 1959

March 16, 2023

Bhuchung K. Tsering

Every year, we at the International Campaign for Tibet are involved in the organization of the commemoration of the Tibetan National Uprising anniversary on March 10 in all the regions where we have our offices. In Washington, DC one of the roles that we have is to address the rally before the embassy of the People’s Republic of China and the White House.

Tibetan flag flying at the rally before the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC on March 10, 2023.

This year, on the 64th anniversary of the 1959 Uprising, I spoke at the rally before the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC. Before I continue, I should mention that this year we also had the Chair of the newly established House Select Committee on China, Representative Mike Gallagher, come to offer his support to Tibet. This is significant because the bipartisan Select Committee (whose full name is “The United States House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party”) is being looked upon as a committee that will provide a path for the future of the US-China relationship taking into consideration the current attitude of the Beijing leadership and the need to protect American interests. Tibet is a core issue in the US-China relationship as reflected in testimony before Congress by senior State Department officials and successive reports on Tibet negotiations by the State Department, which say, “the lack of resolution of these problems leads to greater tensions inside China and will be a stumbling block to fuller political and economic engagement with the United States and other nations.”

Addressing the rally at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC on March 10 with a placard on political prisoner Go Sherap Gyatso with me.

Now coming back to my remarks at the rally this year, I outlined the following three messages from the 1959 Tibetan National Uprising.

First, the people in Tibet rose up to protect His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who is not only the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, but also a symbol of Tibet. They understood the strong bond between His Holiness and the Tibetan people. Sixty-four years later, the Dalai Lama continues to be a symbol of the Tibetan nation and people, and we need to do what we can to support his vision.

Secondly, in 1959, the Tibetan people in Lhasa rose up because they saw a threat to Tibet, the survival of Tibetan identity, culture, language, religion, way of life, etc., at the hands of Tenda Gyamar (“Red China, Enemy of the Faith”). Sixty-four years later, the threat to the survival of Tibetan identity posed by the misguided Chinese policies, including the Sinicization of all aspects of Tibetan life, continues. It is a credit to the determination and courage of the Tibetans in Tibet, who continue to confront the assault from the Chinese leadership and look for space to preserve their identity. We Tibetans need to see what we can do to meet these challenges and to overcome them.

Thirdly, in 1959, the Tibetan people rose up in desperation without any clear support from the international community. There were efforts made to reach out to neighboring countries as well as the United Nations. Sixty-four years later, the Tibetan issue has become an issue for concern by the international community, particularly those working in the human rights field. The international community needs to do more. Today, we can see the concern, and rightly so, on Ukraine. Since the international community does not desire conflict, it should adopt a universal policy of providing concrete support to the Tibetan issue, too, so that peace can be restored to the region.

I concluded by saying that one action that the United States can take is to pass the bipartisan and bicameral Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Act that is before the Congress.

Musing on the Tibetan National Anthem

March 8, 2023

Bhuchung K. Tsering

March 10 every year is the day when Tibetans and friends of Tibet throughout the free world mark the anniversary of the 1959 national uprising that took place in the Tibetan capital Lhasa. That watershed in Tibetan history was followed by the complete and violent takeover of Tibet, marking the end of this chapter of the Tibetan nation. However, in the post-1959 period, there was the rebirth of a national identity among Tibetans both in Tibet and in exile.

In Tibet, this renewed identity is observed through more visible expression of their commonality in literature, arts, songs, etc.

In exile, in addition to the above, one manifestation of this is through the Tibetan National Anthem. Every Tibetan who went through schooling in Tibetan schools in exile would have sung the national anthem on a daily basis. Today, the anthem is part of the “curriculum” of all weekend schools for Tibetans outside of the Indian subcontinent. As for those who were beyond the school-going age when they arrived in India, whether in 1959 or the years thereafter, they would have heard it sung at almost every public occasion. The national anthem will be an integral part of the program for the March 10 Uprising Day commemoration. This reminds me of the time in Dharamsala many years back, when an elderly Tibetan would take it upon himself to lead the singing of the “Gyalu” (the term in Tibetan for National Anthem) during public events like incense-burning ceremony. The problem was that he would sing it in his own convoluted tune, but everybody somehow tolerated this.

