A Part of China, but Apart From It
Beijing Has Little Bearing on Ethnic Tibetan Villages in Sichuan Province

By Peter S. Goodman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 4, 2006; D01

LAYKANDAO VILLAGE, China -- Naydup Gyatse, chief of this settlement on the grasslands of the high Tibetan plain, does not know the name of China's president. Nor does he want to. On the map, this land is part of China's Sichuan province. But to the 300 people who live here, it is part of greater Tibet.
They sleep in stone houses and eat tsampa, the barley porridge that is a staple for ethnic Tibetans, washing it down with hand-churned yak-butter tea. The trip to anywhere else -- to town for supplies or medical care -- is made on foot or on horseback over a dirt path, as they wait listlessly for a long-discussed road. On their walls, they hang photos of the Dalai Lama, the paramount leader of Tibetan Buddhism, whose image is banned in China.
"China is far away," Gyatse said. "I don't know about the map. I don't know about other places. But I know this is part of Tibet. We don't get any help from the Chinese government. Maybe if we did, we would feel differently."
For decades, China has sought to blunt the separatist inclinations of its minority peoples -- ethnic Tibetans, in particular -- by tying their fortunes to the fast-growing Chinese economy. Where nationalism and Communism failed to inspire loyalty in territories distant from the capital, Beijing, rising living standards would do the job.
But a 10-day journey through ethnic Tibetan towns and villages in western Sichuan revealed that even as incomes have risen and modernity has filtered in, these communities operate separately from China, and their yearnings for self-rule are largely intact.
China's embrace of capitalism has reached even these remote places, bringing in television and motor vehicles and opening markets for locally harvested goods. In a grass-covered valley 14,000 feet above sea level and three days' walk from any road, a Tibetan monk sat near a meditation cave wearing a crimson robe and a matching Nike ski cap. Still, development is something most people here see as a means toward securing self-reliance. More than ever, they say, China looks like a foreign land.
As a reporter drove three days west from the provincial capital, Chengdu, to the town of Litang, six convoys of Chinese People's Liberation Army troops -- each with as many as 50 trucks -- inched their way toward Tibet, the vast territory China has controlled since it invaded in 1950. The army vehicles passed Tibetan nomads on tractors pulling carts full of passengers. The people bounced atop rice sacks stuffed with food and tents, en route to mountain camps where they would gather caterpillar fungus, a commodity prized for medicinal properties, that they would later sell to Chinese traders for as much as $1,200 a pound.
Litang has swelled from an overgrown grassland village into a thriving commercial hub. Longhaired Tibetan nomads wearing cowboy hats explore packed sidewalks, examining motorcycles, generators and satellite dishes for sale alongside yak-wool mattresses and woven saddle mats. People congregate on a new promenade under a pair of fake palm trees lit up in neon pink at night.
Inside a dumpling shop, 13-year-old Dawa Tsering occupied a table on a recent morning, transfixed by a television showing the movie "King Kong." His family had just returned to town after two months in the mountains harvesting caterpillar fungus. They had collected nearly $400 worth -- enough to keep his 15-year-old sister in school, though not enough to send him.
A day's drive to the west, at the end of a washboard pathway of dirt that could almost be called a road, the 1,800 people of Dangla have electricity, following the installation of a solar panel system in 2003. At the government office in the center of town, yak-butter tea is now made in a blender. A television casts its mesmerizing glow.
"Now we know about the international situation," said Luo Zeren, the local schoolteacher. "We know about the Iraq war. We know that the United Nations is in New York." Mostly, they know about distant hardwood floors. "We watch American basketball," Luo said. "The NBA is great. We love Kobe."
The road has brought rice, barley and canned foods from Litang. Empty cartons of Five Oxen cigarettes litter the muddy lanes of the town, along with plastic instant-noodle wrappers.
