Point for debate - Lecture 2

(continued from Part 1)

Of course, just like a failed Beijing Olympics will not resolve the Tibet problem (it certainly will make it worse), a successful Beijing Olympics will not either (even though it may help to a certain extent).

And the key to resolving the problem is your second sentence: “How about if you substitute ‘Han’ for ‘British’, and ‘Uighur’ (or ‘Tibetan’, etc.) for ‘Chinese’ in the phrase above?”

(I love the word “SUBSTITUTION”, which, as I said in my earlier posting, is what Confucian-style thinking is all about. And if we combine the adapted Goldsmith version and your principle of substitution, I think we have a formula not only for resolving Chinese/Tibetan problems but also other inter-ethical problems around the world.)

So we get: “You know, I think these Han people are trying to reason me out of my own culture. They’re trying to push their pressure on me to get me to lose my sense of what it is to be Tibetan.” Of course, it is equally fair to say: “You know, I think these Tibetan people are trying to reason me out of my own culture. They’re trying to push their pressure on me to get me to lose my sense of what it is to be Han.”

Clearly, at the heart of the problem is how the Chinese and the Tibetans feel about each other – human feelings that, according to Confucius, are what makes a society tick.

This does not mean that international communities do not have any role to play. After all, China and Tibet are closely linked to the outside world in all sorts of ways.

BUT, as I have discussed earlier concerning a disharmonious family situation, what the international communities should do are: (1) to help the Chinese and the Tibetans understand each other rather than exacerbating any problems they may have in their relationship; (2) to promote the good of one side to the other so as to help them build up trust rather than soliciting anger toward each other; and (3) perhaps most important of all, to give them time and space so that they can heal the wounds in their relationship by themselves. (We all know that the British media had played a destructive role in the relationship between Prince and Princess Wales. And only a short while ago when I heard that Prince Harry could not go to Iraq because the media had announced the news, I thought “How stupid that was!”)

So, how do the Chinese and the Tibetans feel about each other? This looks immensely complex, especially given the flames fuelled by the unintended consequences of unwise international interventions from time to time, but it is actually very simple at the core.

The Tibetans clearly want to maintain their way of life, which is based on a religion with the Dalai Lama as their spiritual leader. It is also obvious that Tibetans’ material life, including local economy, health and education (there are fewer illiterates than ever before), has been improved in unprecedented ways under the rule of the Chinese government.

BUT, clearly there has been much discontent built up among the Tibetans in China. In fact, we may argue that the more comfortable their material life becomes, the more this discontent arises. Why? Because, as a religious people, they ultimately attribute the meaning of their life to their spiritual leader and yet their spiritual leader is not with them – Just like the Chinese, who would seek meaning for their life from Confucian morals after their material needs are met (By the way, as Confucian thoughts do not constitute a religion, wherever they go the Chinese do not carry with them the implications usually associated with religious institutions).

Yes, there are some Tibetans who pursue an independence agenda, but compared with the vast majority of the Tibetans in China they are only a tiny few. And we may argue that the reason that these tiny few seek independence is to create a physical environment, in which their spiritual leader can live with them and their spiritual brothers and sisters.

Of course, most crucially – as far as the issue of independence is concerned, the Dalai Lama has openly said on many occasions that he does not support independence; instead, he is committed to finding “the middle way”, which is course also at the heart of Confucian philosophy on all matters.

For the Chinese government and the Chinese people at large, what they fear most is Tibetan independence. And probably because of this fear, they have in the past largely discredited the Dalai Lama’s anti-independence position, claiming that he has been behind all the unrests in Tibet.

Yes, he has been behind all the unrests in Tibet, but at least in recent years, especially after he was awarded a Nobel peace prize in 1989, the unrests took place not because he personally supported the independence agenda but because, as I said earlier, the Tibetans cannot live together with their spiritual leader, and often because the Chinese government unwisely bad-mouthed their spiritual leader, I believe.

As somebody who lived in Gansu province, China for 22 years, I have known very little about Tibet and the Dalai Lama until the last two years or so. Over the internet, I began to notice an increasing number of reports related to Tibet and the Dalai Lama in both Western and Chinese media.

And it was the first time in my life to watch the Dalai Lama live on Sky TV on 22 May 2008 when he was invited to “give evidence on human rights in Tibet” before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the UK Parliament.

Before the session, I had expected it – from the above stated theme of the session – to be all about the Dalai Lama telling the Tibetan side of the story (No wonder the Chinese government was quick to denounce the UK government for giving the Dalai Lama the opportunity to do so). Nevertheless, I was determined to meet “His Holiness” on live TV, as I was also aware that he was awarded an honorary doctorate by London's Metropolitan University for “being an inspirational leader” and for “promoting peace globally” two days ago.

