In their long and fruitless struggle against Chinese rule, Tibetans have often leaped on any reason to stay optimistic — and, for some, a new leader in Beijing offers a fresh glimmer of hope.
The rise of Xi Jinping (習近平), who is seen as China’s president-in-waiting, has set off a ripple of speculation that he may bring about a change of policy towards Tibet, which has been subject to a military crackdown since 2008.
One reason is that Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun (習仲勳), met and came to know the Dalai Lama in Beijing in the early 1950s, before the Tibetan spiritual leader fled a failed uprising.
Xi senior, a party official at the time, later became a liberal vice premier known to be sympathetic towards minorities, and Tibetan exiles and analysts raise the possibility that such thinking may have passed down a generation.
“His father was familiar with Tibet and had an association with the Dalai Lama,” said Lobsang Sangay, prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile in the Indian hilltown of Dharamsala.
“Whether the son can be like the father is still to be seen,” he said. “Tibetans are always hopeful.”
Sangay is this week hosting a special meeting on how to respond to the scores of self-immolation protests against Chinese control, and delegates admit they are monitoring the Chinese transfer of power that is likely to start next month.
Beijing-watchers say that little is known about Xi Jinping’s true political leanings, though he has expressed the government’s routine disdain for the Dalai Lama and also vowed to “smash” any attempt to destroy stability in Tibet.
“His father did encounter the Dalai Lama when the Dalai Lama visited Beijing for a period in 1954,” said Barry Sautman, a Tibet expert at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. “It is possible that Xi Jinping might take more interest in Tibet as a result of his family, but it is a slender reed on which to base your hopes.”
Sarah McDowall, China expert at the IHS research group in London, sounded a similar note of caution over predictions that Xi would listen to Tibetans’ calls for autonomy and their complaints of increasingly brutal repression.
“It is really unlikely there will be any softening of policy towards Tibet,” she said.
“The security situation is still volatile after [unrest in] 2008, combined with the self-immolations, which have given renewed incentive to retain a hardline policy. It is not going to be the time for any new leader trying to consolidate their power base to be seen as weak on a matter of national integrity,” she said.
The last fatal protests were four weeks ago and analysts say each self-immolation case worsens a vicious cycle of further clampdowns by Chinese security forces and more anger across the Tibetan-inhabited areas of China.
“So long as the self-immolation problem persists, the Tibet policy is going to stay hardline and the Tibetans will actively resist that,” said Nathan Hill, a Tibet expert at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
“Some officials in China understand this, but they are looking out for their careers and they are generally never blamed for tightening things even further,” he said.
Despite such dire warnings many Tibetans see fundamental change in China as their greatest — and perhaps only — hope, more than half a century since the Dalai Lama fled in 1959.
“Every change of leadership in the Chinese government brings optimism about positive changes that might take place,” Tsering Choedup, 39, Asia head of the International Tibet Network, said at the ongoing meeting in Dharamsala.
“China can’t remain unchanged forever with its economy becoming thrown open, and its politics will move too. It might take a while, but they are in transition,” he said.
Such attitudes are what Robbie Barnett, a professor of Tibetan studies at Columbia University, describes as the “futuristic optimism” that keeps the exiles’ dreams alive that one day they will be able to return to their homeland.
He believes the best they can expect in the short term is that Xi agrees to re-start a desultory talks program with Tibetan envoys that was last active in 2010.
And what does the Dalai Lama see in Xi Jinping’s presidency?
“We hope that the new leadership will bring positive changes that will help restore freedom and human dignity both in China and Tibet,” his office said.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and