"Tibet-China" in English!

fussfun

[中英]西藏政教合一封建农奴制与中世纪西欧农奴制                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        人民网4月14日报道  “达赖是旧西藏政教合一农奴制度的总代表。这种农奴制是人类历史上最黑暗的奴隶制，没有任何形式的民主、自由和人权，只有农奴主的特权。”“达赖所追求的‘中间道路’，就是要恢复他昔日的天堂，这是要把获得翻身解放的百万农奴重新打入黑暗的牢笼。这样的‘中间道路’，有谁能够接受呢？” ——外交部新闻发言人姜瑜

记者：外交部新闻发言人姜瑜这番话揭露了达赖所追求的“中间道路”的本质是恢复农奴制度。在历史上，西藏的农奴制度是一种什么样的制度？

张云：１９５９年民主改革前，西藏长期处于政教合一、僧侣和贵族专政的封建农奴制社会，其黑暗、残酷比中世纪西欧的农奴制度有过之而无不及。

旦增伦珠：被称作“西藏通”的英国人查尔斯·贝尔在他的《十三世达赖喇嘛传》中这样写道：“你从欧洲和美洲来到西藏，就会被带回到几百年前，看到一个仍处在封建时代的国家。贵族和绅士对其佃户权力很大。这些佃户是在较肥沃的平原和河谷耕耘的农民。或是身穿羊皮袄游牧在高山峻岭的牧人。”

西藏的农奴主主要是官家、贵族和寺院上层僧侣三大领主。他们不到西藏人口的５％，却占有西藏的全部耕地、牧场、森林、山川以及大部分牲畜。据１７世纪清朝初年统计，当时西藏实有耕地３００多万克（１５克相当于一公顷），其中官家占３０．９％，贵族占２９．６％，寺庙和上层僧侣占３９．５％。１９５９年民主改革前，全西藏有世袭贵族１９７家，大贵族２５家，其中最大的贵族有七八家，每家占有几十个庄园，几万克土地。

张云：农奴超过旧西藏人口的９０％，藏语叫“差巴”（即领种份地，向农奴主支差役的人）和“堆穷”（意为冒烟的小户）。他们不占有土地，没有人身自由，都依附在某一领主的庄园中为生。此外还有占人口５％的“朗生”，他们是世代家奴，没有任何生产资料，也没有丝毫人身自由。

农奴主用差役和高利贷对农奴进行残酷的剥削，农奴成年累月地辛勤劳动，却连温饱也得不到保障，经常要靠借高利贷勉强糊口。法国藏学家亚历山大·达维·尼尔在她的《古老的西藏面对新生的中国》中说，旧西藏，所有农民都是终身负债的农奴，他们身上还有着苛捐杂税和沉重的徭役：“完全失去了一切人的自由，一年更比一年穷”。

孟广林：据我所知，大约在１０世纪，农奴制在西欧基本形成。正如马克思所说的那样，农奴制是人类历史上的一种主要奴役形式，是封建剥削制度最本质的体现。

农奴是西欧封建社会的一种农业劳动者。在封建土地所有制的基础上，封建领主占有了土地等生产资料，以人身依附关系为纽带，采用“超经济强制”的力量来奴役农奴，即用经济外的政治、法律、习俗等对他们人身控制，以榨取他们的剩余劳动。农奴在三个方面屈从于主人。第一，他人身不自由，是属于主人的财产；第二，他耕种的土地是主人的，依附于主人；第三，他法律上和主人没有平等的地位，接受领主法庭的审判。

记者：农奴政治上毫无权利，经济上受到压榨，只能年复一年地劳动。看来，西欧中世纪的农奴制与西藏的政教合一体制下的封建农奴制是很相似的。

孟广林：是的，作为农奴制的本质，两者是一样的。这就是：对劳动者生产资料与劳动成果的剥夺；对劳动者人性尊严高贵的蔑视；对劳动者主体权利与创造精神的压制。

这种制度是传统社会中人身依附关系的集中体现，表现为“直接的统治和依附关系”。在这种关系中，人性、人格、人权、人道都受到摧残，人的高贵价值沦为领主权和神权的祭品。

张云：在旧西藏，农奴主占有农奴的人身，把农奴当作自己的私有财产随意支配，可以买卖、转让、赠送、抵债和交换。旧西藏通行了几百年的《十三法典》和《十六法典》，将人分成三等九级，明确规定人们在法律上的地位不平等。农奴主运用成文法或习惯法，设立监狱或私牢。地方政府有法庭、监狱，大寺庙也设法庭、监狱，领主还可在自己的庄园私设监狱。刑罚极为野蛮残酷，如剜目、割耳、断手、剁脚、抽筋、投水等。在西藏最大的寺庙之一甘丹寺就有许多手铐、脚镣、棍棒和用来剜目、抽筋等的残酷刑具。

因此，西藏政教合一的封建农奴制度是僧侣和贵族联合专政的制度，“这种农奴制下的广大农奴，没有任何形式的民主、自由和人权，只有农奴主的特权。”

孟广林：从前面的讲述来看，西藏政教合一的封建农奴制社会，其黑暗、残酷的确比中世纪欧洲的农奴制度有过之而无不及。

只有从这种体制的锁链中挣脱出来，获得自由解放，才能迸发出巨大的主动性与创造性，才能推动历史的真正发展。正如马克思指出的那样，“任何一种解放都是把人的世界和人的关系还给人自己。”

在封建农奴制下神权对人的精神控制

“为了理解２０世纪的西藏历史，就有必要明了西藏在很多基本方面仍然是一个前现代的神权政体，而并非由于任何非同寻常的与世隔绝。”

——美国著名藏学家、人类学家梅尔温·戈斯坦

记者：在封建农奴制度下，无论是旧西藏还是中世纪西欧，神权对公众精神的控制与禁锢，在剥夺了农奴的人身自由之外，又剥夺了普通百姓思想的自由。这是不是其黑暗的又一面？

孟广林：的确，对人们的思想取向和行为规范的禁锢，正是黑暗的封建农奴制的一个突出表现。中世纪的欧洲虽然不完全是政教合一，但是神权制度和世俗权力的结合为封建农奴制提供了保障。

问题不在宗教信仰，而在于教会对宗教与思想的垄断与控制。比如，在中世纪欧洲，普通百姓是没有阅读、解释圣经权利的，这个权利掌握在教士手里。只要违背了教会的观念、思想和准则就会被视为“异端”，将其开除教籍，这意味着他的生命财产得不到保障。

张云：在政教合一的旧西藏，这一点表现得更加充分，也更加残酷——宗教势力一方面通过行政权力，对广大人民进行今生统治；另一方面，同时通过宗教特权，以对百姓的来世进行赏罚为名，实施精神恐吓。

由于历史文化的原因，西藏很多百姓都信奉佛教，相信来生转世说，而统治阶级正利用了这一点为自己服务。英国人埃德蒙·坎德勒在《拉萨真面目》一书中写道，“因为西藏人虔信他们那种形式的佛教，强大的僧侣势力掌管一切。”事实上，我们知道，旧西藏的绝大多数普通僧侣同样没有摆脱农奴身份，所谓“僧侣势力”是被极少数上层僧侣和僧侣化的贵族所把持。“你下辈子是人还是猪，难道对你没有什么关系吗？达赖喇嘛能保你投胎成人，当大官，或者更好一些——在一个佛教兴盛的国度里当大喇嘛”，相反，如果你不听他们的，会世世代代不得转世。“僧侣势力”就是采用这种精神恐吓，来维护他们政教合一的统治。

记者：要想摆脱神权对人的精神控制，教育是至关重要的一环。在１２世纪以前的欧洲，教会垄断了教育。但此后随着商品经济的兴起，世俗学校开始出现，西方大学兴起，尽管当时的教会仍然在不同程度上控制着这些大学，但这为欧洲走出中世纪神学桎梏迈出了重要的一步。政教合一封建农奴制统治下的旧西藏，有类似的教育机构出现吗？

张云：没有。在旧西藏，政教合一的统治阶级完全垄断了教育和受教育的权利。要想获得教育，唯一的途径就是进寺院“读经”。即便如此，农奴的子弟成为僧侣也只是从领主的农奴变成了寺院的农奴，只有那些贵族子弟才有可能将读经作为晋身的阶梯。在政教合一的体制里，僧侣在嘎厦政府里占了很大比例，行使着生杀予夺的权力，享受着实际的经济利益，普通百姓哪有丝毫的希望呢？

在这样的黑暗体制下，老百姓没有表达思想的权利，甚至没有思考的权利。一切都要听活佛怎么说，否则，就是有罪。也正是这样一个黑暗体制，让旧西藏日趋封闭保守。这充分证明了这个制度对西藏人民思想的禁锢，对西藏历史、文化包括宗教传承的破坏。值得注意的是，欧洲在１５世纪已经告别中世纪的阴霾，而比欧洲中世纪更加黑暗的统治，在西藏竟一直延续到上世纪５０年代。

企图恢复政教合一的农奴制是逆时代潮流而动

“在西藏试图适应２０世纪的迅猛变化之际，由于将现代化等同于世俗化及西蔵毒特恢宏的大众僧侣制全盛期的衰落，宗教的权力和特权及大寺院在阻挠进步方面扮演了主要角色。”——美国著名藏学家、人类学家梅尔温·戈斯坦

记者：当封建农奴制成为社会发展和进步的障碍的时候，为什么在欧洲与中国西藏，却产生了不同的走向？

孟广林：残酷的封建农奴制和神权奴役，导致了西欧的农民反抗，并且是以宗教“异端”的方式发动的。比如，以“罗拉德”派约翰·保尔为代表的下层教士就提出，“当亚当耕田、夏娃织布之际，谁是贵族？”他们要求废除封建农奴制，取消徭役、地租、捐税和财产差别，实行社会各阶层的平等。在保尔的鼓动下，爆发了１３８１年英国农民大起义，农民在瓦特·泰勒率领下攻入伦敦，给统治者以沉重打击。同一时期法国的“扎克雷”起义和１６世纪的德国农民战争，也都因同样的理想而爆发。

张云：旧西藏政教合一的统治结构，为农奴制营造了一个相对封闭的系统，在这个系统中，尽管人们的行为没有自由、精神没有自由，社会的生产抑制、停滞不前，人口在减少，但野蛮统治却一直在延续，甚至变本加厉。

旦增伦珠：人类进入２０世纪５０年代，旧西藏政教合一的封建农奴制统治显然早已和历史发展潮流格格不入。它是西藏贫穷落后的根源，不对其改革、废除，广大僧俗群众将永远在水深火热中煎熬，西藏也不可能走上文明、进步之路。

１９５１年西藏和平解放，为废除西藏封建农奴制带来了曙光。但由于当时西藏上层人士对民主改革还心存疑虑；不少僧俗群众有沉重的、历史形成的心理负担，对民主改革需要一个了解和认识的过程；而西藏上层中的亲帝反动集团利用民族、宗教作招牌，欺骗群众，挑拨民族关系所造成的民族误解，一时还难以消除，中央对民主改革采取了“慎重稳进”的方针。在中央政府和西藏地方政府签订的“十七条协议”中规定：“有关西藏的各项改革事宜，中央不加强迫。西藏地方政府应自动进行改革，人民提出改革要求时，得采取与西藏领导人员协商的方法解决之。”同时，对西藏地区投入大量财力、物力支持。仅１９５２年到１９５８年，中央给予西藏地方的财政补助就高达３．５７亿元。

为实现和平民主改革，中央争取了八年、忍让了八年、等待了八年；百万农奴看了八年、比了八年、想了八年、盼了八年。然而，西藏上层统治集团的一些人却企图永远保持农奴制，维护既得利益，于１９５９年发动武装叛乱。达赖集团流亡海外，妄图“西蔵毒立”、恢复农奴制度，这是违背历史进步潮流、与广大西藏人民利益背道而驰的，怎么可能实现呢？

张云：如今，达赖总是将“民主”挂在嘴边，但是我们看看，达赖集团所组建的所谓“流亡政府”实行的仍然是政教合一体制。达赖宣称，为了西藏人民的自由他可以放弃自己的权力。按照他的逻辑，他现在运用政教合一的“流亡政府”的统治权力，为的是实现“大藏区”“高度自治”而放弃政教合一的统治权力，如此自相矛盾的说法，谁又能相信呢？归根结蒂，达赖编织所有谎言所掩饰的，还是要“西蔵毒立”，在西藏恢复政教合一的封建农奴制统治。

记者：旧西藏，不是西方一些人梦想中的“香格里拉”。今日欧洲，不可能再回到５００多年前的中世纪欧洲；同样，今日中国西藏，也不可能再回到达赖集团政教合一封建农奴制统治下的旧西藏。任何人梦想将西藏拉回黑暗统治的时代或为这样的企图而鼓噪，都注定是不可能实现的。

对话专家：
张云中国藏学研究中心历史研究所研究员
旦增伦珠中国藏学研究中心社会经济研究所副所长、研究员
孟广林中国人民大学历史学院世界古代中世纪史教研室主任、教授 (本文来源：人民网 )

fussfun

Special report: Tibet: Its Past and Present

    BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The Guangming Daily on April 15 published an article based on interviews with three Chinese scholars concerning the Tibetan system of feudal serfdom under theocracy and Western European serfdom in the Middle Ages.

