Tibet jumped to the front pages of the news over the last two weeks and now threatens to derail China’s carefully orchestrated plans for this summer’s Olympics in Beijing.
On March 10, the anniversary of the failed 1959 revolt by the Tibetans against Chinese rule, monks in three monasteries in Tibet organized peaceful demonstrations. Chinese authorities arrested more than 60 of them and confined the others to their monasteries.
Four days later, when monks from the Ramoche Temple, situated in the middle of Lhasa’s old, crowded Tibetan quarter, descended on the street (or xuong duong,” as we said of the Vietnamese Buddhist monks in the 1960s), they attracted a crowd so large that it overwhelmed police. Rioters targeted businesses owned by Chinese, including a branch of the Bank of China on the main commercial street (ironically named “Beijing Road”), and tied ceremonial silk scarves in front of Tibetan shops to spare them from damages.
The police and the People’s Army reacted swiftly the next day, using armored vehicles and real bullets against Tibetan protesters. The Chinese government conceded that 22 people were killed, while the Tibetan government-in-exile claimed that at least 99 Tibetans have perished.
A Greek Tragedy Unfolds
Two weeks into this round of revolt, the Tibet issue already displays all the elements of a Greek tragedy.
On the Tibetan side, the 72-year-old Dalai Lama, the undisputed leader of Tibetans who has been in exile since the failed uprising of 1959, risks losing his influence among a younger generation frustrated by his middle-of-the-road attitude in dealing with China. He accepts Chinese sovereignty over Tibet and demands only cultural and religious autonomy. Some younger Tibetans, frustrated by Chinese policies to assimilate Tibet, demand full independence.
China, for its part, has dominated its neighbors since the first emperor unified the empire, and current signs of the reemerging dragon do not bode well for Middle Kingdom countries. Already, the government clamped down on the protest, sealed off the region from outside observers and demonized the Dalai Lama as “splittist,” on top of accusing him of fomenting the riots.
Moreover, Chinese President Hu Jintao got his political break in 1989 when he, as a party boss in Tibet, crushed a Tibetan revolt not unlike the current one. His protégé, Zhang Qingli, has taken his place in Tibet today.
It is impossible not to root for the underdogs, here a hopelessly outmatched people struggling for their own independence. As a Vietnamese American, I need look no further than 1776, when the American colonies dumped Britain for their own independence, and 936 A.D., when the Vietnamese finally threw off Chinese dominance after 1,200 years of subjugation. In this context, a restored, independent, sovereign Tibet doesn’t seem that farfetched after all.
Vu-Duc Vuong is a teacher and writer in the Bay Area
(vuduc.vuong@gmail.com).