Tibet’s Agony: China’s Shame

By S.P.SETH

Tibet region of China is once again smoldering, with monks in the small town of Aba in Sichuan province and elsewhere self-immolating to protest against repression to sniff out Tibetan religion, language, culture and an age-old way of life. The number of monks who have set themselves afire is said to be more than twenty and rising. There are reports of some lay people taking to self-immolation as an act of solidarity with their monks and/or just out of plain frustration.

According to reports in the Guardian and Sydney Morning Herald, the town of Aba, the scene of the largest number of acts of self-immolation is ringed by a blanket presence of police and security people. As Philip Wen has reported in the Sydney Morning Herald from Aba, “Heavily armed police are set up at every intersection… beside army trucks full of soldiers in riot gear….”

According to Jonathan Watts in the Gaurdian reporting from Aba, “ Despite flooding Aba with security personnel, the protests continue.”

And he quotes Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet who said, “In Tibet, the monasteries serve the function of universities. What is happening now is like a military blockade of Oxford and Cambridge. It’s as if the UK tried to prevent students from studying anything except what the government wanted them to study.”

The unrest is also spread to Tibetan areas of Qinghai province.

Of course, with such massive show of force, the Chinese authorities will succeed in crushing the Tibetan unrest this time as they have done before. But shouldn’t it make Beijing pause and reflect why the Tibetan issue is not going away since Tibet was forcibly annexed in the fifties?

But that is not the way China’s communist government operates. To reflect about policies that are not working and might require a new approach is considered a sign of weakness. In dealing with Tibet’s seemingly intractable problem it is easy to simply deny that there is a problem.

They blame it all on the Dalai Lama for his remote-control hand to split Tibet from China. He is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” talking of peace and reconciliation while doing just the opposite. Therefore, it is none of China’s fault.

Let us take the Dalai Lama’s role. He is the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He recently relinquished his political mantle to his elected prime minister. It would appear that the institution of the Dalai Lama might cease to exist after the present incumbent departs this world.

This will effectively deprive the Chinese government of foisting their own Dalai Lama on the Tibetan people. Beijing will still do it but their candidate will lack legitimacy and popular acceptance among the Tibetans.

China, therefore, might be well advised to enter into talks with the Dalai Lama, when he is still around, for a peaceful resolution of the issue. He has publicly said a number of times that he is not for a separate Tibet. He only seeks autonomy for Tibet, with Beijing retaining control of defense, currency and foreign affairs.

The on-off talks between the two sides have been off again for some time now.

Why is China not interested? Because: they don’t trust the Dalai Lama. They think it is his way of working towards a separate Tibet. It defies logic, though. For instance, how will an autonomous Tibet, with real control vested in the central government, be able to defy China?

What China obviously fears is that an autonomous Tibet will seek to preserve its religion, culture and traditional way of life. And this doesn’t suit China. With its policies of Han settlement of Tibet, where the Tibetans might soon become a minority with no say in how their affairs are run, Beijing is in no mood to grant autonomy. The Tibetans will soon, if they are not already, become strangers in their own land.

Indeed, by slicing off parts of the Tibetan region and attaching them to neighboring Han provinces, Beijing has already parceled out their land. And the herdsmen, removed from their traditional mountainous grazing lands, have been set up in ghettos to work as casual labor with whatever they can find to earn a living.

There is even a suggestion at higher Party level that the government should adopt a more overt assimilationist policy of doing away with ethnic “privileges” altogether, being an obstacle to national cohesion. In other words, Tibetans might cease be a distinct ethnic group.

No wonder such repressive policies are driving Tibetans to the wall.

It is now more than sixty years that China incorporated Tibet but Tibet is still seething. Isn’t it time for China to do some introspection about the failure of their policies and create an accommodative policy framework based on autonomy for Tibet?

According to Pico Iyer, an expert on Tibet and the Dalai Lama: “Over the decades I’ve known him, the Dalai Lama has always been adept at pointing out logically, how Tibet’s interests and China’s converge--- bringing geopolitics and Buddhist principles together….”

The Dalai Lama is saddened that China is single-mindedly pursuing greed and at some point, as Pico Iyer recalls his conversations with the Tibetan leader, is going to have to find something to support it at some level deeper than just growth rates.

But in the meantime, there is not much hope for Tibet’s agony.

How Strong is China’s Economy?

By Sushil Seth

There is a growing fear that the world might be heading toward an economic Armageddon, with the Euro zone crisis looking intractable by the day. The US economy too is in a holding pattern with not much bright light ahead. In these times China appears healthy, though its rate of growth is slowing. This is not to say that China is trouble free.

China’s economy has some deep-rooted problems that do not augur well for its future. Indeed, this is the assessment of China’s Premier Wen Jiaobao who said some time ago that, “ We must…address the long standing problems in China’s economy of a lack of balance, poor co-ordination and unsustainability…”

If anybody else had said this, he/she would have been laughed out of town when China’s even slower growth rate of around 9 per cent is something another country will die for.

