Given this weekend’s flap over President Obama meeting with a certain monk, I thought I’d dig up a post from last year on China’s relationship with the D.L. Enjoy.
——————–
A recent study on human evolution and the settlement of the Τibetan plateau has raised new questions about settlement patterns on the roof of the world.
Life at high altitudes forced ancient Τibetans to undergo the fastest evolution ever seen in humans, according to a new study.
The most rapid genetic change showed up in the EPAS1 gene, which helps regulate the body’s response to a low-oxygen environment. One version, called an allele, of the EPAS1 gene changed in frequency from showing up in 9 percent of the Han Chinese to 87 percent of Τibetans.
Such genetic changes suggest Τibetan ancestors split off from the Han Chinese population about 2,750 years ago, researchers say. But only those most evolutionarily suited for life at high altitudes survived when they moved to the Τibetan Plateau.
This has caused a bit of discomfort among those who advocate for Τibetan independence, not to mention Chinese politicians a little miffed to learn that Han might not be biologically suited to settling the high-altitude plateau but here’s the thing…
The study, while certainly interesting from a human evolutionary science perspective, is meaningless in terms of the continuing dispute over the political status of Τibet. There are many groups who are genetically similar but are considered different “ethnicities” or “nations.” (An argument, if there ever needed to be another one, that ethnicity is hardly a stable signifier.)
Following this line of reasoning, the Economist’s Banyan blog briefly sketches China’s hysterical historical reasoning when it comes to the sensitive issue of national boundaries and territorial integrity:
When it comes to the contentious issue of China’s political and territorial claims on Τibet, the basis of its current repression rests not on a sense of common heritage or shared ancestors but on a sense of legitimacy based on territories historically controlled by the Qing dynasty. They were Manchus who ruled China from the mid-17th to early 20th centuries and expanded the country’s borders. The irony is that while the communists cling to the frontiers of the Qing empire, their official history condemns the Qing as feudal, foreign, imperialist and usurping.
Holding to the Qing frontiers calls for some curious historical nomenclature. Because ethnic Mongolians live within China’s borders today, Genghis Khan is given star billing as a “national minority”—yet he never set foot in what was then China, and his offspring conquered the place. In north-east China lie the archaeological remains of the Koguryo kingdom of 37BC-668AD, the fount of Korean culture and myth. Chinese historians claim them as Chinese. Scholars and others thus project current political imperatives on to the past, and the notion of “minorities” affirms one big, longstanding Chinese family.
As you can see from the number of inserted links, these are topics we’ve covered in this space before, though I take issue with “Chinese historians claim…” as being a little misleading. Obviously there are a lot of historians from China, and not all take their marching orders from the Politburo. Nevertheless, the Chinese government — and its academic surrogates — do frequently put forward historically suspect, if not downright weird, narratives which have little to do with historical research and everything to do with an ongoing project of CCP state building.
Where it get messy of course, is when historical precedent and political exigency collides. The DL is an old man and this incarnation will not be with us forever. While the DL was (and is) one religious leader among many for Tibetans, the elevation of the DL to temporal power during the Qing and the current DL’s visibility as a charismatic soft-power superstar means the selection process for the next incarnation is sure to be hotly contested. As Banyan notes:
In Τibet the narrative is enforced with a few blandishments and many shows of state power. Like the Qing dynasty, the communists invaded Τibet on a pretext. Like them, they control the Buddhist religion by claiming a right to select lamas.
Qing precedent, over two centuries old, matters. Emperor Qianlong sent a golden urn to Lhasa, in which the names of candidates proposed for reincarnation would be placed. Its later use was fitful. But in the mid-1990s the urn was brought into service again. With it the communists chose their own Ρanchen Lama, the Yellow Hat sect’s second-most-revered reincarnation. The [DL]’s earlier choice simply vanished. The boy, his family and the abbot who oversaw his selection have not been seen since. This month China’s atheist leaders, led by President Hu Jintao, used the occasion of the [DL]‘s 75th birthday to say bluntly that only they, with the golden urn, would approve the ageing man’s reincarnation.
There’s no question that the Qing Emperors became involved — some more directly than others — in the selection process for the DL, but that doesn’t mean that the emperors actually chose the DL. Rather the ritual was a form of investiture whereby the Manchu court recognized the incarnation as named by Tibetan religious authorities. (A process that was far from pure or smooth. Let’s just say that the shenanigans of Lama picking probably deserve their own post…)
In his influential, and not particularly partisan, history of modern Τibet, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, Melvyn Goldstein describes the connection between the DL and the Qing rulers as a priest-patron relationship which while serving an important political function also involved a spiritual bond that transcended politics. Even the most cynical PRC Τibetologist would have a hard time describing the current government’s relationship with the Gelugpa Sect (of which the DL is the head) in such terms.