    Following is the full text of the article:

    The three experts who gave interviews were:

    Zhang Yun, research professor of the Institute of History of the China Tibetology Research Center (CTRC).

    Tanzen Lhundup, research professor and deputy-director of the Institute of Social Economy of the CTRC.

    Meng Guanglin, professor and course convenor of world history of the Middle Ages at the School of History of Renmin University of China.

    The reporters who conducted the interviews:

    Yuan Xiang and Xing Yuhao with the Guangming Daily

   

    The Tibetan feudal serfdom under theocracy was a combined dictatorship of monks and aristocrats

    Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu said (at a press conference on April 8): "The Dalai Lama is the head representative of the serf system, which integrated religion with politics in old Tibet. Such a serf system, which harbors no democracy, freedom or human rights in any form, was the darkest slavery system in human history. Only serf owners could enjoy special privileges under such a system."

    Jiang also said: "The 'middle way' approach that the Dalai Lama is pursuing is aimed at restoring his own 'paradise in the past', which will throw millions of liberated serfs back into a dark cage. Such a 'middle way', who can accept it?"

    Reporter: Jiang Yu's words revealed that the nature of the Dalai Lama's "middle way" is to restore serfdom. In terms of history, what kind of system was the Tibetan serf system?

    Zhang Yun: Before the democratic reform in 1959, Tibet was a society of feudal serfdom under the integration of religion and politics and the dictatorship of monks and aristocrats, one even darker and more backward than medieval Europe.

    Tanzen Lhundup: British diplomat Sir Charles Bell, who was regarded as "an expert on Tibet", wrote in his book "Portrait of a Dalai Lama: The Life and Times of the Great Thirteenth": "When you come from Europe or America to Tibet, you are carried back several hundred years. You see a nation still in the feudal age. Great is the power of the nobles and squires over their tenants, who are either farmers tilling the more fertile plains and valleys, or shepherds, clad in their sheepskins, roaming over the mountains."

    Serf owners in Tibet were composed of local officials, aristocrats and high-level monks. They barely made up 5 percent of the total Tibetan population but possessed all the farmland, pastures, forests, mountains and rivers, and most of the livestock.

    According to official statistics dating from the early Qing Dynasty in the 17th century, the local government owned 30.9 percent of more than 3 million ke (1 hectare equals 15 ke) of farmland in Tibet. Aristocrats owned 29.6 percent and high-level monks, 39.5 percent.

    Before the democratic reform in 1959, Tibet had 197 families belonging to the hereditary aristocracy, including 25 large families. The seven or eight biggest such families each owned dozens of manors and tens of thousands of ke of land.

    Zhang Yun: The number of serfs surpassed 90 percent of the population in old Tibet. The serfs were further divided into three categories, namely "treba" (sharecroppers), who rented land from serf owners and worked as compulsory laborers and "dujung", which means small households working for lords. Besides these two types of serfs, there were "nangsen", who made up 5 percent of the total population. They were household servants for lords for generations without any production materials or personal freedom.

    Serf owners cruelly exploited serfs through compulsory labor and usury. Serfs toiled throughout the year but could hardly feed themselves, and usually had to make a living by borrowing at usurious rates. French Tibetologist Alexandra David-Neel wrote in her book "Old Tibet Faces A New China": "In old Tibet, all the peasants are serfs who are in debt for a life-long time. They also had to pay exorbitant taxes and levies and do heavy compulsory labor. "They totally lost their personal freedom and became poorer and poorer every year," she wrote.

    Meng Guanglin: As far as I know, serfdom was established in the 10th century in western Europe. As Karl Marx said, serfdom was one of the major slavery systems in human history and the essential representation of the feudal exploitation system.

    Serfs were a kind of agricultural laborer in the feudal society of western Europe. On the basis of feudal land ownership, the feudal lords owned land and other production materials and depended on personal dependent relations to control the serfs. They used "supra-economic coercion" to enslave them. In other words, they used political means, laws and customs, besides economic means, to control their personal freedom and exploit their surplus labor.

    Serfs were subservient to their owners in three respects: first, they did not have personal freedom and were their owners' property; second, the land they worked on belonged to their owners, so they were attached to their owners; third, they did not have equal legal rights the same as their owners and were judged by lords in court.

    Reporter: Serfs did not have any political rights and were exploited in the economic sense. They had to toil and do hard labor year after year. It seems that the system of western European serfdom in the Middle Ages was quite similar to the Tibetan feudal serfdom under theocracy.

    Meng Guanglin: Yes, it was of the same nature as serf systems, under which laborers were deprived of production materials and products, enjoyed no respect for their dignity or personal rights, and their creative spirit was suppressed.

    The system was a concentrated expression of personal dependence relations in traditional societies, which equals "direct governance and dependence relations."

    In this type of relationship, humanity, personality, human rights and humanism were all devastated, and the noble value of human individuals was sacrificed to the rights of lords and theocracy.

    Zhang Yun: In old Tibet, serf owners owned the serfs and treated them as private property. They could sell them, give them as gifts, use them to pay debts and trade them for other serfs. The Thirteen-Article Code and the Sixteen-Article Code, which were practiced in Tibet for hundreds of years, divided people into different categories and stipulated that they had different legal rights.

    Serf owners built public prisons and private prisons in accordance with both written and unwritten laws. The local government had courts and prisons. Large monasteries also had courts and prisons. Lairds could build private prisons in their manors.

    The punishments for serfs, which included gouging out eyes, cutting off ears, hands and feet, pulling out tendons, and throwing people into rivers, were cruel and savage. Handcuffs, fetters, sticks and clubs and cruel instruments of torture for gouging out eyes and pulling out tendons were found in Gandan Monastery, one of the biggest monasteries in Tibet.

    Therefore, the Tibetan feudal serf system under the integration of religion and politics was a dictatorship of monks and aristocrats. "Under such a system, serfs -- who made up a majority of the population in Tibet -- had no democracy, freedom or human rights in any form. Only serf owners could enjoy privileges."

    Meng Guanglin: Based on the above statements, the feudal serf system under the integration of religion and politics was an even darker and crueler system than European serfdom in the Middle Ages.

    Only by breaking loose from the shackles of this system, could the Tibetan people be freed and liberated and their great enterprise and creativity be brought into full play and the development of history be pushed forward. As Karl Marx pointed out: "Liberty in any form is all about bringing back to people the relationship between their world and themselves."

   

    Theocracy shackled people's spiritual life under feudal serfdom

    "To understand 20th century Tibetan history, therefore, it is necessary to understand that Tibet was, in many fundamental ways, a pre-modern theocratic polity, and this was not because of any unusual isolation." -- American Tibetologist and anthropologist Melvyn C. Goldstein, "A History of Modern Tibet".

    Reporter: Under the feudal serf system, no matter in old Tibet or in western Europe in the middle ages, theocracy controlled and shackled people's minds. In addition to expropriation of personal freedom, it also deprived commoners' freedom of thought. Isn't this another dark side of the system?

    Meng Guanglin: Yes, shackling people's thoughts and behavior was indeed a conspicuous aspect of the dark feudal serfdom. Although western Europe in the middle ages was not under a completely theocratic system, the integration of religion and politics was the guarantee of the feudal serf system.

    The problem does not lie in religion or belief, but in the church's monopoly and control of people's religion and thought. For example, in medieval Europe, commoners had no right to read or interpret the Bible. Instead, the right lay in the hands of the clergy. Everyone who betrayed the church's faith, thoughts and criteria would be labeled as a heretic and be expelled from the church, which meant neither his life or property could be safeguarded.

    Zhang Yun: In the old theocracy in Tibet, which featured a dictatorship by monks and nobles, this dark side was more fully demonstrated in a crueler way -- the religious authority ruled people's Earthly lives with administrative power, while terrorizing them in the name of meting out rewards and punishments for their afterlives with religious privileges.

    Due to historical and cultural reasons, many Tibetans believe in Buddhism and thus believe in an afterlife. The ruling class, however, just utilized this to serve their own interests. British expert Edmund Candler said in his book, "The Unveiling of Lhasa," that "the monks are the overlords, the peasantry their serfs." The poor and the small tenant farmers "work ungrudgingly for their spiritual masters, to whom they owe a blind devotion".

    In fact, we know that most of the common monks in old Tibet also failed to cast off their identities as serfs. The so-called "monk forces" were only comprised of an extremely small number of upper-class monks and nobles with a monastic background. As Sir Charles Bell stated in his Portrait of A Dalai Lama: the Life and Times of the Great Thirteenth:

    "Does it not matter to you whether you are reborn as a human being or as a pig? The Dalai Lama can help to secure that you will be reborn as a human being in a high position, or, better still, as a monk or nun in a country where Buddhism flourishes."

    On the contrary, if you refused to listen to them, you would not be reincarnated from generation to generation. The "monk forces" just used this kind of spiritual intimidation to safeguard their theocracy.

    Reporter: Education was vital for people to shed theocracy's control over their spiritual lives. The church had monopolized education in Europe before the 12th century. With the burgeoning of the commodity economy, however, secular schools began to emerge and western universities started to mushroom. Though these colleges were to some extent controlled by the church at that time, they still played a vital part in freeing people from the shackles of medieval theology. Did old Tibet, with feudal serfdom under theocracy, have similar educational institutions?

    Zhang Yun: No. In old Tibet, education and the right to education were monopolized by the ruling class featuring a dictatorship by monks and nobles. The only way to get access to education was to enter monasteries to "read scriptures". Although this made it possible for serf's children to become monks, their status was only shifted from a "serf" of lords to a "serf" of the monasteries.

    Only the offspring of the nobles could use it as a channel to the upper echelons. Under the theocratic system, monks accounted for a large proportion of the members in the Kasha (the former local government of Tibet). They held the absolute power to punish and execute innocent people at will, while members of the Kasha enjoyed practical economic interests. How could commoners have any hope under those circumstances?

    Under such a dark system, people had no right to express their thoughts and they even had no right of thought. They should listen to whatever the living Buddha said, otherwise, it would be considered a crime.

    It was such a dark system that led to a gradually closed and conservative old Tibet. It fully showed that the system not only fettered Tibetan people's thoughts, but also harmed traditional Tibetan history and culture, including the passing on of religion. It merits noticing that as early as the 15th century, Europe had bid farewell to the medieval shadow. The darker dictatorship in Tibet, however, lasted until the 1950s.