A day's walk from the road, along the raging whitewater of the Gamuni River, the village of Laykandao lies in isolation. In some ways, this is a good thing, its inhabitants say. A quarter-century ago, China dispatched Communist Party cadres here to organize villagers into agricultural collectives -- an experiment long since abandoned, with each family now in control of its own plot. Whereas most Chinese are restricted to having a single child, ethnic Tibetan villagers may have up to the three. No one has come to collect taxes in more than a decade.
"Nowadays, there's fewer Chinese people coming here, and so we have fewer problems," said Gyatse, the village chief. "But we also have more wishes."
At the top of the list: a road. In summer, Litang is a full day's hike plus a two-day jeep ride away; three days by horseback. In winter, villagers are pinned in by snow.
"Every year, we hear the road will be built," the village leader said with a sigh.
Wangchuk Chompay, 25, has never left the environs of the village. He follows his herd of 30 yaks to the high country for grazing in summer months, sleeping in a yak-wool tent. He returns to the valley floor in winter, huddling in a mud-walled tent and burning yak dung for warmth. If he had more money, he would buy himself a parka to replace the light windbreaker he wears, its back embossed with Romanized Chinese spelling out "New Century." He cannot read it, having spent only a few months in school.
"Study hard, move upward day by day," proclaim crude Chinese characters written in chalk over the wooden doorframe of the one-room schoolhouse, where 36 children ages 7 to 16 squeeze into rows of wooden benches. The lone teacher speaks little Mandarin Chinese, the national dialect -- not that this matters to most families.
"I don't want my grandchildren to learn Chinese," said Aka, 63, fingering Tibetan prayer beads with leathery fingers as she squatted by the fire in her house. "That's a language without connection to us."
Her son, Tsea Do, 30, was eager to see his three children educated. "Otherwise, they may as well be cattle," he said. But he hoped his children would go to school in India, where the Dalai Lama lives and where they could learn English.
His family coaxes barley and potatoes from these high-altitude soils. Caterpillar fungus has given them spending power beyond imagining, more than tripling their annual income over the past decade to about $625 per year. "Now we can buy rice," he said. A solar-powered fluorescent light hung overhead in their home. They have in mind a television.
"Who doesn't want a television?" Do said. "Then I can get information from other countries." But Chinese news would be of no interest. "This is Tibet, not China."
The Naygo monastery is another day's walk up the river. Its carved wooden beams hang over a narrow valley, where water crashes hundreds of feet from melting glaciers above. For more than 1,000 years, Tibetan families have sent boys as young as 6 to become initiates here, hoping this would bring luck. These days, fewer families are making that choice, directing their boys toward other pursuits, as the ranks of the monastery have slipped to about 250 from 400 in 1947.
"There used to be no opportunities in this area, and people were very poor," said one monk, Tsering Jimba, 66. "Nowadays, families have many choices. They can send children to school, run a business."
One thing remains constant: enmity toward the Chinese. Older people remember the Chinese troops that came and razed the monastery in the 1950s, killing monks, demolishing statuary and shutting down the place for 26 years until it reopened in 1984.
"The Chinese, they don't like Tibetans," said Gyamatse, a 42-year-old monk who like some Tibetans goes by only one name. "They know we revere the Dalai Lama, and they were afraid we would wake up and be ready for a fight, so they sent their army here to destroy us."
In recent months, Chinese officials have returned -- this time with plans to market the monastery as a tourist destination. Once an enemy culture to be suppressed in China's eyes, the Tibetan way of life has become a valuable commodity.
"We are orphans," Gyamatse said. "We're the adopted children of China. Our holy man is in India, and we don't have a mother or father. We feel sad."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