There is an interesting story (explanation given later on why I use this term) on the origin of the singing of the national anthem by the Tibetan refugees in India, as related by writer Paljor Tsarong. His father, Dundul Namgyal Tsarong, was the one who was assigned to make this happen. To coincide with this year’s anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day, I am taking the liberty to post the relevant excerpt from Paljor la’s book, “The Life and Times of George Tsarong of Tibet, 1920-1970: A Lord of the Traditional Tibetan State” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).

Here is how it began: “It was early summer of 1959 when Shakabpa [Tibetan official and historian] stopped by and informed father that the [Tibetan] government wanted him in Mussoorie [the hill station town where H.H. the Dalai Lama was resettled then]. There the ministers told Father that they needed a recording of the Tibetan national anthem and asked father to look into it. There was a soldier of the Bodyguard Regiment who knew the tune, but obviously, no one brought any instruments during the escape. So, father went down to Delhi and found one which was very expensive. He was neither given any money for transport or purchasing the flute. In fact, all the expenses incurred in travels from Kalimpong [a town near the Tibetan border in eastern India] to Mussoorie came out of his own pocket. Traditionally, state officials were given an estate by the government and one was expected to fulfill certain obligations and do whatever the government ordered without specific compensation.

“Father, anyway had enough money, and the taxi trips to Mussoorie were not as long and taxing as it is today. The large and comfortable American six-cylinder Plymouths from Connaught Place got father to Mussoorie in five hours. Back in Mussoorie, father took the soldier to Charleville Hotel where there was a band. He asked the band leader if he could write the notations for the national anthem. He said he could and as the soldier played the tune the band leader wrote the musical score. Soon he was playing it back on the piano and changes were made where necessary. Then father asked him to have his band play it. Father was quite satisfied and he also taped it on his heavy Grundig tape recorder. The band leader then suggested a better band that was playing at a hotel in Delhi’s Connaught Place. Father went down to Delhi and returned with what seemed a good recording of the national anthem. The following year, on March 10, 1960, the first anniversary of the Tibetan uprising was held. The Dalai Lama, his officials and the people gathered at the school near Birla house. As the Tibetan national flag was raised and all stood up for the solemn occasion, father played the taped recording of the national anthem.”

Apparently, the bodyguard regiment in Tibet would play the Tibetan National Anthem in Tibet.

The text of the Tibetan National Anthem and its English translation are below. You can also hear the anthem sung by artist Tsering Bawa.

༄༅། །སྲིད་ཞིའི་ཕན་བདེའི་འདོད་རྒུ་འབྱུང་བའི་གཏེར།
ཐུབ་བསྟན་བསམ་འཕེལ་ནོར་བུའི་འོད་སྣང་འབར།
བསྟན་འགྲོའི་ནོར་འཛིན་རྒྱ་ཆེར་སྐྱོང་བའི་མགོན།
འཕྲིན་ལས་ཀྱི་རོལ་མཚོ་རྒྱས།
རྡོ་རྗེའི་ཁམས་སུ་བརྟན་པས།
ཕྱོགས་ཀུན་བྱམས་བརྩེས་སྐྱོང༌།
གནམ་བསྐོས་དགའ་བ་བརྒྱ་ལྡན་དབུ་འཕང་དགུང་ལ་རེག །
ཕུན་ཚོགས་སྡེ་བཞིའི་མངའ་ཐང་རྒྱས།
བོད་ལྗོངས་ཆོལ་ཁ་གསུམ་གྱི་ཁྱོན་ལ་བདེ་སྐྱིད་རྫོགས་ལྡན་གསར་པས་ཁྱབ།
ཆོས་སྲིད་ཀྱི་དཔལ་ཡོན་དར།
ཐུབ་བསྟན་ཕྱོགས་བཅུར་རྒྱས་པས།
འཛམ་གླིང་ཡངས་པའི་སྐྱེ་རྒུ་ཞི་བདེའི་དཔལ་ལ་སྦྱོར།
བོད་ལྗོངས་བསྟན་འགྲོའི་དགེ་མཚན་ཉི་འོད་ཀྱི།
བཀྲ་ཤིས་འོད་སྣང་འབུམ་དུ་འཕྲོ་བའི་གཟིས།
ནག་ཕྱོགས་མུན་པའི་གཡུལ་ལས་རྒྱལ་གྱུར་ཅིག།

