The ****trait of a Habitually Lying "Olympic Host" -- New Museum Offers
the Official Line on Tibet / The New York Times
April 17, 2008
New Museum Offers the Official Line on Tibet
By JIM YARDLEY
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/17/world/17tibet.450.jpg
Mao, flanked by the Dalai Lama, right, and the Panchen Lama in Beijing.
Their meeting took place in 1956, when an increasing number of Tibetans
were beginning to resist Chinese rule.
BEIJING ¡ª Not far from National Stadium, the city¡¯s mammoth,
just-finished Olympic arena, another construction project is still
facing an Olympic deadline. The building, sheathed in a green
construction tent, will house Beijing¡¯s first museum exclusively
dedicated to Tibet.
Inside, curators will display antiquities, dynastic records and
reproductions to demonstrate China¡¯s dominion over Tibet as far back as
the 13th century. Many experts question China¡¯s historical claims, but
few clouds of doubt are likely to darken the museum. Even the Dalai Lama
is being edited out of the narrative.
¡°He will not appear after 1959,¡± said Lian Xiangmin, a Chinese scholar
involved in the museum, referring to the year the Tibetan spiritual
leader fled to India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. ¡°This
is a Tibet museum, and we don¡¯t recognize him as part of Tibet anymore.¡±
History is often interpreted to meet the political objectives of
whichever government is doing the interpreting. The historical
relation****p between Tibet and China is replete with claims, disputes
and caveats. But the ruling Communist Party does not hesitate to
eliminate any uncertainty and use history as a political tool to
validate its hold on Tibet.
Yet if the party¡¯s unflinching line on Tibet¡¯s historical status has
effectively quashed any domestic dissenting views, it also has fueled
Tibetan resentment. The authorities are now suppressing the largest
outbreak of anti-Chinese unrest in Tibet in two decades, a violent
uprising that many Tibetans trace, in part, to seething anger over
cultural and religious repression.
Buddhist monks who led initially peaceful protests last month outside
Lhasa were partly complaining about the ¡°patriotic education¡± campaigns
that required them to denounce the Dalai Lama and submit to history
lessons about China¡¯s rightful control over the region. Last week, monks
at Drepung monastery outside Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous
Region, re****tedly protested a new round of patriotic education.
Across China, schoolchildren are taught that Tibet is an inalienable
part of the country. Tour guides in Lhasa must follow approved versions
of history. Dissenting scholars have been marginalized, censored and, in
a handful of cases, imprisoned. Questioning official history can expose
scholars to accusations of separatism. A Tibetan scholar, Dolma Kyab,
has been jailed since 2005 after writing an unapproved history of Tibet.
¡°History is linked to legitimacy,¡± said Ta**** Rabgey, director of the
Contem****ary Tibetan Studies Initiative at the University of Virginia.
¡°The problem for Beijing is that their presence on the Tibetan Plateau
has never been legitimized. And their attempt to control history is an
effort to do that.¡±
Tibet touches a raw nerve for many Chinese, including those living
overseas, because of the legacy of foreign intervention in China during
the 19th century and early 20th century. British troops invaded Tibet in
1903 and 1904 as the Qing Dynasty was nearing collapse. Today, many
Chinese recall the role of the Central Intelligence Agency in Tibet
during the 1950s and interpret Western sympathy for the current protests
as another foreign effort to destabilize and divide China.
The Communist Party clearly wants to counter what it regards as
international misperceptions about Tibet¡¯s status and has focused on
history as an im****tant arena to argue its case. The government has
established more than 50 research institutions dedicated to Tibet and,
by extension, to sup****ting the Chinese version of Tibetan history.
In 2000, Zhao Qizheng, then the information minister for the State
Council, or China¡¯s cabinet, told scholars at a closed conference on
Tibet that their research should be used to sway foreign opinion.
¡°We should maximize the use of our 50 Tibetology centers and 1,000
Tibetologists to carry out external propaganda work on Tibet,¡± Mr. Zhao
said. His speech was later obtained and publicized by a pro-Tibet
advocacy group. He added: ¡°We should enhance our influence on
international Tibetologists. By means of cultural exchange, we should
enhance our influence on the Western community and its opinion.¡±
Mr. Lian, the scholar, said the museum was under the auspices of the
China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing. He said Chinese scholars,
long separated from the outside world, were now sharing their work at
international conferences and promoting it on the Internet. He said
scholar****p, not politics, was the priority of his center.