But as the Dalai Lama was asked by the chairman to “give some indication of the specific human rights abuses” in Tibet and as he began to answer this and other questions, I suddenly realised that the Dalai Lama is perhaps the most unsuitable Tibetan who could give any evidence on Tibetan conditions on the ground.

If you like, he is at the top of the Tibetan social pyramid, has been busy travelling around the world all the time (I later found out that the honorary degree he received from London’s Metropolitan University is just one of many he has), and most crucially, has been an outsider to Tibet since 1959.

How could he know for certain what is really going on in Tibet? Not only doesn’t he have the feel and the time, but also, as his own words “I don’t care” shows, which he repeated whenever there seemed to be a paradox arising during the Q&A between his knowledge and the panel’s, he does not have the intention to grasp, not to mention take responsibility for, the details.

After all, he is just an inspirational spiritual leader, who does not and cannot take responsibility for execution. That’s also why when he began to answer the question on how he saw his “middle way” solution to the Tibetan problem being implemented, I felt that he was standing on shaky ground.

He described his “middle way” solution as the Chinese government taking control of defence and foreign affairs and the Tibetans taking control of the rest including economy, education and health. Is this realistic? When being asked by a panellist how he might implement it, the Dalai Lama began to wobble, in my observation. He mentioned the “reform” he initiated before he left China in 1959 and the elections for the Tibetan political leadership in exile since 2001.

But surely, local people in Tibet and other local conditions are the fabric, with which he has to work in order to implement his “middle way”. Yet what feel does he have for it after being in exile for half a century?

Nevertheless, I felt that the Dalai Lama is somebody with whom the Chinese government can do business. There are two reasons why this is a viable and worthy proposition.

First, as the Dalai Lama reiterated, during the UK parliamentary session and during the interview by Lionel Barber, editor of the FT on 24 May, “we are NOT seeking independence.” As such, the Chinese government should focus on his promise and try to work with him in some ways to develop it, instead of focusing on the noise of a few, say, genuine separatists and, even worse, directly labelling the Dalai Lama as a separatist when any unrest is activated by others on the ground.

The Chinese government should realise that, just like it is difficult for Hu Jintao or Wen Jiabao to control everything the Chinese do on the ground, it is also difficult for the Dalai Lama to control everything the Tibetans do on the ground. In fact, as somebody in exile and as only a spiritual leader (although officially, he is head of the Tibetan government in exile, he did not show me that he would enjoy or could act as an administrator), the Dalai Lama, I would argue, probably cannot control anything the Tibetans do. That’s why when he saw the danger of the recent unrest becoming out of control, with international voices adding fuel to the flames, he had no option but to threaten that if the violence continued, he would resign from the government.

I’d like to trust that.

Second, in the past, because he was considered to be behind the bloody uprising in 1959, the Chinese government has regarded any contact by any international figures or organisations with him as either interfering in China’s internal affairs or supporting his separatist agenda.

Now the question I have for the Chinese government is this: how can you avoid such contact when the Dalai Lama is in exile? In fact, I would argue that any criticism of such contact by the Chinese government may only serve to strengthen the emotional connections between them.

What’s more, is there a possibility that precisely because of such contact, the Dalai Lama has been nurtured from a symbolic Tibetan leader (he was only 24 years old when he fled Tibet) into a mature spiritual leader with a heart for peace for the Tibetans and the Chinese?

The Chinese government has in the past regarded the awarding of Nobel peace prize to the Dalai Lama as something very negative – for example, interpreting it as support for the Dalai Lama’s separatist agenda. But I would argue that the award actually puts pressure on him to pursue a peaceful solution because he knows that the international community is watching him.

Perhaps above all, the Chinese government has to realise that people do change. I cannot imagine that the Dalai Lama of today is the same as the Dalai Lama of half a century ago. It just cannot be!

And if the Chinese government looks, across the whole globe, at certain unstable regions, do they really want to deal, instead, with a bunch of real separatists who are led by nobody?

So, perhaps NOW is the opportunity for both the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama.

The challenges are, of course, huge for both sides.

For the Dalai Lama, would he be happy to base himself in Tibet as a spiritual leader only? Clearly, the existing local government is practically better positioned to develop the local economy, education and health. There is also substantial evidence that the central and local governments have invested heavily in preserving Tibetan cultural heritage and promoting the local language and the traditional health system.

Perhaps above all, for the Dalai Lama, the vast majority of the Tibetans are most likely only expecting him to be their spiritual leader living among them.

