THE FUTURE OF TIBET: A CHINESE DILEMMA

By Michael C. Davis (mcdavis@law.harvard.edu) (Human Rights Review, 2001)

 

Recent commentary and books on Tibet have emphasized the serious dilemma facing the Dalai Lama.[1] Well-meaning accounts have noted the reality that China’s policies in Tibet have not only denied Tibetan self-rule but may eventually result in the displacement of the Tibetan people, as China provides economic incentives for increasing numbers of Han Chinese to move to Tibet. Exiled Tibetans are sometimes advised that, given China’s unbending position, they should return as soon as possible, even if substantially on China’s terms, or they will become a minority in their own homeland. According to this view, while principled resistance may be satisfying it is viewed as futile. Under Chinese terms, described as the best they are likely to get, local control would remain with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), though Tibetans loyal to the Chinese government would be allowed a role in governance. The only suggested gain for this surrender to the inevitable is that China may be persuaded to cut off and reverse the flow of Chinese migrants.

 

While analyst often pose these issues as a dilemma for the Dalai Lama they fail to appreciate the dilemmas both he and the present circumstances have created for China. The Dalai Lama and his government-in-exile have been extremely effective in highlighting the imperialist and oppressive quality of China’s occupation of Tibet. This has brought forth protest and embarrassment in nearly every diplomatic outing of Chinese leaders. The situation in Tibet has deeply troubled China’s international partners and foreign leaders have been pressed to urge Beijing to come up with a more satisfactory solution. The Tibet issue often overshadows others that the Chinese leaders would like to address. It provides justification for advocates of hard-line policies toward China. As a consequence, diplomacy for China is made more difficult. While China has tended to look at its Tibetan policy through rose colored glasses made of reconstructed history,[2] it should be able to understand the international sympathy for Tibet. China, a country that has sometimes led the Third World’s struggle against imperialism, finds itself accused of committing the same colonial excesses that previously visited its own shores. This leaves China’s assertions of an improving human rights record in shambles. If China ever does fully accede to the international human rights covenants it has already signed  it will surely be confronted with its policies in Tibet in response to the human rights reports it will be required to file.  But far short of this still remote possibility, the Tibet situation poses an immediate dilemma for China as to whether to soften its Tibet policy or to continue to incur global wrath.

 

While Tibet presents a dilemma for the Chinese government, it is doubtful whether the Dalai Lama really faces a dilemma over submission versus violence. Although he faces issues as to what baseline for autonomy might be acceptable and strategic questions as to how to get there and beyond, neither submission nor extreme violence are realistic options. The structure of autonomy is discussed in the following sections of this essay. Strategically, Tibetans have been quite effective in creating a dilemma for China. To heighten international pressure on Beijing they may want to better appeal to China’s own commitments made to Tibet. Tibetans can highlight the fact that it is the Beijing government, which uses the word  “autonomy” in describing its rule of Tibet and which has publicly stated that it will discuss anything except independence.

 

No one can doubt the resolve of the current Chinese leaders to hold on to power and not relinquish any territory. But even for these leaders the use of sheer coercive power to subjugate the Tibetan people is not without difficulty. Forcing Tibetans to accept arduous terms will likely reverberate back to China’s long-term disadvantage.  As recent internal territorial conflicts in such places as Chechnya, Kosovo and East Timor amply demonstrate, the dominant parties in seemingly one-sided conflicts often face more profound issues than are initially evident. A more far-sighted view is required. Pressing the Dalai Lama to accept terms where the CCP continues to control every aspect of Tibetan public life, as a price of cutting off the flow of outsiders, will produce a feeling of hopelessness in the Tibetan community. In the long term, this will breed resentment. In the face of continued subjugation, Tibetans are more likely, either now or in the future, to choose intensified resistance and ultimately rebellion.

