Tibet in Context

As usual, Rebecca McKinnon has an exceptional roundup of the issues along with her own insight on the current turmoil in Tibet. (That link, along with the rest of Wikipedia, is censored in China). She highlights what I’ve also found to be one of the more fascinating aspects of the current crisis—the complete disconnect on how China versus the West understands Tibet. Rebecca writes:

John Kennedy has translated chatter from Chinese blogs and chatrooms that generally runs along the lines of: those ungrateful minorities, we give them modern conveniences and look how they thank us… where have we heard this before? Reuters has a roundup on the Washington Post that begins: “a look at Chinese blogs reveals a vitriolic outpouring of anger and nationalism directed against Tibetans and the West.”

While I was in China last week, and without either of us knowing about the current state of affairs in Lhasa, I was told that many Tibetans were “dangerous” and this was justification for the travel restrictions often put upon them. When I did start hearing about the conflict there, I recognized that when Xinhua says “citizens were harmed” they’re not talking about Tibetans, or the protesters, they’re talking about the Han Chinese who have migrated into Tibet.

I think Peter Hessler (yep that Peter Hessler) captured the situation well back in 1999:

Another aspect of the Chinese duty in Tibet is the sense that rapid modernization is needed, and should take precedence over cultural considerations. For Westerners, this is a difficult perspective to understand. Tibet is appealing to us precisely because it’s not modern, and we have idealized its culture and anti-materialism to the point where it has become, as Orville Schell says, “a figurative place of spiritual enlightenment in the Western imagination—where people don’t make Buicks, they make good karma.”

But to the Chinese, for whom modernization is coming late, Buicks look awfully good. I noticed this during my first year as a teacher in China, when my writing class spent time considering the American West. We discussed western expansion, and I presented the students with a problem of the late nineteenth century: the Plains Indians, their culture in jeopardy, were being pressed by white settlers. I asked my class to imagine that they were American citizens proposing a solution, and nearly all responded much the way this student did: “The world is changing and developing. We should make the Indians suit our modern life. The Indians are used to living all over the plains and moving frequently, without a fixed home, but it is very impractical in our modern life…. We need our country to be a powerful country; we must make the Indians adapt to our modern life and keep pace with the society. Only in this way can we strengthen the country.”

Think about it. The Americans obliterated the Native North American tribes in the name of Manifest Destiny. The result was eventually one of the most powerful nations in history. Do the ends justify the means? The Chinese are no less interested in their own destiny and see unifying and modernizing their country as their primary mission, despite the cost to civil rights and their environment. And with US citizens willing to trade in civil rights for the promise of security, who’s to say trading civil rights for modernization isn’t a fair deal as well?

Of course, ultimately, these deals sour, as I imagine both the Americans and the Chinese will one day learn. In the meantime, some are calling for Olympic boycotts. But anyone that thinks boycotts are going to change the mind of the average Chinese citizen, don’t understand the Chinese. I doubt it would even change many minds in Beijing.

For there to be a chance at the West improving the plight of the Tibetans (and the Chinese people in general), real dialog must take place. And real dialog is preconditioned on mutual understanding and empathy. This means the West has to appreciate where the Chinese government and people are coming from. It also means the Chinese must eventually be educated in the broader, diverse history and reality that exists. Something current censorship and propaganda policies make impossible.

Until both sides can come to a closer understanding, they’ll both each keep talking past one another, deepening the divide while suffering continues. Hmmm, reminds me of what some other politician has recently been talking about.