Lastly, having enjoyed the freedom of just being an inspirational leader outside China, would he be prepared to settle as a spiritual leader (just like the head of the Church of England, for example) within the law of China?

My challenge for the Dalai Lama is this: you have been awarded the Nobel peace prize based largely on what you have said during your international lectures, but if you can bring peace to Tibet by acting as a spiritual leader there, you would then truly deserve it because of your action.

For the Chinese government, my challenge is this: if Tibet is part of China and the Dalai Lama is from China, then the Tibetan problem is ultimately China’s problem no matter what the international communities say or do outside China. And by leaving him wandering outside China, you can never really solve the problem.

Neither can you simply blame others outside China for meeting him. In fact, some of the meetings with the Dalai Lama can actually help find a peaceful solution. An excellent example is the UK Foreign Affairs Committee’s parliamentary session on the Dalai Lama giving evidence on human rights. Yes, it sounds provocative, but, instead of condemning the Foreign Affairs Committee outright, you could have simply let it happen first and then commenting on the “evidence” (which, by the way, is accessible at the website of the UK parliament) the Dalai Lama has to give.

Perhaps most important of all, you probably thought (any abstraction on your part here? I think so) that the committee members would be one-sided and biased toward the Dalai Lama. But I found them at least neutral and at best, like they always are in the parliament, critical of the evidence given by the Dalai Lama. For example, Sandra Osborne asked: “Some of the Tibetan riots attacked members of the Han Chinese community. Do you accept that some innocent civilians were killed by the Tibetan protesters?”

(Even the meeting between Gordon Brown and the Dalai Lama in Lambeth Palace, home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, on 23 May was not that bad either. It showed that the UK government wants to see the Dalai Lama as a spiritual leader rather than a political leader. Isn’t this a small but critical constructive step in finding a peaceful solution?)

If you have the patience and wisdom required to find creative, peaceful solutions to problems as hard as the dispute with Japan and the Taiwan problem, you surely can find a creative, peaceful solution to the Tibetan problem.

A solution is needed. A solution will come. Let’s prepare for it.

Hello, BlahBlahDoh (and other “Reith” friends)

Many apologies for NOT promptly responding to your comment on Tibet, posted on 19 June 2008 at 04:41 am.

On the other hand, isn’t this the type of reaction one should be giving to an issue as hot as Tibet???

Goldsmith’s original words: “You know, I think these British people are trying to reason me out of my own country. They’re trying to push their pressure on me to get me to lose my sense of what it is to be Chinese.”

Given Prof Spence’s elaboration on the above during his lecture and the overall message it is trying to convey – (it is not about territorial conflict or forced immigration), I think it will set an accurate, applicable context for discussion if we explicitly replace the word “country” with “culture”.

So, we have an adapted version of Goldsmith: “You know, I think these British people are trying to reason me out of my own CULTURE. They’re trying to push their pressure on me to get me to lose my sense of what it is to be Chinese.”

You wrote: “apparently Chinese school books claim that the western provinces Xinjiang and Tibet have ‘always’ been part of China. How about if you substitute ‘Han’ for ‘British’, and ‘Uighur’ (or ‘Tibetan’, etc.) for ‘Chinese’ in the phrase above?

As I said in my earlier posting, I believe that there is no better way to open a debate on Tibet than to start with what you have said above. So thank you!

That said, your first sentence, in my view, actually sets the WRONG track (i.e. the track of ABSTRACION) in trying to find a solution to the Tibet problem.

How many such books have you read? I don’t know how much Chinese you have learnt, so have you read even a single Chinese school book yourself? I received primary and secondary education in China in the 1970s, but even then all I learnt was “China is made up of 56 nationalities”.

And even if you have indeed read one Chinese school book that says “always”, it doesn’t follow that weiminfuwu can immediately jump to the conclusion that “As regards Tibet and Xinjiang, it is of course reprehensible when a government fails to tell the truth about its country’s history.” By saying this, weiminfuwu is implying that he agrees with your earlier judgement. And yet, where is the evidence?

If we look at any Chinese government’s website, we will find that it says, “Tibet became a part of China in the 13th century, when the Yuan Dynasty was established by the Mongols.” Or, if we look at the relatively short histories of many modern European nation states, is there any need for the Chinese government to pretend “always”?

Weiminfuwu wrote: “By the same reasoning the Japanese authorities, and many of its academics are at fault in failing to be truthful about their brutal treatment of the Chinese, and others, during World War II.

And British school books are notably silent about what Professor JK Fairbank described as the most long standing international crime of modern times - the Opium Period (Cambridge History of China V10/1).”

