SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND GRIEVANCES IN TIBET
I have just been listening to BBC Radio Five live because Anna Chen was on talking about China and Tibet. Anna did brilliantly, pointing out that “Free Tibet” would simply give the USA a missile base and control of much of China’s water. Back at the beginning of last month Anna predicted a deluge of anti-Chinese panic in New Internationalist, before the current Tibet controversy surfaced. What was particularly interesting in the BBC discussion was a western journalist working in Beijing saying that editors based in the West are overriding the local opinions of Western journalists actually on the ground, and British ex-pats based in China complained that the Western press has under-reported the degree to which the protests in Lhasa are riots beating up Han Chinese.
Virtually all debate about Tibet is informed by picking and choosing from often-dubious official Chinese government statistics, or the at least equally unreliable sources of the Free Tibet campaign, and exile communities, which has caused me to step back and see what more reliable information might be available.
When Western journalists do visit Tibet they rarely stray far from the towns or the minority of rural areas accessible by road. In fact, over 80% of Tibet’s population reside in remote rural villages. It is very useful to look at information from professional academic ethnographers to learn about social structure, grievances and economic status.
American and Tibetan academics published a study in 2003 “DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE IN RURAL TIBET, Problems and Adaptations” by Melvyn C. Goldstein et al.
This study looks at thirteen farming villages from four rural townships (Chinese: xiang) in the two main cultural divisions in central Tibet, chosen for being as typical as possible based upon the researchers’ own detailed knowledge of Tibet, the study group comprised 780 households. There was no interference from the government in the design or analysis of queries, and no government officials accompanied the researchers to interviews with villagers. Nor did they have to make appointments through officials to see villagers. They were free to visit households whenever they wished, day or night. We can therefore be fairly confident about their research.
Before we look at Tibet in detail though, it is worth looking at the recent protests in the context of what is happening in Chinese Society as a whole.
Firstly, it is worth considering the observation by “New Left” intellectuals, Wang Shaoguang and Hu Angang that China is in fact one of the weakest states in the world. That is, China has the wrong type of power; despotic rather than governing. The state is very good at controlling and atomising individual dissenters, but very poor at providing a stable culture of the rule of law. As Mark Leonard argues in his book “What China Thinks” published last November, the “New left” intellectuals consider most of the problems hampering reform of China – corruption, bad-investment, over-heating of the economy and growing inequality have come about because central government in too weak and not too strong. Illegal bribes, tax evasion and theft by government officials add up to a staggering 15% of China’s GDP.
This means that there is a culture of “Red Barons” exercising arbitrary power; and an equally growing culture of direct petitioning and protest as a surrogate for legal process – a tradition that goes back to Imperial times. Mark Leonard reports how he witnessed one protest involving a dozen elderly former broadcasters in 2006 lobbying the Chogqing Municipal Affairs Office. Unremarkable in itself, except that Mark reports this was one of 250 protests on that very day. And the pace of protests is growing, from 8700 in 1993 to 87000 in 2005. Growing from an typically ten people at each protest ten years ago, to over fifty today; but these are not necessarily small, nor peaceful protests. In the first half of 2005, there were 17 protests involving more than ten thousand people; and during that same six months 1700 people were injured and 100 killed during demonstrations.
The scale of recent protests in Tibet have therefore not been unusual, and their world-wide reporting has been disproportionate to their real social significance.
The fast pace of economic liberalisation in the era of Deng Ziaoping, Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji caused a huge disruption: some 40 million peasants had their land confiscated; and every year a further two million lose their homes to make way for new economic development. Even though the government has taken a more social-democratic turn over the last two or three years towards social welfare under President Hu Jintao, in large part of the country the “neo-cons” of the Shanghai school are still unleashing havoc.
The social costs of privatisation has removed the “iron rice bowl” because previously the state owned enterprises provided, in addition to a salary, education, pensions, housing, healthcare and even sport. So China has gone from full employment to a situation where there are 60 million unemployed, tens of millions of migrant workers in the grey economy who have no residency permit, and thus no legal rights; and many of those in work have no social safety net.
It is well worth watching the “China in the Red” documentary that can be viewed here. The section “Scrambling to Survive in Shenyang” is especially moving, reporting from the industrial city in the North of the country (around eight million people) where there are 1.3 million unemployed; and the film shows factory workers who have been employed in the same plant for 30 years being laid of, with no social security net to catch them. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs enrich themselves and drive their Mercedes cars, and wear their rolex watches and live in luxury appartments.
Mark Leonard reports from a typical rural area in the less developed West:
“Its decaying houses – inhabited only by the old, the frail and the sick – reminded me of the footage of war zones. Without any introduction an elderly lady came up to tell me that the village had been a shell since the able-bodied men emigrated to work as labourers (those left behind to tend the fields, she said, make just RMB 900 (£65) per year).”
There has been a huge row in the Communist Party over the policy of economic development in the West. In 2004 former Shanghai Party boss, and leader of the “new Right”, Chen Liangyu, accused Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of stoking up political turmoil by slowing economic growth in the Eastern Seaboard in order to redistribute wealth and development to the West, Tibet included. The right wing in the CCP want the Western Provinces to be left to rot. So it is a modest victory over the neo-liberals in the CCP that under the 11th Five Year Plan adopted in 2005, economic growth has not been the overriding goal of government policy for the first time since 1978, and in theory the Party is now committed to an inclusive model of social welfare by 2020.
The other thing that needs to be understood about China, which includes the whole country and not just Tibet, was the dissolution of the Peoples’ Communes that started in 1979, and reached Tibet in 1981. For over two decades before then the fan shen process had dissolved traditional feudal landholding and serfdom, and created “work units” where people worked, lived and ate together, which was designed to replace family households as the primary unit of rural production and social life.
The Peoples’ Communes were a failure in all of China, but there were additional problems in Tibet; where there was a particular structure to serfdom, some serfs had a “human lease” arrangement, whereby although they had lower social status than other serfs, they did have some mobility and were not tied to a particular plot of land provided they paid a proportion of their money earned back to their lord. We can well imagine that these poorer serfs could feel more constrained under Peoples’ Communes; at the same time that the richer “tax-payer” serfs might have experienced the Communes as lack of status, as they previoulsy ran the local communities. The introduction of Peoples’ Communes into Tibet in the late 1960s led to a small scale armed insurrection. The best-documented episode is the revolt in 1969 led by Thrinley Chodron, a young nun from the xian (county) of Nyemo, who marched her followers—armed with swords and spears—to the local Party headquarters, and slaughtered both the Chinese officials and the Tibetan cadres working for them.
This did not mean that the abolition of serfdom was a bad idea, but it needed handling with sensitivity, as did the dispersal of the drone class of monks, more that 10% of the population who were economically unproductive (around 20% of the male population), and the crass campaigns against Budhhism which failed to recognise how the religion was culturally important in binding together the Tibetan rural community, and giving colour and ritual to otherwise very harsh lives on the edge of survival. Monks and nuns being sent home from monastaries were often experienced as just another mouth to feed by their impoverished families, and could add very little towards familly income.
Mao Zedong himself was aware of potential problems. “We must do our best and take proper steps to win over the Dalai and the majority of his top echelon and to isolate the handful of bad elements to achieve a gradual, bloodless transformation of the Tibetan economic and political system over a number of years,” Mao wrote in an inner-party directive in 1952, calling it a policy “of uniting with the many and isolating the few.”
In a 1957 speech On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, Mao warned of the dangers of Han chauvinism and said: “Democratic reforms have not yet been carried out in Tibet because conditions are not ripe. According to the 17-article agreement reached between the central people’s government and the local government of Tibet, the reform of the social system must be carried out, but the timing can only be decided when the great majority of the people of Tibet and the local leading public figures consider it opportune and one should not be impatient.”
The tragedy was that although within the borders of the Autonomous Region, Ü and Thang areas, a slow pace of reform was conducted between 1950 and 1959, and the fights that the CCP picked were those where they were seen to be in the interests of the poorer serfs, for example insisting that workers were paid for working on the road construction programme, instead of relying upon the traditional unpaid corvée system, and ensuring that they did not have to pay a proportion in lease back payment to their Lords.
