Tibet Rough Guides Snapshot China by David Leffman

Author:David Leffman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel
Publisher: Rough Guides
Published: 2012-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

The Chinese era

Initially, the Chinese offered goodwill and modernization. Tibet had made little headway into the twentieth century; there were few roads, no electricity, and glass windows, steel girders and concrete were all recent introductions. Hygiene and healthcare were patchy, and lay education was unavailable. While some Tibetans viewed modernization as necessary, the opposition was stiff, as many within the religious hierarchy saw changes within the country and overtures to the outside world as a threat to their influence. Throughout the 1950s, an underground resistance operated, which flared into a public confrontation in March 1959, fuelled by mounting distrust and hostility – refugees from eastern Tibet fled to Lhasa and told of the brutality of Chinese rule, including the sexual humiliation of monks and nuns, arbitrary executions and even crucifixions. In Lhasa, the Chinese invited the Dalai Lama to a theatrical performance at the Chinese military HQ. It was popularly perceived as a ploy to kidnap him, and huge numbers of Tibetans mounted demonstrations and surrounded the Norbulingka where the Dalai Lama was staying. On the night of March 17, the Dalai Lama and his entourage escaped, heading into exile in India where they were later joined (and still are today) by tens of thousands of refugees.

Meanwhile, the uprising in Lhasa was ferociously suppressed – the Chinese killed 87,000 people between March 1959 and September 1960. From that point on, all pretence of goodwill vanished, and a huge military force moved in, with a Chinese bureaucracy replacing Tibetan institutions. Temples and monasteries were destroyed, and Chinese agricultural policies proved particularly disastrous. During the years of the Great Leap Forward (1959–60), it is estimated that ten percent of Tibetans starved, and it wasn’t until the early 1980s that the food situation in Tibet began to improve. Harrowing accounts tell of parents mixing their own blood with hot water and tsampa to feed their children.

In September 1965, the U-Tsang and western areas of Tibet officially became the Xizang Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China, but more significant was the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), during which mass eradication of religious monuments and practices took place under the orders of the Red Guards, many of them young Tibetans. In 1959, there were 2700 monasteries and temples in Tibet; by 1978, there were just eight monasteries and fewer than a thousand monks and nuns in the TAR. Liberalization followed Mao’s death in 1976, leading to a period of relative openness and peace in the early 1980s when monasteries were rebuilt, religion revived and tourism introduced. However, by the end of the decade, martial law was again in place – thanks to China’s current leader, Hu Jintao – following riots in Lhasa in 1988–89. In the early 1990s, foreigners were allowed back into the region, and as the decade progressed it appeared the Chinese government was keen to exploit Tibet’s potential for tourism. Assurances given in the build-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics also indicated an eagerness to move away from the hardline authoritarian stance in the region, which was proving a source of diplomatic friction.

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