Did Britain Just Sell Tibet? Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, asked China to give money to the International Monetary Fund, in return for which Beijing would expect an increase in its voting share.
rst0wxyz
Did Britain Just Sell Tibet?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/opinion/25barnett.html?th&emc=th
By ROBERT BARNETT
Published: November 24, 2008
THE financial crisis is going to do more than increase unemployment,
bankruptcy and homelessness. It is also likely to reshape
international alignments, sometimes in ways that we would not expect.
As Western powers struggle with the huge scale of the measures needed
to revive their economies, they have turned increasingly to China.
Last month, for example, Gordon Brown, the British prime minister,
asked China to give money to the International Monetary Fund, in
return for which Beijing would expect an increase in its voting
share.
Now there is speculation that a trade-off for this arrangement
involved a major shift in the British position on Tibet, whose leading
representatives in exile this weekend called on their leader, the
Dalai Lama, to stop sending envoys to Beijing — bringing the faltering
talks between China and the exiles to a standstill.
The exiles’ decision followed an announcement on Oct. 29 by David
Miliband, the British foreign secretary, that after almost a century
of recognizing Tibet as an autonomous entity, Britain had changed its
mind. Mr. Miliband said that Britain had decided to recognize Tibet as
part of the People’s Republic of China. He even apologized that
Britain had not done so earlier.
Until that day, the British had described Tibet as autonomous, with
China having a “special position” there. This formula did not endorse
the Tibetan claim to independence. But it meant that in the British
view China’s control over Tibet was limited to a condition once known
as suzerainty, somewhat similar to administering a protectorate.
Britain, alone among major powers, had exchanged official agreements
with the Tibetan government before the Chinese takeover in 1951, so it
could scarcely have said otherwise unless it was to vitiate those
agreements.
After the People’s Republic of China joined the United Nations in
1971, British politicians refrained from referring to their country’s
recognition of Tibet’s autonomy to avoid embarrassing Beijing. But
that didn’t make it less significant. It remained the silent but
enduring legal basis for 30 years of talks between the Dalai Lama and
Beijing, in which the Tibetans have called only for autonomy and not
independence — a position that a conference of Tibetan exiles in India
reaffirmed on Saturday.
Mr. Miliband described the British position as an anachronism and a
colonial legacy. It certainly emerged out of a shabby episode in
colonial history, Francis Younghusband’s cavalier invasion of Tibet in
1903. But the British description of Tibet’s status in the era before
the modern nation-state was more finely tuned than the versions
claimed by Beijing or many exiles, and it was close to the findings of
most historians.
Britain’s change of heart risks tearing up a historical record that
frames the international order and could provide the basis for
resolving China’s dispute with Tibet. The British government may have
thought the issue of no significance to Britain’s current national
interests and so did not submit it to public debate. But the decision
has wider implications. India’s claim to a part of its northeast
territories, for example, is largely based on the same agreements —
notes exchanged during the Simla convention of 1914, which set the
boundary between India and Tibet — that the British appear to have
just discarded. That may seem minor to London, but it was over those
same documents that a major war between India and China was fought in
1962, as well as a smaller conflict in 1987.
The British concession to China last month was buried within a public
statement calling on Beijing to grant autonomy in Tibet, leading some
to accuse the British government of hypocrisy. It is more worrying if
it was a miscalculation. The statement was released two days before
the Dalai Lama’s envoys began the eighth round of talks with Beijing
on their longstanding request for greater autonomy, apparently because
the British believed — or had been told — that their giveaway to
Beijing would relax the atmosphere and so encourage China to make
concessions to the Dalai Lama.
The result was the opposite. On Nov. 10, China issued a damning attack
on the exile leader, saying his autonomy plan amounted to ethnic
cleansing, disguised independence and the reintroduction of serfdom
and theocracy. The only thing that China will henceforth discuss with
the exiles is the Dalai Lama’s personal status, meaning roughly which
luxury residence he can retire to in Beijing.
The official press in China has gleefully attributed European
concessions on Tibet to the financial crisis. “Of course these
European countries are at this time not collectively changing their
tune because their conscience has gotten the better of them,”
announced The International Herald Leader, a government-owned paper in
Beijing, on Nov. 7. It added that the financial crisis “has made it
impossible for them not to consider the ‘cost problem’ in continuing
to ‘aid Tibetan independence’ and anger China. After all, compared to
the Dalai, to as quickly as possible pull China onto Europe’s rescue
boat is even more important and urgent.”
Britain’s concession could be China’s most significant achievement on
Tibet since American support for Tibetan guerillas was ended before
Nixon’s visit to Beijing. Including China in global decision-making is
welcome, but Western powers should not rewrite history to get support
in the financial crisis. It may be more than banks and failed
mortgages that are sold off cheap in the rush to shore up ailing
economies.
Robert Barnett, the director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at
Columbia, is the author of “Lhasa: Streets With Memories.”
RichAsianKid
that actually bears some sense on realism (even if the author of the
article doesn't see it). Good for rst0wxyz.
