Volume 11 Nevzat Soguk, States and Strangers: Refugees and Displacements of Statecraft
Volume 10 Kathy E. Ferguson and Phyllis Turnbull, Oh, Say, Can You See? The Semiotics of the Military in Hawai'i
Volume 9 Iver B. Neumann, Uses of the Other: "The East" in European Identity Formation
Volume 8 Keith Krause and Michael C. Williams, editors, Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases
Volume 7 Costas M. Constantinou, On the Way to Diplomacy
Volume 6 Gearoid O Tuathail (Gerard Toal), Critical Geopolitics: The Politics of Writing Global Space
Volume 5 Roxanne Lynn Doty, Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North-South Relations
Volume 4 Thom Kuehls, Beyond Sovereign Territory: The Space of Ecopolitics
Volume 3 Siba N'Zatioula Grovogui, Sovereigns, Quasi Sovereigns, and Africans: Race and Self-Determination in International Law
Volume 2 Michael J. Shapiro and Hayward R. Alker, editors, Challenging Boundaries: Global Flows, Territorial Identities
Volume 1 William E. Connolly, The Ethos of Pluralization
Dibyesh Anand
Dibyesh Anand is an Associate Professor at London's Westminster University, an expert on majority-minority relations in China and India, and the author of Geopolitical Exotica: Tibet in Western Imagination
Dibyesh Anand is a reader in international relations at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster in England. He has published on postcolonial international relations, the Tibet question, and Hindu nationalism.
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[1] I use the term "Tibet question" to refer to Tibet as an issue in world politics. By using the interrogative word, I foreground the Tibetan issue as a "problem," in line with the "Palestine question" or the "Irish question." It is more than "the conflict over the political status of Tibet vis-a-vis China" (Goldstein in Goldstein and Kapstein 1998, 14; see also Heberer 1995). Crucially, it includes an examination of the very categories of "Tibet" and "Tibetans."
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[2] One other reason for this could be what Chan argues is IR's paucity in understanding matters of religions and religious values contributing to the fact that it "has nothing to say about the contest between China and Tibet to ordain and maintain Lamas" (2000, 566). The most famous of these contests is over the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, usually considered as second in religious hierarchy within Tibetan Buddhism (at least within the dominant Gelugpa sect), next only to the Dalai Lama.
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[3] The International Commission of Jurists (http://www.icj.org) in Geneva brought out two early reports on Tibet-"The Question of Tibet and the Rule of Law" (1959) and "Tibet and the Chinese People's Republic" (i960)-and continues to issue reports. The UN General Assembly has passed three resolutions on Tibet: 1353 (XIV) 1959; 1723 (XVI) 1961; 2079 (XX) 1965. For details on these as well as other international resolutions on Tibet, see Department of Information and International Relations (1997).
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[4] Apart from Tibet and the West, the main actor involved is China. In this book, the focus of research is on Western representations and their impact on the identity of Tibet and Tibetans. This is done as an opening gesture without denying the importance of other aspects, including the Chinese representations. Analysis of Chinese representations of Tibet deserves more space than can be afforded within this study.
Knowledge production about Tibet, especially since the mid-twentieth century when the Chinese communists consolidated their political control, is no longer the preserve of Europeans. Very much in the tradition of Orientalist scholarship and British imperialist writings, the manufacturing of scholarly truths about Tibet within the Chinese academies is implicated in the service of the political regime. Chinese representations of Tibetans as essentially backward, primitive, and barbaric are witnessed not only at the popular level (Wei Jingsheng 1998) but more dangerously within state discourse too (see Heberer 2001; Hillman and Henfry 2006; Kolas 1998; Makley 1997, 1999; Shakya 2002; for Han Chinese representations of minorities in general, see Blum 2000, 2002; Dikotter 1992; Gladney 1994, 2004). Analysis of the Chinese representations of Tibet will show how Tibetans, like most of the non-Han Chinese, are seen as an exotic but backward people requiring Chinese leadership to help them progress. The notion of Tibet's lack of development due to "cultural backwardness" has been very strong in Chinese state policies since the 1951 Seventeen Point Agreement (see Shan 2001; Zugui and Zuji 1996). Development as a rationale for Chinese control is also found in the writings of those sympathetic to the communist regime (see Gelder and Gelder 1964; Suyin 1977) and of many Chinese dissidents (see Xu Mingxu 2000) and creative intellectuals (for exceptions see Cao Changching and Seymour 1998; Yue 2004). Unfortunately this has resonance with the self-justificatory tone of the civilizing mission within Western imperialism. This patronizing tone is also evident in Wang Lixiong, who in the name of recognizing Tibetan agency tends to erase it by tracing the roots of the "intense religiosity" of the Tibetans to "the terrors of their natural environment" (2002, 91).
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[5] For exceptions, see Agathangelou 2004; Chowdhry and Nair 2002; Darby 1997, 1998; Darby and Paolini 1994; Krishna 1993, 1999; Ling 2002; Muppidi 2004; Paolini 1999; Ramakrishnan 1999.