The following translation in English by the Central Tibetan Administration:

The source of temporal and spiritual wealth of joy and boundless benefits,
The wish-fulfilling jewel of the Buddha’s teaching, blazes forth radiant light.
The all-protecting patron of the doctrine and of all sentient beings,
By his actions stretches forth his influence like an ocean.
By his eternal vajra-nature
His compassion and loving care extends to beings everywhere.
May the celestially appointed government achieve the heights of glory
And increase its fourfold influence and prosperity.
May a golden age of happiness spread across the three provinces of Tibet and the glory expand of religious-secular rule.
By the spread of Buddha’s teachings in the ten directions, may everyone throughout the world enjoy the glories of happiness and peace.
In the battle against negative forces may the auspicious sunshine of the teachings and beings of Tibet and the brilliance of a myriad radiant prosperities be ever triumphant.

The reason why I had to call the Dundul Tsarong reference a story is because unfortunately, there is no clear history on the origin of the Tibetan National Anthem.

In general, it is said that national anthems developed from hymns historically. France is believed to be the first country to have a national anthem when in 1830 La Marseillaise was adopted. Thereafter, it became common for nations to define national anthems.

Is there a similar history of the Tibetan National Anthem? Unfortunately, no.

Some say that a prayer for the seventh Dalai Lama Kelsang Gyatso (1708-1757) composed during his lifetime can be regarded as the first national anthem, as it was used as a hymn subsequently. This hymn is found in the “Autobiography of a Minister” (Kalon Togjoe) written by Tsering Wangyal Dokhar in 1762. The author was a minister in the Tibetan government during the time of the seventh Dalai Lama, and it is believed the hymn was composed by Pholhane Sonam Topgyal, a senior official then, to express his loyalty to the seventh Dalai Lama. It might interest readers to know that this very one-verse hymn is a prayer for the long life of the Dalai Lama and is recited even to this day, albeit with Kelsang Gyatso in the third line being replaced by Tenzin Gyatso, the name of the 14th Dalai Lama.

The text of the hymn is this:

གངས་རི་ར་བས་བསྐོར་བའི་ཞིང་ཁམས་འདིར་།།
ཕན་དང་བདེ་བ་མ་ལུས་འབྱུང་བའི་གནས།།
སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས་དབང་སྐལ་བཟང་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ཡི།།
ཞབས་པད་སྲིད་མཐའི་བར་དུ་བརྟན་གྱུར་ཅིག།

In this land encircled by a fence of snow mountains
Is the place for source of all blessings and happiness
May Chenrezig, Kelsang Gyatso
Remain firm until samsara ends.

If this hymn can indeed be regarded as a national anthem, then it would be older than the French one. Be that as it may, it looks like by 1947, the tradition of national anthem was absent in Tibet, considering the following anecdotal evidence. It is said that the Tibetan delegates to the Asian Relations Conference held in the Indian capital New Delhi in March-April of 1947 had to improvise by singing a folk song popular in Lhasa then when they had to sing their national anthem at the conference.