But disastrously, the area of Kham, which contained a significant Tibetan population and several of the most significant “yellow hat” monasteries was simply bundled into Sichuan province. This displayed an ethnic and cultural insensitivity; and was against the advice of Tibetan communists. One of the worst aspects of this was a naïve secularism, it is interesting that time and time again, like in the PDPA’s failed reforms in Afghanistan during the 1970s, ultra-left secularism is a disastrous mistake that undermines rural reform.
The collectivisation of Kham and the huge social and economic catastrophe of the Great Leap Forward were therefore resisted and there was a Tibetan uprising in 1956, because the Chinese had not managed to drive a wedge between the aristocrats and the serfs, due to their insensitivity to ethnic and religious identity, and ignorance of the particular social structures of Tibetan Serfdom. Rebels fleeing into the Autonomous Region from Kham destablilised the accommodation that had been made between Lhasa and Beijing, and this was stirred up by the CIA and aristocratic opponents of reform to precipitate the pro-feudalism revolt of 1959.
It has to be understood that most of the disastrous policies in Tibet were the same disastrous policies of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution that affected all of China. Indeed, as Tsering Shakya observes in New Left Review, the worship of Mahakala, the Tibetan wrathful form of the Buddha, was introduced to China during the Tang Dynasty. There was for centuries a Mahakala temple in Beijing, that was destroyed by the Communists in 1970; the Capital Stadium stands on the site today. But the Cultural revolution was so thorough in most of China that most Chinese intellectuals today are not even aware this tradition ever existed. (In fairness, Tsering Shakya was quoting this example to make a different point, about the chauvinistic assumptions many Han Chinese have of Tibetan backwardness)
From 1981 all land in Tibet was de-collectivised, and distributed among member households on a per-capita basis. Land cannot be bought and sold, and productive units cannot be broken up on death, it is leased in perpetuity from the state. This latter factor is important as the Tibetan traditional practices of polyandry and monasticism had a material basis in preserving the size of farmed plots – by reducing the number of eligible heirs. Livestock was also divided on a per capita basis, and since de-collectivisation there has been an 82% increase in livestock holding.
Goldstein et al report:
“The impact of these reforms on farmers’ standard of living is almost universally perceived by villagers to be positive. 94% of all 780 households felt their livelihood had improved since decollectivization, and in even the poorest xiang, Medrogongkar, 93.4% of respondents responded positively, saying their livelihood had improved. When responses were analyzed by socioeconomic status, it was found that 99.1% of rich and 81% of poor households reported that they had better livelihoods. The almost universal reason villagers offered for this was not new technology but rather their newly acquired freedom to work hard on their own resources for personal profit.”
“…. When respondents were asked whether they think they now have a better life than their parents, 85.5% responded positively. Only 8.6% said they were worse off. … Older villagers in the age category 60–79 years held this view—and their parents would have been adults at the end of the traditional society, i.e., they would have been between 40 and 60 years of age when the socialist period began in 1959. There was also optimism about the future. When asked whether they think their children will be able to have a better livelihood than they now have, 92% said yes.”
The land holding and social structure has thus greatly improved since both the period of collectivisation, and the previous feudal system, and is perceived as such by rural Tibetans. It is worth comparing this situation to contemporary Nepal, as described by Achin Vanaic in New Left Review: where feudalism still survives in the Tarai region, and just 5% of households own 37% of land, and there is systematic ethnic discrimination against the Madhesi population, and a caste system including the highly stigmatised Dalit “untouchable” class. By a simple index, though child mortality rates are higher in Tibet than in the rest of China, they are lower than in Nepal.
The inequality and poverty of rural Nepalese society has been sufficient to foster an armed Maoist movement, including until recently a Peoples’ Army of 10000 troops, and 20000 auxiliary militia. The social and economic drivers for such a rebellion seem to be completely absent in rural Tibet.
While the Free Tibet movement claims that Tibetans are becoming a minority in their own country, (an untruth unfortunatly repeated in this months edition of Labour Briefing), in fact only 6% of the population of the TAR is non Tibetan, and in Goldstein’s study there was not a single non-Tibetan living in the districts studied. Local government officials were all found to be Tibetan.
As the US State Department reports:
“Tibetans, as one of China’s 55 minority ethnic groups, receive preferential treatment in marriage and family planning policies, and, to a lesser extent, in university admissions and government employment. According to official government statistics, 74 percent of all government employees in Tibet are ethnic Tibetans”
Agricultural yields have increased since decollectivisation, Goldstein et al report:
“The critical question for rural households is whether they are able to produce enough grain to meet their family’s food needs. Focus group discussions were held to discuss in detail the grain situation of all households in each village. These discussions revealed that 77% of households produced either enough grain or a surplus of grain. Direct survey questioning of each household revealed a similar result—67% said they had one or more year’s grain stored away, and another 21% said they had six months’ to a year’s grain in storage.”
Beer and meat consumption has also increased since de-collectivisation, and the study concludes:
“Thus, despite many reports of extreme poverty in rural Tibet, our data reveal that the majority of inhabitants in the areas studied have made marked progress since de-collectivization and secured basic subsistence, in the sense of good food and housing, according to traditional Tibetan standards.”
The picture is not entirely rosy, 14% of households live in poverty, and “in the two poorest xiang—Medrogongkar and Panam—roughly one-third of the households were poor (37% and 31%, respectively). And, in Medrogongkar, 47.2% of the households reported they were not producing enough grain for their own subsistence from their land. By contrast, government statistics for China as a whole report that less than 5% of the rural population was below the poverty line.”
The crucial issues for Tibetans are population increase and non farm income.
Whereas in most of China, there is a one child policy, this has not been applied in Tibet, and until 1990 there was no population control limits. Since 1990 there is a three child policy, but this is laxly enforced. in the TAR as a whole, the number of ethnic Tibetans increased 35.3% in the 17 years from 1982–99 (1,764,000 to 2,388,009). Tibetans now use voluntary contraception, but increasing population has put a strain on the rural subsistence population, so the vital factor is achieving a non-farm income to supplement the household economy.
A preferred traditional Tibetan method of controlling rural population is to send people into monasteries, as the monastic population is sustained by the whole nation, and not only by the poorest rural farmers. But the government currently prevents the monasteries growing, which is a key grievance, and many Tibetans regard this as contrary to the government’s professed policy of freedom of religion.
Goldstein reports that preventing the growth of the population of nuns and monks (and in some cases even sending them back to their families) and the prohibition of showing pictures of the Dalai Lama are the two big issues where rural Tibetans consider their culture is being suppressed. Generally the Buddhists religion is very widely observed, it is officially permitted but disapproved of. Goldstein et al report:
“The fieldwork revealed that all the elderly engaged in daily religious prayers, but in differing amounts: 35% said they spent over one hour a day doing prayers (using rosaries, prayer wheels, ordoing circumambulation); 27% spent one-half to one hour; 23% spent five to 30 minutes; and 11% spent very little time. The least-religious interview subject said he spent “very little” time but went on to elaborate that he was atypical, saying, “My children say our father is a strange man who doesn’t doprayers or circumambulation. It’s true. I do not have a strong religious feeling.””
The key problem for Tibetans is the difficulty they have in gaining non-farm income. This is related to educational level, and the government decision not to protect the Tibetan economy from Han and Hui inward migration.
Goldstein et al found that 53.5% of males and females aged 15–45 reported that they can read Tibetan, and literacy was 73% for males in that age range. There were no schools at all in Tibet before communist rule, and so literacy rates among the old is very low. The paradox for Tibetans is that the fact they are educated in Tibetan and not Mandarin excludes them from well paying jobs, only 9.5% of individuals aged 15–45 reported that they can speak some Chinese, and this includes the village officials. (It is worth reporting here that since 1988 it is compulsory for all officials to be conversant with the Tibetan language , and since 1998 elections are compulsory for village committees)
The Goldstein study found that 48.8% of the 780 households surveyed had one or more members engaged in non-farm labour for part of 1997–98. Language excludes Tibetans from migrating out of the TAR for work, but within Tibet they also struggle to compete.
