WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO TIBET?
Greg Bruno combines fine travel writing and reportage in a book that expresses both fear and hope
In his travels to Tibetan communities in America, Europe, India, and Nepal, Greg Bruno poses the question that is racking the minds of the Tibetan people: What would happen to Tibetans when the Dalai Lama is no longer with them? The question and possible answers to it become more poignant when one understands that Tibetan refugees have been able to establish a cohesive and dynamic community outside Tibet. In so doing, the Dalai Lama and the exile Tibetan community have captured “the world’s collective imagination”. It has attracted and been supported by a worldwide Tibet movement that is fighting for a better treatment of Tibet. But Bruno sees that this Tibetan refugee creation, what one scholar calls “one of the miracles of the twentieth century,” is fraying at the edges. To Bruno it is under stress both internally by what the author calls “self-inflicted wounds” and externally by “blessings from Beijing,” a reference to Beijing’s deployment of its statecraft on the refugee community. The “self-inflicted wounds,” according to the author, are migration to the West and declining birth rate, which are emptying the monasteries, schools and settlements, and “political and religious differences.”
But the focus of Bruno’s travel throughout the exile Tibetan world is China’s assault on the community. By sowing dissension, spreading disinformation, dangling financial carrots in return for information and lavishly entertaining visiting lamas from exile, Beijing hopes to “cut off the serpent’s head.”
This robust attempt to assert Beijing’s influence on the exile Tibetan community and to change the international community’s opinion on Tibet was crafted at a meeting of Tibet scholars in Beijing in June 2000. The meeting was called by Zhao Qizheng, China’s propaganda tsar. At the meeting, Zhao Qizheng said, “This conference is summoned to discuss our national Tibetology and external propaganda works on Tibet… Our struggle against the Dalai clique and hostile western forces is long-drawn, serious and complicated.”
How is Beijing implementing its new policy on the Tibetan world? Bruno cites three ways, one of intimidation and coercion of Tibet sympathizers. Bruno says “No Tibet-related issue is too trivial to draw the attention of China’s diplomats.” The second method is “to siphon off sup- port for the Dalai Lama… by refusing to negotiate with and constantly vilifying the Tibetan leader, or by supporting anti-Dalai Lama political and religious factions.” Another weapon China uses is espionage. Bruno quotes an America diplomat in India, saying that “China’s anti-Tibetan espionage program in India is ‘one of the most aggressive efforts (of spycraft) since the Cold War.”
Bruno believes Tibetans’ exile institutions are the wild cards of China’s Tibet project.” He hopes for a negotiated settlement of the issue of Tibet. “But if that does not happen, and the Dalai Lama departs before the modern Tibet question is answered, the Tibetan diaspora will need unprecedented unity to weather the storms that will follow.” Blessings from Beijing is essential reading for its digging deep into the strengths and weaknesses of Tibetans in exile.