   

    Attempts to return Tibet to a feudal serfdom system advocating the integration of politics and religion go against the times

    "As Tibet attempted to adapt to the rapid changes of the 20th century, religion and the monasteries played a major role in thwarting progress."

    -- by American Tibetologist and anthropologist Melvyn C. Goldstein, "A History of Modern Tibet," 1913-1951, the Demise of the Lamaist State, P37)

    Reporter: Why did Europe and China's Tibet react differently to serfdom when it stood in the way of social development and progress?

    Meng Guanglin: The cruel serfdom and theocracy in the West led to the rebellion of farmers in the form of "heresy" at the time. For example, low-ranking missionaries in 14th century England including John Ball, one of the preachers of Lollardy (an anti-clerical movement), demanded: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"

    The Lollards demanded the abolishment of serfdom, forced labor, land tax, tallage (an agricultural production tax) and differences in property, to ensure equality among the classes of society. Prompted by Ball, the English Peasants' Revolt erupted in 1381 as peasants led by Walter Tyler entered London and severely weakened the reigning class. The Jacquerie revolt at about the same time in France, and the German peasants' revolt in the 16th century, all erupted for the same purpose.

    Zhang Yun: The old reigning authorities in Tibet integrated politics with religion and isolated the serfdom region (Tibet) from the outside world. In this region, people had no control over their lives, no free will. Social production was suppressed and halted, and the population declined. However, the brutal reign continued, even worsened.

    Tanzen Dhumdup: In the 1950s, the serfdom system in Tibet could no longer fit in with the times. Serfdom became the root cause of Tibet's poverty and falling behind the world. Under the serfdom system, the Tibetan people, both monks and secular people, could not live a better life, and Tibet could not make progress.

    The peaceful Liberation of Tibet in 1951 brought light to the abolition of the serfdom system. However, some leading personages of Tibet at the time still had doubts about democratic reform, and a good number of monks still needed more time to learn about reform. Moreover, some high-ranking secessionists close to imperialistic countries who were among the leading personages used religion and ethnicity as illusions to instigate ethnic conflicts, and it took time to disillusion the common Tibetan people.

    The central government decided to take a more cautious measure to push for reform. According to the "Agreement of the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" ("17-Article Agreement" for short) signed by the central government and the Tibet authorities, "the Central Government will not use coercion to implement such a reform, and it is to be carried out by the Tibetan local government on its own; when the people demand reform, the matter should be settled by way of consultation with the leading personnel of Tibet."

    In the meantime, the central government has provided help for Tibet in terms of goods and financial support. Government subsidies to Tibet topped 357 million yuan between 1952 and 1958.

    The central government waited eight years for the peaceful democratic reform of Tibet, as did millions of Tibetan peasants. But some people in the upper ruling strata of Tibet, in order to preserve feudal serfdom, staged an armed rebellion on March 10, 1959.

    After the rebellion failed, the backers of the Dalai Lama fled abroad, still hoping to restore serfdom in Tibet and advocating "Tibet Independence".

    Their actions since then have gone against the times and the well-being of the people of Tibet, and they will not succeed.

    Zhang Yun: Now, the Dalai Lama has been calling for "democracy" all the time. But as we can see, the "government in exile" of the Dalai Lama's group still advocates the integration of politics and religion. The Dalai Lama claimed that he would give up his power in exchange for the freedom of the Tibetan people.

    That means that the Dalai Lama now actually rules the "government in exile", which advocates the integration of politics and religion, while also stating that he would renounce his ruling position in return for the so-called "high level of autonomy in Greater Tibet".

    Who would believe that kind of self-contradictory statement? In other words, the Dalai Lama wanted nothing other than "Tibet Independence" and the restoration of the feudal serfdom system, which advocates the integration of politics and religion in Tibet.

    Reporter: The old Tibet is far from the Shangri-la of some westerners' minds. Modern Europe cannot return to what it used to be 500 years ago. And China's Tibet cannot return to the old Tibet, ruled by the backers of the Dalai Lama, where a feudal serfdom system advocating the integration of politics and religion still existed. Anyone who attempts to, or dreams of, returning Tibet to a dark reign is doomed to fail.

fussfun

Why You Have Lost the Argument With “Stay Out of Chinese Internal Affairs”
Author: Demerzel

15 Apr

Great Wall of China“Stay out of Chinese internal affairs!” is the quickest way to losing the argument in today’s world. Simply put, globalization makes domestic affairs further entwined with every other nation around the globe.

Every once in awhile I will run across a comment on the web or will be told in person that one (me, Americans, etc.) should stay out of China’s internal affairs. By stating this line one has already put oneself on the defensive and with any knowledgeable person schooled in international affairs this will equate to quickly losing the argument. As to why this line of debate will lose often:

    * Defensive Arguments: By staying on the defensive, one rarely get the chance to turn the argument around while the attacker continues to point-by-point explain why it matters to care about what happens in China. In fact, by playing defensive, one brings out further criticisms and problems about China and China only rather than dealing ever trying to win the argument.
    * International Affairs Majors: Those who lean towards International Economics / Neo-Liberalism will quickly delve into the effects of globalization on the world today. What one country does internally can easily affect the outcome of another country’s economy. When the US continues to subsidize its agriculture industry to help keep agricultural jobs within the US, poorer nations where agriculture is their main export can no longer compete in the world market causing job loses and economic instability in that country. Japanese textbooks that wash over what happened in Nanjing during World War Ii creates diplomatic uproars between the Japanese and Chinese governments due to historical sensitivities.

So, what is the right way to go about dealing with someone who is complaining about what is going on within China? Know international history well and what country the person is coming from. If the person (let’s say an American) is complaining about how horrible things are in a certain Chinese province, start doing comparisons with how Americans treated Native Americans.

Complaints about intellectual property rights? How else do you think the industrial revolution started within the United States except from a man who literally memorized how to make a British-patented device leading to American modernization.

Complaints over Chinese Yuan value to the American dollar? Agree with them but then say that China will first have to reclaim all the debt that the US currently owes China–about $4 trillion dollars worth.

Complaints about the environment? The US chopped down such a wide swath of forests that makes Brazil’s use of the Amazon rain forest look small in comparison.

In conclusion, when a new problem arises out of China (or any other native country), learn the international history associated to the topic and prepare to note their hypocrisy in not dealing with their own internal affairs in the right way first. Tell them they say one thing, but have done something else entirely.

fussfun

“西藏问题”是主权问题

　　何振华

　　毫无疑问，“西藏问题”是这个春天令人关注的“热点”。

　　如果没有足够的“探索”精神，你会为“西藏问题”的复杂性而迷惑。因为达赖集团所谓“西藏问题”中，包括了“人权问题”、“民族问题”、“宗教问题”等一连串“问题”。
这些站在“道义的制高点”上的“问题”，听起来很让一些不明真相的人激愤，也让他们对“西藏问题”格外关注。

　　哲人云，问题是时代的口号。达赖集团所谓“西藏问题”背后，确实有着自己的“口号”——“西藏独立”。这个“口号”隐藏在他们对“西藏问题”所开的药方——“中间道路”里。

　　不久前在西雅图，达赖集团在谈到“西藏问题”时，再次坚称要一如既往地走“中间道路”。这一“道路”看似和缓，但只要稍加研究就可以发现，其内涵和实质与“西藏独立”主张并无二致，即都是要把西藏从中国分裂出去。

　　“中间道路”核心内容就两条：一是“大藏区”, 一是“高度自治”。所谓“大藏区”，就是要将西藏、青海、甘肃、四川、云南等藏族居住区合并在一起，建立历史上从未有过的“大藏族自治区”，总面积约占全国领土的1/4。而所谓“高度自治”，包括要求中央政府不能在西藏驻军，西藏可与其他国家或国际组织保持外交关系。

　　众所周知，如果一个国家的中央政府不能在其领土上驻军，如果一个国家允许其管辖下的地方政府与外国政府保持外交关系，也就无主权可言。可以说， “大藏区”是达赖集团的领土要求,“高度自治”是达赖集团的政治制度要求，“中间道路”的实质是要改变西藏属于中国的法律地位，否定中国政府对西藏拥有的主权。

　　用达赖集团自己的话来说，“中间道路”的框架，便是“和平五点计划”和“七点新建议”，这是“谈判的基础”。对此，早在1987年美国国务院新闻发言人就曾明确指出，这些建议“基本想法是要搞西藏独立”。而达赖集团主办的《西藏通讯》2004年的一篇文章也曾点拨激进“藏独”分子，要“仔细阅读字里行间背后的含义”，并说“中间道路”如能实现，“其效果与真正的独立没有差别”。

　　将本质为分裂的“中间道路”，确立为解决“西藏问题”的药方；将直接“藏独”的居心，转换为变相独立的策略，可见“西藏问题”的实质不是别的问题，而是损害中国主权、破坏领土完整的问题。

　　算起来，自帝国主义企图瓜分中国，所谓“西藏问题”已有百余年历史。“英人对吾确有诱惑之念，但吾知主权不可失”，“不亲英人，不背中央”，面对列强分裂图谋，包括十三世达赖在内的众多藏族儿女的拳拳之心，至今令人动容。正是藏传佛教的爱国传统，让西藏与祖国血脉不断、荣辱与共；也正是无数中华儿女的报国情怀，让中华民族握指成拳、不断壮大。

　　在历史和现实的大视野里看“西藏问题”，答案更加明确：主权关乎一个国家的尊严，关乎中国人民的根本利益。不管“西藏问题”听起来多么复杂，也不管有多少势力试图介入其中，在这个问题上，中国不会让步，人民不会答应。

fussfun

http://current.com/items/8890632 ... _american_historian

fussfun

Since early time before Christ, ancient people began to reside on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in southwest China. After a prolonged period of time, tribes that had scattered on the plateau gradually united and formed a nationality known as the Tibetan ethnic group today.



Having suffered successive wars in the early period of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the Tibetans fostered cordial relations with the Tang court by marriage links. Tibetan people began their trade ties with the Central Plains in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) on a barter basis. As time went on, in the Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368), the already multi-ethnic realm of China was reunified, with Tibet organically included as an administrative unit ruled by the central court of Yuan. Since then, Tibetans, along with other ethnic groups under the central authorities, had experienced the rise and fall of dynasties and witnessed resultant changes in the history of China.

Tubo Kingdom

Early in the seventh century, the powerful Tang Dynasty was founded in the Central Plains, ending the disintegration and chaotic situation that had prevailed in the region for more than 300 years. At the same time, Tubo leader Songtsan Gambo welded together more than 10 separate tribes and established the Tubo Kingdom covering a large part of what later became known as Tibet. He twice sent ministers to the Tang court requesting a member of the imperial family be given to him in marriage, and in 641, Princess Wencheng, a member of Emperor Taizong's family, was chosen for this role. During the reign of Songtsan Gambo, political, economic and cultural relations between the two nations became increasingly friendly and extensive. This pattern of friendly relations was carried on during the next 200 years or more.

In 821, then Tubo King Tri Ralpachen dispatched envoys to Chang'an, capital of the Tang Dynasty for three times, asking for alignment. Muzong, then Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, appointed his senior officials to hold a grand alignment ceremony in the western suburb of Chang'an. In the next year, the Tang Dynasty and the Tubo Kingdom formally concluded their alliance pact in the eastern suburb of Lhasa. The two sides of the alliance reiterated their close relations bound by marriage and decided to treat each other as a member of one family. The alignment was recorded on three Tang-Tubo Peace Pledgement Monuments, one of which still stands in front of the Jokhang Monastery in Lhasa.

In 842, the Tubo Kingdom broke up, and rival groups of ministers, members of the royal family and various tribes plunged into internecine struggle that was to last in varying levels of intensity for the next 400 years. Reeling under the detrimental impact of such activities on their economic and cultural development, people on the Tibetan Plateau looked to the emergence of a formidable regime on the Central Plains to someday come to their rescue. Those who could no longer stand the bitterness fled to areas in present-day Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.

Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368)

In the early 13th century, the leader of the Mongolian people, Genghis Khan, established the Mongol Khanate in the north of China. In 1247, Mongol Prince Godan invited Pandit Gonggar Gyamcain, an eminent monk with the Sagya Sect that greatly influenced Buddhist worship on the Tibetan Plateau, to a meeting in Liangzhou (present-day Wuwei in Gansu Province). Pandit Gonggar Gyamcain offered the submission of Tibet to the Mongol Khanate and the acceptance of a defined local administrative system. In return, the Sagya Sect was given political power in Tibet. In 1271, the Mongolian conquerors took Yuan as the name of their dynasty. In 1279, they finally unified the whole of China. The newly united central authorities continued control over Tibet, including it as a directly governed administrative unit.


Taking into account the concrete characteristics of the local historical traditions, social situation, natural environment, ethnic group and religion, the Yuan authorities adopted special measures in the administration of Tibet that differed from the policies applied to the other 10 administrative areas.

First, in 1270, Yuan Emperor Kublai Khan conferred the official title of Imperial Tutor on Pagba, a leading Tibetan lama of the Sagya Sect. This was the highest official post of a monk official in the Chinese history. From then on, Imperial Tutor became a high-ranking official in the central authorities directly appointed by the emperor, taking charge of Buddhist affairs in the whole country, and local affairs in Tibet.

Second, shortly after the Yuan Dynasty was founded, the Zongzhi Yuan was set up to be responsible for the nation's Buddhist affairs and Tibet's military and government affairs. In 1288, it was renamed Xuanzheng Yuan. The Prime Minister usually acted as the executive president of the Xuanzheng Yuan, concurrently, while a monk nominated by the Imperial Tutor held the post of vice president. This marked the first time in Chinese history that a central organ was set up specially taking charge of Tibetan affairs.

Third, Tibet was divided into different administrative areas, and officials with different ranks were appointed to consolidate administrative management, with the Imperial Tutor assuming overall responsibility.

Since Tibet was incorporated into the map of the Yuan Dynasty in the mid-13th century, China had experienced the rise and fall of dynasties and the resultant change in the central authorities. However, this in no way altered the central administration's rule over Tibet.

Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

In 1368, the Ming Dynasty replaced the Yuan Dynasty. The Ming abolished the system of the Xuanzheng Yuan as a central organ to deal with Tibetan affairs, and stopped conferring the official title of Imperial Tutor on Tibetan monks. But, the Ming rulers introduced a new system of granting official titles to Tibetan monks. The highest-ranking monk official was called Prince of Dharma, which was different from Imperial Tutor in the Yuan Dynasty. He was not stationed in Beijing. He had no right to be in charge of the Buddhist affairs nationwide, nor had he a fixed manor. This points up to the fact that the official post was honorary in nature. Though varying in rank, these Princes of Dharma could not exercise control over each other, nor could they engage in administrative affairs. They were directly under the central administration.

The central authorities of the Ming, following the administrative system of the Yuan, set up local administrations in Tibet to respectively govern the military and political affairs of front and rear Tibet, Qamdo and Ngari areas.

Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)

After replacing the Ming in 1644, the central authorities of the Qing Dynasty introduced a set of rules and regulations for rule over Tibet. As these rules and regulations were legal in nature, they were very effective.

First, creating a legal administrative area of Tibet. While dividing the national administrative areas, the Qing central authorities defined, by legal regulations, the boundaries between the administrative areas of Tibet and Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai and Xinjiang. The administrative area of Tibet (then called U-Tsang) was equivalent to that of the present Tibet Autonomous Region.

Second, deciding on Tibet's political and administrative management systems, and the organizational form of local political power. The Ordnance for the More Effective Governance of Tibet promulgated in 1793 by the Qing court and the Legal Code of the Qing Dynasty stipulated that, in Tibet, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Erdeni were respectively in charge of the religious affairs in the Lhasa (front Tibet) and Xigaze (rear Tibet) areas, and part of the government affairs. They were not under each other. But, the high commissioners the Qing court stationed in Tibet took the overall control over the area.

Third, conferring official titles on the religious leaders in Tibet. In 1653, the central administration conferred on the Fifth Dalai Lama the official title "All-Knowing, Vajra-Holding Dalai Lama." In 1713, it conferred on the Fifth Panchen the official title of Panchen Erdeni. Thereafter, it became an established practice for all Dalai Lamas and Panchen Erdenis to have their titles conferred on them by the central authorities.

Fourth, in order to prevent the religious leaders from seeking personal gain by abusing their position and authority, or expanding their forces, the central authorities, in 1793, introduced a new system of determining the reincarnation of a deceased Living Buddha, the Dalai or Panchen by drawing lots from a gold urn. This then became the only permissible system for choosing a successor to the Dalai Lama, Panchen Erdeni or the Grand Lama. Under the new system, names of the reincarnation candidates were written on lots that were put into the gold urn. One lot was drawn under the supervision of the High Commissioner, and the chosen one was the designated soul boy--the successor to the Dalai Lama, Panchen Erdeni or Grand Lama. The selected successor could not become the legal heir until formally approved by the central administration. This became a key measure for the Qing central government to strengthen administration over religious affairs in Tibet, and fully embodied the central authorities' sovereignty over Tibet.

Republic of China (1912-1949)

China experienced great historic changes after the Revolution of 1911, which brought down the Qing Dynasty and led to the founding of the Republic of China in 1912. During the Republic of China, which brought together the Han, Manchu, Mongolian, Hui and Tibetan ethnic groups, the central power changed hands frequently, but its policies related to Tibet remained unchanged in terms of upholding the national unity, state sovereignty and territorial integrity.

First, maintaining state sovereignty over Tibet by enacting laws and issuing official documents. Article 3 of the General Outline of the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China, enacted under the auspices of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Interim President, stipulated that Tibet was one of the 22 provinces of the Republic of China. This legalized the rule of the Government of the Republic of China over Tibet. Stipulations concerning Tibet in the Constitution of the Republic of China promulgated later all stressed that Tibet is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, and the Central Government of China exercises sovereignty in Tibet.

Second, establishing the Council for the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs and the Commission in Charge of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs. The Council for Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs was set up in 1912 to operate directly under the State Council in its capacity as a central state organ to take charge of Tibetan and Mongolian affairs. It was renamed the Commission for Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs in 1914. In 1927, the Republic of China moved its capital to Nanjing, now capital of Jiangsu Province, and the Nanjing Government was founded. Before long, the Nanjing Government announced the establishment of the Commission in Charge of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs. The commission members included people of great influence in the Mongolian and Tibetan areas, such as the Ninth Panchen Erdeni, the 13th Dalai Lama and Tibetan government representatives stationed in Nanjing including Gongjor Zongnyi, Zhamgyia Hutogtu and Master Xeirab Gyamco, a very famous Buddhist master who served as vice chairman of the commission.

Third, giving additional honorific titles to the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Erdeni, and having representatives preside over the reincarnation and enthronement ceremonies for them. In the early days of the Republic of China, the 13th Dalai Lama, who was deprived by the Qing government of his honorific title and left Tibet for India, managed to get in touch with the Government of the Republic of China, and expressed his wish to return to Tibet. On October 28, 1912, Interim President Yuan Shikai announced the restoration of the honorific title of the Dalai Lama. Before long, the 13th Dalai Lama returned home. To ease internal contradictions between the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Erdeni, Yuan, on April 1, 1913, issued an order to give an additional honorific title to the Ninth Panchen Erdeni to honor what he had done to defend the unification of the motherland.

In December 1933, when the 13th Dalai Lama died, the local government of Tibet submitted a report to the Central Government in accordance with historical precedence. The Central Government granted the late master the additional honorific title of Master in Defense of the Country and sent Huang Musong, Chairman of the Commission in Charge of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs, to Tibet to mourn his demise. In 1938, under the auspices of Regent Living Buddha Razheng, Lhamo Toinzhub in Qinghai was found and determined as the reincarnated soul boy of the late 13th Dalai Lama in accordance with the religious rituals and historical precedence. In 1940, Wu Zhongxin, Chairman of the Commission in Charge of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs, went to Tibet, in his capacity as central government representative, to preside over the ceremony enthroning the 14th Dalai Lama.

When the Ninth Panchen Erdeni passed away in Qinghai on his way back to Tibet in December 1937, the Nationalist Government granted him the honorific title of Master. And in 1938, the Central Government sent Dai Chuanxian, President of the Examination Yuan, to Garze to mourn the demise of the Ninth Panchen Erdeni. In early 1949, the Nationalist Government sent its envoy to announce that Guanbo Cidain was the 10th Panchen Erdeni, and he attended celebrations held at the Tar Monastery in Qinghai. In August, Guan Jiyu, Chairman of the Commission in Charge of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs, was sent by the Nationalist Government to preside over the enthronement ceremony of the 10th Panchen in Qinghai.

Fourth, bringing in upper-class monks and lay people to participate in state administration. During the period of the Republic of China, whenever the National Assembly met, there would be Tibetan delegates who participated. For example, from November 15 to December 25, 1946, when the National Assembly met in Nanjing to work on the Constitution of the Republic of China, 17 delegates including Tudain Sangpi and Jijigmei, came from Tibet.

People's Republic of China (founded in 1949)

The People's Republic of China was founded in 1949. Given the historical conditions and the reality in Tibet, the Central People's Government decided to adopt a policy for the peaceful liberation of Tibet.

The peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951

On October 1, 1949，the People's Republic of China was founded. The Gelug Sect (Yellow Sect) in Tibet boasted two Living Buddha incarnation systems including the one for the Panchen Erdeni. The 10th Panchen Erdeni Qoigyi Gyaincain cabled Chairman Mao Zedong, PLA Commander-in-Chief Zhu De，expressing strong support for the Central People's Government and the hope that Tibet would be liberated at an early date. On November 23, 1949 Chairman Mao Zedong and PLA Commander-in-Chief Zhu De replied. Later, the Central People's Government called many times on the local authorities of Tibet to achieve peaceful liberation of Tibet and sought agreement through various channels.

However, the local government of Tibet led by Regent Dagzha and the forces of pro-imperialist separatists rejected all positive approaches from the Central Government for the peaceful liberation of Tibet, and obstructed the people dispatched by the Central Government for this purpose. They also assembled 8,000 Tibetan troops and militia and deployed them at Qamdo and along the west bank of the Jingshajiang River, seeking to prevent the PLA from marching westward. To smash the scheme of the enemy and crack down the pro-imperialist separatists, the PLA liberated Qamdo on October 24, 1950, with the assistance of the people of the Tibet an ethnic group, which created favorable conditions for the peaceful liberation of Tibet.

After liberation of Qamdo, the PLA could have gone on to further liberate the whole of Tibet, but the CPC Central Committee and the Central People's Government stuck to the policy of peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951 and sent decisive orders to hold bacl the PLA and carry out the mass work locally at Qamdo while waiting on the local authorities to dispatch representatives to Beijing for negotiation. At the same time, the Southwest Military and Government Committee and the PLA Southwest Military Area jointly released the 10-Article Notice for the Liberation of Tibet in Tibetan and Chinese.

Persuaded many times by the Central Government and moved by the policy, the 14th Dalai Lama and the local government of Tibet eventually expressed their desire to seek a peaceful solution in January 1951.

On April 29, 1951 the plenipotentiaries of the Central People's Government and the local government of Tibet started negotiations at the Communications Department of the Beijing Military Control Commission. Agreement was reached on all important issues within a month. A grand signing ceremony for the Agreement Between the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet (also known as the 17-Article Agreement) was held at Qinzheng Hall in Zhongnanhai on May 23, 1951.