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Someone got the better of the Chinese supra-nationalists who were bussed into Canberra today to make sure nobody blew their torch out.
More photos of the "Canberra Day for Chinese Supra-Nationalists to Shout Down and Beat Up Anyone Doing or Saying Things They Didn't Like" (just as they did in KL a coule of days ago) can be found here.

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The Way Forward in Tibet  By Paula J. Dobriansky
The Washington Post
Monday, April 21, 2008; Page A15
When I meet with the Dalai Lama today, I fully expect him to reaffirm his strong commitment to engaging Chinese officials in dialogue. President Bush has repeatedly expressed his own steadfast support for dialogue between the Dalai Lama and China's leadership. Meaningful dialogue presents the only viable way forward.
In March, demonstrations in Lhasa that began peacefully escalated into violence and quickly spread to other Tibetan areas of China. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has expressed deep concern regarding these events, has called on all sides to refrain from violence, and has strongly urged China to exercise restraint in dealing with the protesters and to respect the fundamental right of all people to peacefully express their religious and political views.
Underlying these tragic events is China's long-standing repression of religious, cultural and other freedoms for the Tibetan people, repression that has been extensively documented in State Department human rights reports and elsewhere. Since 1949, the cycle of protests followed by crackdowns has repeated itself several times, but the end result has always been the same: Control is restored but only temporarily, while the underlying causes of Tibetan grievances remain unaddressed.
The recent protests are a manifestation of lingering frustration at a lack of progress in addressing Tibetans' concerns. These ethnic clashes have resulted in fatalities of Tibetans and Han Chinese and in widespread arrests. The best way for China's leaders to address Tibetan concerns is to engage in dialogue with the Dalai Lama, who has advocated a "middle way" that embraces autonomy for Tibet within China and rejects seeking independence. The Dalai Lama is the only person with the influence and credibility to persuade Tibetans to eschew violence and accept a genuine autonomy within China that would also preserve Tibetan culture and identity.
The U.S. government believes there is a basis for dialogue between the Dalai Lama and China's leadership. The Dalai Lama has met the preconditions for dialogue called for by China: He does not advocate independence for Tibet; he does not engage in or advocate separatist activities; and he recognizes that Tibet is part of China. The Dalai Lama has publicly come out strongly against the violence that erupted recently in Lhasa and other areas. He even took the extraordinary step of offering his resignation if necessary to convince all parties of his nonviolent approach to reaching resolution. And he has indicated his support for holding the Olympic Games in Beijing. The United States has honored the Dalai Lama as a man of peace and a lifelong advocate of nonviolence by awarding him the Congressional Gold Medal last October.
When the Chinese government uses harsh rhetoric against the Dalai Lama, or steps up "patriotic education campaigns" that include forced denunciations of the Dalai Lama, it serves only to further enflame tensions. Some in China, however, have taken a stand against such tactics. In an unprecedented move, prominent Chinese intellectuals are circulating a petition that calls on the Chinese government to end its "one-sided" propaganda campaign and initiate direct dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
Since 2002, the Dalai Lama's representatives have conducted six rounds of talks with Chinese officials, in a major departure from the previous 20 years of nonengagement. These discussions, while substantive, have not yet produced concrete results. If continued in good faith, this dialogue could build trust and provide the long-term basis for political and economic stability in Tibet. As Secretary Rice has noted, while Beijing has missed opportunities to engage the Dalai Lama directly, there is still hope, and it is not too late to do so.
In addition to engaging in meaningful dialogue, China should immediately cease the repressive measures directed at Tibetans seeking to practice their religion and preserve their cultural identity, and should release those detained for peacefully protesting or expressing their views. Although the Chinese government recently arranged official trips to Lhasa for journalists and diplomats, we continue to call for unfettered access for all media and foreign diplomats into Tibetan areas.
We hope that the current generation of Chinese leaders -- who have shown that they can pursue enlightened economic policies and who aspire to make China a respected global and regional stakeholder -- recognize that the resumption of a serious and direct dialogue with the Dalai Lama offers the best hope for resolving long-standing problems and achieving worthy goals in Tibet.
The writer is U.S. special coordinator for Tibetan issues and undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs.

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花崗齋文集 Collected Writings from the Granite Studio
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Chinese historian: "To exaggerate the size of China's historical territory is not patriotic" - Full Text
Via CDT: The blog Letters from China has a post about an article in the magazine China Review by Fudan University professor Ge Jianxiong. The CDT brief and the Letters from China post both feature the title "Tibet not always a part of China: Chinese Historian." Taken in context, Professor Ge's comments are not quite so shocking. While he does mention Tibet as not being a part of the Tang Empire, the article itself I think is more interesting for the larger argument: When discussing what is and, perhaps more importantly, what is not China, it's important to keep in mind the historical context and that the term "China" is not as certain a historical term as we might assume. Professor Ge argues that if we are to gauge the limits of territorial control in China's history, it's important to specify who is doing the controlling and what is it we mean by "control."

