Author: Dr. Subhash Kapila
Publication: South Asia Analysis Group
Date: March 26, 2008
URL: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers27%5Cpaper2645.html
Introductory Observations
Tibet has once again been thrust in the global
consciousness by the widespread Tibetan uprising of March 2008 just a year
before the 50th anniversary of the first major uprising of the Tibetan nation
against China and nearly the 60th anniversary of China's military invasion
and occupation of the sovereign, spiritual and pacifist nation of Tibet.
The global community needs to be reminded
that Tibet till its military occupation by China was an independent nation
with its own currency and other trappings of a sovereign nation including
independent foreign relations. So much so that US President Franklin Roosevelt
in early 1940s sent emissaries to Lhasa to seek permission to traverse Tibetan
territory for US supplies to China's Nationalist regime battling Japan. If
Tibet was really a part of China the United States would not have sought Lhasa's
permission.
This having been noted, it also needs to be
recorded that in these last five decades the global community developed a
marked amnesia over China's military occupation of Tibet and the ethnic, religious
and cultural genocide that China has relentlessly inflicted on the hapless
Tibetan nation. The Tibetan nation was pacifist, peace-loving and spiritual
in character. These were the very attributes which emerged as weaknesses in
Chinese Communists perceptions and prompted their military subjugation of
Tibet.
China's military annexation of Tibet has been
akin to the military annexation of Manchuria by Japan in the first half of
the 20th Century. The global community then too developed a strategic amnesia
and watched idly until strategic realities dawned and World Was II was necessitated.
China's military annexation of Tibet would
never have taken place had the United States and India with substantial strategic
stakes in Tibet had not allowed a "strategic vacuum" to develop
in Tibet as a result of the end of British India Empire which ensured that
Tibet continued as a sovereign buffer state.
Even if the United States and India were reluctant
to militarily commit themselves in Tibet in the period 1947-1949 they could
have through the United Nations got Tibet declared as a "neutral country"
like Switzerland and further under United Nations protection.
Sadly, the United States and India have turned
out to be the most significant strategic sufferers by the "strategic
inactivity" of the United States and pathetic "strategic timidity"
of India as we shall see later in the Paper.
To cover up their strategic follies both the
United States and India developed a strange political and strategic amnesia
on Tibet. The rest of the global community followed suit.
Emboldened by the global amnesia on Tibet,
the Chinese Government has been tempted to pursue an unrestricted policy of
ethnic, religious and cultural genocide in Tibet. The periodic Tibetan uprisings
in virtually every decade were brutally suppressed by China confident that
no international murmurs would follow.
The March 2008 Tibetan uprisings have been
widespread and violent and no longer only directed against Chinese security
forces in Tibet. This time the swelling Han Chinese population in Tibet too
was targeted. This is ominous.
The global community can no longer afford
to continue with its amnesia on Tibet and should take the March 2008 Tibetan
uprisings as a wake-up call for concerted action to restore Tibet's sovereignty.
A lot of papers and analyses have flowed-in
on the Tibet issue since March 10, 2008 dealing with every conceivable political
aspect and events. This Paper therefore would confine itself to analyze the
grave strategic implications that could be generated if the global community
continues to be permissive of the Chinese cultural genocide in Tibet. Also
would be highlighted the strategic losses suffered by the United States and
India as a result of their Tibet policies.
* This paper therefore would like to focus
attention on the following issues:
* India's Strategic Losses Accruing From Timid Tibet Policies.
* United States Strategic Losses Accruing From "China-Permissive"
Policies
* Tibet: The Contemporary Strategic Significance.
* Tibet's "Total Independence" is a Global Strategic Imperative
* The United States, NATO and India's Convergence of Strategic Interests on
Tibet.