After the signing of the agreement on peaceful liberation of Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama sent a cable to Chairman Mao Zedong, saying "The Tibetan Local Government as well as the ecclesiastics and secular people unanimously support this agreement, and under the leadership of Chairman Mao and the Central People's Government, will actively support the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in Tibet to consolidate the national defense, drive out imperialist influences from Tibet and safeguard the unification of the territory and sovereignty of the motherland." The 10th Panchen Erdeni also telegraphed Chairman Mao, expressing his acceptance of the 17-Article Agreement and his resolution to uphold the unity of the motherland's sovereignty.

According to the agreement, the military forces of the PLA in Tibet entered Lhasa smoothly and they were greeted by a grand welcoming ceremony consisting of more than 20,000 people including officials from the local government of Tibet and the monks and lay people. Soon after, the PLA forces in Tibet entered successively the frontier strategic points, such as Nagqu, Ngari, Zayu, Gyangze, Xigaze and Yadong. Wherever the troops arrived, they were welcomed by the Tibetan people. By this time, Tibet was truly liberated and the unity of the Chinese mainland was achieved.

In 1954, the 14th Dalai Lama and the 10th Panchen Erdeni came to Beijing to participate in the First Session of the First National People's Congress (NPC) of the People's Republic of China. At the session, the 14th Dalai Lama was elected as vice chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, and the 10th Panchen Erdeni, member of the NPC Standing Committee.

Democratic Reform in 1959

After the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951, Tibet continued to follow the feudal serfdom. Since the conditions were not yet ready for excising such reform, Chairman Mao, in a report on ‘Questions Concerning Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People', fully stated the policy on Tibet of "sustaining for six years without change". The policy was, in fact, another concession to Tibet and its purpose was to await full public awareness of the targets of peaceful reform.

However, a high-level reactionary group in Tibet was against the reforms from the start. They went so far as to openly tear up the 17-Article Agreement and announced the "independence of Tibet" on March 10, 1959. They organized Tibetan forces to surround the Tibetan Military Area and the organs of the Central Government in Tibet and launched a full attack early on March 20th. In order to maintain the unity of China, the Central Government issued an order to put down the rebellion in Tibet, announcing that the Preparatory Committee for the Founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region was to act as the local government. Tibet entered a new stage of suppressing rebellion and carrying out reform.

The Preparatory Committee for the Founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region passed in July 1959 the ‘Resolution on Democratic Reform', deciding to completely put down the rebellion, fully arouse the masses to action and carry out Democratic Reform throughout the region. The first step of Democratic Reform was against rebellion, against the ula corvee labor system and against slavery in reduction of rents and reduction of interest (known in brief as the "3A2R" movement). The serfs and slaves, in the process of struggling against the rebellion, exposed and criticized the crimes of the rebels for their burning, killing and pillaging, for the harm they had done to the people, for their activities in undermining unity, and for their opposition to the Central Government. They denounced through their own experiences their untold suffering that the serf owners imposed on them to squeeze and destroy them ruthlessly with the ula corvee labor and slavery system. The serfs and slaves awakened in the 3A movement had their own leaders. Through selection they organized their own leadership institute, the Farmers' Association, forming their own power center. Several months later, the Farmers' Associations were founded widely in the areas where Democratic Reform was excised and they guided the work in the reduction of rents and interest.

Under the policy, the land of the estate-holders involved in the rebellion was "to be reaped by those who had planted it"; the land leased by the estate-holders (and their agents) who had not participated in the rebellion was "to be reduced in rent by 20 percent"; all the debts borne by the serfs to the three estate holders before 1958 were abolished and the debts owing to the estate-holders who didn't participate in the 1959 rebellion were reduced in interest to a rate of one percent a month. The achievement resulting from "reducing rent by 20 percent" and abolishing the old debts was considerable. According to statistics from 1959 to 1960, when the Democratic Reform was nearly completed, the usury and debts abolished in the region as a whole were about equal to 400 million kilograms of grain, which fundamentally removed the heavy chains from the serfs.

As the struggle against rebellion won an essential victory and the "3A2R" movement developed further, destroying completely the land occupation system of the three estate holders and eliminating the base of the feudal serf system had become an urgent demand for the serfs to win complete liberation. The third plenary session of the Preparatory Committee of Autonomous Regions was held in late September 1959 and passed a "Resolution on Abolition of Feudal Serf-Ownership of Land and Introduction of Farmer Land Ownership". The Resolution decided to satisfy the just demands of the million serfs by abolishing the feudal serf-ownership of land and introducing farmers' land ownership. It particularly stressed the land reform policy in farming areas and emphasized that the livestock breeding ownership in pastoral areas would remain unchanged while carrying out the "3A2B" policy (to struggle against rebellion, against ula corvee labor system and against slavery while being beneficial to hired herdsmen and beneficial to herd owners).

Most of the work for land reform in farming areas was carried out in the winter of 1959 and the spring of 1960. The first step was to confiscate the land and other means of production of serf owners and their agents involved in the rebellion; For serf owners and their agents who did not participate in the rebellion, their excessive land, livestock (limited to the countryside), houses and farm tools were to be handed over. By the end of 1960, when land reform of the whole region was nearly accomplished, the land distributed to serfs and slaves accounted to more than 2.8 million ke (about 186,000 hectares) in total, 3.5 ke (about 0.23 hectare) per capita.

According to the policy, the excessive land, livestock, farm tools and houses of the serf owners and their agents, who had not involved in the rebellion, were bought out. The farmland bought out accounted for over 900,000 ke (about 60,000 hectares) in total, livestock 82,000 head, farm tools 20,000 sets, and 64,200 houses. These were evaluated at market prices to be paid by the government within 8-13 years. In September 1961, over 2,000 households obtained their buy-out certificates and the first-stage payment was made. Progressive personages who had not been involved in the rebellion were given suitable jobs and some became leaders in the Preparatory Committee of Autonomous Regions.

The primary work of Democratic Reform was basically accomplished by the end of 1961.

The Democratic Reform completely overturned the reactionary, backward feudal serf system and enabled the million serfs to be freed from the rigid control and oppression of serf owners and obtain their rights as human beings, which changed the conditions of human rights of the people in Tibet and paved a way for social development in the region.


Establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965

Tibet exercises national regional autonomy according to the PRC Constitution. The State protects the political rights of all Tibetan ethnic groups in equal administration of State and local affairs, especially the autonomous rights of the Tibetan people in self-administration of local affairs and ethnic affairs. These rights reach every corner in political, economic, cultural and social development. According to the actual historical situation of Tibet and in consideration of the factors concerning the political, economic, religious, cultural and other features, a special, flexible policy differing from those in areas of other nationalities in China was adopted when implementing national regional autonomy.

On March 9, 1955, Premier Zhou Enlai presided over the 7th enlarged session of the State Council, which passed the "Decision on Establishment of the Preparatory Committee for the Founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region".

The decision points out that "the Preparatory Committee for the Founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region is a governmental organ in charge of the preparatory work for founding the Tibet Autonomous Region and it is controlled by the State Council. Its primary mission is to prepare for the establishment of regional autonomy in Tibet according to the stipulations of the PRC Constitution and the agreement for the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951, as well as the actual conditions of Tibet." The State Council also decided to appoint the Dalai Lama as Chairman of the Committee, the Panchen Erdeni as the first Vice Chairman and Zhang Guohua as second Vice Chairman.

The ceremonial founding conference for the Preparatory Committee for the Founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region took place in the newly built Lhasa Hall on April 22, 1956. The establishment of the Preparatory Committee of Autonomous Regions enabled Tibet to take an important step forward in practice of national regional autonomy, which was a cornerstone for Tibet on its way to development.

While national regional autonomy developed smoothly in Tibet, some diehard high-level personages who still favored the serf system instigated armed rebellion on March 10, 1959. When the rebellion was put down and the Democratic Reform was implemented, local people's power was founded at different levels. From the actual conditions of Tibet, the Preparatory Committee of Autonomous Regions passed in July 1959 the ‘Organization of Peasants Associations in Various Counties, Districts and Townships in Tibet', stipulating that the peasant associations at district and township levels may act as primary political power.

By April 1965, seven prefectures and one city, as well as 72 counties, had established people's governments, in addition to people's governments in 20 districts and 300 townships. In March 1962, the Preparatory Committee issued ‘Instructions on Carrying Out Election of Grassroots Cadres in Whole Region (Draft)'. By July and August in 1965, the elections in townships and counties of the whole autonomous region were nearly finished. There were a total of 1,359 townships and towns involved in basic-level elections, while another 567 townships and towns held people's congresses acting on behalf of the People's Congress. The two together constituted 92 percent of the total townships and towns in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The people's political power at basic level was thus founded with absolute predominance of serfs and slaves.

There were in the region 54 counties that held a first session of the people's congress, through which county magistrates and vice county magistrates were elected and the people's commissions of counties were established. At the same time, 301 deputies were elected to the People's Congress of the Autonomous Region.

Based on this, and after the approval of the Central Government, the First Session of the People's Congress of the Tibet Autonomous Region was held in Lhasa on September 1-9, 1965. The Tibet Autonomous Region was officially founded and Ngapoi Ngawang Jigmei became its first Chairman.

http://china-corner.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3577&PN=1

[ 本帖最后由 fussfun 于 2008-6-10 23:56 编辑 ]

fussfun

Tibet:

The history before 1959

The Feudal Serf System in Tibet Before 1959
14:11:22 27-11-2007

A Society Based on a Regime that Combined the Political and Religious Powers, and Divided People into Three Strata and Nine Grades Tibet before 1959 had a society of feudal serfdom. Along with the general characteristics of feudal serfdom, there were many remnants of slavery. This social system was more cruel and reactionary than serfdom in Europe in the Middle Ages. The serf-owners' economic interests were protected by a political system that combined political and religious powers, ruling over the Tibetan people spiritually as well as politically. The local government of Tibet (in Tibetan, Kashag, and meaning "the institute that issues orders") was composed of powerful and influential monks and aristocrats. It upheld a series of social, political and legal institutions that rigidly stratified society. The Thirteen Laws and The Sixteen Laws divided the Tibetan people into three strata in nine grades according to their family background and social status.

The Feudal Lords’ Ownership of Means of Production
The monasteries, officialdom and the aristocrats owned all the arable land and pastures as well as overwhelming majority of livestock. These means of production were granted to them by the Dalai Lama. They had the right to govern and inherit the land.

The Feudal Lords’ Ownership of Their Serfs
Serfs and slaves accounted for 95 percent of the Tibetan population (peasants 60%, herdsmen 20%, and lower-class monks 15%). They were owned by serf-owners, just like the means of production. They had no political rights or personal freedom. They and their children were freely given away as gifts of donations, sold or exchanged for goods. Their marriages had to be approved in advance by their manorial lords. Serfs who married out of the manorial estate had to pay ransom money to their lords. Those who could not perform corvee or went out to seek a livelihood elsewhere should pay “corvee taxes” to show their dependence on the lords. If a serf lost his ability to work, his thralkang field, livestock and farm tools would be those who died without issue was confiscated.

The Serfs’ Economic Burden
Taxes and levies in Tibetan areas included land rent, stock rent, corvee and taxes.

The main form of land rent was forced labor. In addition, there was a mixed form of land rent, which was paid in kind, forced labor and cash.

The manorial lords generally kept 70 percent of their land under their own management and rented out the rest to their serfs as thralkang land. The serf tenants of the thralkang land also had to till the land managed by the manorial lord, using their own farm animals and tools. The entire harvest on land managed by the manorial lords belonged to them alone.

The serfs had to do corvee for manorial lords and local government and pay taxes in kind and cash. Corvee duties were allotted by the local government.

There were two kinds of stock rent: paid in animal products to the manorial lords according to the original number of livestock rented from them, or in products according to the actual number of livestock.

Other taxes included land tax, corvee tax, and countless others.

The Oppression of the Serfs by Manorial Lords
In Tibet under the serfdom, not only did the local regime at various levels, set up judicial institutions, but the big monasteries, manorial lords and tribal chieftains could also judge cases and had their own private prisons.