Chinese textbooks do attempt to hammer home the idea that Tibet is a part of China--often using some rather specious historical arguments in the process--but most scholars in the PRC look back to the mid-Qing takeover of Tibet as the true beginning of "Chinese" sovereignty over the region and the official position is that it begins during "China's Yuan dynasty." (ahem.)

The notion that Tibet was not under direct Tang administrative is perhaps less controversial, but it's sure to get some attention nevertheless, especially since Professor Ge also is the Director of the Institute of Chinese Historical Geography. For the CCP, it seems any weakening of China's "historical" sovereignty over the Tibetan plateau is a slippery slope that can only lead to a Dalai Lama Day parade through the streets of Lhasa. I will admit to not being the best translator (suggestions for fixes are welcome) in the Chinese blogosphere, but I felt the article was of sufficient general interest that I'm posting it here. I also wanted the original Tang Dynasty/Tibet claim to be in its original context.

When discussing the peaceful rise of China and the history of the great powers of the world, it is natural to think of ancient China.Can ancient China be considered a “Great Power”? If so, how big was it? This is a prerequisite for knowing the history and comparing development.But up to now, people have held on to not a few misunderstandings.
First of all, “China” (Zhongguo) only officially became the name of our country with the founding of the Republic of China in 1912.Before this, the idea of China("Zhongguo") was not clearly conceptualized. The concept of "China" has continued to expand. From referring specifically to the central plains of China, the concept has since grown to now refer generally to a whole nation.Even during the late Qing, “China” would sometimes be used as a name to refer to the Qing State, including all the territory with in the boundaries of the Qing Empire, but other times it would only refer to the “18 Interior Provinces” and not include Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang.Therefore, if we want to understand the extent of ancient China’s territory, we can only speak of how large was the actual territory controlled by a particular dynasty at a particular moment. For example: How big was the Qin Dynasty? How big was the Tang Dynasty? How big
 was the Qing Dynasty? If you want to say how large was “China” at a certain time, you need to explain how “China” is conceptualized, including explaining which Dynasty or regime is being discussed.

*For example, if we ask: How big was 8th century China and if we speak about the borders of the Tang Dynasty, we cannot include the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.This was ruled by Tubo/Tufan (吐蕃), and so does not count. Tubo/Tufan was a sovereignty independent of the Tang Dynasty. At least it was not administered by the Tang Dynasty. Otherwise, there would have been no need for Tang Taizong to marry Princess Wencheng to the Tibetan king; there would have been no need to erect the Tang-Tubo/Tufan alliance tablet. It would be a defiance of history if we claim that since the Tang Dynasty, Tibethas always been a part of China- the fact that the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau subsequently became a part of the Chinese dynasties does not substantiate such a claim.Of course, to look back from the perspective of contemporary borders, China’s current territory contains many areas that, from the perspective of 8thcentury political control, were independent of the
 authority of the Tang court including Tuobo/Tufan, Nanzhao [in Yunnan], and Bohai.
Second, it goes without saying that since the different dynasties lasted both a long time and a short time, it also goes without saying their territory similarly fluctuated. This is especially so of those dynasties that greatly expanded the scope of their borders from the beginning to the end of their rule, the territory under their control could vary considerably over time. Take for example the Western Han. In the beginning, their western border extended to the Hexi/Gansu corridor.Later, it expanded to Lake Balkhash only to then shrink back to the Yumen Pass in the latter years of the dynasty.In the early years [of the Han] the southern boundaries reached only as far as the Southern Ling Mountains.Even what is now Guangxi and Guangdong was under the contol of the Nan Yue.Yet by the middle and later periods, control in the south extended as far as what is today Vietnam.
After Tang Taizong defeated the Eastern Turks, the northern reaches of the Tang Empire extended all the way to the area around Lake Baikal.But when the Turks later regrouped, Tang control retreated to the Yinshan Mountains (in today’s Mongolia).Up to the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor during the Qing Dynasty, China’s borders did not include Xinjiang and it was not until the middle of the 18th century that the Qianlong Emperor was able to pacify the regions to the north and south of Tian Shan and extend Qing territory as far as Lake Balkhash and the Pamir Plateau.However, beginning around 1860, the northern reaches of Heilongjiang, the area east of the Ussuri River, and the northwest part of what is today Xinjiang—over 1,000,000 square kilometers of territory—was seized by Russia.In the 20th century, China for all practical purposes lost 1,500,000 square kilometers of territory that is Outer Mongolia.
Moreover, we must differentiate between territory that was actually under administrative control of a dynasty, that which was a vassal state, and that which was “within the reaches of our prestige.” [Within a dynasty’s sphere of influence?]For example, take the later stages of the Western Han.Even though the leader of the Xiongnu surrendered to the Western Han, Han Wudi was not able to incorporate the Xiongnu into the Han Empire.Moreover, he had to pay off the leader of the Xiongnu in order to have a guarantee that there would be not attacks across a border marked by the Great Wall.As a result, the borders of the Han Empire did not extend beyond the Yin Mountains and the Xiongnu were never a part of Han territory.

