No Enemies, No Hatred
Page 30
We must be clear that the roots of the crisis in Tibet are the same as the roots of the crisis in all of China. The conflict between central rule and the “high level of autonomy” that Tibet is seeking is in essence a conflict between dictatorship and freedom. The greatest hazard in the ongoing crisis in Tibet is not that it might exacerbate conflict and hatred between the Han and Tibetan peoples but that it uses ethnic conflict to mask a struggle between two political systems. If we just look at the existing Chinese system and the policies of the Hu-Wen regime, it is obvious, crisis or no crisis, that there is no way that regime would ever accept the Dalai Lama’s “middle way” of “seeking only autonomy, not independence.” For the regime to consent to a “high level of autonomy” for Tibet would mean conceding political powers to Tibet, creating something like the “one country, two systems” arrangement in Hong Kong. This would be hard for the Hu-Wen regime to accept.
The Tibet problem is different from Hong Kong, and differs even more from Taiwan.
In Taiwan, political power has been separate from central Chinese governments for a hundred years. Not even the Chinese Communists, who wrested control of the mainland in 1949, managed to govern in Taiwan. Taiwan enjoyed diplomatic and military independence after the Nationalists arrived in 1949, and, until Chinese-American diplomatic relations began in 1979, also held membership in the United Nations. Today Taiwan has completed the transition of its political system. Its people enjoy basic human rights and an ever-improving democracy. The Taiwan president is directly elected by the voting public among 23 million Taiwanese. Such changes make it harder for Beijing to interfere in Taiwan’s governance, diplomacy, and military affairs.
In Hong Kong, political power always rested with the British. The 1997 handover to China was a handover of sovereignty only, as the independence of Hong Kong’s governance continued to be guaranteed by the principle of “one country, two systems.” The city’s economic, political, and legal systems today are all extensions of what the British left behind. It is true that the Hong Kong chief executive needs to be approved by Beijing, but this person has to be a Hong Kong person, and the government of the Special Administrative Region still governs independently in most ways. Furthermore, unlike the mainland, Hong Kong has a free market economy, an independent judiciary, and a free press.
Tibet is different. Up until the Communist suppression of the Tibetan rebellion in 1959, at least a portion of political power in Tibet remained in the hands of the Dalai Lama and the 200-year-old ruling council known as the Kashag, and this arrangement did bear some resemblance to “one country, two systems.” But after 1959 Tibet completely lost the right to govern itself. The fourteenth Dalai Lama was forced into exile, the tenth Panchen Lama was placed under house arrest in Beijing, and the Communist Party seized political power by force. Party Central dispatched Party secretaries to Tibet to exercise this political power. From 1959 on, the Tibetans were like the Han: they had to submit to the Communist Party’s dictatorship and they suffered the same kinds of human rights disasters that the Han suffered.
The catastrophes that Tibetan culture and the Tibetan people endured during the Cultural Revolution were by no means less than what Han culture and Han people experienced. In Tibet, living Buddhas, the aristocracy, merchants, artists, and practitioners of Tibetan medicine were taunted, ostracized, paraded through the streets, beaten, imprisoned, and sometimes persecuted to death—just as Han people were in the rest of China. The tenth Panchen Lama was imprisoned for nearly ten years, just as “capitalist roaders” and other prominent Han figures were.
After the “reform and opening” that began in 1978, both Hans and Tibetans have lived through the high hopes of the 1980s, the tragedy of bloodshed in 1989, and the forcible pacification and buying-off of elites from the 1990s until now. Today, even though both Hans and Tibetans have seen important economic growth and improvements in the material life of common people (an end, at least, to the widespread struggles of the Mao era to eke out the bare minimum), everyone still lacks basic human rights. The freedoms that the Tibetans lack are also missing for the Han. The exiled Dalai Lama cannot go home, just as Han dissidents who were exiled after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre cannot go home. The tactics that the regime uses against the Dalai Lama are the same that it uses against the Falungong and other popular religions among the Han. Authorities force Tibetans to denounce the Dalai Lama, just as they force Falungong believers to denounce their leader Li Hongzhi.
In short, to cast the current Tibetan crisis as a conflict between Hans and Tibetans is misleading and superficial. The real and deeper issue is a conflict between dictatorship and freedom. During the current crisis, Han people have gone onto the Internet to do a lot of verbal spitting on the Dalai Lama. This is silly; it only obscures the real situation of both the Han and the Tibetan people, which is that everyone is prisoner to the same dictatorial system. So long as Han people live under dictatorship, it will be unthinkable that Tibetans precede them in gaining freedom. And so long as people in China proper are denied authentic self-rule, self-rule for Tibetans and other minorities will remain a pipe dream.
