Thread: China Increasingly Stands Up To U.S

Originally Posted by Officer of Engineers

Ethnic Tibetans still control over 90% of Tibet. The Han-Chinese ... and Hui-Chinese are looking for business licenses, not deeds to the land ... which may also be a bad thing. They control Tibet's economy, not out of malice but to make a buck.

What the DL inner circle wants and what the Tibetan population wants... and what the CCP wants and what the Chinese population will allow are four different things.

While I have given you the gist of my understanding of the situation, it is far more complex than a few posts would imply.

The economic nature of the migrant settlement could imply a choice for not being entirely dependent on the source of income or perhaps a legal/social inability to do so, perhaps suggesting a minimal cultural impact?

I have witnessed some of the power dalai lama (as a brand ambassador) wields, a place in Delhi used to serve very nice rice beer, till he announced it was not the right thing to do, after which they stopped serving it, and i stopped eating there.

The few Tibetans i have talked with in India (none of them religious) have very little patience and mostly violent views on the situation, which is strange as i see no real violence in that region, perhaps a sign that their still is a level of control the existing leadership can exercise (a reason helped form the two way migration in the region, to and from Tibet).

Originally Posted by HillTribe

Kuku Jee...

Maybe for India since the newfound benefits of trade between India and China post 1990s.

But for Nepal, the millennia of contact with the Tibetan culture and people that produced one of the most wonderful syncretic cultures in the world and 1000s of years of unbroken tradition was completely stopped after the Chinese takeover of Tibet. As a result, Nepal was unwittingly pushed further into the orbit of the Indian cultural influence and away from Tibet. Painful as it is to me, I cannot still imagine how much more painful it must be to the Tibetan people.

The flow of ideas, people, goods etc went both ways. Buddhism was introduced into Tibet from Nepal by the Nepalese princess Bhrikuti Devi (600 CE) and later exported back to Nepal after a couple of centuries in a much refined form when Hinduism was in its ascendancy. This produced the fusion of Hindu and Buddhist faiths that is most obvious among the Newari people native to Kathmandu.

Not just cultural flow but trade and commerce was pretty robust too. The India-Tibet trade route passed through Kathmandu and eventually merged into the silk route (as long the silk route was in existence). Even as late as the 1900s, Nepalese coins were used in Tibet and many Nepalese businessmen, commonly referred to as "Lhasa Shahu" (Lhasa businessmen) held stakes in Tibet and vice versa. Intermarriage was also common.

The reasons for the Anglo-Nepal war of 1814-1816 was not just the belligerence of the Gurkha power in the hills (that combined with the Sikhs and Maratthas in the plains held the extremely dangerous proposition, from the British perspective, of ousting the British from India), but also the lucrative Tibetan trade which the British wanted to get a slice of. If the Gurkhas were cut down to size and driven away from Sikkim, Uttaranchal and Himachal, then the British could get in on the action:trade with Tibet.

After Big Red took over, Tibet was essentially quarantined from Nepal. Where previously people were free to just move freely to and fro across the border, now PLA border guards manned the border treating everyone as a potential subversive. All contact with Tibet was brought to a trickle and gradually the trickle turned into a complete cessation.

The Nepalese government completely incompetent and totally weak had always relied on its doctrine of balancing the Chinese against the Indians, and thus cancelling any threat to its sovereignty. This doctrine of balance was followed by all states that formed around the present day Nepal since medieval times and especially since the founding of the modern Nepalese nation state in 1776 . Nepal left Tibetans to their own devices after that, as did the rest of the world. But given the blood relationship, so to speak, between the two nations, Nepal could at least have taken a stand on the issue. But the Nepalese were not willing to irk the Chinese by being the next flag bearers of the Tibetan issue, much less stand up to the Chinese juggernaut.

Tibet was abandoned in the hope of business with China, investment from China, which never materialized. On the contrary Nepal lost big time when Tibet was lost to China... Worst yet, Nepal saw itself being nothing more than the errand boy of China. It cracked down mercilessly on the Tibetan monks during the Beijing Olympics under intense Chinese pressure without getting anything in return-- Business, Trade, Investment... Nothing!

Nepal lost, lost, lost after Tibet was annexed...Negligible trade and no contact with Tibet post 1950s. Even the much touted Kathmandu-Lhasa bus runs empty. Just too much hassle to travel to Lhasa now with every Nepalese being suspected of being a Tibetan sympathizer.

Not to say India did not loose. India did too, but the loss could be in the process of turning into some big gains for India now. Trade with China could be well into US $60 Bn and rising, fast. So the Tibet issue is as good as dead and buried for the Indians as it is for the Western governments. It would be stupid to upset the apple cart of 1 Bn+ strong market...

Well warrior z,

As you said India did loose, generations of my ancestors relied on trade with Tibet through the niti mana pass, a way of life that is forever lost to the times(not that i think of it as a bad thing, only prepared us for the future before anyone else: future being education), and as we did so did a huge community of people who shared a border with Tibet, occasionally information about Tibetans living in India who were (and still are) trained and operational in India with one of the primary purpose of carrying out certain duties across the border if the need arises.

As you state the trade and good relations with PRC are now much more important than the Tibetan cause, and from what i have read it seems to be true of both India and Nepal.

Several MPs in the Indian parliament are elected from regions quite sensitive on the Tibet issue, the rest would have absolutely no options on the issue.