China’s growth strategy has been underpinned by three important factors. First: it has been export driven with seemingly unlimited demand for Chinese goods in the United States, Europe and even among third world countries.

Second: production costs in China are low because of low wages with long working hours which gives China an important and decisive competitive advantage with other countries.

Third: an undervalued currency further enhances China’s competitive advantage.

Not surprisingly, Chinese goods have flooded international markets to undercut local production with job losses.

Until the global financial crisis hit the world in 2008, the availability of cheap and easy credit didn’t create too much resentment in the US and the west against Chinese exports. For instance, with China buying US treasury notes and bonds with recurring and expanding trade surpluses, and its cheap goods helping to keep inflation under control, it didn’t seem a huge problem.

But all this is changing for a number of reasons. First: China’s export markets in Europe and the US are shrinking because of severe economic problems in these countries. They simply can’t afford to keep buying Chinese goods like before.

Second: these countries, especially the US, have been pressuring China to revalue its currency to create a level playing field for their exports to China. Because of China’s resistance to freely float its currency, protectionism is rising in the United States.

At the same time, the wages in China have been under upward pressure because of labor unrest. Therefore, the competitive advantage from lower wages in China might diminish.

With the rise of protectionism and rising labor costs, the export-driven growth strategy might not be as attractive as in the last thirty years.

China will, therefore, need to reorient its economy to produce goods and services for internal consumption. Because: any slow or sluggish growth will worsen unemployment leading to social unrest.

The problem, though, is that it is not like switching gears to change the direction of an export driven economy to focus more on creating and meeting internal demand. The state has to have a road map for this and a strategy to execute it. As far as is known, there is no such thing.

When the global recession hit in 2008 affecting Chinese jobs and exports, China sought to meet the situation with a hefty stimulation package of about $600 billion. Which has created the property bubble and stock market gyrations.

But the government has once again eased up on liquidity fearing contraction of the economy. This kind of go-stop economic approach is too arbitrary for a country of 1.3 billion people who need more jobs with a strong component of social welfare for difficult times. As it is China’s estimated 300 floating rural migrants working in urban economy are not entitled to the benefits accruing to their urban cousins.

Many poor and low income Chinese have difficulty accessing education and health facilities for their children because of prohibitive costs.

After all, China calls itself a socialist country, presumably to promote economic and social equity.

Tsinghua University’s Social Progress Report for 2011 has reportedly warned that China has fallen into a “transition trap” and faces a series of systemic “abnormalities” like, for instance, lopsided growth which has privileged the state and its monopoly industries.

It is a top-heavy system with entrenched corruption. It needs overhauling. But with a small elite at local, regional and central levels controlling the levers of power, it is easier said than done. They have parceled out businesses among their children and a select group of favorites.

In this situation any systemic transformation will seriously hit China’s relatively small political and economic elite feeding on the system.

This is why despite all the noise about corruption and the need to eradicate it, nothing much can be done because of the nature of the system.

Liu Xiaobo, China’s Nobel Laureate currently serving an 11-year prison sentence, has described it like this in one of his essays: “In China the underworld and officialdom have interpenetrated and have become one. Criminal elements have become officialized as officials have become criminalized…”

Apart from entrenched corruption, there are rank inefficiencies, colossal waste, structural imbalances, over production, with social justice and welfare a serious casualty.

To overcome the recessionary impact of the global crisis, Chinese banks lent liberally. Which has resulted in huge internal debt incurred by local and regional instrumentalities, creating inflationary pressures and bubbles in property and stock markets; not unlike what happened in Japan and recently in the United States.

Since the system lacks transparency and accountability in the absence of a participatory and responsive political system, China’s economy will continue to sputter with no medium or long-term solution.

To sustain growth, China needs political reform as even Premier Wen Jiabao admits. He said last year in Beijing: “ Without political restructuring, economic restructuring will not succeed and the achievements we have made in economic restructuring may be lost.”

He added, “If we are to address the people’s grievances we must allow the people to supervise and criticize the government.”

No chance of this happening any time soon, if at all.

Is US-China Collision Inevitable?

By S P SETH

Even as Iran has become the center stage of another likely military conflict in the Middle East with the US and its western allies determined to force it to forgo its nuclear program, Asia-Pacific region is emerging as another potential trouble spot pitting China against the United States. With the US now disengaged from Iraq, and in the process of military withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014, it has dawned on Washington that China has strengthened its role in Asia-Pacific and is slowly, but steadily, working to push it out of the region. China regards Asia-Pacific as its strategic space and the United States as an external power. The US has decided to hit back by declaring that it is not going anywhere and, indeed, will beef up its military presence in the region. Straddling both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, the US considers itself a legitimate Pacific country.