School books are numerous. Which one is written by the government, which one is not? For primary and secondary school children, there are books that give a basic introduction to the country’s history in very broad terms. Frankly, I don’t want my eight-year-old son, who is attending a local primary school, to learn all the details of how the British attacked the Chinese during the Opium Wars. He will learn this bit of the history when he grows up to an appropriate age.

Or suppose my son is attending a school in Japan, do I want my son (let alone Japanese children) to be taught, in some details (which are facts, of course!), how the Japanese invaded China and killed the Chinese in late 1930s, with his mind framed in a negative mood? I don’t think so! I would want my son to learn the spirit of self-discipline and teamwork from Japanese teaching. He will learn about the past Japanese aggression when the appropriate context arises.

And I don’t believe that the texts used by history students at universities in the world are filled by misinformation. Yes, history is not rock science; certain books by certain authors at certain times can contain certain misinformation. But over time, such misinformation loses its life – such is the inevitable power of history.

Quite a few years ago, several young Chinese, driven by their nationalist zeal, wrote a book called “China can say ‘No’”. In a way, they were trying to be critical of the often non-assertive stance of the Chinese government in international affairs in the past – China had certainly chosen to “abstain” from voting at the UN much more often than any other country, to my knowledge. But very soon, Chinese scholars all over the country criticised the quality of the book, discounting much of the historical evidence used by the authors in the book as “completely arbitrary”.

In short, I find it UNBELIEVABLE that in the 21st century, when information is shared on a truly global basis, any government in the world would choose to – in the words of weiminfuwu – “fail to tell the truth about its country’s history”. And has any government in the world history ever succeeded in lying about its country’s history?

So, I would not worry that this or that government has written a school textbook, in which the country’s children have not been told the whole truth about its history. And I don’t think the way to resolve the Chinese/Tibetan problem is to check through all the school books in China and make sure that nowhere “always” is said.

Of course, you guys’ abstraction-based reaction to the Tibet issue, as shown in your postings if you like, is NOTHING compared with what has been shown on TV or reported in the press about the torch relays in London and Paris in April!

As somebody who had studied at Loughborough University, I was a great admirer of Lord Coe who had also studied there and set a world record in athletics. In fact, because of his inspiration, I began losing interest in table tennis, which I used to play a lot before I came to the UK, and became interested in other sports, such as football, snooker and squash. I have even managed to learn and understand the sophisticated rules (and the scoring board) of the great English sport, cricket.

But during the London torch relay, he was widely reported to have called the China men who were protecting the torch bearers “THUGS”. When I heard of it, my respect for him vanished (but hopefully it will come back one day).

Lord Coe was widely commended for securing Olympics 2012 for London by his presentation in Singapore, passionately describing what it meant when he watched the Olympics in 1968 when he was 12 years old. If winning Olympics 2012 for London was so important, has he ever thought about, from his heart, what it means for the Chinese to win Olympics 2008 for Beijing.

As he is fully aware, Olympics 2008 is not something the Chinese government awarded to itself but something awarded by the IOC (of which he is a prominent member) on behalf of the international community in the first place. So, while he was slapping Beijing in the face, wasn’t he slapping himself in the face?

And did he see for himself that the Chinese government had used force to suppress a peaceful demonstration by Tibetan monks? Or did he simply build up a picture in his mind of what took place based on a combination of rumours and ABSTRACT thinking?

The trouble (and power, of course) with abstract thinking is this: once you start with a seed, you can go almost anywhere you like on a track with its own life. For example, if you believe that China is to attack the US, then when China shot down one of its own dated satellites, you immediately deduce from it that China has built up a space weapon system to target the US, and that with China already being a country with nuclear weapons, perhaps the wisest thing to do today is to hide underground… All too often, of course, the seed was only an assumption, which we regarded as a fact or something already existed.

Coming back to Lord Coe, once an abstract picture was formed in his mind of there being a bloody suppression by the aggressive Chinese against the peaceful Tibetans, Olympics torch disappeared from his sight and anything from China became a target of hatred. Those China men, who had the proper visa to come to London in the first place to prevent the Olympics torch from being distinguished, suddenly became “thugs” – and he said nothing of the truly violent behaviour (didn’t it look like true thugs’ behaviour?) all around him. Or perhaps, his mind was so disoriented that he thought those violent behaviours were in fact a reflection of true Olympics spirit!

Ex-Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq complained that the China men “could not speak proper English”. But I can tell her that if she is to be part of the London Olympics torch relay in Beijing in 2012, local Chinese will be most delighted to greet her in English!