As I wrote in the aftermath of the March 14th riots in Lhasa:
The Qing rulers, great patrons of Lamamism, consolidated their rule by maintaining cultural and religious ties with Τibet beyond mere military occupation. They also – generally but not always – ruled with a light touch, allowing relative autonomy in religious and cultural matters, which suited the situation quite well. The Qing Dynasty was, after all, a large, multi-ethnic empire and maintaining order and peace in outlying territories was the utmost concern.
The problem is that the PRC is a nation-state, and the demands a nation-state places on its people are different than those of an empire. It is not enough that Τibetans merely pay taxes and not revolt, they must also identify with the nation-state first and foremost, with other cultural and religious aspects secondary to the demands of modern state building. Empires want to be respected, nation-states want to be loved. That’s a sticky wicket the Qing never had to face.
It’s not surprising that when we look at the world’s hot spots we see the legacies of colonialism and decolonization. As empires give way to new forms of political organization, there is resistance and tension. Modern states attempt to preserve the territories bequeathed to them from empires of old, while former subject peoples seek greater autonomy and even independence.
Unfortunately, history is a poor arbiter of who gets what, and too often (as in the case of Τibet) history becomes warped and carved, tugged and torn, by states and separatists, to suit the political demands of a contemporary crisis.
There will be more written in the coming months and years on this controversial subject. But I will leave you with one last thought: The CCP has no idea how much they will miss this incarnation of the DL when he’s gone. The 14th DL is their Arafat.
Think about it. The Israeli government HATED Arafat, he was the bête noire for three generations of Israelis, but….they could work with him. It was only after Arafat died that Israel realized just what it meant to deal with the Devil you know. The CCP will soon learn a similar lesson. Even if they rig the selection process, they can’t magically create legitimacy for their choice, and it will be nearly two decades before the 15th DL is ready for prime time anyway. In the interim, forces held in check by the 14th DL’s relative moderation will bubble to the surface bringing to the fore leaders even less willing to work with Beijing. And who knows, there may be equally charismatic figures waiting in the wings.
The CCP is gambling that with the 14th DL out of the way, the Τibetan independence movement loses its most important unifying figure. But that ignores the diversity of the Τibetan plateau. In many cases the DL is a DIVISIVE figure. His proscription of a protector deity important to the Kham Region has led to a schism within the Gelugpa sect, one that continues to divide families, villages, and monasteries. In fact, the most powerful recent force in unifying the fractious Tibetans has been the nearly universal disgust at CCP policies in Τibet, especially in the wake of the 2008 riots. One reason the Karmapa Lama can be seen as a potential “successor” even though he represents the Kagyu and not the Gelugpa sect, is that the CCP may ironically be succeeding where the DL has failed in reducing sectarian tensions on the Plateau…simply by giving the people there a common foil.
History. Biology. Philology. Academia is often pressed into the service of politics, but as I noted two years ago, the increasingly shrill rhetoric of national unity has long since taken on a “Queen Gertrude watching the play” quality. Whatever happens in the future, the question of Τibet will not solved by resorting to historical arguments or biological determinism.
Thanks for referring to the the Dorje Shugden controversy, which has created what can only be referred to as a schism within the Gelug tradition. Shortly after the Yushu earthquake this controversy cropped up again. The rumors in Yushu were that followers of Dorje Shugden had sold the mineral rights to a Chinese mining company to open a mine in a mountain, which happens to be the local mountain deity, eventually leading to the earthquake. I am not sure how this has played out over the last few months, though it is a clear example that all is not peaches and cream within the Tibetan community. This underbelly adds a realistic dimension to Tibetans which is so often overlooked or, as in most cases, not even known. There are very legitimate reasons for supporting substantive Tibetan autonomy, but saintliness is not one of them. The Tibetans are, after all, just as human as everyone else, and many of them end up wobbling down the road to the hell realm. Reincarnation can be real dog.
Bravo to this piece!
I was with you until the “devil you know” argument. “they could work with him”? Arafat yes, but since did the CCP even acknowledge the existence of the DL in international politics other than to issue complaints when national leaders meet him.
As for Tibet and China’s relationship? you probably have it right. China’s foreign policy for the past 2000 years goes through cycles of introversion during times of weakness and assertiveness during times of wealth and power. When China was strong and unified, it demanded nominal fealty from its neighbours in return for trade and gifts and when China was fragmented, these fealties were allowed to lapse.
Tibet, I suspect was one of those cases.
additionally I think the issue will only die with time. A deliberate policy of internal immigration and economic development will basically nullify the issue. Tibet will be Tibetan disneyland and another Han chinese tourist spot. Wrong? absolutely. Effective? yep.
A valuable and well-stated post. Much appreciated.
I’ll echo the bravo to this! Excellent.
I guess it’s my inner pendant talking, but Banyan’s “yet he never set foot in what was then China” statement about Genghis Khan seems… problematic to me. He certainly stepped foot in the Jin Empire, which included large areas then and now part of China. I guess it didn’t count because the emperors were Jurchen? Seems a bit dicey to me.