US-China relations have never been easy. They are likely to become even more complicated after the recent announcement of a US defense review that prioritizes Asia-Pacific region. Even though the review seeks to make sizeable cuts of about $500 billion in the US’s defense budget over the next ten years, it wouldn’t be at the cost of its engagement with the Asia-Pacific region. Indeed, as President Obama told reporters, “We’ll be strengthening our presence in the Asia-Pacific…”

Washington’s decision to make Asia-Pacific a priority strategic area was presaged during Obama’s recent visit to Australia. He hit out at China on a wide range of issues, while announcing an enhanced US role, including the use of Australian bases/facilities for an effective military presence. He urged China to act like a “grown up” and play by the rules. Elaborating on this in an address to the Australian parliament, he said, “We need growth that is fair, where every nation plays by the rules; where workers rights are respected and our businesses can compete on a level playing field; where the intellectual property and new technologies that fuel innovation are protected; and where currencies are market-driven, so no nation has an unfair advantage.”

This catalogue of US economic grievances against China has been the subject of intermittent discussions between the two countries without any satisfactory results. On the question of human rights and freedoms in China, Obama said, “prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty.”

The US is upping the ante in its relations with China, with Asia-Pacific as the centre stage. It doesn’t accept China’s sovereignty claims in South China Sea and its island chains. This has caused naval incidents with Vietnam, the Philippines, and with Japan in the East China Sea, and a close naval skirmish or two with the United States. As part a new resolve to play a more assertive role, the United States has reinforced and strengthened its strategic ties with Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Australia and Japan.

In announcing cuts to defense budget over the next decade, President Obama seemed keen to dispel the notion that this would make the US a lesser military power. He said, “The world must know ---the United States is going to maintain our military superiority with armed forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats.”

The US’s continued military superiority has a catch, though. Which is that the US will be adjusting its long-standing doctrine of being able to wage two wars simultaneously. Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, maintains, though, that the US military would still be able to confront more than one threat at a time by being more flexible and adaptable than in the past.

Be that as it may, the increased focus on Asia-Pacific has upset China. Its hope of making the region into its own strategic backyard, with the US distracted in the Middle East and its economy in doldrums, might not be that easy with the new US strategic doctrine prioritizing Asia-Pacific. Not surprisingly, the Chinese media hasn’t reacted kindly to it. According to the Chinese news agency, Xinhua, “… the United States should abstain from flexing its muscles, as this won’t help solve regional disputes.” It added, “ If the United States indiscreetly applies militarism in the region, it will be like a bull in a china shop [literally and figuratively], and endanger peace instead of enhancing regional stability.”

The Global Times called on the Chinese Government to develop more long-range strike weapons to deter the US navy.

Australia, US’s closet regional ally, fears that China’s rising economic and military power has the potential of destabilizing the region. Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, though, hopes (as he told the Asia Society in New York) that there was “nothing inevitable” about a future war between the US and China, emphasizing the need to craft a regional architecture that recognized the coexistence of both countries, and the acceptance of US alliances in the region. He also saw hope (as a counterpoint to China) in the “the collective economic might of Japan, India, Korea, Indonesia and Australia…” Which means that, hopefully, China’s perceived threat might be balanced and contained with the US’s enhanced commitment to the region, and the rising clout of a cluster of regional countries.

There are any number of issues that could become a flashpoint for future conflict, like Taiwan, Korea, South China Sea and its islands, maritime dispute with Japan and so on. With China determined to uphold its “core” national interests, and the US and others equally committed to, for instance, freedom of navigation through South China Sea, it only needs a spark to ignite the prairie fire.

As it is, neither China nor the United States want military conflict between their two countries. China’s official position was expounded the other day in Beijing by its vice-president Xi Jinping, who is also the country’s president-in-waiting. Xi, who is expected to visit the United States next month, hoped “that the US can view China’s strategic intentions…in a sensible and objective way, and be committed to develop a cooperative partnership.” And he emphasized that: “Ultimate caution should be given to major and sensitive issues that concern each country’s core interests to avoid any distraction and setbacks in China-US relations.”

The problem, though, is that when it comes to “core interests”, objectivity is generally the first casualty. For instance, the US complains that China’s strategic doctrine, if there is one, lacks transparency. The double-digit growth in China’s defense budget, as viewed in Washington, is way beyond its defensive needs. On the other hand, the US has the largest defense budget of any country in the world. It is pertinent to remember that wars have often been caused by miscalculation rather than deliberation. And this is even more so when an emerging power is staking its claims impinging on the existing superpower’s perceived interests and/or seen to be threatening its regional allies. This is how the two World Wars started.

One can only hope that China and the US will carve out a new peaceful way of coexistence and cooperation, though the past experience in such situations is not very encouraging. Indeed, it points to an inevitability of a potential military conflict sooner or later.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.