2. I'll defer comment on the real or alleged perfidy of the Brits or
Americans at the senior levels in their plot to breakup China. I'll
just say that at lower levels, from a psychological point of view,
Tibet is like a pawn used in a game where you rack up status points by
pretending how much you can *afford* to care for the little people by
even giving them your precious moments of time and thought. Much like
how crusading for heart disease doesn't have as much cachet as
crusading for HIV, or if you adopt a Cambodian child and then string
it to your wine 'n' cheese exurb inbred soiree that's your unique
Cambodian accessory that few other people can afford. Same with Tibet.
(Side point: I should add that this status game can only be play
effectively for whites; the effect is way less pronounced if a Chinese
or a black were to play it)
3. "Save Tibet" bumper stickers pop up in many places, yet how many
can even pinpoint Tibet on the map? That is, precisely because it's so
insignificant (and along with the fabled shangri-la aura much like how
native Indians are such peace-loving people etc.) the inversion of
what's a "natural order" if you will necessitates that it be made
great if not greatest (for those who are not familiar with this, it's
called the bourgeoisie bomehian mentality, cf David Brooks). Much like
the professed and public attitudes towards blacks in the US, or as
alluded to above already, the public attitudes towards crusading for
HIV versus, say, diabetes. It's all professed public sanctimony over a
more secretly held sense of reality.
And the sobering thought is that, unlike India (as the article tries
to magnify Tibet's significance by bringing India into this), Tibet is
actually pretty dispensible on the world scene in the grand scheme of
things. In fact, if all the Tibetans were to die for that matter and
if Tibet were wiped off the face of the planet, and the world would
pretty stay the way it is.
4. Quote: "It is also likely to reshape international alignments,
sometimes in ways that we would not expect." Only the most starry-eyed
dreamer would say this. But you can't really blame him considering his
bio. Fact is, money (backed by military power) is what makes the world
go round, not stupid egalitarian ideologies like human rights or
"equality" or "democracy". (Alan Coren, Brit writer and satirist, once
said that "democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after
they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.") If Tibet is
really so important, why is it that over 4 billion people watched the
Beijing "Genocidal" Olympics? If democracy is really so important, why
is it that Brits are leaving their country in droves and migrating
from their democratic country to America or Canada just to get better
jobs and make more money? Why is it that Americans risk life and limb
in a hellhole like Iraq to get paid $100 or $200/hr (measly figure but
better than what they got in the US) in contracts? Or perhaps why
people from a freer Hong Kong or Taiwan even relocate to China? No,
not because these people love Beijing or America or Iraq or China of
course; in fact they may well hate these places. It's certainly not
for unrealistic "ideals" like democracy or "rights"; it's because they
want a better life for themselves, they want a better living, and they
want more money and hence more power. Those who are so duped to
crusade for rights and democracy are like those disheveled protestors
against the WTO meetings in the past - unrepentant 1960s style
leftists and hippies. Slight problem for them is that it's now the
21st century, and times have changed, the pendulum is swinging back. I
just wonder if some will grow up before they grow old.
rst0wxyz
> 1. Once in a while rst0wxyz posts some wonderful news on the internet
> that actually bears some sense on realism (even if the author of the
> article doesn't see it). Good for rst0wxyz.
You know, RAT, as the old saying goes;
"If you throw the net far and wide enough, you bound to catch some
fish".
> ...
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Wakalukong
> 1. Once in a while rst0wxyz posts some wonderful news on the internet
> that actually bears some sense on realism (even if the author of the
> article doesn't see it). Good for rst0wxyz.
>
> 2. I'll defer comment on the real or alleged perfidy of the Brits or
> Americans at the senior levels in their plot to breakup China.
----------
The perfidious Brits didn't wait till the 21st Century to "sell"
Tibet. They took a big bite out of Tibet a century ago. And now they
pretend to be nice.
Wakalukong
rst0wxyz
When you can not beat them, then you gotta be nice to them.
baldeagle
>
> Tibet is like a pawn used in a game where you rack up status points by
> pretending how much you can *afford* to care for the little people
> ... In fact, if all the Tibetans were to die for that matter and
> if Tibet were wiped off the face of the planet, and the world would
> pretty stay the way it is.
>
The Brits were the real devil...in the Tibet issue. If Britain
did not stir up the shit in Tibet...by trying to sign a treaty
with a junior Tibetan politician (see below) in the early 1910s,
Tibet would remain a non-issue like other provinces in China.
The British DID NOT own Tibet, they have NO rights to
sell Tibet to anyone.
http://mike-servethepeople.blogspot.com/2008/03/dalai-lama-and-tibetan-chinese-history.html
Quote:
"Later, taking advantage of the disintegration of political authority
in China after the 1911 Revolution, the British tried by various
diplomatic and political means to separate Tibet from the Central
Government and bring it within Britain’s sphere of influence. Although
sections of the Tibetan theocracy vacillated at this time there was no
organised indigenous movement for the independence of Tibet, and the
so-called issue of “independence” was really one of separation from,
and dismemberment of, China for the sake of a foreign colonial power
(the British) " Unquote
For more detailed info, read:
http://mike-servethepeople.blogspot.com/2008/03/birth-of-tibetan-separatism.html