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[6] Amin rightly argues that though Eurocentrism is anti-universalist, "it does present itself as universalist, for it claims that imitation of the Western model by all peoples is the only solution to the challenges of our time" (1988, vii).
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[7] It is not surprising that Brown et al. (2002) in International Relations in Political Thought focus exclusively on the Western canon. The excuse they offer is symptomatic of IR in general. For instance, they argue that the relevant criteria for the canon can change on the basis of "current fashions" (such as the current criticism that the canon usually consists of white male Europeans), but this should not deny the "fact" that some "thinkers clearly have produced more significant work than others" (3) (not surprisingly, these are the same as the canonical thinkers). This seems to be a dismissive gesture of relegating those who challenge the Eurocentrism and misogyny of the Western canon as "current fashion."
Brown et al. go on to argue that the "modern global international order developed out of the European states-system, which emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth century CE from the wreckage of the medieval order which was constructed on the ruins of the Roman empire, in turn the product of the Roman republic and the inheritor of the thought of classical Greece" (14). This buys into the dominant autobiography of modern Western thinking. It misses the crucial constitutive role of the "rest of the world" in the change from the medieval to the modern period. Ironically, the editors stop at the gate of classical Greeks-once again ignoring the question of where the Greeks came from. In such stories, classical Greeks seem to have descended from "heaven," without "impure" influences of nearby cultures, especially the Egyptians (cf. Bernal 1987, 1991). My argument is not against a compilation of the writings of Western political thinkers but against passing it off as global/international thought.
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[8] The justification Rosenau provides for ignoring "Third world analysts" is "space limitations." But this does not lead him to title the book as Western Voices instead of Global Voices. On the other hand, Waever (1998) is conscious of his noninvestigation of non-Western cases and does not conflate "American and European developments in international relations" with wider global developments.
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[9] Sylvester not only includes a "Western feminist (Westfem)" but also ventriloquizes for "Her Third World Alter Ego/Identity (Tsitsi)" (Sylvester 1993; see also Agathangelou and Ling 2004).
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[10] Some argue that since IR as a discipline is closely linked with the rise of the United States as a "superpower" and because of intellectual predisposition, political circumstances, and institutional opportunities
, it is mainly an "American social science" (Hoffman 1977; see also Crawford and Jar-vis 2000; Smith 2000). Hence a better term might be "Americentrism." However, Eurocentrism's main feature has been the explaining away of parochialism (European Enlightenment thinking) as superior, progressive, and hence universal. Americentrism does not challenge this. Instead, it reinforces the powerful myth that the West is the best.
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[11] This term, formerly reserved for communist-ruled Eastern Europe and the USSR, is often used interchangeably for the South following the end of communist regimes there. This goes back to an older distinction usually made in European thought between the West and the East. For an interesting analysis of the use of the "East" as the Other in the European identity formation, see Neumann 1999.
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[12] See Ashcroft et al. 1989, 1995; Barker et al. 1994; Chambers and Curtis 1996; Chaturvedi 2000; Gandhi 1998; Hall 1996a; Loomba 1998; Mongia 1996; Moore-Gilbert 1997; Moore-Gilbert et al. 1997; Prakash 1995; Williams and Childs 1997; Young 1990.
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[13] Though within IR theory significant debates have taken place, including the third debate between "rationalism" and "reflectivism," as Smith points out, the wider discipline of IR "is far more realist, far more state-centric and far more unquestioning of the dominance of realism and positivism than is the case within IR theory" (2000, 379).
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[14] For a different view on imperialism and IR, see Long and Schmidt 2005.
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[15] At an institutional level, the unequal relations are exemplified in almost every international body. One of the best examples, of course, is the UN Security Council and its five permanent members with veto power. Grovogui highlights two paradoxes of decolonization. First, only the rights sanctioned by the former colonialists were accorded to the colonized, regardless of the needs and demands of the latter. Second, "the rules and procedures of decolonization were determined and controlled by the former colonial powers to effect specific outcomes" (1996, 6).
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[16] Some writers put the blame for U.S. interventions in the third world on the third world itself. For instance, Snyder (1999), in his analysis of U.S. relations with Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, and Zimbabwe, argues that it is their provocation that leads to a U.S. reaction. It reflects the phenomenon of blaming the victims and absolving the victimizer (for interesting views on this phenomenon as witnessed in the case of the Palestinian question, see Said and Hitchens 1988).
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[17] One interesting divide within the discipline is between those who draw upon poststructuralist thought, represented by the so- called holy trinity (Moore-Gilbert 1997) of postcolonial theory-Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Spivak-and those who consider poststructuralism to be a retrogressive move that ignores the material deprivation of the peoples in the third world (see Ahmad 1994; Parry 1996; Shohat 1992). For a range of views on the relationship between postcolonialism and poststructural-ism, see Adam and Tiffin 1991.