Similarly, the Tibet Mirror newspaper, the only mainstream newspaper in Tibetan then, published from Kalimpong, in its July 1, 1948 (Vol. 16, No. 10) issue had a news item on “government song.” The report begins by saying that “all countries have a government that is sung at celebrations, after winning a war, and similarly, after public theatrical performances, cinema show and after the news is read on the radio.” It adds that “The Tibetan nation does not have such a tradition” but lately there is news about a song some Tibetans in Lhasa have begun to sing during parties that expresses gratitude to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the government. The Tibet Mirror commended this and hoped that the Tibetan government would in the near future adopt a national anthem.

Dundul Tsarong in an oral interview in 1993 for Melvin Goldstein’s book on Tibetan history says that a national anthem was composed around 1947 or 1948. Prior to that, Tibetans did not realize, but sang God Save the King anthem of Great Britain, he says. Tsarong is not certain who composed that anthem, but says he heard that Trijang Rinpoche, the junior tutor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, was consulted. However, some others assert that a national anthem was composed for Tibet in 1949 by Trijang Rinpoche at the request of an official, Khemཨེy Sonam Wangdu.

Some say that the current national anthem was in fact composed in exile by Trijang Rinpoche sometime in 1962. But given the above assertion by Dundul Namgyal Tsarong, there seems to have been in existence a national anthem in Tibet, at least a tune and music, in the period before 1959.

Unfortunately, we do not seem to have much evidence at this point of time to reconcile the differing assertions on the anthem. There is hardly any reference to it in the Tibetan history books, thus leaving the issue mysterious and inscrutable. The very little that is available is technically in the realm of the informal and conjectural, and also the information is incomplete. Given the importance of a national anthem in a nation’s history, this is a fertile ground for researchers out there.

In the meanwhile, those into music can try playing the Tibetan National Anthem from this music sheet that is posted online. I listened to it and it is almost there.

What was the 13th Dalai Lama’s message to the Tibetan people?

February 15, 2023

Bhuchung K. Tsering

1 Comment

On Feb. 13, 2023 I was invited by the Tibetan Youth Congress and the Centre for Himalayan Asia Studies & Engagement to participate in an online discussion on the anniversary of the 1913 proclamation by H.H. the 13th Dalai Lama Thupten Gyatso, popularly known as the reaffirmation of Tibetan independence proclamation. You can watch the full session online here.

The 13th Dalai Lama Thupten Gyatso

I am outlining here my presentation, in which I gave my take of the proclamation saying that it should not be seen in isolation but in conjunction with two other subsequent developments during the 13th Dalai Lama’s period, namely the 1913-1914 Tibet-Britain-China tripartite convention on Tibet in Shimla and the 1932 Last Testament by the 13th Dalai Lama. Accordingly, I laid out the following:

What were the issues that were raised in the proclamation?
The reason why the proclamation is important?
What lessons should we learn from it?

What were the issues that were raised in the proclamation?

I mentioned that we needed to look at this proclamation in the context of the 13th Dalai Lama’s experience of British India’s invasion of Tibet of 1903-1904 and the subsequent invasion by China under the Manchus. These developments made the 13th Dalai Lama realize that in order to establish Tibet as a nation-state, Tibetans needed to be internally prepared and realize the threat and challenges to their national identity.

Therefore, even though the most prominent aspect of the proclamation known internationally is the reference to the political status of Tibet, it actually has four other additional points. Points 1 and 2 deal with preservation and promotion of Tibetan religious identity and institutions, including Buddhist study. Points 3 and 5 deal with the Dalai Lama’s call on Tibetan officials to maintain proper conduct, including in looking after the socio-economic welfare of the Tibetan people. Interestingly, in Point 3 the 13th Dalai Lama calls for doing away with corporal punishments, saying, “Furthermore, citizens’ limbs have been amputated as a form of punishment. Henceforth, such severe punishments are forbidden.”

At the popular level, this proclamation has been made more well known for its Point 4, which deals with Tibet’s political status. Given that the existing translations in English do not seem to reflect fully the text, I read the relevant portion of this point in Tibetan first.