This is why the resolution of the Tibet question depends fundamentally on the question of the form of government that China will have in the future. Democratization for all of China is the necessary condition for any solution, whatever its form, to the Tibet issue. Whether or not genuine peace talks can begin between the Dalai Lama and the Hu-Wen regime and, if they do begin, whether or not there will be any concrete results will depend neither on how relations between the Beijing government and the Tibetan government in exile are defined nor on external pressures that Western nations might exert. These questions will depend upon the progress of political change inside the mainland. Only when the democratization of Chinese politics truly begins can negotiations between Beijing and the Dalai Lama also truly begin.
Originally published in Guancha (Observe China), April 11, 2008
Translated by Eva S. Chou
ONE MORNING
For Xia, who went to Tibet alone
One morning
yawning, dispirited morning
I suppose
that between you and the high plateau
the sky seems inconceivably
deep and distant
no wind no clouds no mist
transparent blue, deeply perplexing
When you left
I was calm
when your receding figure disappeared
my longing was born, off in the distance
like how inside the lines of a child’s palm
another person walks
passing through my body, circuitously
looking for a unique word
The flight of word needs no wings
just as scent can lead a spirit
rays of morning light tremble, ill at ease
the feeling’s a bit alien
as when, for this long journey
you bought a pair of new shoes
This shaken time
has left my dreams pregnant and unmarried
the oxygen-poor, snowy peaks
greedily suck in
the steam of your first exhalation
July 14, 1993
Translated by Nick Admussen
DISTANCE
For Xia
My emptiness has been filled by distance
for the first time I have known
those sweeping vistas
another world is growing within me
horizon and dawnlight
by turns transfiguring distance
entrusting life to love
beyond the limits of distance
A trembling violin
broken by distance
such deep pain
just to reach out through the distance
Everything I am has been revealed by distance
living, loving, standing, reaching
you are distance, tender distance
like a strand of
hair tossed into the sea
sucking gold out of azure
those who drowned of despair
rise quietly and dance
January 28, 1997
Translated by Isaac P. Hsieh
OBAMA’S ELECTION, THE REPUBLICAN FACTOR, AND A PROPOSAL FOR CHINA
Liu Xiaobo, like many Chinese, was impressed when American voters chose an African American to be president of the United States. In the following piece, written the day after the election of Barack Obama, he gives his view of the genesis and significance of the event, then follows with a startling suggestion of how a fundamental principle that he sees in the Obama victory might be applied to China.—Ed.
THE SIGHT OF THE OBAMA FAMILY waving to the people in their new role as the next occupants of the White House sparked long-dormant political enthusiasm in America and around the world.
The eyes of the entire world were on this election because the status of the United States as a superpower and as the leading nation in the free world makes its president the most powerful man on earth. People even jokingly refer to him as “the President of the World.”
People were watching this election with some problems in mind as well. The financial crisis and the quagmire in Iraq had drastically eroded support for the Bush administration both at home and abroad. The Wall Street crisis had had worldwide repercussions, and the Iraq war seemed to be undermining the international counterterrorist effort. Mainstream opinion in many places was looking forward to “change” in the U.S.
Barack Obama, an African American who sprang from the grassroots, had no weighty political pedigree, not much of a political track record, and not even much administrative experience. His credentials as a state senator and a U.S. senator seemed meager compared to those of other candidates. People were surprised when such a dark-horse candidate defeated Hillary Clinton, a white Democrat from the establishment, in the primary elections. As the election day face-off between him and John McCain approached, there was concern that racist backlash might block an Obama victory, but, just as in the primaries, he defeated his highly qualified opponent by a wider margin than had been seen in years.
My view as a Chinese is that Obama’s elevation to the position of 44th president of the United States underscores the greatness of the American system. What interests me most is not whether Obama will be able to handle the crises he faces, but the obvious evidence of how the American democratic system can correct itself. Every four years, the United States can, if it wants, turn itself around by means of a general election that is open to all. It sometimes does this, especially at moments of great crisis. Despite its democratic traditions, America is a predominantly white nation with a problem of racism that pervades its 200-year history. The election of Obama, a man of Kenyan descent, is a remarkable sign of a more tolerant America in the twenty-first century.
Obama was born in 1961, in an era still marked by racial segregation in the U.S. In 1964 the burgeoning civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. achieved some landmark victories: Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, outlawing racial discrimination and segregation and guaranteeing blacks equal rights under the law; and Dr. King won the Nobel Peace Prize, one of the most prestigious honors in the world. But bigotry remained rampant, as evidenced most dramatically when a racist assassinated Dr. King on April 4, 1968, and then again when riots occurred in Los Angeles in 1992.