If the serfs stood up against the manorial lords, violated the law or could not pay rent or taxes in time, the lords would punish them according to the Thirteen Laws or other laws. They used such inhuman tortures as gouging out the eyes, cutting off the feet or hands, pushing the condemned person down from cliff, drowning, beheading, etc

The Serfs’ Miserable life
The wealth of the society was highly concentrated in Tibet before 1959. More than 80 percent was possessed by the manorial lords and less than 20 percent belonged to the serfs, who accounted for 95 percent of the population. The masses of serfs lived in extreme poverty.

Some statistics about serfdom in Tibet
Many statistics and data show that in Tibet before 1959, production stagnated, the population of the Tibetan nationality diminished, epidemic diseases prevailed, the people lived in misery and society as a whole developed very slowly. The facts cited above give a broad outlines.

fussfun

Tibetan feudal serfdom under theocracy and Western European serfdom in Middle Ages
www.chinaview.cn 2008-04-17 22:58:12                   Print

Special report: Tibet: Its Past and Present

    BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The Guangming Daily on April 15 published an article based on interviews with three Chinese scholars concerning the Tibetan system of feudal serfdom under theocracy and Western European serfdom in the Middle Ages.

    Following is the full text of the article:

    The three experts who gave interviews were:

    Zhang Yun, research professor of the Institute of History of the China Tibetology Research Center (CTRC).

    Tanzen Lhundup, research professor and deputy-director of the Institute of Social Economy of the CTRC.

    Meng Guanglin, professor and course convenor of world history of the Middle Ages at the School of History of Renmin University of China.

    The reporters who conducted the interviews:

    Yuan Xiang and Xing Yuhao with the Guangming Daily

   

    The Tibetan feudal serfdom under theocracy was a combined dictatorship of monks and aristocrats

    Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu said (at a press conference on April 8): "The Dalai Lama is the head representative of the serf system, which integrated religion with politics in old Tibet. Such a serf system, which harbors no democracy, freedom or human rights in any form, was the darkest slavery system in human history. Only serf owners could enjoy special privileges under such a system."

    Jiang also said: "The 'middle way' approach that the Dalai Lama is pursuing is aimed at restoring his own 'paradise in the past', which will throw millions of liberated serfs back into a dark cage. Such a 'middle way', who can accept it?"

    Reporter: Jiang Yu's words revealed that the nature of the Dalai Lama's "middle way" is to restore serfdom. In terms of history, what kind of system was the Tibetan serf system?

    Zhang Yun: Before the democratic reform in 1959, Tibet was a society of feudal serfdom under the integration of religion and politics and the dictatorship of monks and aristocrats, one even darker and more backward than medieval Europe.

    Tanzen Lhundup: British diplomat Sir Charles Bell, who was regarded as "an expert on Tibet", wrote in his book "Portrait of a Dalai Lama: The Life and Times of the Great Thirteenth": "When you come from Europe or America to Tibet, you are carried back several hundred years. You see a nation still in the feudal age. Great is the power of the nobles and squires over their tenants, who are either farmers tilling the more fertile plains and valleys, or shepherds, clad in their sheepskins, roaming over the mountains."

    Serf owners in Tibet were composed of local officials, aristocrats and high-level monks. They barely made up 5 percent of the total Tibetan population but possessed all the farmland, pastures, forests, mountains and rivers, and most of the livestock.

    According to official statistics dating from the early Qing Dynasty in the 17th century, the local government owned 30.9 percent of more than 3 million ke (1 hectare equals 15 ke) of farmland in Tibet. Aristocrats owned 29.6 percent and high-level monks, 39.5 percent.

    Before the democratic reform in 1959, Tibet had 197 families belonging to the hereditary aristocracy, including 25 large families. The seven or eight biggest such families each owned dozens of manors and tens of thousands of ke of land.

    Zhang Yun: The number of serfs surpassed 90 percent of the population in old Tibet. The serfs were further divided into three categories, namely "treba" (sharecroppers), who rented land from serf owners and worked as compulsory laborers and "dujung", which means small households working for lords. Besides these two types of serfs, there were "nangsen", who made up 5 percent of the total population. They were household servants for lords for generations without any production materials or personal freedom.

    Serf owners cruelly exploited serfs through compulsory labor and usury. Serfs toiled throughout the year but could hardly feed themselves, and usually had to make a living by borrowing at usurious rates. French Tibetologist Alexandra David-Neel wrote in her book "Old Tibet Faces A New China": "In old Tibet, all the peasants are serfs who are in debt for a life-long time. They also had to pay exorbitant taxes and levies and do heavy compulsory labor. "They totally lost their personal freedom and became poorer and poorer every year," she wrote.

    Meng Guanglin: As far as I know, serfdom was established in the 10th century in western Europe. As Karl Marx said, serfdom was one of the major slavery systems in human history and the essential representation of the feudal exploitation system.

    Serfs were a kind of agricultural laborer in the feudal society of western Europe. On the basis of feudal land ownership, the feudal lords owned land and other production materials and depended on personal dependent relations to control the serfs. They used "supra-economic coercion" to enslave them. In other words, they used political means, laws and customs, besides economic means, to control their personal freedom and exploit their surplus labor.

    Serfs were subservient to their owners in three respects: first, they did not have personal freedom and were their owners' property; second, the land they worked on belonged to their owners, so they were attached to their owners; third, they did not have equal legal rights the same as their owners and were judged by lords in court.

    Reporter: Serfs did not have any political rights and were exploited in the economic sense. They had to toil and do hard labor year after year. It seems that the system of western European serfdom in the Middle Ages was quite similar to the Tibetan feudal serfdom under theocracy.

    Meng Guanglin: Yes, it was of the same nature as serf systems, under which laborers were deprived of production materials and products, enjoyed no respect for their dignity or personal rights, and their creative spirit was suppressed.

    The system was a concentrated expression of personal dependence relations in traditional societies, which equals "direct governance and dependence relations."

    In this type of relationship, humanity, personality, human rights and humanism were all devastated, and the noble value of human individuals was sacrificed to the rights of lords and theocracy.

    Zhang Yun: In old Tibet, serf owners owned the serfs and treated them as private property. They could sell them, give them as gifts, use them to pay debts and trade them for other serfs. The Thirteen-Article Code and the Sixteen-Article Code, which were practiced in Tibet for hundreds of years, divided people into different categories and stipulated that they had different legal rights.

    Serf owners built public prisons and private prisons in accordance with both written and unwritten laws. The local government had courts and prisons. Large monasteries also had courts and prisons. Lairds could build private prisons in their manors.

    The punishments for serfs, which included gouging out eyes, cutting off ears, hands and feet, pulling out tendons, and throwing people into rivers, were cruel and savage. Handcuffs, fetters, sticks and clubs and cruel instruments of torture for gouging out eyes and pulling out tendons were found in Gandan Monastery, one of the biggest monasteries in Tibet.

    Therefore, the Tibetan feudal serf system under the integration of religion and politics was a dictatorship of monks and aristocrats. "Under such a system, serfs -- who made up a majority of the population in Tibet -- had no democracy, freedom or human rights in any form. Only serf owners could enjoy privileges."

    Meng Guanglin: Based on the above statements, the feudal serf system under the integration of religion and politics was an even darker and crueler system than European serfdom in the Middle Ages.

    Only by breaking loose from the shackles of this system, could the Tibetan people be freed and liberated and their great enterprise and creativity be brought into full play and the development of history be pushed forward. As Karl Marx pointed out: "Liberty in any form is all about bringing back to people the relationship between their world and themselves."

   

    Theocracy shackled people's spiritual life under feudal serfdom

    "To understand 20th century Tibetan history, therefore, it is necessary to understand that Tibet was, in many fundamental ways, a pre-modern theocratic polity, and this was not because of any unusual isolation." -- American Tibetologist and anthropologist Melvyn C. Goldstein, "A History of Modern Tibet".

    Reporter: Under the feudal serf system, no matter in old Tibet or in western Europe in the middle ages, theocracy controlled and shackled people's minds. In addition to expropriation of personal freedom, it also deprived commoners' freedom of thought. Isn't this another dark side of the system?

    Meng Guanglin: Yes, shackling people's thoughts and behavior was indeed a conspicuous aspect of the dark feudal serfdom. Although western Europe in the middle ages was not under a completely theocratic system, the integration of religion and politics was the guarantee of the feudal serf system.

    The problem does not lie in religion or belief, but in the church's monopoly and control of people's religion and thought. For example, in medieval Europe, commoners had no right to read or interpret the Bible. Instead, the right lay in the hands of the clergy. Everyone who betrayed the church's faith, thoughts and criteria would be labeled as a heretic and be expelled from the church, which meant neither his life or property could be safeguarded.

    Zhang Yun: In the old theocracy in Tibet, which featured a dictatorship by monks and nobles, this dark side was more fully demonstrated in a crueler way -- the religious authority ruled people's Earthly lives with administrative power, while terrorizing them in the name of meting out rewards and punishments for their afterlives with religious privileges.

    Due to historical and cultural reasons, many Tibetans believe in Buddhism and thus believe in an afterlife. The ruling class, however, just utilized this to serve their own interests. British expert Edmund Candler said in his book, "The Unveiling of Lhasa," that "the monks are the overlords, the peasantry their serfs." The poor and the small tenant farmers "work ungrudgingly for their spiritual masters, to whom they owe a blind devotion".

    In fact, we know that most of the common monks in old Tibet also failed to cast off their identities as serfs. The so-called "monk forces" were only comprised of an extremely small number of upper-class monks and nobles with a monastic background. As Sir Charles Bell stated in his Portrait of A Dalai Lama: the Life and Times of the Great Thirteenth:

    "Does it not matter to you whether you are reborn as a human being or as a pig? The Dalai Lama can help to secure that you will be reborn as a human being in a high position, or, better still, as a monk or nun in a country where Buddhism flourishes."

    On the contrary, if you refused to listen to them, you would not be reincarnated from generation to generation. The "monk forces" just used this kind of spiritual intimidation to safeguard their theocracy.

    Reporter: Education was vital for people to shed theocracy's control over their spiritual lives. The church had monopolized education in Europe before the 12th century. With the burgeoning of the commodity economy, however, secular schools began to emerge and western universities started to mushroom. Though these colleges were to some extent controlled by the church at that time, they still played a vital part in freeing people from the shackles of medieval theology. Did old Tibet, with feudal serfdom under theocracy, have similar educational institutions?

    Zhang Yun: No. In old Tibet, education and the right to education were monopolized by the ruling class featuring a dictatorship by monks and nobles. The only way to get access to education was to enter monasteries to "read scriptures". Although this made it possible for serf's children to become monks, their status was only shifted from a "serf" of lords to a "serf" of the monasteries.

    Only the offspring of the nobles could use it as a channel to the upper echelons. Under the theocratic system, monks accounted for a large proportion of the members in the Kasha (the former local government of Tibet). They held the absolute power to punish and execute innocent people at will, while members of the Kasha enjoyed practical economic interests. How could commoners have any hope under those circumstances?

    Under such a dark system, people had no right to express their thoughts and they even had no right of thought. They should listen to whatever the living Buddha said, otherwise, it would be considered a crime.

    It was such a dark system that led to a gradually closed and conservative old Tibet. It fully showed that the system not only fettered Tibetan people's thoughts, but also harmed traditional Tibetan history and culture, including the passing on of religion. It merits noticing that as early as the 15th century, Europe had bid farewell to the medieval shadow. The darker dictatorship in Tibet, however, lasted until the 1950s.

   

    Attempts to return Tibet to a feudal serfdom system advocating the integration of politics and religion go against the times

    "As Tibet attempted to adapt to the rapid changes of the 20th century, religion and the monasteries played a major role in thwarting progress."