“བོད་འདི་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་གཞན་དག་ལྟ་བུའི་སྟོབས་འབྱོར་འཕྲུལ་ཆས་དང་མི་ལྡན་རུང་། ཆོས་མཐུན་ཞི་བདེར་གནས་པའི་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་རང་དབང་དང་ལྡན་པ་ཞིག་ཡིན་སྟབས་།”

My translation of this is that: “Tibet is not endowed with wealth, power, and technology like other nations. It is nonetheless a free country abiding in peace and happiness in accordance with the Dharma.”

The exact Tibetan term used relating to the political status is Rangwang, literally “freedom,” but it has also been interpreted over the years to mean independence. Be that as it may, to me Point 4 is like the other points addressed to the people of Tibet, officials and citizens, rather than to the international community, in which the 13th Dalai Lama calls on them to understand their country’s status and come together to protect it. Each of the five points of the proclamation in fact ends with “should do this,” in what could be seen as direct order. Even at the end of the proclamation, there is a directive that a copy of the proclamation should be kept in all the Tibetan offices somewhat like a standing order so that successive officials can implement it. It says,

ཁེ་ཉེན་ལ་བསམ་ཞིབ་ཀྱིས་ལྷ་ཆོས་དང་། མི་ཆོས་ཀྱི་བླངས་དོར་ཕྱིན་མ་ལོག་པ་དང་ལེན་རྒྱུན་འཁྱོངས་དགོས་རྒྱའི་རྩ་ཚིག་འདི་བཞིན་མངའ་ཁུལ་དཀར་ཆག་ཏུ་བཀོད་ངོས་། ལས་བྱེད་རིམ་འབྱོར་ནས་རྩ་འཛིན་མཇུག་གཞོན་རྒྱུན་འཁྱོངས་ཚུལ་བཞིན་སྤྱོད་པ་གྱིས་།

Bearing in mind the consequences, and without confusing between what is to be accepted and abstained from divine and human conducts, all officials should keep this declaration in the records of their offices, abide by it by properly implementing it.

The reason why this declaration is important?

The importance of the 1913 proclamation can be understood when we look at the two subsequent political developments of the Shimla Convention on Tibet of 1913-1914 and the 1932 Last Testament by the 13th Dalai Lama.

In the 1913 proclamation, the 13th Dalai Lama had hoped that his officials and the citizens of Tibet will heed his call and rise to the occasion. While acknowledging that his government has been able to banish all Manchu forces from the areas under the then Tibetan Government, he hoped to be able to recover other Tibetan territories in the Dhokham that were outside of the rule of the then Tibetan government.

Related to this is a statement made about the 13th Dalai Lama by the present 14th. In response to a question, “Are there any of your predecessors in whom you have a special interest or with whom you have a particular affinity?” the 14th Dalai Lama says, “The Thirteenth Dalai Lama. He brought a lot of improvement to the standards of study in the monastic colleges. He gave great encouragement to the real scholars. He made it impossible for people to go up in the religious hierarchy, becoming an abbot and so forth, without being totally qualified. He was very strict in this respect. He also gave tens of thousands of monks’ ordinations. There were his two main religious achievements. He didn’t give many initiations, or many lectures. Now, with respect to the country, he had great thought and consideration for statecraft. The outlying districts in particular. How they should be governed and so forth. He cared very much how to run the government more efficiently. He had great concern about our borders and that type of thing.”

During the subsequent Shimla Convention in 1913 and 1914, the 13th Dalai Lama seems to have acted on his hope expressed in the proclamation to bring back the Tibetan territories in the east under his government’s control. His envoy Lonchen Shatra made efforts to reassert control over the Tibetan areas outside of the Tibetan government’s rule. Scholar Tsering Shakya says the “Tibetans demanded the return of all Tibetan territories occupied by the Chinese in Kham and Amdo” with some saying mule loads of documents to support the claim were brought to Shimla. Eventually, it only led to the outlining of what was called outer and inner Tibet.