Obama’s election as the first black president is the culmination of a 200-year-long story. His victory grows out of the fertile soil of democracy, the spontaneous struggle of his black brethren, the support of upstanding whites, and the concerted efforts of the Republican and Democratic parties. Obama of course should appreciate what the Democrats have done. But perhaps he should thank his opponents, the Republicans, even more. I say this not only because the Democratic victory was the result of Republican administrative failures. In a much broader sense, the systemic changes that Republicans instituted at earlier points in history did much to lay the groundwork for Obama’s election.
The Democrats, and others who oppose racial discrimination, have made historic contributions to the long struggle for racial equality in America. John Brown’s nineteenth-century insurrection set the stage for the abolition of slavery. President Lyndon Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Bill in 1964, was a Democrat. The Democrats’ strong opposition to racial discrimination is evident, for example, in the left-leaning culture of American academe, where racial equality has become “politically correct” to the point where it has led even to charges of “reverse discrimination.”
But Republicans have also made enormous contributions to the cause of racial equality. Abraham Lincoln, a colossus in American history, was a Republican. It was he who issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, legally abolishing slavery, and this paved the way for the ratification in 1868 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted citizenship rights to African Americans. These measures, which were the first steps in African American liberation, became the legal foundations for the twentieth-century civil rights movement. Without the Emancipation Proclamation in the nineteenth century, there would have been no Civil Rights Act in the twentieth.
Moreover it was Ronald Reagan, the preeminent American president of the late Cold War era, who designated the third Monday in January of each year as Martin Luther King Day, a national holiday. Only three people have received this rare honor in the U.S.: Columbus, who is recognized on the second Monday in October for his discovery of America; George Washington, the first American president, who is honored on President’s Day, the third Monday in February; and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., martyr to the cause of civil rights.
The Republican administration of George W. Bush, despite the predicaments it put the country in at home and abroad, made significant contributions to the advancement of African Americans in the highest echelons of power. In his eight years in office, Bush achieved some “firsts” in this respect: he appointed the first black secretary of state in American history, Colin Powell, and later replaced him with Condoleezza Rice, the first black woman ever to hold this position. These appointments did a great deal to raise the status of African Americans and energized American minorities politically. The media buzz over whether either Rice or Powell might run for president as a Republican did much to prepare the American public for the emergence of an African American presidential candidate.
Regardless of how well Obama does in handling America’s problems, America definitely now has a new image in the world. America’s new first family is black—and that fact has more symbolic power than any campaign promises. On the television news, I watched how the whole world—including Obama’s ancestral land of Kenya—hailed his election.
In its historical context, Obama’s victory should be called an “American miracle” rather than “Obama’s miracle.” It reminds the world of the greatness of the American melting pot, and inspires us again to look beyond the material aspects of the American dream: its pinnacle is in the White House, not on Wall Street. From now on, the ranks of high-achieving African Americans can include not only Michael Jordans, but Barack Obamas as well.
Obama expressed this idea in his victory speech: “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”
These reflections make me think of proposals for solving China’s ethnic conflicts that have come from my friend Wang Lixiong. Wang argues that, as soon as possible, substantive high-level negotiations should take place between the Chinese Communist Party and the Dalai Lama. Such talks could be advantageous to both sides if they happen while the moderate, nonviolent Dalai Lama is still in good health, and while China is still able to maintain peace in Tibet.
In fact, the Chinese Communist regime could resolve the entire issue with one bold display of political savvy: it could invi
te the Dalai Lama back to China to serve as our nation’s president, our Barack Obama. Such a move would make best use of the Dalai Lama’s stature in Tibet and around the world; it could also bring into play a spirit of tolerance among Han Chinese, who have recently been converting to Buddhism in increasing numbers.
Symbolism aside, a great deal of concrete good could result from such a move. In Tibet, the Dalai Lama is a god and his word is law. If he came back to China, he could marginalize radical Tibetan separatist groups by convincing Tibetans to allow Tibet to remain part of China as an autonomous region. With his worldwide prestige, he could also do a huge amount to improve China’s international image. In addition to all of that, a peaceful resolution of the Tibet question could be a model for solving the Taiwan problem as well as problems with other Chinese minority groups, thereby averting the very real danger that ethnic strife might escalate into large-scale separatist movements.
The Dalai Lama, a sagacious man, has a vision for an autonomous, democratic Tibet in which church and state are separate. The vision is grounded in a system that has worked well for many years in the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, India. He has an excellent track record for implementing experiments in democracy similar to those of Chiang Ching-kuo in Taiwan in the 1980s. Such experiments could serve as models for the political transformation of China as a whole. The dawn of true political reform in China can arrive as soon as Chinese authorities sit down at the negotiating table with the Dalai Lama.
At home in Beijing, November 5, 2008
Originally published in Guancha (Observe China), November 5, 2008
Translated by Paul G. Pickowicz