I agree with Bourgeois Nerd. We need to define historical China properly before we use the concept. What was China during the time of Genghis Khan? Was it just the Southern Song dynasty? Or the sum of Southern Song and Jin Dynasty? Or another combination. A better way is to reserve the term China to refer to the sum of all the territories of modern China. So China at that time was Southern Song plus Jin plus Tibet plus Western Xia plus Mongolia (at least the part in current Inner Mongolia), etc. If you want to talk about an event happening in a particular region, use that region’s proper name, like Kublai Kahn conquered Southern Song in 1279.
Define before we proceed.
I would agree that the term “China” is itself far from a stable signifier, and its instability is the cause of many disputes today. The CCP tends to assume historical China as the contemporary borders of the PRC understood backwards through time. Thus, “Tibet has always been a part of China” and other similar rhetoric.
This is one reason why in the post I linked to a translation I did of an article by Ge Jianxiong. Professor Ge was (still is?) the director of the Institute of China’s Historical Geography.
Beyond territory, of course, are also issues of empire and identity. To take two notable examples, the Mongols and the Manchus are included in “Chinese” history as the Yuan and Qing dynasties respectively, but they also saw themselves as something much bigger than “China.” The extent to which the current government of China can claim to be the heirs to this imperial tradition will hopefully continue to be debated despite the best efforts of the CCP to squelch such a problematic questioning of precious historical tropes.
Just an addendum,
Which is to say:
is a rather overly deterministic way of looking at “China.” The Southern Song was the Southern Song. Western Xia was the Western Xia. Jin was the Jin. And while all of it can be included in “Chinese history” broadly defined, it is ahistorical at best to assume a 1-1 correlation between the modern PRC as presently constituted and these earlier entities.
The mongols and the Manchus had no idea what China was. They only knew Southern Song and Ming respectively.
Whether PRC is an heir to Yuan and Qing isn’t that controversy. Yuan was a long time a go and rather irrelevant. But Qing exited until the modern time. When the last Qing emperor abdicated and Yuan Shikai became the president of Republic of China, all Western powers accepted ROC as the legitimate government of China, including Tibet, Xinjiang, Manchuria, Mongolia, etc. So according to international law, ROC is an heir to Qing. That’s it.
The transition from ROC to PRC was completed in 1971 when PRC joined the United Nations. I don’t see anything worth debating.
As to PRC’s method of using current China’s territory as a reference frame and trace backward in time to define historical China, well this is common practice used by all countries in the world. When we talk about American history, we are not limited to the original 13 states of US. We include South Dakota, Texas, California, etc. Moreover the history of America does not start with the arrival of the puritans. The native American history is also an integral part.
So why historic China has to be limited to the land of Southern Song dynasty or the Ming dynasty? I fail to understand. Consider General Wu Sangui. The guy was pissed and opened the gate of Shanhai Pass because someone took his girlfriend. Should we expand China suddenly to include Manchuria on the day that the general unlocked the gate?
StP,
You’re falling into the trap of reading contemporary situations back into the past and confusing “Chinese history,” with “China.” California is part of American history for as far back as you want to go, but it didn’t become part of the United States until 1849.
The transition from empire to nation state is one fraught with complications and is also a process that defies easy teleologies such as the one you’ve outlined here.
The CCP — and it seems you as well — wishes these things were simple, but they’re not.
I think the larger point is that you and I are coming at this problem not just from different perspectives but from wholly different cognitive frameworks.
You are speaking the truth of the faithful, it is a matter of belief for you. You want people to believe in a particular point of view. I don’t. I don’t care if Tibet is independent or not. Some people may “blog for China,” I’m blogging about history. I have no allegiance to any political view, I’m far more interested in the way certain narratives are created, deployed, reproduced, and perpetuated.
You want me to believe that “Tibet is a part of China and history says so.” That’s fine. I’m not refuting your claim, I’m only saying it’s more complicated than that simple supposition would seem.
Fair enough to slam StP for ‘speaking of the faithful’ and so on…but do you really have no allegiance to any political view, just sitting around evaluating ‘how narratives are created, deployed, reproduced and perpetuated’ from a safe and comfortable distance?
Perhaps I am reading too much into your comment, but this sounds pretty smugly objective. As an historian, is it really possible to set aside all allegiances to political views, assuming one has any, and blandly, objectively assess these narratives without getting your own hands dirty?
JH,
I think you’re reading too much into it. Why I mean to say is: I don’t have a dog in this fight. Some people have a particular view on the Tibet issue, be it Pro-China or whatever, and they care about people who disagree with them. I don’t. As you can see from the post, I’m most upset when the different sides (Pro-China and Pro-Tibet) misuse history to serve their contemporary political projects.
As for the larger issue, I don’t think it’s possible to be completely objective, our perspectives are who we are, the most historians can do is be aware of the potential for bias and to try and calibrate as much as possible.
Thanks for stopping by.