 

No matter what argument China makes to paper over the situation in Tibet, it is apparent to the world that China has essentially subjugated an ethnically and territorially distinct community. It does no good to note, as China does in its 1999 White Paper on National Minority Policy and Practice, that China has generously set up numerous autonomous regions for fifty-five recognized “national minorities.” If there is no meaningful self-rule at the bottom, then this system of top-down rule through local party secretaries becomes merely an efficient system of control and a denial of autonomy. To highlight the special privileges of Tibetans and claim that they are better off under Chinese rule also fails. Such was one of the primary claims of European colonialism, to spread an allegedly superior civilization. It likewise does no good to draw analogy to the overseas territorial possessions of other countries. Colonialism is no longer acceptable wherever it takes place. There has been no plebiscite on self-rule in Tibet. China has not been politically able to offer true autonomy and the result of its Tibet policy has been a giant black spot in China’s international reputation.

 

While the immediate concern is to work out an acceptable baseline for Tibetan autonomy, in doing so it is important to bear in mind that China’s own political reform process is likely to shape and be shaped by any sensible long-term solution to the Tibetan problem. China’s own reform process has increasingly become a hostage to its harsh policies in respect of its peripheral communities. For China, the bogeyman in recent years has been the Soviet Union and it ignominious disintegration. China is, nevertheless, pursuing exactly the same kind of harsh policies towards its peripheral communities that the Soviets pursued for seven decades. This is a breeding ground for the same types of resentments that emerged. China’s harsh policies toward its peripheral communities have not only held China’s own reform processes hostage but they have shaped China’s global role and have thus become a global concern. Reasonable opinion holds that China’s reluctance, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, to support humanitarian intervention in places where serious humanitarian disasters have occurred is substantially shaped by the fear that such intervention will someday be directed at its own peripheral communities, especially Taiwan and Tibet.  One can only hope that the circumstances of these communities need not become as dire before appropriate policies alleviate the situation.

 

China is called upon to step back and consider both a sensible short-term policy that will treat the Tibetan people with the dignity and respect they disserve and a long-term policy that will address the centrifugal tensions likely to emerge in China, as its reform process unfolds. Both the structure of a meaningful autonomy and a long-term federal solution are addressed below. The next section discusses the prospects for any autonomy model under China’s existing political system. This raises difficult questions that the Tibetan people will have to consider with great care.  The federalism proposal, discussed in the succeeding section, provides a more visionary view of a truly autonomous Tibet as part of China’s long term democratization prospects. The present discussion sets aside the difficult question concerning the appropriate territorial boundaries for a future Tibet.[3]

 

The Structure of Autonomy

 

Establishing autonomy under China’s current top-down authoritarian system is at best a difficult proposition. It is important to consider the proposals that have been made and evaluate their ingredients. In considering the factors that appear important to currently functioning autonomy models, the recent study by the International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet offers an excellent starting point.[4] The Committee Report studies thirty-four cases of autonomy and self-government worldwide to identify the standard indicia of autonomy. Analysis of these indicia reveals that China’s existing policy of autonomy in Tibet offers autonomy in name only. Moreover, China’s negotiating position with the representatives of the Dalai Lama has revealed little interest in moving beyond this model.

 

At one point in the late 1970s Deng Xiaoping indicated that anything was negotiable except independence, but this policy has not been carried out. The Dalai Lama put forth his most accommodating position, which included local associated self-rule and Chinese control over foreign affairs and defense, in a June 1988 speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.[5] In the face of his proposals for local democratic self-rule with guarantees of human rights, the rule of law and modern constitutional government, the Chinese government refused to change its position, insisting upon its current form of one-party CCP rule in Tibet. Under its proposals, Beijing at first insisted that the Dalai Lama would not reside in Tibet, living presumably in Beijing or elsewhere, and in its most liberal offer eventually, without altering the political formula, accepted that he could reside in Tibet. It is difficult under the circumstances to conclude that Beijing officials have been serious about autonomy negotiations. This led the Dalai Lama in 1991 to withdraw his Strasbourg offer, though various statements appear to reflect continued commitment to this proposal. In a 1997 visit to Taiwan the Dalai Lama expressed some appreciation of the “one country, two systems” model then being extended to Hong Kong, but the Chinese government has continued to offer no serious response to these overtures.