    -- by American Tibetologist and anthropologist Melvyn C. Goldstein, "A History of Modern Tibet," 1913-1951, the Demise of the Lamaist State, P37)

    Reporter: Why did Europe and China's Tibet react differently to serfdom when it stood in the way of social development and progress?

    Meng Guanglin: The cruel serfdom and theocracy in the West led to the rebellion of farmers in the form of "heresy" at the time. For example, low-ranking missionaries in 14th century England including John Ball, one of the preachers of Lollardy (an anti-clerical movement), demanded: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"

    The Lollards demanded the abolishment of serfdom, forced labor, land tax, tallage (an agricultural production tax) and differences in property, to ensure equality among the classes of society. Prompted by Ball, the English Peasants' Revolt erupted in 1381 as peasants led by Walter Tyler entered London and severely weakened the reigning class. The Jacquerie revolt at about the same time in France, and the German peasants' revolt in the 16th century, all erupted for the same purpose.

    Zhang Yun: The old reigning authorities in Tibet integrated politics with religion and isolated the serfdom region (Tibet) from the outside world. In this region, people had no control over their lives, no free will. Social production was suppressed and halted, and the population declined. However, the brutal reign continued, even worsened.

    Tanzen Dhumdup: In the 1950s, the serfdom system in Tibet could no longer fit in with the times. Serfdom became the root cause of Tibet's poverty and falling behind the world. Under the serfdom system, the Tibetan people, both monks and secular people, could not live a better life, and Tibet could not make progress.

    The peaceful Liberation of Tibet in 1951 brought light to the abolition of the serfdom system. However, some leading personages of Tibet at the time still had doubts about democratic reform, and a good number of monks still needed more time to learn about reform. Moreover, some high-ranking secessionists close to imperialistic countries who were among the leading personages used religion and ethnicity as illusions to instigate ethnic conflicts, and it took time to disillusion the common Tibetan people.

    The central government decided to take a more cautious measure to push for reform. According to the "Agreement of the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" ("17-Article Agreement" for short) signed by the central government and the Tibet authorities, "the Central Government will not use coercion to implement such a reform, and it is to be carried out by the Tibetan local government on its own; when the people demand reform, the matter should be settled by way of consultation with the leading personnel of Tibet."

    In the meantime, the central government has provided help for Tibet in terms of goods and financial support. Government subsidies to Tibet topped 357 million yuan between 1952 and 1958.

    The central government waited eight years for the peaceful democratic reform of Tibet, as did millions of Tibetan peasants. But some people in the upper ruling strata of Tibet, in order to preserve feudal serfdom, staged an armed rebellion on March 10, 1959.

    After the rebellion failed, the backers of the Dalai Lama fled abroad, still hoping to restore serfdom in Tibet and advocating "Tibet Independence".

    Their actions since then have gone against the times and the well-being of the people of Tibet, and they will not succeed.

    Zhang Yun: Now, the Dalai Lama has been calling for "democracy" all the time. But as we can see, the "government in exile" of the Dalai Lama's group still advocates the integration of politics and religion. The Dalai Lama claimed that he would give up his power in exchange for the freedom of the Tibetan people.

    That means that the Dalai Lama now actually rules the "government in exile", which advocates the integration of politics and religion, while also stating that he would renounce his ruling position in return for the so-called "high level of autonomy in Greater Tibet".

    Who would believe that kind of self-contradictory statement? In other words, the Dalai Lama wanted nothing other than "Tibet Independence" and the restoration of the feudal serfdom system, which advocates the integration of politics and religion in Tibet.

    Reporter: The old Tibet is far from the Shangri-la of some westerners' minds. Modern Europe cannot return to what it used to be 500 years ago. And China's Tibet cannot return to the old Tibet, ruled by the backers of the Dalai Lama, where a feudal serfdom system advocating the integration of politics and religion still existed. Anyone who attempts to, or dreams of, returning Tibet to a dark reign is doomed to fail.

fussfun

Risky Geopolitical Game: Washington Plays ‘Tibet Roulette’ with China

by F. William Engdahl

Global Research, April 10, 2008

Email this article to a friend
Print this article

Washington has obviously decided on an ultra-high risk geopolitical game with Beijing’s by fanning the flames of violence in Tibet just at this sensitive time in their relations and on the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. It’s part of an escalating strategy of destabilization of China which has been initiated by the Bush Administration over the past months. It also includes the attempt to ignite an anti-China Saffron Revolution in the neighboring Myanmar region, bringing US-led NATO troops into Darfur where China’s oil companies are developing potentially huge oil reserves. It includes counter moves across mineral-rich Africa. And it includes strenuous efforts to turn India into a major new US forward base on the Asian sub-continent to be deployed against China, though evidence to date suggests the Indian government is being very cautious not to upset Chinese relations.

The current Tibet operation apparently got the green light in October last year when George Bush agreed to meet the Dalai Lama for the first time publicly in Washington. The President of the United States is not unaware of the high stakes of such an insult to Beijing. Bush deepened the affront to America’s largest trading partner, China, by agreeing to attend as the US Congress awarded the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal.

The immediate expressions of support for the crimson monks of Tibet from George Bush, Condi Rice, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany’s Angela Merkel most recently took on dimensions of the absurd. Ms Merkel announced she would boycott attending the August Beijing Summer Olympics as her protest at the Beijing treatment of the Tibetan monks. What her press secretary omitted is that she had not even planned to go in the first place.

She was followed by an announcement that Poland’s Prime Minister, the pro-Washington Donald Tusk, would also stay away, along with pro-US Czech President Vaclav Klaus. It is unclear whether they also hadn’t planned to go in the first place but it made for dramatic press headlines.

The recent wave of violent protests and documented attacks by Tibetan monks against Han Chinese residents began on March 10 when several hundred monks marched on Lhasa to demand release of other monks allegedly detained for celebrating the award of the US Congress’ Gold Medal last October. The monks were joined by other monks marching to protest Beijing rule on the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.

The geopolitical game

As the Chinese government itself was clear to point out, the sudden eruption of anti-Chinese violence in Tibet, a new phase in the movement led by the exiled Dalai Lama, was suspiciously timed to try to put the spotlight on Beijing’s human rights record on the eve of the coming Olympics. The Beijing Olympics are an event seen in China as a major acknowledgement of the arrival of a new prosperous China on the world stage.

The background actors in the Tibet “Crimson revolution” actions confirm that Washington has been working overtime in recent months to prepare another of its infamous Color Revolutions, these fanning public protests designed to inflict maximum embarrassment on Beijing. The actors on the ground in and outside Tibet are the usual suspects, tied to the US State Department, including the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the CIA’s Freedom House through its chairman, Bette Bao Lord and her role in the International Committee for Tibet, as well as the Trace Foundation financed by the wealth of George Soros through his daughter, Andrea Soros Colombel.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has accused the Dalai Lama of orchestrating the latest unrest to sabotage the Olympic Games “in order to achieve their unspeakable goal”, Tibetan independence.

Bush telephoned his Chinese counterpart, President Hu Jintao, to pressure for talks between Beijing and the exiled Dalai Lama. The White House said that Bush, “raised his concerns about the situation in Tibet and encouraged the Chinese government to engage in substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama’s representatives and to allow access for journalists and diplomats.”

President Hu reportedly told Bush the Dalai Lama must “stop his sabotage” of the Olympics before Beijing takes a decision on talks with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.

Dalai Lama’s odd friends

In the West the image of the Dalai Lama has been so much promoted that in many circles he is deemed almost a God. While the spiritual life of the Dalai Lama is not our focus, it is relevant to note briefly the circles he has chosen to travel in most of his life.

The Dalai Lama travels in what can only be called rather conservative political circles. What is generally forgotten today is that during the 1930’s the Nazis including Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler and other top Nazi Party leaders regarded Tibet as the holy site of the survivors of the lost Atlantis, and the origin of the “Nordic pure race.”

When he was 11 and already designated Dalai Lama, he was befriended by Heinrich Harrer, a Nazi Party member and officer of Heinrich Himmler’s feared SS. Far from the innocent image of him in the popular Hollywood film with Brad Pitt, Harrer was an elite SS member at the time he met the 11 year old Dalai Lama and became his tutor in “the world outside Tibet.” While only the Dalai Lama knows the contents of Harrer’s private lessons, the two remained friends until Harrer died a ripe 93 in 2006.1

That sole friendship, of course, does not define a person’s character, but it is interesting in the context of later friends. In April 1999, along with Margaret Thatcher, and former Beijing Ambassador, CIA Director and President, George H.W. Bush, the Dalai Lama demanded the British government release Augusto Pinochet, the former fascist dictator of Chile and a longtime CIA client who was visiting England. The Dalai Lama urged that Pinochet not be forced to go to Spain where he was wanted to stand trial for crimes against humanity. The Dalai Lama had close ties to Miguel Serrano2, head of Chile’s National Socialist Party, a proponent of something called esoteric Hitlerism. 3

Leaving aside at this point the claim of the Dalai Lama to divinity, what is indisputable is that he has been surrounded and financed in significant part, since his flight into Indian exile in 1959, by various US and Western intelligence services and their gaggle of NGOs. It is the agenda of the Washington friends of the Dalai Lama that is relevant here.

The NED at work again…

As author Michael Parenti notes in his work, Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth, “during the 1950s and 60s, the CIA actively backed the Tibetan cause with arms, military training, money, air support and all sorts of other help.” The US-based American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA front, publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in the group. The Dalai Lama’s second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA in 1951. It was later upgraded into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet, according to Parenti.4

According to declassified US intelligence documents released in the late 1990s, “for much of the 1960s, the CIA provided the Tibetan exile movement with $1.7 million a year for operations against China, including an annual subsidy of $180,000 for the Dalai Lama.” 5

With help of the CIA, the Dalai Lama fled to Dharamsala, India where he lives to the present. He continues to receive millions of dollars in backing today, not from the CIA but from a more innocuous-sounding CIA front organization, funded by the US Congress, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The NED has been instrumental in every US-backed Color Revolution destabilization from Serbia to Georgia to Ukraine to Myanmar. Its funds go to back opposition media and global public relations campaigns to popularize their pet opposition candidates.

As in the other recent Color Revolutions, the US Government is fanning the flames of destabilization against China by funding opposition protest organizations inside and outside Tibet through its arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

The NED was founded by the Reagan Administration in the early 1980’s, on the recommendation of Bill Casey, Reagan’s Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), following a series of high-publicity exposures of CIA assassinations and destabilizations of unfriendly regimes. The NED was designed to pose as an independent NGO, one step removed from the CIA and Government agencies so as to be less conspicuous, presumably. The first acting President of the NED, Allen Weinstein, commented to the Washington Post that, “A lot of what we [the NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” 6

American intelligence historian, William Blum states, “The NED played an important role in the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s, funding key components of Oliver North's shadowy "Project Democracy." This network privatized US foreign policy, waged war, ran arms and drugs, and engaged in other equally charming activities. In 1987, a White House spokesman stated that those at NED "run Project Democracy." 7

The most prominent pro-Dalai Lama Tibet independence organization today is the International Campaign for Tibet, founded in Washington in 1988. Since at least 1994 the ICT has been receiving funds from the NED. The ICT awarded their annual Light of Truth award in 2005 to Carl Gershman, founder of the NED. Other ICT award winners have included the German Friedrich Naumann Foundation and Czech leader, Vaclav Havel. The ICT Board of Directors is peopled with former US State Department officials including Gare Smith and Julia Taft. 8

Another especially active anti-Beijing organization is the US-based Students for a Free Tibet, founded in 1994 in New York City as a project of US Tibet Committee and the NED-financed International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). The SFT is most known for unfurling a 450 foot banner atop the Great Wall in China; calling for a free Tibet, and accusing Beijing of wholly unsubstantiated claims of genocide against Tibet. Apparently it makes good drama to rally naïve students.

The SFT was among five organizations which this past January that proclaimed start of a "Tibetan people's uprising" on Jan 4 this year and co-founded a temporary office in charge of coordination and financing.