“villagers and their leaders almost universally complain that there are not enough jobs for them,and because their skill levels are low, that most of those who find jobs get only the lower-paying jobs. Thus, the income they earn is low. For example, roughly 52% of those who worked at off-farm labor engaged in manual labor, whereas only 26% engaged in skilled work, 18% in business, and 4% in government jobs. The different earning capacities of these types of jobs is substantial. In 1997–98, the reported median income earned per worker in manual labor was only 1,000 yuan ($121), while that of those in skilled labor was 65% higher at 1,650 yuan ($196), and in business it was 100% higher at2,000 yuan ($242). Working for the government was the highest income at 2,160 yuan ($261).”
Goldstein describes the problem:
“Throughout China, the post-Mao reforms have freed villagers to move from their official village residence and allowed them to seek work elsewhere. However, minority areas pose a special problem to economic development policy, since minority autonomous regions were explicitly created topreserve minority cultures and benefit minorities. The autonomy law of 1984 gave autonomous regions the right to override national laws when they were deemed not suitable for the needs of the minority population, including economic and development issues. A question for the government, therefore,was how to implement the market-development and migrant labor policies in Tibet where, for many reasons, Tibetans were clearly disadvantaged vis-`a-vis non-Tibetans (Han and Hui). Two models were discussed in the 1980s. In one, rapid development in Tibet would be stressed, with the door to Tibetbeing open to all Chinese without restraints. The government would provide huge amounts of infrastructural development money, and whoever came to compete for jobs was fine. The overt rationale for this was the need to accelerate the pace of development in Tibet.
“In the other model of economic development, Tibetans would be given preferential treatment for jobs, contracts, etc. The aim was still rapid development, but this would be tempered somewhat so that the citizens of the minority autonomous region would be the primary beneficiaries of economic growth. This approach is somewhat analogous to the model being used in China’s dealings with more advanced Western companies, where combinations of preferences and constraints are used so that the less skilled group— the Chinese—has time to catch up and compete.
“The debate over these alternatives was settled in the mid-1980s, when China opted for the former model. The result has been an influx of huge numbers of non-Tibetan migrant laborers and businesspeople (mainly Han). The majority of the residents in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, now are Han Chinese, and the secondary towns are moving in that direction. Thus, as rural Tibetans found it increasingly necessary to compensate for decreasing per capita land holdings and turned to off-farm labor, they found (and find) themselves in difficult competition with large numbers of better-skilled, experienced China workers and businesses. Given the current policy, this competition from non-Tibetans will certainly increase as the new Western Region development policy pumps more funds into infrastructural projects in Tibet.”
The Times recently reported an Australian researcher, who summed up the nature of the revolt of the Tibetan urban poor:
Ben Hillman, of the Crawford School of Economics and Government of the Australian National University, sees a mix of economic and ethnic factors behind the unrest. “I think there has been a pace of change so fast that Tibetans have failed to keep up. Other groups, such as the Han, have moved in and taken opportunities, and that’s caused a great deal of tension - particularly among young Tibetans.”
Beijing has poured billions of dollars into the region over the past three decades to try to develop one of its most backward - and strategically important - corners. The economy has grown at more than 12 per cent for seven years and hit 14 per cent last year - higher even than the national rate. Incomes too have risen: up 13 per cent in 2007 for Tibet’s many nomads and farmers and a stunning 24.5 per cent for urban residents.But there are those who feel left out. Young Tibetans who speak poor Mandarin - the official language of China and crucial to finding a job. Others are accustomed to a more rural way of life and their education, like others in China’s vast countryside, leaves them ill-equipped for the rough and tumble of a market economy.
Conclusions:
It is certainly true that the Tibetan Autonomous Region is poorer than most of China, but it shares this situation with most of the Western provinces, and it must be appreciated that the policy of economic development for the Western provinces was a victory for the left in the CCP, as the neo-con right wanted to concentrate all development only on the Eastern seaboard, whereas the left were worried about growing regional inequality.
However it is also true that implementation of the policy has been insensitive to ethnic, linguistic and cultural factors, this particularly affects those areas where there are significant Tibetan populations outside of the Autonomous Region. Quite modest reforms by the Chinese government could address these grievances: for example adjusting the borders to allow Kham and other Tibetan areas to join the Autonomous Region, allowing pictures of the Dalai Lama to be displayed, and lifting the restrictions on numbers entering monasteries.
The Chinese state has emancipated Tibetan serfs, and brought roads, schools and hospitals; as well as economic development. They have brought the majority of Tibetans into national life, through improved literacy, communictaions and education. But they have also squandered what good will this may have brought through insensitivity to cultural and ethnic factors, and through not protecting the interests of Tibetans who are sidelined by the economic development in the region. The disastrous policies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were if anything less fevered in Tibet than the rest of China; but their application was experienced differently; many Tibetans seeing them as alien and foreign - although we must recognise that many CCP members are Tibetan. Hence the fact that identification with the Dalai Lama is a way of expressing grievance over all aspects of life over which Tibetans feel they have insufficient control.
The “One nation, two systems” model that allows Macau and Hong Kong to be self governing within the Peoples Republic also provides a model of how more widespread reform could be accommodated, that could see the return of the Dalai Lama and many of the exile community.
The current policy is paradoxical, because the forced economic development of the TAR is not profit driven, but only provides limited economic benefits for native Tibetans. The recent riots and protests clearly have an ethnic and nationalist dynamic, but the economic basis of their grievances are that the rural economy relies upon additional income from non-farm work, but native Tibetans struggle to achieve that income because they have little knowledge of Mandarin. The protests are also typical of the type of protests that occur throughout China.
Economic development is necessary to provide the non-farm income that the rural Tibetan economy requires, and as the capital investment in these remote regions is unprofitable that economic development will not be provided by the free market, and the only power with a vested interest in such unprofitable development is Beijing. The Lhasa to Beijing rail link, and the drawing of Tibet into the mainstream Chinese economy may well offer the possibility of sustainable non-farm income that will underpin stability and a route out of poverty for rural Tibetans.
It is hard to see that there is any social or economic class in Tibet whose interests would be improved by independence, and without such an interest then there are probably no grounds for a mass struggle for independence. Cultural and political autonomy within the Peoples’ Republic is an acheivable option, whereas full political “independence” would just mean Tibet swapped China for domination by the USA or India.
The disadvantages and social exclusion of Tibetans in their own land need to be addressed, but the fact that many of their economic grievances are the same as, or similar to, the problems faced by Han Chinese throughtout the whole of China must be recognised. Given the paranoia of the CCP about any threat to the unity of the Peoples’ Republic, then the least effective way to gain reforms to solve these problems is to link them with the demand for independence, and be seen to be aligned with the foreign powers who are enemies of the Chinese government. The last thing the Tibetan people need is to be used as a pawn in a propaganda war against Beijing.
Worth checking out the original research, published in ASIAN SURVEY Vol. XLIII, No. 5, September/October 2003
It was by:Melvyn C. Goldstein is the John Reynolds Harkness Professor in Anthropology and Co-Director of the Center for Research on Tibet at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. Ben Jiao is a research scientist at the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences in Lhasa, Tibet. Cynthia M. Beall is the S. Idell Pyle Professor of Anthropology and Co-Director of the Center for Research on Tibet atCase Western Reserve University. Phuntsog Tsering is the former president of the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences
A woman called Anna Chen is on Radio5 as we speak claiming that the Tibet debate is all about the US gaining control of the water supply.
Comment by Madame Woof — 9 April, 2008 @ 10:31 am
First of all a very interesting piece and a considerable improvement on previous postings. The ‘new left’ intellectuals arguments seem entirely compatible with ‘good governance’ rhetoric though and I remain unconvinced that they represent an alternative to the neo-liberals, as opposed to the burdgening protest and petition movements. Secondly I believe that Andy might be over-stating the real divisions between the neo-con and the ’social democratic’ wing of the CCP, in terms of strategic as opposed to tactical orientation. Thirdly I think that the attempt to argue that the US wants to see Tibet seperate from China (whether because of water or anything else) is just false, as is the implication that these protests are orchestrated by the US. Again, China is not the Middle East or South America. Fourthly I don’t think its a good argument against seperation to stress the repressive apparatus of the state. I think Socialists recognise the right to self determination but argue that the way foward is to link up with other movements in China. The difference may seem a mere matter of verbal juggling, but politically I think its important.