 

            An overview of the usual indicia of autonomy, as practiced around the world, reveals the severe lack of genuine autonomy in the existing system advanced by the Chinese government. Several areas which are usually deemed to fall fully within the scope of autonomy in various autonomy arrangements around the world, include: cultural affairs, education, health and social services, taxation, the economy, natural resources, environmental policy, the postal system and telecommunications, transportation and law and order.  These areas also fall within the scope of local autonomy in China’s own policies in respect of Hong Kong and Macau and those promised to Taiwan. In all of these areas, the current Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) government is subordinated to the central government. In respect of autonomy, one might be especially concerned about ways that centrally controlled public security and military personal participate in local law and order. In several of the usual areas of autonomy, including the economy, natural resources, environmental policy, the postal system and telecommunications, the Chinese government controls substantial policy and implementation.  In the important economic area, central control of economic policy making, central policies to relax restrictions on non-residents setting up local businesses (encouraging immigration of Han Chinese) and grand central strategies for rapid development (with the hope of reducing Tibetan opposition) combine to overwhelm any formal local power.  China likewise imposes its own national symbols, banning the Tibetan flag.

 

            Autonomy practices around the world also reveal areas where a degree of central participation and a correspondent diminution of autonomy are frequently evident. These include currency and monetary policy, citizenship, customs, immigration, border control, defense, military affairs, and final adjudication in respect of the administration of justice. It is noteworthy that Hong Kong and Macau have even been granted full autonomy in respect of all of these areas except citizenship, foreign affairs and defense. They issue local travel documents even in respect of citizenship. While not having any defense role, both are responsible for local policing and border (both internal and external) control. And while not having power over foreign affairs they both have the right to conduct their own external affairs in respect to religion, culture, sports, commerce and similar areas. The most striking quality is their possession of their own liberal rights guarantees. This is reflected in Hong Kong’s Basic Law and in the local bill of rights ordinance, both of which uphold the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and are enforceable in the courts. Hong Kong and Macau have also been promised full control over the administration of justice, including independence and finality in the local courts. This latter promise was recently called into question, when the National People’s Congress (NPC), at the request of a local Hong Kong government that is generally solicitous of Beijing, overturned a final decision of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal. In spite of a tendency to chisel away at such autonomy, Hong Kong does offer a telling example of substantial autonomy under Chinese rule. These broad guarantees were thought necessary to preserve autonomy in the face of the Marxist top-down system on the mainland. The striking comparison is that the TAR is neither given nor promised autonomy in any of these areas.

 

            The most telling distinction in respect of the TAR is the lack of local democratic institutions. In the absence of local institutions for the exercise of control over the local government, including especially multi-party elections and protection of the basic freedoms of association and the press, there is little likelihood the community will be able to exercise true autonomy.  Without meaningful democratic institutions, even the conduct of “autonomous” administration by the local government becomes an exercise of central control. The TAR government is ultimately appointed by and under the supervision of China’s central government. Under the Chinese system it is further supervised by the CCP in a very top-down system of control, where a centrally appointed party secretary holds supervisory power over local officials. While locals constitute the local People’s Congress, their power is also subject to central control and CCP discipline. This system contrast with protection of basic freedoms and multi-party elections for the legislature in Hong Kong and Macau. The democratic deficit would appear to be the most serious deficiency in respect to Tibetan autonomy.