Some readers may be dismissive over some of
the issues stated above on the grounds that they are too far fetched and not
falling in the realm of possibility. The answers to such dismissiveness would
be that in international relations nothing is impossible. How many foresaw
the disintegration of the Soviet Union, how many thought that the disintegration
of Yugoslavia would be facilitated by United States and NATO military intervention
on humanitarian grounds and how many thought that the unilateral declaration
of independence by Kosovo with NATO protection would not generate strong international
murmurs.
Therefore the strategic implications on Tibet
outlined above arising from the Chinese genocide in Tibet, cannot be ruled
out. Analytically, historical strategic losses may stir USA, NATO, India and
others towards full independence of Tibet as a global strategic imperative.
Hence the discussion that follows.
India's Strategic Losses Accruing From Timid
Tibet Policies
India's political leadership in the last 60
years has refused to learn strategic lessons from the Nehruvian foreign policy
approaches towards China. The responses of the Indian Government to the March
8, 2008 political unrest are again pathetic and in the Nehruvian mould, India's
political leadership as opposed to India at large, has a palpable fear of
China and saying anything against China.
It is pitiable that India as an emerging global
power should be reveling in statements from Chinese Foreign Ministry officials
certifying that India is a good neighbor because the Indian Government has
refused to condemn China over its ongoing cultural genocide in Tibet.
In stark contrast, when has China been sensitive
to India's strategic sensitivities in the last 60 years in its South Asian
policies. In fact China has constantly adopted stances adversarial to India's
national security interests, right till to date and India's political leadership
has just lumped it.
India at large needs to know the strategic
losses that have accrued to India as a result of India's political leadership's
timidity beginning from Nehru.
Briefly outlined these can be enumerated as
follows:
* Tibet as buffer state essential for India's
security was gifted away by Nehru's total obliviousness to India's strategic
interests. And this too without a murmur. In passing it needs to be said that
once again another Congress Government has gifted away Nepal as a buffer state
to Nepalese Maoists.
* Military occupation of Tibet by China with
India's permissiveness brought China's military presence on India's doorsteps
for over 3000 kilometers
* Emboldened by India's passivity, China raised
territorial disputes all along India's borders with Tibet, ultimately resulting
in the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and Chinese military occupation of vast tracts
of Indian territory.
* Nehru's strategic and political timidity
resulted in India being unprepared for war with China and a military debacle
heaped by China from Tibet on the illustrious Indian Army for which culpability
lies solely on India's political leadership.
* Tibet's annexation by China facilitated
it to emasculate India strategically within South Asian confines.
* If India had contested China's annexation
of Tibet, India would not have had to face Pakistan as a country with Chinese
nuclear weapons and Chinese long range missiles.
* The Karakoram Highway which outflanks India
strategically, courtesy Pakistan would not have come up if Tibet was helped
by India to retain its independence. Karkoram Highway is a Chinese life-support
system to Pakistan to strategically confront India
* India would not have lost thousands of kilometers
of Indian territory in Aksai Chin and the North East as a result of Chinese
aggression facilitated by China's military annexation of Tibet.
These are inexcusable strategic losses caused
by India's political leadership's timidity. India today is well placed to
join others in undoing many of the negative aspects of India's strategic losses
by working towards full independence of Tibet
United States Strategic Losses Accruing From
"China Permissive" Policies
The United States as many American authors
maintain has for the better part of the 20th Century had a narcissistic obsession
with China hoping to convert China into a Westernized and Americanized Asian
nation.
The Communist take over in 1949 brought the
United States face to face with China's propensity for armed conflict first
in Korea and then later in Vietnam.
The United States continued to view China
solely through its strategic utility in relation to drawing China away from
the Soviet orbit. The United States did manage to do so for a brief period
in the 1970s. However, China's strategic utility to USA was over by early
1980s and thereafter United States-China relations have been decidedly adversarial,
notwithstanding the rhetoric that emanates from both nations.
The "China-Permissive" policies
of the United States as such led first to the military annexation of Tibet
by China and now the emergence of the "China Threat" to US security.