In addition I should say that what was particularly interesting here was the discussion of the structure of feudalism in Tibet and the way in which, in reality, it was somewhat less repressive (in terms of land rights) then the feudalism which prevailed in other areas of China. Despite the fact that I differ from Andy politically on this question, the move away from Stalinist style demonology to concrete historical appraisal is useful as well as welcome.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 11:10 am
“Firstly, it is worth considering the observation by “New Left” intellectuals, Wang Shaoguang and Hu Angang that China is in fact one of the weakest states in the world. That is, China has the wrong type of power; despotic rather than governing.”
I fear you and they may be mistaking base and superstructure here. Estimates of the legitmacy of the rule of the CPSU went up and down with the behaviour of the Soviet Union’s economy.
I seem to remember some famous marxist saying once that support for national liberation struggles doesn’t depend on the viability of nationhood, but I can’t recall who and when. Doesn’t necessarily make it true. I assume the reason why the (not so) splittist Dalai clique don’t call for independence is the fear that it would “provoke” the Chinese into genocide.
Comment by skidmarx — 9 April, 2008 @ 11:46 am
oh and of course its just wrong to complain about coverage of the issue (as opposed to the way its covered) if you want to have the least chance of relating to activists concerned about human rights abuses. You get into the same ridiculous position of people who complain that human rights abuses in Palestine are ‘unfairly’ highlighted. Its the *purpose* of those concerned about the issue to get it as widely discussed as possible.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 12:35 pm
#3 Lenin said in polemic with Rosa Luxemburg that the viability of a national liberation struggle was immaterial, but he even more stringly said that socialists only support independence where there is an actually existsing bourgeois democratic national liberation movement - something clearly lacking in Tibet.
Comment by Andy Newman — 9 April, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
Well in Palestine there was no national liberation movement in the occupied territories for two generations. There were Palestinians but the articulation of Palestinian nationalist politics occured in Lebanon, Jordon and Eygpt. In terms of whether a movement properly qualifies as ‘bourgoise’ or not I think thats a rather anachronistic discussion, given that we are dealing with a part of a world were typically the bourgoisie did not fulfill its historical mission and other forces typically stepped in. We do not wait for statistical confirmations before suggesting that people have the right to self determination especially when quite clearly there is quite a large body of opinion both inside and outside of Tibet which wants just that, whatever we may think about the advisability of this, and were the existing State does everything it can to clamp down on any opinion which could even be concievably heading in that direction.
I’m reminded of discussions of Kashmir where much ink is spilt on the viability of self determination given the likely responses of both States involved, and on the other hand its stressed that the demand causes divisions amongst workers in the country which currently occupies most of it. The confusion here is the only apparently absurd possibility that its quite right to stress the right to self determination without neccessarily advocating it. The stress here is on the principle that any dialogue with an oppressed group has to be premissed on the fact that you would try and persuade people rather then assume that you had the right to deny them something they actually want: the latter approach being counterproductive.
Hence the political importance of Lenin’s famous comparison with divorce. As stated this seems like a mere verbal juggling but the difference is important. Its also true that (I think false) arguments about Tibetan nationalism merely being a front for US imperialism’s designs on China have the great drawback of subordinating the interests of Tibetens to the interests of China: precisely what many in Tibet object to all down the line.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
It would seem at least debateable whether the US had a role in the recent distrurbances:
http://21stcenturysocialism.com/article/the_unusual_suspect_01635.html
It seems the Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement is funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy, a notorious front organisatuion for US aggression.
Comment by Andy Newman — 9 April, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
#6 John
But the fact is that we simply don’t know whether there is a mood for independence or not in Tibet. And if there is then given that most Tibetans would probably be worse off if they were independent, then it is correct for socialists to argue that it is not in their best interests.
Comment by Andy Newman — 9 April, 2008 @ 12:58 pm
First of all there is absolutely no evidence that Tibetens would be worst off if they were independent. This is a wholly metaphysical argument premissed on the baseless belief that social change over the last fifty years would have been impossible if it were not for the invasion and occupation of Tibet by China: the serious error involved in this argument is not simply that its a standard colonial argument, but that, as with those arguments, it assumes that the path to modernisation pursued was the only possible one. This is a wrong and circular argument even in relationship to more reformist demands about autonomy (in other words its an argument which is both entirely irrational and which can be used to justify just about anything).
Secondly the fact that these broadcasts were sponsered by the US does not at all mean that the unrest was caused by the US: the fact that the Dalai Lama does have support inside of Tibet and the fact that, as noted in your article, national resentment is focused on the repression associated with even having a photograph of the man, would be the major reason why people would listen to the broadcast at all.
Following the kind of logic which you appear to be invoking here one might conclude that as the Dalai Lama calls not for independence, but more autonomy, and as a US backed CIA front pays money to the radio broadcasting the Dalai Lama, therefore (its a witch!) Andy’s position on regional autonomy is a policy advocated by US imperialism. Before you dismiss this as a ludicrous argument be aware that any civil society activist in China who put foward arguments for more autonomy for Tibetans would be accused of precisely that!
And we do know more then nothing about national feeling in Tibet. The parrallels with Kashmir become clearer and clearer. I once heard a progressive Indian with close connections to the Indian diplomatic services wailing about how its impossible to take a position on self determination because, after all, the repression of both the Pakistani and Indian state, meant that even if a plebicite was possible, it would be impossible to know whether people were even VOTING freely or not (the twisted logic being comical by itself without the implication that here was a ‘just in case’ argument prepared specially for the unlikely event that such a plebicite would ever be organised).
Strangely though, and this is a rather more concrete point, despite national sensitivities being just as acute around the subject of Kashmir (and exactly similar arguments being raised sometimes on the left, as well as just as real complexities) I don’t imagine (correct me if I’m wrong) that many here would oppose the demand for self determination in Kashmir. If this is true, this is entirely inexplicable at a rational level.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
John
Tibetans clearly would be worse off if they were independent, becasue that independence could only be achieved by a full scale war between the USA and China.
The serious issue is why the New Left intellectuals in China are almost completely silent about the national minorites issues, partly this is self censorship, but partly becasue the minorities issues is exploited by the USA and anti-Chinese forces like the Free Tibet people.
Surely the Tibetans are better off linking their demands to forces that coould achievee an improvemtn in their position - in China, and framing the debate in such a way that makes that possible; rather than being the shock troops for a US propaganda war against China, which is very likely to end in tears.
When the Free Tibet people bleat about China, they know that it won’t be their doors the PLA kick in.
Comment by Andy Newman — 9 April, 2008 @ 1:59 pm
I think they would be better off doing what you suggest Andy. But thats a matter for them and not for me. I only have the right to argue with them about tactics if I recognise their right to self determination. I find your excuses for the ‘new left’ intellectuals silence quite incredible I must say. Thats really retrograde.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 2:17 pm
And repeating allegations that they are shock troops for an entirely non-existent and wholly imaginary imperialist campaign against China, is also pretty disgraceful really. Its no better then supporting the BJP’s arguments about minorities in India.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 2:20 pm
…and despite your subjective position Andy, you come perilously close in your last post to justifying repression. In particular your attempt to label the Free Tibet people as simply an Imperialist front. What does such a position mean in Tibet?
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 2:38 pm
sorry the string of mails reflects genuine shock. Had an amusing discussion with a friend of mine from India (Maoist actually!) about a group of socialists in the west who because India had the word ’socialist’ in the constitution spent their time charting the successes and failures of the ‘Indian socialist experiment’, perhaps writing the odd letter to the Prime Minister suggesting certain ‘errors’ he might like to correct. Its all a bit odd really.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 2:54 pm
This debate is in danger of leaving the rails again.