The third important development is the 1932 Last Testament. In fact, Shakabpa calls it, མ་འོངས་སྔོན་གཟིགས་ཀྱི་ཞལ་འདམས་, “the testament that foresaw the future.” This testament was the response by the 13th Dalai Lama to a long-life offering made to him. While outlining all the efforts he made for the welfare of the Tibetan people, he included a stark warning, including the threat of takeover by Communism (which had taken over Mongolia by then), that unless the Tibetan people came together and worked for a common cause, there would be grave consequences.

The relevant portion of the 1932 Last Testament says this:

In the future, this [communist] system will certainly be forced on this land that cherishes the joint spiritual and temporal system, either from within or without. If, in such an event, we fail to defend our land, the noble ones who are holders of the doctrine, beginning with the triumphant father and son [the Dalai Lama and Paṇchen Lama] will be eliminated without a trace.

The 13th Dalai Lama was very critical of some of the people in the Tibetan leadership then. He said,

གནས་སྐབས་རང་དོན་སྒྲུབ་ཕྱོགས་ཕྱོགས་ལྷུངས་ངོ་སྲུང་ལས། ཆབ་སྲིད་ཀྱི་བདེ་དོན་ད་མུས་བཞིན་ཡལ་ཡོལ་འབའ་ཞིག་གིས་འཁུར་དུ་མ་བླངས་ན་ཕུགས་དོན་མི་འགྲུབ་པ་མཐོང་གསལ་ལྷར་། སླར་ཅི་དྲག་གི་འགྱོད་ཀྱང་ཕན་ཆ་མི་སྲིད་པས། ངོས་ནམ་འཚོའི་རིང་ལ་བོད་ལྗོངས་བདེ་ཐབས་ད་མུས་ཀྱིས་འཁྱོལ་བར་མཐོང་། ཕུགས་རང་རང་་མྱོང་ཆོས་རྣམས་སོ་སོའི་ཐོག་ཏུ་སྨིན་པ་ནི་ངོས་རང་གི་ཉམས་མྱོང་རྒྱུ་མཚན་གསལ་པོའི་སྟེང་ནས་གཞན་ལ་འདོམས་པ་འདི་ལྷག་བསླབ་བྱ་ལྷུག་པོར་སྟོན་རྒྱུ་མེད་་་་་།

“There are people who in order to serve their own interests, involve in factionalism and placation, and if they continue their careless attitude without shouldering their responsibilities, it is evident that their long-term objectives will not be met. Even if they have regrets subsequently, it will not be of help. It can be seen that as long as I remain, the well-being of Tibet will continue. In the long run, based on my own experience and with clear reason I do not have any more advice than to say that everyone will experience the fruition of one’s action…”

What lessons should we learn from it?

First, we have to look at this proclamation holistically and in conjunction with the subsequent Shimla Convention and the Last Testament in 1932. Looking at the 1913 proclamation alone does not provide the full picture of the intent of the 13th Dalai Lama.

Secondly, through the proclamation as well as his Last Testament, the 13th Dalai Lama was advising Tibetans to be mindful of the broader understanding of Tibetan politics and calling on the people to shoulder their due responsibilities.

Thirdly, the subsequent developments in Tibet showed that our people then failed to fully comprehend the advice of the 13th Dalai Lama and did not take adequate steps to protect Tibet.

What should we be doing?

The current Dalai Lama, while talking about the reasons for the continuation of reincarnation, has said primarily it is to continue the mission of the previous incarnation. Seen from this angle, we are all familiar with this Dalai Lama’s activities and vision, which all complement that of the 13th. In the above quote about the 13th Dalai Lama, the current 14th mentions two categories of contributions, namely in the field of religious reform and strengthening of Tibetan polity. In both fronts, the current Dalai Lama has continued the mission and made it possible for Tibetan religion and people to compete on a par with modern society. The monastic reforms in the Tibetan community in exile, including the introduction of scientific knowledge in monastic education, are part of this.