 

            As was long ago recognized in respect of Hong Kong, promises of autonomy under China’s top-down unitary system of one-party rule are really not reliable without substantial institutions to secure genuine local control. In addition to local democratic institutions with multi-party competition and basic freedoms this requires systems of justice and human rights that are free of central government interference. In democratic federal systems, national bills of rights often provide protection against local abuse of power. But in China’s current system, in the absence of democratic institutions and solid national human rights protections, affording these institutions at the local level is essential to any success at providing autonomy. An autonomous Tibet without these institutions will be unlikely to be able to protect its autonomy from central encroachment. Such institutions are generally thought to have implications for the economy, as well. The long-term development of Tibet depends on reliable political and legal institutions.

 

            The Hong Kong example illustrates that even if the Chinese government decides to afford Tibet genuine autonomy the road to success will be a difficult one. The Chinese government, coming from a substantially different political culture, has demonstrated a reluctance to carry out its commitments in respect of Hong Kong. There have especially been persistent attempts to control political outcomes. The parties to any autonomy plan for Tibet should be aware of these difficulties. While committing to a “high degree of autonomy” for Hong Kong, the Chinese government has persisted in its habits of control, using so-called united front policies to select its favored supporters for the various transition committees to establish the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. These same appointees were then used to select Hong Kong’s Chief Executive and a majority of the provisional Legislative Council. That Legislative Council then enacted electoral laws for the Legislative Council that kept many of the same people in place. With their own people in charge, Chinese officials responsible for Hong Kong have been able to reduce the degree of direct interference, in that local “pro-China” officials are usually quite accommodating. When the more liberal institutions, such as the courts or the local public broadcaster, get out of hand Chinese officials or their local supporters have made public their dissatisfaction. This has resulted in the kind of direct interference that was evident in the recent NPC overturning of the Court of Final Appeal judgement.  Even though Hong Kong is certainly better equipped, with a well-established tradition of a free press, human rights protection and the rule of law, it has had a difficult time resisting encroachment on its autonomy. Tibetan planners would certainly be well advised to prepare for any future autonomy by educating sufficient numbers of lawyers and other potential servants of Tibetan society. The Tibetan community in exile has tried to develop public institutions but these efforts are hampered by resources and population size. A lot will remain to be done if any autonomy arrangement is agreed upon.

 

All of this demonstrates that, while a Hong Kong style of local autonomy is preferable to the top-down non-autonomous model Chinese officials have traditionally imposed on Tibet, such autonomy model is still less than optimal. Substantially reliable local autonomy is simply not fully achievable under a non-democratic and unitary national system such as that in China today. This situation has stimulated Taiwan to reject China’s offer of its “one country, two systems” formula and push for more substantial Chinese national political reforms, as a condition of some form of unification. Such reforms are increasingly called for under the pressures generated by China’s own current economic reform policies and the centrifugal regional forces they have generated. With over a billion people, it is doubtful that China can engage in substantial political reform to create bottom-up democratic control and a more liberal system without restructuring from a unitary to a federal system. Yet, it is doubtful that a democratic and federal China could continue to sustain the current harsh policies and iron grip at the periphery. As a longer term vision of China’s ongoing reform process it is important to begin to consider what a future democratic federal China might look like and in what ways it may impact the Tibet issue. While this vision offers little in response to Tibet’s immediate concerns, it does offer some important background factors to bare in mind as the process goes forward.

 

A Federal China and Autonomy Under Reform

 

            Given the difficulties of sustaining local autonomy under an authoritarian unitary national regime and given the pressures for change elsewhere in China, some consideration of China’s long-term structural options seems warranted. Such structural issues will likely shape the direction of China’s reform process and any long-term options with respect to Tibet. Will China construct the type of consensual community that will allow its reform process to go forward? Or will it continue with a failed Soviet style political model that sees its political system become more and more out of sync with its economic reforms and the value systems of the modern global order? The latter course of action seems to invite, upon the first sign of weakness at the center, the kind of territorial disintegration that occurred in the former Soviet Union. Chinese leaders have failed to appreciate that it was not simply liberalization, but rather the harsh suppression of national groups that preceded it, that contributed most to the Soviet debacle.