I remember participating in an on-going argument inside the SWP (among a tiny layer of “specialists” I hasten to add - although it broke through to ‘Socialist Review’ too) many moons ago about whether or not Saddam Hussein deserved the party’s support as a bulwark against American imperialism (a new Nasser for Arab nationalists). It took place just after the Kurds had been gassed.
The ‘resolution’ of the debate was that no one should have any illusions in the ability or motivations of Saddam to ‘oppose’ US imperialism AND that having established that position it was imperative to point up the disastrous role the US would play should there be a falling out between old friends…
How swiftly things changed.
I feel somewhere between John’s ‘Cylla’ and Andy’s ‘Charybdis’ right now.
John’s picture of an, “entirely non-existent and wholly imaginary imperialist campaign against China” is one-sided. Andy’s, explanation of bureaucratic manoeuverings, “partly becasue the minorities issues is exploited by the USA and anti-Chinese forces…” is too, though it’s saved by that “partly”.
I *think* John’s wait-and-see approach to a deafeningly loud campaign over here is missing the ball. As the US economy rubs up against a key player the friction’s going to lead to a lot of heat. Certainly, right now, scads of Wall St. commentators will praise the leavening effects of inward investment but, like anything out of Wall St. the switch can be thrown overnight. On Main St. the more sinister ideological play is winning. Anti-Chinese propaganda, dressed up as concern for ‘human rights’ is a key tool in bonding workers to murdering bosses. Quite simple.
Andy’s penchant for a similar wait-and-see attitude vis-a-vis the CCP bureaucracy is equally flawed I feel. As has been mentioned on other threads, Chinese radicals are waking up to the fact that changes in the nomenklatura’s direction will only happen if pressure is brought to bear from without (while remaining *within* China). Forunately, that pressure isn’t reducing, and we might see some key gains in the short term.
If you’re of a sloganeering bent then I proffer this:
Troops out of Iraq - Democracy in Tibet!
I think something along those lines is vital to break the links between Western workers and the cruise-missile liberals who work at the nationalist glue factory. It also demonstrates that we’re not *that* naiive when it comes to Chinese and Tibetan radicals looking for alternate traditions and ideas. And both terms, if ever realised, would weaken anti-democratic imperialists wherever they sit…
Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 9 April, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
Battersea is only using that slogan because I’d previously ok’d it. I’d remind him that he’s allowed to disagree with me but not too much, according to the Goldielocks principle.
There is no imperialist campaign against China. What there is is an ideological campaign designed to differentiate ‘democracies’ from ‘dictatorships’ which by default China fits into. The rhetoric is easily exposed as hypocritical in this case. But the US has no interest in undermining Chinese capitalism (and indeed cannot possibly afford such a thing). And those who head up Chinese capitalism are the CCP: not the Dalai Lama. Once again, repeat after me, China is not the Middle East, China is not the Middle East…
(Battersea incidently is a self confessed fan of an Officer and a Gentleman. I thought it important to point this out).
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
I would like to revise the above slightly:
I think that the kind of rhetoric being used against China by western powers is dangerous because its part of a general ideological offensive which justifies intervention ELSEWHERE. So you oppose the rhetoric but don’t for that reason give in to a stalinist argument which justifies repression of minorities in China by claiming that China is Iraq. It really isn’t. If there ever was a seriouse breach between Beijing and Washington it is not the case that our response would be the same as when it came to Iraq. It would be neccessary to reach back to the tradition of opposing imperialist wars rather then opposing colonialism. In other words a straightfoward position of revolutionary defeatism. Even today we do not support western whinning about the rise of China but do not for that reason regard Chinese capitalism as somehow progressive. Even so, in the case of war, the cataclysmic nature of such a confrontation would mean that an awful lot would have had to have changed, especially in relationship to China’s position in the pecking order, for that to even be imaginable. The parrallel is not with the history of colonialism. It would be much more like the rising tensions between the US and Japan in the first part of the 20th century (interestingly Japan demanded the right to be a colonial power at the League of Nations and was denied on clearly racist grounds. This of course did not mean that socialists anywhere should have supported Japan against the US because racist discrimination of that kind was ‘unfair’). China was of course the main victim of Japanese imperialism. The fact that the British, the French, and the Dutch, and the US were the bigger imperialisms not withstanding. The main foreign power the anti-imperialists fought against in China was not the big imperialisms but the little one. Despite this a blow against imperialism globally was struck when ‘China stood up’. For this reason the kinds of position being outlined by Andy are too crude. This is unintentional on his part. Battersea is of course a different kettle of fish. He’s fairly straightfowardly an enemy of the people engaged in wrong thinking who needs a protacted bout of self criticism.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 3:55 pm
John
I am not advocating repression, but any tactical evaluation of the situation has to factor that into account, and seek to avoid it. I am also criticising not the Tibetans in Tibet, but the Free Tibet campaigners and emigres who are indeed prepared to stoke up an ideological confrontation that demonises China, and by implication which reinforces the ideological clap-trap about humanitarian intervention, liberal democracy, and the whole rancid “decency” of the West.
John, I think you underestimate the usefullness of Tibet for the USA as a counterweight to the current Chinese foreign policy agenda of “soft Power” ruan quanli, and China’s aim to build alliances based upon reinstating models of national sovereignty as a counterweight to globalisatioon and neo-liberalism.
The weakness of the New Left over the nationalities question is very significant, though see the exception which is the article by Wang Lixiong in New Left Review a few years back. But I think a strategy of constructive engagement with the actually existing reformist forces within the PRC will be more fruitful path forward - they are after all linked to debates in Western academia, and through civil society. An anti-Chinese political campaiagn in the West is the least fruitful context.
Comment by Andy Newman — 9 April, 2008 @ 3:57 pm
Yeah, but John, you make the ‘ideological campaign’ sound like an “educational”.
There are real tensions looming - which I can only hope never turn out to be ‘actioned’. N. Korea and Taiwan are back-burnered due to tactical imperatives elsewhere. They’re not resolved, nor is the resource map all the way down the eastern seaboard to the Malacca Straits. China sits high in the ‘to-do’ list of neo-cons. Hence the ‘nuancing’ - even in Socialist Worker - toward Free Tibet…
PS. ’tis true about “Officer”, ‘cept Debra Winger still refuses to reply to my daily emails…
Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 9 April, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
Finally, the lights go on in that dimly lit wood cabin JohnG calls a brain…
It is the internal ideological prop for imperialism that’s important about anti-China propaganda (and we’re forgetting the racism of ‘inscrutability’, ‘deference to authority’ etc. etc that goes with the cart). The Olympics are coming. It’s going to get louder and louder.
Andy, your ‘constructive engagement’ needs refining before I sign-on. If you mean it to be an endorsement of those in the CCP who break with it toward those fighting oppression then of course, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. The push and shove won’t come from within, the protests outside will, given its sophistication to date, instill, and be the predicate of, new voices.
Carts and horses…
Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 9 April, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
Battersea you need to reply to my analogies with Japan. Andy I don’t understand who should be engaging with the reformist wing of the CCP. Small groups of socialists are unlikely to be attractive parties in dialogue with internal factions of a ruling class having a sometimes acrimonious debate about the best way foward for their capitalism. It seems to me there is a repeat here of ’socialism with a human face’ style arguments of the 1960s where some Communists thought they were engaged in fraternal arguments with people who turned out to be in reality, at best, dissident factions of the ruling class rather then representives of the people. This is I think what gives an air of unreality to your argument. It makes sense as an internal position paper at the foreign office rather then a debate between socialists. Yes the US is hostile to the development of Chinese soft power, and yes Tibet has a utility to them as an issue in that contest. But socialists whilst opposing their own ruling classes machinations in such a situation do not for that reason support the soft power of another power. Anymore then because the rise of Japanese capitalism was inspiring to many anti-colonial nationalists in asia (and beyond) socialists took to supporting Japan (even if the navel defeat of Russia gave a fillup to the crisis of Tsarism). Its just a mistake. I also do not think, in reality, its possible to draw such a sharp line between the Free Tibet people, the Dalai Lama, and national sentiments in Tibet. Whilst there are real differences (there are bound to be), whilst there is undoubtably a history of western involvement etc, its still a mistake to draw straightfoward equations like this. You can’t on the one hand say that we should not make a false opposition between those concerned about human rights in Tibet and socialists and on the other hand describe many such people as straightfoward agents of imperialism. This is not a productive way of intervening in the argument thats clearly taking place within the Tibetan camp AND amongst civil society activists inside and outside of China. To make statements like this is either to immediately and unneccessarily marginalise yourself in any such discussion, or on the other hand to prevent you from saying certain things that also need to be said to those otherwise progressive activists who simply have a blind spot for their own national chauvinism (this is hardly unusual in many countries round the world). Its possible to oppose decency without falling into smaller and more junior versions of the same.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 4:26 pm
Obviously I knew it all along Battersea I was simply unaware that you were starting from such an enourmously BACKWARD position. Expose the enemies of the people.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
“China sits high in the ‘to-do’ list of neo-cons”
I have to admit I just laughed when I read this. Bring it on.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
…who was it who invented the phrase ‘paper tiger’?
