Australia Presses China for Tibet Visit

Phil Mercer      February 19, 2013

SYDNEY — Analysts say China’s hardline stance on denying most diplomatic visits to Tibetan areas of the country will continue.  Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr has said that Canberra’s ambassador in Beijing, Frances Adamson, has been trying unsuccessfully for a year to visit the autonomous region to investigate why Tibetan activists continue to set themselves on fire, in protests against the Chinese authorities.

Kerry Brown, the executive director of the China Studies Center at the University of Sydney, says the authorities in Beijing are not keen to allow outside scrutiny of the disputed region.

“Normally a diplomatic visit by an Australian would not be a problem.  I mean, these have happened and I suppose this shows just how sensitive this issue is, you know, how nervous the leadership is,” Brown noted.  “It really, kind of, is a kind of indicator of just how difficult an area of, you know, activity and policy this is at the moment.”

No country openly disputes Beijing’s claim to sovereignty over Tibet. But the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, says Tibet was once independent and has been colonized by China.  He now advocates for greater Tibetan autonomy, but not independence. Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of overseeing a secessionist campaign and of organizing the immolations.

Brown says, with a new leadership team in place in Beijing, it is highly unlikely China’s stance on Tibet will soften.

“Tibet arouses for the Chinese government a particular set of issues about their legitimacy, about claims about their lack of human rights granted to ethnic Tibetans.  The bottom line, I think, is it is an issue about which they do not want particular dialogue with outside parties.  They are increasingly not in the mood to listen to, you know, any kinds of external lectures,”   Brown said.

Canberra is pushing Beijing for more regular meetings between officials and ministers, similar to those Australia already has in place with countries like the United States, but China has yet to respond to the proposal.

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr says the new arrangements could include an annual summit between the Australian prime minister and Chinese president, as well as separate meetings between foreign and economic ministers.

China is Australia’s biggest trading partner.  The export of minerals, including iron ore, is at the heart of a relationship that has helped the government in Canberra maintain economic growth despite the global financial crisis.

http://www.voanews.com/content/australia-presses-china-for-tibet-visit/1606348.html

How Many Self-Immolating Tibetans Does It Take to Make a Difference?

http://world.time.com/2013/02/13/how-many-self-immolating-tibetans-does-it-take-to-make-a-difference/#ixzz2KtLIYpho

By Ishaan Tharoor
Feb. 13, 2013

On Wednesday morning in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, a Tibetan monk drenched in gasoline appeared in front of a Buddhist stupa popular among Tibetans and set himself aflame. At the time of writing, the young man, thought to be in his early 20s, is in critical condition. According to some reports, his fiery protest marks a grim milestone: it’s the 100th such self-immolation by a Tibetan to happen since 2009 (others suggest it’s the 99th or the 101st).

Whatever the ghastly metric, the act has become the signature tactic in recent years of Tibetans voicing their frustrations with Chinese rule. It carries a haunting moral cry no suicide bomber can match. When one downtrodden Tunisian set himself alight in December 2010, the spark of his despair and anger kindled uprisings that swept across the Arab world. Yet, 100 Tibetan self-immolations — and many deaths — later, little has changed.

Part of the problem is where these protests occur. The overwhelming majority takes place within the borders of China, either in Tibet proper or in Tibetan areas of neighboring Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces. Media access is heavily controlled and much of what we know comes from advocacy groups based outside. A white paper titled “Why Tibet Is Burning,” released last month by an institute affiliated with the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India, identifies by name 98 Tibetans who carried out self-immolations in China since February 2009. Many of those choosing to set themselves on fire are young teenagers and 20-somethings. They are farmers and aspiring clerics, nomads and students. In a foreword to the study, Lobsang Sangay, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Tibet’s exiles, urges Tibetans to “not to resort to drastic actions, including self-immolations, because life is precious.” But the study goes on to point the finger at Beijing:

“The reason [for all the self-immolations] lies in China’s massive policy failure in Tibet over the course of more than 60 years of its rule. The revolution that is brewing in Tibet is driven by political repression, cultural assimilation, social discrimination, economic marginalization and environmental destruction.”

China, of course, doesn’t see it this way. The likelihood of a Tibetan revolution — or even the rioting of not so long ago — is dwarfed by the specter of a Beijing crackdown. Authorities have already started detaining and jailing Tibetans they claim are “inciting” self-immolations; one such swoop earlier this month in the rugged province of Qinghai netted 70 suspects. Quoted by Chinese state media, a local official echoed China’s longstanding critique of any Tibetan dissent: “The Dalai Lama clique masterminded and incited the self-immolations. Personal information, such as photos of the victims, were sent overseas to promote the self-immolations.”

The Dalai Lama, the increasingly withdrawn spiritual leader of Tibetans-in-exile, has long promoted a “middle way” of dialogue and nonviolent resistance, and has also urged against Tibetans carrying out self-immolations. According to a BBC report last year, the steady toll of self-immolations was being interpreted by some angry Tibetans overseas as a sign that the Dalai Lama’s timid, largely failed policies of engagement ought to be given up. “Violence could now be the only option,” said one influential Tibetan activist to the BBC.

That’s a scenario that could spell even more trouble for Tibetan aspirations — resistance to Beijing has been met ruthlessly with arrests and media blackouts. No foreign government would risk their relationship with China over tacit support for an aspirational and unlikely Tibetan nation. The governments of India and Nepal, which play awkward hosts to generations of Tibetan exiles and dissidents, routinely crack the whip on Tibetan activists, breaking up protests and monitoring exile activity. Geopolitical conflagrations elsewhere — from the Senkaku Islands contested by Tokyo and Beijing to the South China Sea to NATO’s imbroglio in Afghanistan — have cornered the international community’s attention.

What’s left then is a lonely struggle. China touts the wealth and development it’s bringing to the Himalayan plateau, but Tibetans abroad see the hollowing out of their homeland, which faces a steady influx of Han Chinese settlers. Here’s the white paper from Dharamsala once more:

“[Tibetans] look on with alarm and fear as Chinese settlers stream into Tibet, taking away Tibetan jobs, land and their very future — and in the process, transforming Tibetan towns and cities into so many Chinatowns … At the same time the Tibetan people see massive development activities undertaken on their land that bring little or no benefit to them and aimed, instead, to cart away Tibetan natural resources to a resource-hungry China. In fact the policies of the Chinese Communist Party demonstrate to the Tibetan people that China wants Tibet but not the Tibetan people.”