 

Until China begins to address these issues its political reform process is likely to remain a hostage to the imperatives of it current model of top-down domination of a vast unitary system extending to China’s far-flung periphery. In this context, the Tibetan issue is directly linked to the problems of other peripheral communities, especially Taiwan and Hong Kong. It is also directly linked to the possibility of democratic reform and federalism in China. At present, China experiences both a cost of expansion gradient, with respect to Taiwan, and a high cost of ruling resistant people, as evident in the substantial military presence in Tibet. Even traditional Chinese political culture, as reflected in the views of Confucius and Mencius, would seem to favor a more benevolent approach.

 

As I have discussed elsewhere, [6]  China currently faces two sources of pressure toward a federal system. In the Chinese heartland, regionalism creates pressures for the kind of locally accountable government associated with democratic federalism. In some sense, by loosening local economic control, China has produced a kind of regionalism that might be characterized as economic federalism.[7] Without adequate democratic institutions in a federal system, this kind of economic federalism can only encourage the kinds of corruption that have plagued China’s reform processes. Local interests, deprived of adequate representative political channels, resort to the corruption track. Both experience elsewhere and forces at play in China point to the value of a federal structure for any future democratic China. As Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan have noted, it is not meaningful to speak of federalism under authoritarianism or other dictatorial systems.[8] While the former Soviet Union claimed to be a federal system, such federalism is not genuine in the absence of democratic institutions to support local self-rule. Merely launching a national election without meaningful institutions of democracy at the regional or local level will likewise lead to a failed democracy.[9] Chinese reformers have recognized this and are usually attracted to federalism because it is directly related to democratization.

 

The other source of federalist pressure has come from China’s peripheral communities. In addition to Tibet there are also Hong Kong and Taiwan.[10] Tibet has the least bargaining power; Hong Kong is slightly stronger; and Taiwan has been able to use its power to resist mainland overtures. Tibetans in exile have had to sit on the sidelines and watch a cultural disaster unfold. In an age when democracy is widely accepted as the norm, Tibetans find themselves facing a powerful authoritarian regime with their backs against the wall. For Hong Kong, many of the tensions and much of the distrust, which marks popular attitudes towards the central government, relate to China’s lack of democracy on a national level and its resistance to democracy in Hong Kong. For Taiwan, returning to the Chinese fold under the current system that prevails in China amounts practically to political and economic suicide. Taiwan, however, has had a level of power and economic clout sufficient to resist mainland encroachment. It has sensibly and forcefully asserted mainland democratization as a condition of unification. Mainland officials would be wise to adopt a more conciliatory attitude toward these peripheral communities. It is doubtful that a democratic China could pursue these harsh policies and yet democratic reform appears, in part, to be held hostage to the Chinese government’s assertions that it must pursue such policies if it is to hold China together.

 

Democratic federalism offers a more consensual model. Given the two sources of pressure toward this direction in China, a dual model with federalism on the mainland and confederalism with the periphery would seem to best respond to various concerns that have been raised. Autonomous communities on the periphery will be concerned with democratic and federal developments for mainland regions, as constructive of their powerful mainland partner. For mainland regions the federal component could be similar to other federal systems such as that in the US or Germany, where democratic institutions afford local self-rule and a seed bed for national institutions and actors to be nurtured. This could be structured in a way that is responsive to currently evolving circumstances and objectives. Initially, if democracy and multi-party contest were introduced in China at the provincial level the existing formula of provincial assemblies electing representative to the National People’s Congress could be employed. Once a more democratic NPC and national government is in place further reforms could be considered. This could allow for local laws and courts in areas where local accountability is more important. The national government would be free, in the emerging free market system, to concentrate on those areas, such as defense, foreign affairs, banking regulation, cross-regional commerce and even human rights, where public goods are more efficiently delivered by a national government.  The character of these reforms would clearly shape confidence in any bargain with the periphery.