The United States strategic losses accruing
as a result of its "China-Permissive" policies can be recounted
as follows:
* Tibet as the heartland of Asia was allowed
by United States permissiveness to be annexed by China and its militarization
is now a threat to USA and NATO interests.
* Had the United States prevented the Chinese
annexation of Tibet and which it was in a position to do so militarily, Chinese
military intervention in Korea against the United States may not have taken
place.
* Chinese hold over Tibet facilitates an extended
Westward deployment of Chinese strategic nuclear missiles by thousands of
kilometers. Such Westward deployment of Chinese strategic weapons facilitates
effective coverage of South Asia, South West Asia, Central Asia and NATO countries
- all areas strategic for United States and NATO security interests.
* China's annexation of Tibet facilitated
it to convert Pakistan into a more durable strategic ally of China than the
United States by using land routes for unrestricted supply of Chinese nuclear
weapons and missiles via the Karakoram Highway built by China.
* China's development of Gwadur port in the
vicinity of the Gulf and its being linked with Karakoran Highway to Tibet
and thereon to China outflanks USA strategically in the vital Gulf Region,
Afghanistan etc.
* The above gives China a vital counter-pressure
point strategically to counter USA strategic moves against China in East Asia.
* China as an emerging superpower contending
with the United States enjoys significant strategic advantages as long as
it holds on to Tibet. In a way it not only imparts greater flexibility to
China against USA but also reinforces Chinese deterrence capabilities against
USA.
China's strategic utility to the United States
in the global chess-game became redundant in the 1980s.
It is China which is now in the process of
check-mating the United States and this is facilitated by China's continued
military occupation of Tibet.
The United States needs to review its China
strategic policies and especially on Tibet more specifically and forcefully.
Full independence for Tibet should now emerge as the prime US aim, strategically.
Tibet: The Contemporary Strategic Significance
Tibet with its vast expanse of the Asian heartland
is no longer some remote hermit kingdom which the global community can rule
it out of its strategic consciousness.
The world has shrunk with globalization and
globalization cannot be confined to the political and economic dimensions.
Strategic shrinkages have also accrued as a result of the globalization process.
In terms of global strategic shrinkage, events
and turbulent unrest in Tibet has global strategic implications on a number
of grounds, when it is taken into account that it is in Tibet that a sizeable
component of China's nuclear arsenal and long range nuclear missiles are deployed.
Sixty years of China's forcible suppression
of Tibetan uprisings has failed to subdue the Tibetan nation's aspirations
for independence. This is likely to intensify further.
If ever China's rises to emerge as a threatening
military superpower and needs to be checkmated, it is Tibet from where the
process of checkmating has to start.
China minus Tibet and Xinjiang is reduced
strategically to an East Asian regional power, more in the nature of Japan
and without pretensions to sit equally with USA and Russia.
With China's military annexation of Tibet
undone, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia will fall like dominos from China's control.
Strategically, the global community has to
recognize that Tibetan unrest with China has not yet acquired the contours
of suicide bombers and insurgency against China. It cannot be ruled out even
if external support is not forthcoming. The global community has to prepare
itself for the contingency of military intervention in Tibet on humanitarian
grounds if such an eventuality emerges.
Tibet's "Total Independence" is
a Global Strategic Imperative
The discussion in the paper so far would have
amply highlighted that "total independence: of Tibet is a global strategic
imperative.
This issue is deliberately injected into this
discussion as the global community can be tempted to settle for less by "greater
political autonomy" for Tibet under China's political and strategic control.
This temptation could arise as His Holiness, the Dalai Lama now seems to be
inclined to accept this as a compromise solution.
Strategically, Tibet's "greater political
autonomy" under China would not facilitate the withdrawal of China's
nuclear weapons arsenal and strategic missiles arsenal from Tibet. China's
global strategic weight arising from the geo-strategic advantages imparted
by military control of Tibet is not reduced.