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
“I have to admit I just laughed when I read this. Bring it on.”
Well yes. I meant *ideologically* you unreconstructed, formalist, swamp-minder!
That being said, I still shiver to think about a Japanese role as proxy in all that…
But don’t worry John, leave those types of ideas to those who can manage more than two variables at once….
Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 9 April, 2008 @ 5:43 pm
Good luck to the protesters I say, the Chinese government is as big a force against socialism as the US so anything that makes it less powerful is to be welcomed.
I can’t help thinking that despite the complex argument Andy’s instincts may be based on a slight sympathy for the idea that “Chinese Communism” is in some way better then “American Capitalism”.
Comment by Joseph Kisolo — 9 April, 2008 @ 6:05 pm
I’ll leave Battersea to his incohate swampy shivering. Joseph I think you might have a point…
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 6:39 pm
#26 Joseph: “Andy’s instincts may be based on a slight sympathy for the idea that “Chinese Communism” is in some way better then “American Capitalism”.
For China, it has been.
American Capitalism wanted the Kuomintang to rule China. Part of the reason for the rise of McCarthyism was the fact they “lost China”
The victory of the right wing of the CCP over Maoist ultra-leftists had both positive and negative features.
But China’s rapid economic development is not down to American (or International) Capitalism, but the extent to which China has been able to retain controls over its internal economy.
People who downplay the evidence that the growing tensions between the US and China are part of an orchestrated campaign, which includes use of the “Free Tibet” movement, are obscuring reality behind false juxtapositions and invalid comparisons. The US and Western economies are headed for serious economic recession. China has vast reserves of foreign currency and its economy can undercut the West. The fact that Rover’s plant in Birmingham was dismantled and shipped to China is clear enough evidence of that.
A section of the US and EC leaders would like to renegotiate the terms of trade with China to their advantage. Another section want to be more agressive and go for overthrowing the rule of the CCP entirely, utilising the ethnic tensions in the provinces as one tool. The governments in the US and EC are far too implicated in joint ventures and profiting from the Chinese economy to be overt about this policy.
So, in line with what’s happened elsewhere, they will sponsor various “civil society” organisations. They can use their film stars, sports-people and the large network of English speaking students in American and British Universities and Colleges to do this.
Abstract discussions about the right of self-determination don’t help resolve this question. Marxists have always seen Self Determination as something which aids the movement towards Socialism.
Almost all of Lenin’s discussion of the topic involved the situation existing under European Capitalism before World War One.
Whenever “self determination” was utilised by imperialist powers to undermine a radical nationalist, or revolutionary government they rejected it as a fig leaf for reaction.
Trotsky only considered using the slogan of an Independent *Soviet* Ukraine, because in a period in which Stalin was in a de-facto alliance with Hitler, creating such a state would have completely undermined the Pact and had a radicalising effect on the USSR as a whole. Instead, Stalin’s diplomatic manouevers rendered the USSR unprepared and allowed the Wermacht to trample on the Ukraine in 1941.
China is not the USSR in 1939, but neither is it Japan, which in fact occupied its most industrialised territory in the 30’s. However Tibet has the potential to be used a strategic pawn against China and the slogan “Free Tibet” aids such a strategy.
Socialists should therefore support Tibetan autonomy within a Socialist China.
The best way to do that is attempt to link with working class movements in China fighting for better conditions for Chinese workers, oppose further privatisation and seek to rebuild the principles of workers democracy and social welfare rights.
Failing to be absolutely explicit on this question simply aids demagogues who want to manipulate mass discontent to bring in something even more reactionary. There are enough examples of that already. Naivety isn’t a policy.
Comment by prianikoff — 9 April, 2008 @ 6:54 pm
Sorry but China is not in any sense socialist and is a rival capitalist power. Of course its success is partly based around the fact that its geo-political power means it can control its own economic policy but this has zero to do with ’socialism’. Its the fastest growing section of global capitalism and just as the US and Europe are completely implicated in this so is China completely implicated in global capitalism. The tensions that exist inside China between city and rural hinterland, between majorities and minorities etc are entirely mediated by the development of capitalism and its form. Assessing what is going on in China cannot be divorced from more general discussions about the relationship between geo-politics and economics (ie imperialism) within contemporary globalisation. The demand for autonomy within a ’socialist’ China either implies the overthrow of the existing state and the construction of socialism or it implies simply the demand that the Dalai Lama is actually making and which the Chinese State so far refuses to countenance, I suspect because the existing tensions mean that such a concession would lead to similar demands from other minorities, and from there to the generation of other kinds of instability.
Yes the US did ‘lose’ China. As emphasised the Chinese revolution was a defeat for imperialism. In my view it represented a thourough-going anti-feudal bourgoise nationalist revolution the abolition of the private capitalist class representing a later and unplanned improvisation in the face of the contradictions of development in an extremely backward and overwhelmingly rural economy, as well as the pressures of the cold war. But if in order to develop China had to throw the imperialists out its also true that like other similar regimes it began to find ways of re-negotiating its relationship with the imperialist system. From needing to protect itself from imperialism its now strong enough to negotiate a junior position within the existing global imperialist system currently dominanted by the US.
The relationship between the US and China is a relationship between the largest global superpower and the an increasingly important regional great power (in the process of displacing the global superpowers regional hegenomy). Tensions are real but this is not a colonial relationship. Aside from illusions that this has something to do with socialism there is also the illusion that a new kind of cold war between China and the US might provide some kind of umbrella for smaller powers and we might return to a more old fashioned and stable kind of ‘balence’ (possibly a new non-aligned movement or something like that). This is a dangerous illusion which fosters other illusions. In so far as the Chinese model is successful and insofar as China succedes in its strategy of displacing the US as a regional hegemon (something which no socialist would mourn obviously) the concrete results would be other kinds of powers, whatever their ideology, and whatever their relationship to the US, emulating a more authoritarian brand of neo-liberalism and the proliferation of SEZ’s etc.
In India it is not only a section of the Communist movement that would like to emulate this. Its also the secret dream of the right. And challenges US imperialism not at all (they are heartily in favour of this kind of emulation when not led by Communists). The only reason for the Chinese model not being embraced fully is that it is because of fears of the kind of resistance that might be engendered (resistance which has thrown the ruling Communists in Bengal and the Communist movement more generally into a deep crisis). The usefulness of this for the ruling class has been that its fashioned an anti-Communist witch hunt under the cover of which it quietly seeks to emulate identical policies.
This is a nice metaphore for the relationship between Chinese and global economic strategy.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 7:57 pm
Oh and English speaking Chinese students in western universities are fervent Chinese nationalists, generally speaking, as is most of the rising middle class and indeed, over the last decade, huge chunks of the elite diaspora. It is simply nonsense to ignore this and to equate this nationalism with ‘anti-imperialism’ of any kind. It is motivated by precisely the same combination of fervent neo-liberalism and new forms of nationalism which is a feature of a rising middle class on the one side, and on the other the re-structuring of nationalism away from the older welfare model towards more aggressive models of capital accumulation and dreams of becoming one of the new top dogs. Of course socialists don’t join the western ruling classes attempts to whip up fears of capitalist competition and ‘defend the west’ against its hostile brothers. But we don’t equate rival capitalist powers with ‘anti-imperialism’ either. China is dependent on the existing structure of global imperialism. It simply wants to renegotiate its position. And has done.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 8:04 pm
I agree with Chairman JohnG.