In another example, several times the children and grandchildren of Ghengis Khan marched westward, their cavalry sweeping over Asia and Europe.But by the time that Ghengis’ grandson, Khubilai, established the Yuan Dynasty, Ghengis’ other descendants had already split apart his empire, after which they became known as the Four Khanates.These other Khanates and the Yuan court were independent political entities, only that their rulers had the same ancestors.The borders of the Yuan Empire did not include parts of Xinjiang and the southern territory belonged to another Khanate, never mind Central Asia, Western Asia, and Europe.

Another example is Vietnam, the larger part of which was under the administrative control of the Han and Tang Dynasties.But beginning in the 10thcentury, Vietnam founded its own independent kingdom, after which, during the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, it was a vassal state.Of course, this is not the same as complete independence, therefore before France made Vietnam a French colony, France had to force the Qing government to relinquish its sovereignty and claims over Vietnam.Nevertheless, we are not able--at least after the 10th century—to regard Vietnam as a part of “China.”Korea, the Ryukyu Islands, Burma are also in a similar category.

Now, what of the countries of South East Asia and Japan that have never officially been the vassals of any dynasty? Chinese history books call them “Tributary States.”Actually, it was either international trade under the “tribute” banner or else it was only temporary visits.Most of what the books call “Tributary States” are like this.What is more, we have only the one-sided views of the Qing court records that were based on past precedents and written for the court’s own aggrandizement.For example, people also called Russia, France, Portugal, and the “Red Hairs” as tribute states. (During the Ming, Dutch people were called “Red Hair Foreigners,” After the mid-Qing they also called the English, “Red Hair Foreigners”)Can we possibly accept that these states were also vassals of the Qing?
Until now, there are those people who feel that the more they exaggerate the territory of historical “China” or China’s successive dynasties and kingdoms the more patriotic they are.Actually, it is exactly the opposite.If China really wishes to rise peacefully, we must understand the true facts of history, only then will we be able to know the sum of our history, learn from our experiences, and so be on a solid footing to face the future.

(* Note: the third paragraph was translated by the good people at Letters from China, which is why it reads better than the rest of the text.)Like other areas that ...

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"We are orphans," Gyamatse said. "We're the adopted children of China.
Our holy man is in India, and we don't have a mother or father. We feel
sad."

--------- sama sama macam Hindraf punya ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,  ;)

Hey G V

Now Malaysia also part of China, yes ?

Because if China no buy, Malaysia die ........

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Wah gnh, and if no one sells to China, China die also maaaa.

And it is just things like that that probably led the Chinese govt to clamp down on the silly nongs "spontaneously" (ahem) parking their trucks and skinny backsides in front of Carrefour up and down the country.

How do you think a Western ban on trade, investment, visas for foreign travel and study and cultural exchanges would go down with the "laobaixing", hey gnh???