In strategic terms, China is counting on the
demise of the present Dalai Lama. The Tibetan younger generation is aware
of it and are becoming restive. They are also impatient with the Dalai Lama's
peaceful "Middle Way" policy approaches to China as in the last
five decades it has neither brought peace to Tibet nor independence to Tibet.
They demand complete independence from China now.
The global community needs to pay serious
attention to this aspiration of the Tibetan nation, if not on grounds of human
rights and liberties, but at least on strategic grounds.
The United States, NATO and India's Convergence
of Strategic Interests on Tibet
No further effort in analysis is required
to highlight that there are strong convergence of strategic interests on Tibet
which should bind the United States, NATO and India for assisting the Tibetan
nation's re-emergence as an independent sovereign nation until it was military
annexed by China in 1949.
Complying with China's insistence that all
countries should politically adhere to the "One China" policy is
a travesty of both history and strategic realities.
The Tibetan nation has a distinct ethnic,
religious and cultural character which in no way is anywhere close in ethnicity
and culture to China. The Tibetan nation is as distinct from China as China
let us say is distinct from India. The "One China" policy is only
applicable to China and not to Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. The global
community has so far gone along with this fraudulent concept as a result of
its China appeasement policies. The time has come to call off this fraud.
Fortunately, the United States and NATO countries
have shown indications to call of this fraud.
The present German Chancellor was strong enough
to receive the Dalai Lama officially in her office in September 2007 in defiance
of Chinese protestations.
The French President has not ruled out boycotting
the Olympics should China not change its policies in Tibet.
The visit and meetings with The Dalai Lama
this month of the US Speaker, Ms Nancy Pelosi to the Headquarters of the Tibetan
Government-in-exile at Dharamsala in India were rich in political symbolism.
The US Speaker made no bones about expressing the following to highlight American
support for the Tibetan nation:
* "If freedom loving people throughout
the world do not speak out against China and China's oppression in Tibet,
we have lost all moral authority to speak on human rights anywhere in the
world".
* "The situation in Tibet is a challenge
to the conscience of the world".
* "We are here at this time to join you
in shedding bright light on what is happening in Tibet".
* "I am here to support the Dalai Lama
on behalf of the people of the United States."
Sadly, India is yet to forcefully come out
with such strong support for the cause of Tibetan independence, when India's
strategic stakes in Tibet are far more higher.
More pathetically, the present Indian Government
has not permitted any contact by its political leaders or government officials
with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government-in exile in India out of supine
deference to China's sensitivities.
It is high time that India's political establishment
recognizes that such stances impinge heavily on India's image as an aspiring
global power. How can the world respect India's emerging power when its leaders
project the deficiency of political will in speaking out forcefully on issues
which effect India's national security.
Concluding Observations
The Tibetan revolt against China in March
2008 on a widespread scale and in unprecedented intensity sends ominous signals
to the global community, in that while the United States, NATO countries and
India and others may fear China's military rise, the Tibetan nation and its
people no longer fear China and challenged and will continue to challenge
China's colonization of Tibet which is akin to Manchuria's annexation by Japan
in the 1930s.
The prevailing global strategic balance, despite
China's military modernization and expansion of her strategic assets is still
not tilted in China's favor so as to deter USA, NATO countries and India from
strong strategic and political postures on Tibet.
Political and strategic excuses could be found
in the 1950s to justify their passivity in acquiescing to China's military
annexation of Tibet. In 2008 when globalization has also led to global strategic
shrinkage, the global community should not watch idly the continued cultural
genocide by China in Tibet and the resultant spin-off of suicide bombings
and insurgency which the younger generation may resort to for total independence.
They are convinced that China will not relinquish its annexation of Tibet
without the use of force.
In the 1930s the global community did not
stand up to events on Manchuria. Munch and Sudetenland. The end results were
devastating.
Can the United States, NATO countries and
India afford strategically a repeat of the above events by China's continued
annexation of Tibet and from where it targets critical strategic regions of
the world with her nuclear weapons and long range strategic nuclear missiles?
(The author is an International Relations
and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with
South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com)
