An open letter to Hu Jintao
19 Jan 2011
The Asian Age
Dear Hu Jintao,
As the Chinese leader most closely associated with Tibet, you have declared Tibet to be one of the most sensitive “core issues” in the US-China relationship. We expect that it will be high on the agenda of your discussions with President Obama this week.
Mr Hu, you began your rise to power as Party chief in Tibet (although you didn’t enjoy the altitude in Lhasa), and you have been instrumental in setting and implementing policy on Tibet. As the succession process begins in the Chinese Communist Party, what will be your legacy on Tibet?
Tibetans have not forgotten that you presided over that terrifying time of martial law in Lhasa in 1989 – and you were one of the first regional leaders to congratulate those who ordered the troops to open fire on Tiananmen Square three months later.
Today, there is a deepening crackdown in Tibet. Tibetans have risked their lives to express their loyalty to their leader the Dalai Lama and their anguish as a result of more than 50 years of suppression. Your response has been to strengthen the very measures that caused the largely peaceful wave of protests that swept across Tibetan areas of the PRC from March, 2008 onwards. You have tightened control to suffocation point, imposing new measures that weaken the institutions of Tibetan Buddhism and undermine Tibetan language, bedrock of its culture. Although you are leader of a Communist state that promotes atheism, you have even declared that Tibetan lamas cannot be reincarnated without
government permission.
Your actions point to profound contradictions in China’s leadership today. While you demonstrate increasing strength and aggressive authority in your assertions towards global leadership, you regard peaceful disagreement with the juggernaut top-down policies of the Communist Party as a threat to your nation’s “security”. The latter is not the approach of a strong state. As Tibetans, we are not alone in believing that the measure of greatness of a nation is not only based on turbo-charged mercantilism. We believe that ultimately if China is to achieve greatness you must lead with a moral authority and take into account the wishes and genuine grievances of the Chinese and Tibetan people.
The need for change is urgent. Your government and Party have engaged in a systematic attack on the rule of law and civil society. You characterise two of the most progressive and important voices for peace on the world stage today – our leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Chinese scholar Liu Xiaobo – as “criminals”. Tibet is under virtual lockdown, with ever longer prison sentences being imposed as ultimately futile attempts to silence the peaceful expression of views. Do you want the leitmotif of your legacy to be a hellish, constricting fear?
Mr Hu, you can no longer say that what happens in Tibet is simply a matter of China’s “internal affairs”. Tibet is a “core issue” for the world, not just for China. Tibet is the earth’s ‘Third Pole’ with the world’s largest reserves of freshwater outside the Arctic and Antarctic. The fragile ecology of the Tibetan plateau, the source of most of Asia’s major rivers including the Yangtze, is of critical importance to the water-dependent societies in downstream nations. And yet you have developed and are pursuing fast-track economic strategies and damning projects that are known to contribute to the adverse effects of global warming and risk devastation in downstream communities, including India.
Twenty-first century thinking requires us to move beyond 19th century nation-building based on the exploitation of natural resources. There is an increasing consensus among Chinese, Tibetan and Western scholars that your policy of settling nomads in Tibet is leading to environmental degradation and increasing poverty. Scientists say that the traditional ecosystem knowledge of Tibetan nomads protects the land and livelihoods and helps restore areas already degraded. The involvement of Tibetans is essential to sustaining the long-term health of the land and water resources that China and the rest of Asia depends upon.
Mr Hu, a new generation of leaders has a responsibility to listen to voices for change from Tibet and China, and to deal responsibly with Tibet policy.
It is not too late for you to take an important and historic step before the succession runs its course, with regard to another important succession.
The Dalai Lama is recognised by the world as the pre-eminent representative of the Tibetan people. The potential for instability increases, not decreases, after he passes away. Now is the time for a far-sighted Chinese leadership to engage with this moderate, influential leader – who is revered by thousands of Chinese, too – before it is too late.
We hope that your visit to Washington is fruitful.
Tencho Gyatso, Tsering Jampa, and Pema Wangyal are from the International Campaign for Tibet