Harry Wu is another prominent Dalai Lama supporter against Beijing. He became notorious for claiming falsely in a 1996 Playboy interview that he had “videotaped a prisoner whose kidneys were surgically removed while he was alive, and then the prisoner was taken out and shot. The tape was broadcast by BBC." The BBC film showed nothing of the sort, but the damage was done. How many people check old BBC archives? Wu, a retired Berkeley professor who left China after imprisonment as a dissident, is head of the Laogai Research Foundation, a tax-exempt organization whose main funding is from the NED.9

Among related projects, the US Government-financed NED also supports the Tibet Times newspaper, run out of the Dalai Lama’s exile base at Dharamsala, India. The NED also funds the Tibet Multimedia Center for “information dissemination that addresses the struggle for human rights and democracy in Tibet,” also based in Dharamsala. And NED finances the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

In short, US State Department and US intelligence community finger prints are all over the upsurge around the Free Tibet movement and the anti-Han Chinese attacks of March. The question to be asked is why, and especially why now?

Tibet’s raw minerals treasure

Tibet is of strategic import to China not only for its geographical location astride the border with India, Washington’s newest anti-China ally in Asia. Tibet is also a treasure of minerals and also oil. Tibet contains some of the world's largest uranium and borax deposits, one half of the world's lithium, the largest copper deposits in Asia, enormous iron deposits, and over 80,000 gold mines. Tibet's forests are the largest timber reserve at China's disposal; as of 1980, an estimated $54 billion worth of trees had been felled and taken by China. Tibet also contains some of the largest oil reserves in the region.10

On the Tibet Autonomous Region’s border along the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is also a vast oil and mineral region in the Qaidam Basin, known as a "treasure basin." The Basin has 57 different types of mineral resources with proven reserves including petroleum, natural gas, coal, crude salt, potassium, magnesium, lead, zinc and gold. These mineral resources have a potential economic value of 15 trillion yuan or US$1.8 trillion. Proven reserves of potassium, lithium and crude salt in the basin are the biggest in China.

And situated as it is, on the “roof of the world,” Tibet is perhaps the world’s most valuable water source. Tibet is the source of seven of Asia's greatest rivers which provide water for 2 billion people.” He who controls Tibet’s water has a mighty powerful geopolitical lever over all Asia.

But the prime interest of Tibet for Washington today is its potential to act as a lever to destabilize and blackmail the Beijing Government.

Washington’s ‘nonviolence as a form of warfare’

The events in Tibet since March 10 have been played in Western media with little regard to accuracy or independent cross-checking. Most of the pictures blown up in European and US newspapers and TV have not even been of Chinese military oppression of Tibetan lamas or monks. They have been shown to be in most cases either Reuters or AFP pictures of Han Chinese being beaten by Tibetan monks in paramilitary organizations. In some instances German TV stations ran video pictures of beatings that were not even from Tibet but rather by Nepalese police in Kathmandu. 11

The western media complicity simply further underlies that the actions around Tibet are part of a well-orchestrated destabilization effort on the part of Washington. What few people realize is that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was also instrumental, along with Gene Sharp’s misnamed Albert Einstein Institution through Colonel Robert Helvey, in encouraging the student protests at Tiananmen Square in June 1989. The Albert Einstein Institution, as it describes itself, specializes in "nonviolence as a form of warfare." 12

Colonel Helvey was formerly with the Defense Intelligence Agency stationed in Myanmar. Helvey trained in Hong Kong the student leaders from Beijing in mass demonstration techniques which they were to use in the Tiananmen Square incident of June 1989. He is now believed acting as an adviser to the Falun Gong in similar civil disobedience techniques. Helvey nominally retired from the army in 1991, but had been working with the Albert Einstein Institution and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation long before then. In its annual report for 2004 Helvey’s Albert Einstein Institution admitted to advising people in Tibet. 13

With the emergence of the Internet and mobile telephone use, the US Pentagon has refined an entirely new form of regime change and political destabilization. As one researcher of the phenomenon behind the wave of color revolutions, Jonathan Mowat, describes it,

“…What we are seeing is civilian application of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "Revolution in Military Affairs" doctrine, which depends on highly mobile small group deployments "enabled" by "real time" intelligence and communications. Squads of soldiers taking over city blocks with the aid of "intelligence helmet" video screens that give them an instantaneous overview of their environment, constitute the military side. Bands of youth converging on targeted intersections in constant dialogue on cell phones constitute the doctrine's civilian application.

“This parallel should not be surprising since the US military and National Security Agency subsidized the development of the Internet, cellular phones, and software platforms. From their inception, these technologies were studied and experimented with in order to find the optimal use in a new kind of warfare. The "revolution" in warfare that such new instruments permit has been pushed to the extreme by several specialists in psychological warfare. Although these military utopians have been working in high places, (for example the RAND Corporation), for a very long time, to a large extent they only took over some of the most important command structures of the US military apparatus with the victory of the neoconservatives in the Pentagon of Donald Rumsfeld.14

Goal to control China

Washington policy has used and refined these techniques of “revolutionary nonviolence,” and NED operations embodied a series of ‘democratic’ or soft coup projects as part of a larger strategy which would seek to cut China off from access to its vital external oil and gas reserves.

The 1970’s quote attributed to then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a proponent of British geopolitics in an American context comes to mind: “If you control the oil you control entire nations…”

The destabilization attempt by Washington using Tibet, no doubt with quiet “help” from its friends in British and other US-friendly intelligence services, is part of a clear pattern.

It includes Washington’s “Saffron revolution” attempts to destabilize Myanmar. It includes the ongoing effort to get NATO troops into Darfur to block China’s access to strategically vital oil resources there and elsewhere in Africa. It includes attempts to foment problems in Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan and to disrupt China’s vital new energy pipeline projects to Kazakhstan. The earlier Asian Great Silk Road trade routes went through Tashkent in Uzbekistan and Almaty in Kazakhstan for geographically obvious reasons, in a region surrounded by major mountain ranges. Geopolitical control of Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan, Kazakhstan would enable control of any potential pipeline routes between China and Central Asia just as the encirclement of Russia controls pipeline and other ties between it and western Europe, China, India and the Middle East, where China depends on uninterrupted oil flows from Iran, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries.

Behind the strategy to encircle China

In this context, a revealing New York Council on Foreign Relations analysis in their Foreign Affairs magazine from Zbigniew Brzezinski from September/October 1997 is worth quoting. Brzezinski, a protégé of David Rockefeller and a follower of the founder of British geopolitics, Sir Halford Mackinder, is today the foreign policy adviser to Presidential candidate, Barack Obama. In 1997 he revealingly wrote:

‘Eurasia is home to most of the world's politically assertive and dynamic states. All the historical pretenders to global power originated in Eurasia. The world's most populous aspirants to regional hegemony, China and India, are in Eurasia, as are all the potential political or economic challengers to American primacy. After the United States, the next six largest economies and military spenders are there, as are all but one of the world's overt nuclear powers, and all but one of the covert ones. Eurasia accounts for 75 percent of the world's population; 60 percent of its GNP, and 75 percent of its energy resources. Collectively, Eurasia's potential power overshadows even America's.

‘Eurasia is the world's axial super-continent. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world's three most economically productive regions, Western Europe and East Asia. A glance at the map also suggests that a country dominant in Eurasia would almost automatically control the Middle East and Africa. With Eurasia now serving as the decisive geopolitical chessboard, it no longer suffices to fashion one policy for Europe and another for Asia. What happens with the distribution of power on the Eurasian landmass will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy….’15 (emphasis mine-w.e.).

This statement, written well before the US-led bombing of former Yugoslavia and the US military occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, or its support of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline, puts Washington pronouncements about ‘ridding the world of tyranny’ and about spreading democracy, into a somewhat different context from the one usually mentioned by George W. Bush of others.

It’s about global hegemony, not democracy. It should be no surprise when powers such as China are not convinced that giving Washington such overwhelming power is in China’s national interest, any more than Russia thinks that it would be a step towards peace to let NATO gobble up Ukraine and Georgia and put US missiles on Russia’s doorstep “to defend against threat of Iranian nuclear attack on the United States.”

The US-led destabilization in Tibet is part of a strategic shift of great significance. It comes at a time when the US economy and the US dollar, still the world’s reserve currency, are in the worst crisis since the 1930’s. It is significant that the US Administration sends Wall Street banker, former Goldman Sachs chairman, Henry Paulson to Beijing in the midst of its efforts to embarrass Beijing in Tibet. Washington is literally playing with fire. China long ago surpassed Japan as the world’s largest holder of foreign currency reserves, now in the range of $1.5 trillions, most of which are invested in US Treasury debt instruments. Paulson knows well that were Beijing to decide it could bring the dollar to its knees by selling only a small portion of its US debt on the market.

Endnotes:

1 Ex-Nazi, Dalai's tutor Harrer dies at 93, The Times of India, 9 Jan 2006, in
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1363946,prtpage-1.cms.

2 Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity, New York University Press, 2001, p. 177.

3 Goldner, Colin, Mönchischer Terror auf dem Dach der Welt Teil 1: Die Begeisterung für den Dalai Lama und den tibetischen Buddhismus, March 26, 2008, excerpted from the book Dalai Lama: Fall eines Gottkönigs, Alibri Verlag,, new edition to appear April 2008, reproduced in
http://www.jungewelt.de/2008/03-27/006.php.

4 Parenti, Michael, Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth, June 2007, in www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html.

5 Mann, Jim, CIA funded covert Tibet exile campaign in 1960s, The Age (Australia), Sept. 16, 1998.

6 Ignatius, D., Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups, The Washington Post, 22 September 1991.

7 Blum, William, The NED and ‘Project Democracy,’ January 2000, in www.friendsoftibet.org/databank/usdefence/usd5.html

8 Barker, Michael, ’Democratic Imperialism’: Tibet, China and the National Endowment for Democracy, Global Research, August 13, 2007, www.globalresearch.ca.

9 McGehee, Ralph, Ralph McGehee’ s Archive on JFK Place, CIA Operations in China Part III, May 2, 1996, in www.acorn.net/jfkplace/03/RM/RM.china-for.

10 US Tibet Committee, Fifteen things you should know about Tibet and China, in
http://ustibetcommittee.org/facts/facts.html.

11 Goldner, Colin, Mönchischer Terror auf dem Dach der Welt Teil 2: Krawalle im Vorfeld der Olympischen Spiele, op cit.

12 Mowat, Jonathan, The new Gladio in action?, Online Journal, Mar 19, 2005, in
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/printer_308.shtml.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, A Geostrategy for Eurasia, Foreign Affairs, 76:5, September/October 1997.

fussfun

　In the Kalachakra Tantra is prophesized the establishment of a Buddhocratic Empire, a clash of civilizations will arise as the military forces of Buddhism wage war against the armies of non-Buddhist religions. Murderous super-weapons possessed by the Buddhist Shambhala Army are described at length and in enthusiastic detail in the Kalachakra Tantra Text (Shri Kalachakra I. 128 – 142) and employed against "enemies of the Dharma (Buddha’s teachings).”
　　
　　- An Interview with Victor and Victoria Trimondi (Germany)
　　
　　_____________________________________________________________
　　The secret text of the Kalachakra explicitly names the "leaders" of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as the opponents of Buddhism: "Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mani, Muhammad and the Mahdi" describing them as "the family of the demonic snakes" (Shri Kalachakra I. 154). The final, Armageddon-like battle (Shambhala war) ends in the total victory of the Buddhists. The official Kalachakra-Interpreter Alexander Berzin openly compares the principles of the Islamic “Jihad” with that of the Shambhala war. As in the Islamic martyr-ideology Shambhala-Warriors, who will be killed in the last battle have earned passage into the [Buddhist] paradise.
　　
　　- An Interview with Victor and Victoria Trimondi (Germany)