Similarly, what the 13th Dalai Lama began in trying to recreate a pan-Tibetan common identity, including Tibetans from all three provinces, is now made a reality under the present Dalai Lama. On this matter, Kasur Lodi Gyari, the Special Envoy of H.H. the Dalai Lama, in his memoirs talks about this contribution by the present Dalai Lama, saying he “gave a new hope for Tibet’s cohesiveness, creating a watershed moment in Tibetan history that has led to true unification in the Tibetan people’s hearts and minds.” I would urge each and every one of you to read the memoirs, which outline this foundational initiative of His Holiness soon after he escaped to India in 1959.

Similarly, the current Dalai Lama has, in accordance with his principle for hoping for the best but preparing for the worst, taken steps to provide a pathway to a firm foundation for the Tibetan struggle through the democratic system of governance. At the same time, he has issued stark warnings to today’s Tibetan people, like his predecessor did, to act on our obligation and work in a united front.

Here is a quote from his statement on Tibetan National Uprising Day in 1976:

བོད་མི་ཚོ། རང་ཡུལ་འཕྲོག་མཁན་དགྲ་བོ་སྣང་མེད་དུ་བཞག་ནས་བོད་མི་ནང་ཁུལ་ཚིག་སྐམ་སྟོང་བཤད་ཀྱིས་འཐེན་འཁྱེར་བྱེད་པ་དང་གཅིག རང་རིགས་རྒྱ་ཆེའི་མང་ཚོགས་ཀྱི་བདེ་སྡུག་ལ་སེམས་འཁུར་བོར་ཏེ་རང་ཉིད་གཅིག་པུ་རང་མགོ་གང་ཐོན་བྱེད་པ་དང་གཉིས། ད་ལྟ་བོད་མི་རིགས་སྤྱིའི་བདེ་སྡུག་གནས་སྟངས་ཛ་དྲག་གང་འདྲ་ཞིག་ཐོག་ཡོད་པ་ངོས་མ་ཟིན་པར། འབྱོར་ལྡན་རང་དབང་ཅན་གཞན་དག་ལ་དཔར་བཀབ་རྒྱས་སྤྲོས་སྐྱིད་འདོད་བྱེད་པ་དང་གསུམ་ནི། ཤིན་ཏུ་འཁྲུལ་ཚབས་ཆེ་བས་མནོ་བསམ་ནན་ཏན་གཏོང་དགོས།

My countrymen, beware of the yawning chasms. Forgetting the enemy who invaded and wrested the country, you indulge in squabbles and factionalism. Discarding the thoughts and motives to promote the interest of the larger masses of one’s own people, you seek and work to promote your own interest only. Refusing to recognize the grave economic situation that the Tibetan people are in, you desire and emulate luxury life-style of other rich people. These are unhealthy trends and matters of serious concern. So, give a thought to these seriously.

Here I want to say that we Tibetans should not shy away from discussing issues on which we have disagreements. We are living in a democracy, and so there would be diverse views among us. But difference of opinions should be put in proper context so that they don’t create misgivings and misunderstanding. We should spend all our time and resources in confronting external challenges instead of wasting time in trying to create issues within ourselves.

The current His Holiness has also categorically called for the need to establish the fact of the historical independence of Tibet even while striving for a future for Tibet through the Middle Way Approach.

Therefore one concrete initiative that Tibetan leaders and Tibetans and Tibet supporters of today can take is to see how this can be fulfilled. In the United States, in consultation with the Tibetan leadership and supporters of Tibet in the Congress, a new legislation, the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Act, has been introduced that asserts the historical independent status of Tibet, rejecting the Chinese claim that Tibet had been part of China since ancient times or since antiquity and saying that China should resolve the conflict through negotiations.

History has shown that the Tibetan people failed in heeding the warning of the 13th Dalai Lama and acting positively on it. This generation of Tibetans now should not fail the current 14th Dalai Lama in heeding the warnings he has been issuing about the future.