More in sadness than anger it should be said.
Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 9 April, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
And just thinking aloud the real worry for the US is that its relationships further south might be endangered. China will deal with North Korea (just as they dealt with Burma). And increasingly if your Taiwan, or South Korea or Japan….well why not cut out the middle man? (who just blusters ineffectually until China steps in and ensures their position as regional broker: a less extreme version of the Americans running to the Iranians to help out in Iraq). If China is the regional hegemon who calls the shots, if the bulk of your investment is in China and your increasingly dependent on its economic performance…well there is such a thing as gravity in world politics.
Its been said that the cold war was a two horse race and when one horse dropped dead the other just kept on running (berlin wall falls, next day invade panama, warsaw pact dissolved keep expanding nato etc, etc). But the US has a problem I think. I think far more serious for the US then the prospect of military competition with China, is those junior partners drawing close to China (Andy has a point when he talks about the fear of soft power). This fear is closely related to the relative decline of US economic dominace since the 1970’s.
But at the same time perhaps this should not be overstated. What is occuring is a more global inability to control its local alliances which increasingly means that Bush’s policy is wildly out of kilter with the real needs of US capital (although they are also rather a desperate response to that problem, a last throw that didn’t work). Increasingly mantaining US domination will require accomadation with rising local powers. I think China is happier with this arrangement then the US is: For China its a relative gain for the US an absolute loss. But in order to mantain their position they have to sacrifice regional influence to mantain global dominance.
But its burning the candle at both ends. The instabilities of the situation reflect this.
Comment by johng — 9 April, 2008 @ 8:34 pm
johng’s made a lot of the points I’d thought of, so I won’t repeat those. But I want to argue that the point about the power of the state is slightly miscast: one of the consequences of the ‘market reforms’ since 1978 has been a gradual and devolution of economic (and to a lesser extent political) power to the lower levels of the bureaucracy. This was a deliberate policy, but one which has now left Beijing in command of an army of local officials that they can no longer control, because those local officials have an economic base that allows them a degree of independence from the centre.
One of the key drivers of both rural and (to a lesser extent) urban protest since 1990 has been the greed of local governments (from county level downwards) in imposing illegal taxes. And one of the themes that runs through such protests is “the central government is good, but it’s the local officials that are the problem”. Consequently, the point of protests is not to change the minds of the local officials, but to let the higher levels know what’s happening in order that they can put it right. Such protests can turn violent, but mostly they don’t
Does that sound remotely like the demonstrations in Lhasa, Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan? They have precisely been about central government policy - Tibet as a country, and its relationship to China. The level of repression, as I’ve previously argued, is another key difference - in ‘China proper’ the PAP and PLA do not open fire on crowds, as they did in both Lhasa and Sichuan.
The account of economic progress is a useful one, and no-one’s disputing that the Tibetan economy has grown massively since the ‘economic reforms’ began in Tibet. And repression of Tibetan culture has similarly declined, hence the 35% increase in the number of people reporting themselves as Tibetan. Similar growth figures, much too large to be accounted for by natural increase, have been reported for a numberof other national minorities.
But - Tibet remains oppressed. And the larger problem with this account (leaving aside the dubious history) is that time and time again Andy blames the Tibetans for their own oppression. For example: the paradox for Tibetans is that the fact they are educated in Tibetan and not Mandarin excludes them from well paying jobs. Why, if the overwhelming majority of the population is Tibetan, should speaking the national language debar you from the best jobs? And who is doing the excluding?
Comment by chjh — 9 April, 2008 @ 9:15 pm
Andy Newman claimed in post 4 that Lenin “even more stringly said that socialists only support independence where there is an actually existsing bourgeois democratic national liberation movement - something clearly lacking in Tibet.”
One might wonder than where was the ‘bourgeois democratic national liberation movement’ in Vietnam? Or is it the case that if the mass of a nation, and Tibet clearly is a nation, demand national liberation then such a movement is democratic in principle. And if it aims at building a national state that is itegrated into the current world system then it cannot be other than bourgeois.
Comment by Mike — 9 April, 2008 @ 10:47 pm
Hi Andy, thanks for your very useful info & analysis.
A paper by Barry Sautman, which is quoted in the 21st Century Socialism article, provides a detailed refutation of the allegations and arguments put forward by the ‘Free Tibet’ campaign:
http://www.marxmail.org/tibet.pdf
Comment by Noah — 10 April, 2008 @ 12:50 am
Just wanted to say that the point chjh made about language is an excellent one. In neighbouring India, if anything even resembling such a policy existed India would not today be a unitary state. The levels of violence this would provoke would probably require aerial bombardment to put down. Its incredible. What Andy has taken to be a symptom of an educational lag is in fact a sign both of real national oppression and at the same time an extremely backward policy on internal nationalities. In Kashmir incidently there are laws governing the numbers of ‘outsiders’ allowed to buy land or take jobs which are rigerously enforced, and if they are breached there is serious trouble. In many states there are ’sons of the soil’ provisions on recruitment etc. There can be all sorts of debates about this. But to have a situation as described…well lets just say this would be unrealistic. To dress this up as some do with learned disquisitions on the nature of the Chinese Empire won’t do.
Comment by johng — 10 April, 2008 @ 10:03 am
JOhn
Surely, India is a unitary state based upon the fact that English is a common language of administration, following the policy of Thomas babington Maccauley of all people. Where English was not adopted as a neutral language (Sri Lanka, there has indeed been violence). The difference of course is that mandarin had always been the common bureuacratic langauge of all Middle Kingdom, and in Kham and Amdo areas in the Qing dynasty Tibetans were schooled in mandarin and joined the imperial bureaucracy. there were historically no schools in the areas currently covered nowadays by the TAR (U and Thang) due to economic and social backardness, not due to Qing imperial policy. You should remember the monastic riots in 1936 that forced the closure of the first attempt to open a school in Lhasa.
To argue that Tibetans have a lower educational level due to ethnic repression requires evidence based upon a comparison with the rest of the PRC. Tis disproves your argumenr. There has been a systematic problem of education gap between rural and urban areas in all of China. Interesting for example that in the East coast around 600 Yuan (£45) per month are paid to labourers straight out of the countryside, while wowrkers from an urban background eran about 2000Y per month (£145). this is not ethniic discrimination - as both groups of workers are Han.
The schools in Tibet are the product of a net inflow of wealth and development from the richer areas of the PRC into Tibet, but it will take a long time to overcome the low cultural level of the rural areas, not just in Tibet but in all of China.
Comment by Andy Newman — 10 April, 2008 @ 10:20 am
So this Andy bloke is for the repression of Tibet by Chinese troops!! I am stunned as an occassional reader of this site!
Comment by tim — 10 April, 2008 @ 11:04 am
This is nonsense Andy. Anyone familiar with the language question in post-colonial states (and in particular in India) would know that part of the democratic revolution is the development of regional languages. Familiarity with these questions in India would involve familiarity with the linguistic re-organisation of States in the 1950’s, a mark of modernisation and the breaking up of the old colonial system (high levels of violence associated with this in the south and the west, less violence today but a new linguistic state emerged just recently incidently) and that the divide between north and south involved a failed attempt to impose Hindi as a national language, with English emerging as a compromise link language only in the 1960’s (after huge riots and violence in the non-Hindi speaking south). Both the linguistic re-organisation of states and the attempt to impose Hindi as an official link language involved a constant recognition that the discussion was about a ‘link’ language and was not to be confused with the local language of administration. In most states issues of language became closely linked to preferential policies regarding jobs.