 

The pressures from the periphery point to a confederation bargain between the mainland and peripheral communities, including Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan and possibly Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. If the reform process was already in progress in the Chinese heartland and peripheral communities  such as Tibet were already enjoying a previously negotiated high degree of autonomy, in a form similar to that suggested in the previous section, then a much more consensual community would already be taking shape. This would reduce the risks for the mainland government in pursuing political reforms. Democratization would no longer be held hostage to the difficult task of extending control over currently very resistant subjugated peripheral communities. It is doubtful that, given free choice, such peripheral communities would be satisfied to submerge themselves, even as super states, in the mainland portion of the federal model. They would particularly be concerned about maintaining substantial international status as security for any confederal arrangement. Such security is a central element in confidence in such a system.

 

A confederal arrangement, as is evident in confederal Europe, could be a looser union with the individual member communities having to consent in a collective process to the rules that apply. At first such shared rules could focus on commerce within the confederal Chinese community, the area of chief advantage to all members. This could entail an initial representative body with representatives designated by the elected governments of each member. A third-party dispute resolving body or court would also be useful. To the extent that confederal laws and agreements protect the rights of individuals in commerce or otherwise, local courts in all member communities could participate, with a confederal court at the top, in enforcing such confederal rights and contributing to the rule of law across the system. For communities such as Tibet, with little experience with the rule of law, this structure could provide a valuable learning environment for developing the kinds of institutions needed both to assist its autonomy and its political and economic development. This system could encourage greater integration. An executive body could also be formed to carry out and suggest new laws and systems.

 

As a form of security for any such arrangement, the members of such a confederation would require the right to participate directly in international relations and organizations. For a vulnerable community like Tibet, with little international economic clout, projection into the international arena can afford a constraint on the habits of Beijing intrusion. The confederal negotiators would have to decide what foreign affairs would be left to the confederation. For example, there may be a common position on defense; or if the confederation constituted a common market there could be a common position on trade. Less developed communities, such as Tibet, might even use such international access to independently obtain development aid from outside of the confederation. The aim of this long-term confederal strategy is to create a community of mutual cooperation where there is now a community of mutual distrust. Such a community need not be symmetrical. It could generate distinct rules in respect of different members, in relation to their peculiar needs.  For example, while Tibet may be more concerned with maintaining traditional religious values or environmental resources, Hong Kong may be  concerned with autonomy in financial and monitory affairs, Taiwan with elevated defense and foreign affairs capability and the mainland with global and strategic concerns.

 

Conclusion

 

            In a recent speech Amartya Sen argued that democracy had become a universal value.[11] He argued that at this time the burden is on those who would deny democracy to justify their position. He urged that this was a historic change from not long ago when the advocates for democracy in Asia or Africa had to argue for democracy with their backs to the wall. In Asia, China has historically championed the fight against imperialism and has celebrated the fact that the Chinese people have stood up to take their much-deserved place in the world. For China, which has worked so assertively to bring its nation into the modern world, it is a sign of failure if Tibetans, and even Chinese, have to continue to argue for genuine democracy and self-government with their backs against the wall. The Tibetans really face no dilemma since they are offered no choice except to defend their basic interest.

 

But at present the Chinese leaders face a profound dilemma whether to embrace the modern values that are consistent with their own development and reform process or to continue to defy, especially in respect of Tibet, the very values they have championed in their relationships with the rest of the world. It is with regard to these universal values, against imperialism and in favor of democracy and self-rule, that solutions to the Tibetan problem should be found. To subjugate the Tibetan people is not only inconsistent with contemporary values but is also in contradiction of the pressures for change being spawned by China’s own emerging order in its reform era. It is within China’s power at present to set about solving the issues it confronts with Tibet. It can do so in ways that are consistent with its long-term development interests or, alternatively, insist on old style imperial domination at the long-term costs of fostering a territorial and political structure for development that is inadequate both for itself and Tibet.