The abstraction-based overreactions culminated in so-called protestors attacking Jin Jin, a beautiful, Chinese Para Olympic athlete, in Paris. She was sitting in her wheelchair pushed by a blind Para Olympic athlete. But when a man was trying to forcefully take away the torch from her, almost no local people, including the French police, were disgusted by the scene. And almost no local journalists were interested in reporting it either, with many reports in various local papers I had access to read like celebrating the fact that the protestors had successfully distinguished the torch in Paris!

In our comfortable modern world of today, we all know how hard it is for us to do a bit exercise. Imagine the hard work that athletes and sportsmen have to go through to become qualified to compete in an Olympics. Now, imagine how hard it can be for a girl with one leg to practice and become qualified. What’s more, among so many qualified athletes, it must be her greatest honour in all of her life to be selected as the bearer of the Olympics torch.

And yet, this scene occurred: a strong man violently tried to take away the torch from her… Isn’t this one of the ugliest scenes in the history of Olympics?

I could not believe my eyes when I first saw it on a Chinese website, but as I began to think about it, my eyes became wet…

The other sad thing is of course the fact that many of the top world leaders, who are supposedly in a position to guide the world through difficult situations, misread the situation completely. They thought that the protests in London and Paris represented the voice of the people, and therefore wanted to grasp the opportunity at the earliest possible time for political advantage by either immediately cancelling their planned attendance at the opening ceremony or demanding immediate action from the Chinese government, despite the Dalai Lama’s appeal for “not boycotting the Beijing Olympics”.

Oh, yes, who cares whether you have enough time to get the Olympics properly prepared – including security measures against any potential terrorist attacks? You’ve got to see the Dalai Lama immediately because my own abstraction was more important than the wishes of the concerned!

Note also the words “IMMEDIATELY” and “IMMEDAITE”. Yes, they wanted IMMEDIATE REACTIONS from everybody before they were even certain of what had actually happened on the ground. And how many Westerners truly witnessed what happened in Tibet? In a formal way, only one FT journalist actually visited the scene.

To prove the correctness of its abstract thinking, one Swiss TV station deliberately used images of Nepalese monks as those of Tibetan monks!

You might say, “Wait a moment. Why don’t you let journalists from all over the world visit the scene so that the truth can be established?”

But I’d say this: when a disharmonious situation occurs between a husband and a wife in a family, what is the truth? Who said the first impolite words, who first opened old pains and who turned irrelevant facts into relevant facts…? And perhaps most important of all, would inviting all their family members and friends to participate in the argument and in the pursuit of truth, if any, make the situation worse or better?

In other words, is total transparency (whatever that may be) the solution to any such disharmony? I’d say that the solution lies in the source of the problem, i.e. both the husband and the wife themselves, rather than any outsiders.

Of course, not every Western politician reacted on the basis of abstraction. President Bush did not. In face of huge pressures from the Congress, he kept his mind simple. He said that Olympics was for the top athletes and sports people in the world, that he could talk with President Hu Jintao about religious freedom and other issues related to Tibet before and after Olympics, and that, therefore, there was no need for him to change his plan to attend the opening ceremony. What a wise world leader he is now!

After it was declared that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, my respect for President Bush vanished. But I must admit that, despite his huge mistakes in the past, my respect for him has begun to come back.

But still, the best place to find the right heart when such complex situations arise is not among the most powerful, the most intelligent, the most educated or even the most experienced. It is among school children, whose minds are least filled with abstractions.

At a local secondary school my elder son attends, through a British Council-sponsored scheme, the head teacher visited a Chinese school in Shanghai in mid-April and established an exchange programme, in which teachers and students from the two schools would participate in joint sporting activities.

In a flier sent out from the Chairlady of the Parents and Teachers Association of a local primary school my younger son attends, she wrote, “To celebrate the Olympics in Beijing this year we are holding our own event at this summer fete.” And the event consisted of a variety of sports activities, which parents and children could jointly participate in.

When asked “what is Beijing Olympics?” an eight-year-old boy told me, “it is Olympics held in Beijing, isn’t it?” When asked further “what is Olympics?” he answered, “it is athletics and sports competitions, isn’t it?”

What a direct but wonderful answer! Indeed, if we go back to the very beginning of Olympics, first held in 776 BC, I cannot help but say this: the ancient Greeks were even able to invent the idea of peaceful athletics and sports competitions amid intensive wars between city-states (which were necessary for survival, by the way), but we moderns of today struggle to keep the idea alive in time of peace (and unprecedented prosperity)! Isn’t this one of the greatest ironies in human history???

(to be continued in Part 2)