¡°As scholars, the truth is what is most valuable to us,¡± said Mr. Lian,
head of research at the Tibetology center. ¡°Everyone can have their own
view of matters, but you have to have evidence to sup****t your argument.¡±
But others are less convinced, especially those censored for dissenting
views. Woeser, a Tibetan blogger, lost her editing job at a literary
magazine based in Lhasa after writing a 2003 book, ¡°Tibet Notes,¡± that
included a friendly reference to the Dalai Lama. ¡°They wrote to the
publisher and said, ¡®One of your authors wrote a book with severe
political mistakes,¡¯ ¡± said Ms. Woeser, who, like some Tibetans, uses
only one name. ¡°Anything about the reality of Tibet is not allowed to be
published.¡±
Ms. Woeser said history was such a politically charged issue inside the
Tibet Autonomous Region that even tour guides were scrutinized. In 2003,
President Hu Jintao, a former party boss in Tibet, was involved in the
creation of the ¡°Sup****t Tibet Tour Guide Plan.¡± State media re****ts say
the program calls for recruiting 100 tour guides to work in Lhasa from
outside Tibet every year until 2013. Most of those chosen are Communist
Party members.
At the heart of the historical dispute lies the Western concept of
sovereignty. The Communist Party has promoted the concept of China as a
diverse but unified nation of 56 ethnic groups. The majority Han
constitute nearly 92 percent of the population, but the remaining 8
percent, including Mongols, Hui Muslims, Manchus, Uighur Muslims and
Tibetans, are often said to have been assimilated into the motherland
over centuries of unbroken history.
Many scholars say that narrative oversimplifies history to sup****t
contem****ary political and territorial claims. Historians generally
agree that the relation****p between China and Tibet became fully
intermingled during the Yuan Dynasty, from the 1270s to 1368. The
dispute is over the nature of the relation****p.
The Tibetan government in exile says Buddhist lamas established a
¡°priest-patron¡± relation****p under which they became spiritual advisers
to the Yuan rulers without sacrificing Tibetan self-rule or independence
¡ª an arrangement replicated in the last imperial dynasty, the Qing,
which lasted from 1644 to 1912.
Chinese scholars say this logic is disingenuous. They point to records
detailing how Tibet was subject to certain laws of the Yuan and Qing
rulers ¡ª a paper trail they say proves not just that Tibet is an
inalienable part of China but also that Chinese emperors had the
authority to select the Dalai Lama.
Elliot Sperling, a leading Tibet specialist at Indiana University, said
both sides massage their interpretations. He said Tibet cannot be
regarded as truly independent during the Yuan and Qing dynasties, given
that records show Tibet as subservient to Chinese rules and policies.
But Dr. Sperling said China¡¯s claim to unbroken control of Tibet was
also dubious. During the Ming dynasty, from 1368 to 1644, Tibet had
scant connection to Chinese rulers, he said. And describing the Yuan and
Qing dynasties as ¡°Chinese¡± overlooks the fact that each took power
after what was at the time viewed as a foreign invasion: Mongols
established the Yuan; Manchus invaded and founded the Qing.
¡°What China doesn¡¯t want to deal with is the fact that the Mongols had
an empire,¡± said Dr. Sperling, director of Tibetan Studies at Indiana
University¡¯s department of Central Eurasia Studies. ¡°It wasn¡¯t a
Chinese
state. It was an empire.¡±
In this context, some scholars consider Tibet¡¯s past relation****p with
China more akin to that of a vassal state. China¡¯s government
relinquished any remaining control over Tibet after the fall of the Qing
in 1912. The current Dalai Lama, and his predecessor, ruled Tibet until
1951, when Mao invaded in what China maintains was a ¡°peaceful
liberation¡± that freed Tibetans from a feudal theocracy.
¡°We know that Tibetans and some Western scholars say that Tibet was an
independent state during this period, but we don¡¯t agree,¡± said Mr.
Lian, the scholar with the research center.
Wang Lixiong, a dissident scholar in Beijing who has challenged some of
the Communist Party¡¯s historical claims, said imperial China regarded
itself as the center of the world and had little concern about the
political status of subservient neighbors like Tibet. But he said modern
political needs had made this approach an inconvenient legacy.
¡°Now we are in a Westernized political situation,¡± said Mr. Wang, who is
married to Ms. Woeser and is now banned from being published in China.
¡°We have this definition of sovereignty, so we fight over every inch of
territory.¡±
Robert Barnett, a Tibet specialist at Columbia University, said Tibet
scholars inside China often did excellent work. But he said many
scholars in China avoided specializing in Tibetan history after the 13th
century because of the political overtones ¡ª and potential risks. He
said one book was banned for including a sentence that questioned the
official view that an eighth-century Tibetan king was half Chinese.
Mr. Barnett said that passengers arriving at the Lhasa air****t from
Nepal sometimes had their bags searched for unapproved books or
photographs. ¡°Managing accounts of history there and eradicating any
sign that Tibet was separate from China is an official industry,¡± Mr.
Barnett said in an interview conducted by e-mail.
Mr. Lian, the scholar at the Tibetology Institute, said plans were still
evolving for the new Tibet museum complex. Officials are aiming for a
pre-Olympic grand opening, but he noted that the project had hit delays.
¡°We¡¯re not going to rush it,¡± he said.
Asked about the im****tance of history, Mr. Lian paused.
¡°Why is history im****tant?¡± he repeated. ¡°By looking into history, we
can see the future.¡±
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