“Tibet’s Future: Does it Have One?”

 As we enter the 50th year of China’s occupation of Tibet and the Dalai Lama’s exile, American policy-makers and legislators have been under pressure – from congress, from human rights groups . . . from me, whatever good that is . . . to look at China’s policies in Tibet and . . . China’s policies toward its other large minorities, Uighurs, in particular . . . and extrapolate from that how the Chinese Communist Party intends to construct its social, economic, developmental, internal security, human rights, media censorship, free expression and assembly, you know, the broad gamut of civil, political and religious rights, for the benefit of the Han Chinese minority, and perhaps not so much for the benefit of anyone else in China.

What does this say about the Chinese leadership’s commitments to prosperity for anyone other than the Han Chinese in China, or for that matter Han Chinese in Asia? What do the China’s policies toward Burma, North Korea, Uzbekistan, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Iran tell us about how China will behave as Asia’s preeminent power . . . presuming that it soon will inherit that title.

In 2001, the International Olympic Committee said it would monitor China’s human rights behavior in the years leading up to the Beijing Olympics, and would consult Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations and would encourage China to improve its human rights record.

But I think we have seen how much influence the IOC and the world’s human rights advocacy groups have actually had on China.

Three months ago, we held a forum in this room called “Tibet’s Future: Does it Have One?” Tibet has been the subject of experiments in cultural and demographic engineering projects that raise serious questions about Beijing’s intentions for the region’s future. In addition to human rights concerns, policy-makers must also consider how China’s proprietary interests in Tibet now include irredentist territorial claims on “the whole of what you [Indians] call the state of Arunachal Pradesh,” as the Chinese ambassador to New Dehli bluntly put it in November 2006. Is China’s relentless territorial pressure on India designed merely to expel the Dalai Lama, or does China really have more expansive territorial gains in mind?

Specialists on Tibet’s modern history, culture, and religion will look at the prospects of Tibet’s future, Beijing’s unwavering campaign against the Dalai Lama, and whether the preservation of Tibet as a cultural, religious, and political entity remains important to mankind. Is there any other fate for Tibet than to become a quaint Chinese Disneyland for tourists? Is that a bad thing? If so, what can anyone do about it?

This morning, we have Dr. Warren Smith, author of a very new book entitled “China’s Tibet? Autonomy or Assimilation”, which is simply the best book on Tibet since 1996, when Dr. Smith’s last book “Tibetan Nation” was published.

Dr. Smith earned his doctorate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and his first book was based on his dissertation – to this day, “Tibetan Nation” is the only history of Tibet in English, covering Tibet’s history from beginning to end, well, maybe “end” is a bit premature.
But then again, we have to consider that Tibet’s future as a culture, people, language and nation may not last indefinitely. What are the prospects for Tibet’s future, and will China’s indulgence of Tibetan unhappiness and dissatisfaction with Chinese rule persist through the Olympic Games . . . The games being the only thing that seems to restrain Chinese behavior in Tibet at all . . .

Has there ever been any hope for the Dalai Lama’s dialogue with China? What is likely to come from continued “dialogue” if one can call it that?

Dr. Smith is the expert. Dr. Smith is now with the Tibetan Language Service at Radio Free Asia.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Warren Smith.