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[18] See Enloe 2000; Jabri and O'Gorman 1999; Parpart and Zalewski 1998; Peterson and Runyan 1999; Pettman 1996; Steans 1998; Sylvester 2002; Tickner 1992.
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[19] Feminists have taken the lead over others in their expositions on negotiating between essentialisms and antiessentialisms. One recalls here
Butler's "contingent foundations" (1992), Ferguson's "mobile subjectivities" (1993), and Fuss's strategy of "deploying essentialism" (1989).
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[20] Here one may point out Said's method of contrapuntal reading, which involves a way of reading texts (of literature) so as to reveal their deep implication in dominant systems (imperialism and colonial process). Examples are found in Said 1993.
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[21] This is linked to the frequent criticism of poststructuralism that it kills off the subject of knowledge and leaves no room for agency. As Spivak clarifies, the poststructuralists "situate subjecting rather than kill the subject or pronounce it dead" (1999, 322). It recognizes that "I am not outside the language that structures me, but neither am I determined by the language that makes this 'I' possible" (Butler 1999, xxiv).
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[22] Interestingly, since 2002 British supermarkets have sold a "Tibet" line of haircare products (with names such as "Rebirth" and "Balance"), promising "beauty through balance" (http://www.tibetbeauty.com). Indeed, Tibet has come a long way from being a "country of the great unwashed."
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[23] For Tibetophiles such as Heinrich Hensoldt and Madame Helena Blavatsky (theosophists), the veil was an important metaphor too. But for them it was the Tibetans, especially the Dalai Lama, who lifted the veil, the other veil, the mystical veil of Isis (Bishop 1989, 182).
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[24] Sociologically, most of the European travelers to Tibet were men operating with specific notions of masculinity. British officials explicitly discouraged female travelers, who were seen as a threat to British prestige. Basil Gould, the political agent in Sikkim and later head of the 1936 Lhasa mission, decreed that women were not permitted to travel in Tibet without a male escort (McKay 1997, 172-73).
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[25] Daily Mail, 12 September 1904, gave the following description of the signing of the Lhasa Convention at the culmination of the Young-husband mission: ''The monks wandered about the hall, smiling and laughing in the faces of the British officers and eating nuts" (in IOR: MSS EUR/ F197/523). It is not too far-fetched to see the description of the monks as similar to that of monkeys.
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[26] Representations also differed slightly among Western states. For instance, in the first half of the twentieth century (except during the Young-husband mission in 1903-4), American perceptions of Tibet tended to be less positive than the British representations of Tibet (for American popular perceptions of Tibet before the Second World War, see Miller 1988).
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[27] One aspect of the story of Tibet as a blank space is the denial of any quintessential Tibetan civilization, especially before the twentieth century. Many commentators opined that what passes as "Tibetan" is merely a mix of "great" neighboring civilizations (Chinese and Indian). Rockhill is typical: "Present advanced degree of civilization is entirely borrowed from China, India, and possibly Turkestan, and Tibet has only contributed the simple arts of the tent-dwelling herdsmen" (1895, 673).
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[28] Who would count as competitors in this race was of course to be decided by the Europeans. Native explorers and spies (known as pundits) like Sarat Chandra Das who managed to reach Lhasa and made possible the geographical mapping of Tibet (see Das 1902; Waller 1990; Rawat 1973) were ineligible, even though they too had to travel in disguise. Observers cited multiple possible reasons: native surveyors "become so engrossed with the details of their work that they forget to use their eyes and make those general observations on the people and the scenery about them which is a most important objective of their journeying" (Holdich 1906, 233); or "though very intelligent, [they] had no special qualifications for observing those facts of natural science which would be observed by Englishmen" (Delmar Morgan in Walker 1885, 25); or "suffering from the limitations of disguise and the need to move principally among the lower orders of society, [they] produced more valuable reports on topography and communications than on social, economic, and political conditions in Tibet" (Richardson 1962, 74); or "it was easier for the Asiatics and therefore the race was among the Europeans" (Hopkirk 1983, 157). This comes as no surprise because in the imperialist imagination, exploration was a possession of "civilised man." In his 1963 biography of Richard Francis Burton, Farwell begins by stating that ''the explorer is always a civilized man; exploration is an advanced intellectual concept" and therefore exploration is "a concept unknown to primitive peoples, and one that remains incomprehensible to women" (see Kabbani 1986, 86).
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[29] Today "Shangri-la" is the name of a chain of resort hotels. Shangri-La hotels advertise that although mythical in origin, their name epitomizes "the serenity and highly personalised service" for which it is renowned (Shangri-La Media Centre 2001).
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[30] Interestingly, while the Chinese state has always insisted that "Old Tibet" was feudal and oppressive, in recent times there have been moves by some Tibetan regions to compete to be represented as Shangri-la for tourism. On the use of the Shangri-la myth for ethnic tourism, see Hillman 2003; Kolas 2004.
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