Neither persian (the language of administration in the first decades of the British presence in the 19th century following the Mughal Empire) nor english occupied the same position viz-a-viz administration as they had done previously. The language of politics in India is vernacular as is the language of local administration and local government and in company’s you will find people speaking local languages. English obviously gives you an advantage (outside the south Hindi has a large presence partly due to bollywood!) but this messy compromise between English and Hindi co-exists with increasing complaints from the old elite about the vernacularisation of politics and the professions, something that proceeds apace with wider social mobility and it is frequent complaint of the well heeled that in order to get a job you have to learn some dreadful vernac. This is the democratic revolution Andy, and given China’s, in some ways justified, reputation for abolishing feudalism its incredible that you should be harking back to the old dynasties for your model of language politics in a modern state.
Any attempt to denigrate local languages in local areas, any attempt to suggest that ’sons of the soil’ cannot get jobs speaking local languages would lead to rioting and loss of life in most Indian States today (as stated there is a difference between this and the rather obvious fact that knowing English marks you out as more educated, something which is also true in many European countries and hence more qualified: In India though English is no longer quite what it was, and in terms of democratic gains thats a good and not a bad thing: especially given that outside of the south (and even in the south relatively speaking) the proportion of the population which speaks English is tiny (this is surprising to many but its true: as in China you need to factor in the vastness of the population and the over-representation of sections of the elite in the western imagination).
Language is a sharply political question not just in India but in almost every post-colonial and modernising state. It is not simply a question of education and given that in China Manderin is easier for the ethnic majority this would be a huge question inside a modern state in the thro’s of throwing off the shackles of feudalism. At least one would imagine so. It has been almost everywhere else.
Comment by johng — 10 April, 2008 @ 11:10 am
It should also be said that socialists in India often bemoan the privilages of English and point to the way in which the shaping of the higher and metropolitan education system in this way led to all kinds of uneveness between lower middle class provincials and upper middle class metro types, unevenessess which remain with us and are seen as an unfinished part of the democratic revolution. Despite these difficulties anything even resembling the situation in Tibet (Assam might be a parrallel) leads to ferocious violence.
Comment by johng — 10 April, 2008 @ 11:14 am
I simply can’t believe your still pushing the ‘ungrateful’ tibetans line Andy. I’ll try and restrain the usual stataco posts though.
Comment by johng — 10 April, 2008 @ 11:15 am
“this is not ethnic discrimination - as both groups of workers are Han”
The fact that this particular form of discrimination is not ethnic doesn’t prove anything about ethnic discrimination generally. The fact that the gap between rural and urban educational spending is narrowing proves nothing about whether such discrimination exists and is an active fact in Tibet and elsewhere.
The fact that a Tibetan speaker in Tibet has less chance of getting the best jobs, on the other hand, is entirely relevant. As chjh asks “who is doing the excluding?”
The fact that the US wants to make hypocritical noises about human rights, or just rattle their swords generally, makes no difference to who you might support in the situation, only to what arguments you might have to make along the way.
Comment by Andy Wilson — 10 April, 2008 @ 11:15 am
And these questions about language emphasis what I said at the beginning of our discussion that both your defence here, and what your defending, are way out of step with the best practice of the global left in post-colonial polities were these kinds of question are legion. The fact that you are still talking about beneifits flowing to tibetans from globalisation without any factoring in of the special unevenesses that apply in areas like this and how it impacts on areas which, to use the Indian term, could be described as dominated by a politics complaining of ’stepmotherly’ treatment by the central state (routinely the central state will stress its largess and genourosity whilst liberals bemoan the zero-sum games of identity politics and its left to the best sections of the left to raise the unspoken question of oppression, even in very difficult, messy and often bloody political circumstances).
One irony in the Indian case is that it is the maoists who are opposing these kinds of policies, who are senstitive to these questions about regional inequalities and their relationship to class inequality etc. They’re also the central opponents of SEZ’s along with other sections of the movement. Most have given up trying to square their practice with the Chinese State, a State described by one Chinese Tycoon as ‘more capitalist then most European states’.
Comment by johng — 10 April, 2008 @ 11:23 am
If China was India it would be illegal for you to have any state job (and many private sector jobs) in Tibet if you did not have Tibetan. THATS the norm. Hence posh kids in metro’s struggling with some ‘dreadful vernac’ and posh and middle class English parents nagging their kids ‘SPEAK IN [insert local language]. Unless your in the green card class of course. It should be said as well that most people (including the illiterate) speak two or three languages anyway. English is not always one of them although these days, outside of the south, most would be able to get by in Hindi except maybe old people. But even in posh jobs: if you need English you can be sure you also need the local language. Balences things out a bit.
Comment by johng — 10 April, 2008 @ 11:30 am
To start way off topic I was watching BBC News 24 about 40 minutes ago when the news of the court decision on the SFO investigation into BAe came through and their business correspondent after saying he supported Blair’s decision to stop the investigation added “Frankly in this country we pander to much to minorities.” A bit shocking.
I wanted to contribute an analysis of a classic theftpotism - Mobutu’s Zaire - to suggest that we don’t have to look to far to understand China’s internal dynamic. If you don’t want to know the score look away now, he think’s it’s state capitalism.From “The Congo from Leopold to Kabila:A People’s History”(p148):
“The basic goal of the Mobutu regime was simply to reinforce its bargaining power vis-a-vis foreign capital in order to provide the new ruling class with a relatively solid economic base. Made up of the petty bourgeois leaders of the independence struggle and newer recruits among university graduates military officers and rich merchants, this class was the main beneficiary of Mobutu’s dictatorship and the system of patronage built around him. Owing its existence to the place its members occupy in the upper echelons of the state apparatus and to increased state participation in the economy, this class was, by virtue of its relationship to the state, a state[italics] bourgeoisie.As the domestic branch of the international bourgeoisie, the state boutgeoisie constitutes its own capital collectively through the output of state enterprises,royalties,taxes,and so on, as well as individually, for instance, through savings from exorbitant salaries, corruption and the use of state resources for personal ends.”
I don’t have time to go through the whole thread. Briefly on #37 Andy - your assuming that what development takes place is for the benefit of ordinary Tibetans and Chinese rather than to aid the Chinese ruling class’ capital accumulation. This is often a source of difference of opinion between the supporters of state cap and those who don’t, when the former see nothing innately progressive about any actions of a state not controlled by workers.#14 BPS I’m not sure exactly what point your making about the SWP and Saddam, I can remember some brief debate in the party after the American started intervening against Iran, if your saying that he was a force in the world comparable to China you may be over-stating the case.
Comment by skidmarx — 10 April, 2008 @ 11:36 am
JOhn
The current 1984 constitution of the PRC permits the TAR to discriminate in terms of employment towards ethnic Tibetans, they probably have made a mistake in not doing so, becasue they decided to favour faster economic growth. It is quite correct to argue that this policy could be changed. This however would create its own problems for Tibetans, with slower economic growth that would also impact badly on rural incomes, and propbably lead to an overall drop in living standards for most Tibetans.
In terms of who is doing the excluding, the evidence I have read - for example see the Australian academic quoted by the Times - is that the excluding is based upon skills gap ; and the fact that the technical language is Mandarin. There is by the way no chance for an engineer in Poland or Denmark today to get a well paid job unless they can speak English fluently. The number of native Tibetan speakers in the entire world is roughly half that of native magyar speakers, and the number of native Tibetan speakers in the TAR is roughly the same as the number of Welsh speakers; yet the Hungarian government has no illusions that Magyar is a viable language for international trade, commerce and engineering - and German and now English have been required langauges for employment; and within Wales someone who could not speak English would struggle to get a well paid job.
The problem is that the high paying employment is technical and skilled, and the bulk of Tibetans coming from the countryside are straight off the farm. This is the common problem in all of china.
You simply cannot ignore the specificity of how Chinese society works. Mandarin has been the common unifying language of government for centuries, and that includes for example the very rich cantonese speaking areas, like the city of Guangzhou. You seem to be implying that all Han Chinese share the same language, which is very far from the truth. As it stands Tibetans currently have more legal rights for their language than Welsh people do, and much more than Basques or Bretons in France.
The fact that there is positive discrimination towards Tibetans for university access is hard to square with the idea that the PRC state is systematically discriminating against Tibetans over education.
Comment by Andy Newman — 10 April, 2008 @ 11:42 am
JOhn #44
“If China was India it would be illegal for you to have any state job (and many private sector jobs) in Tibet if you did not have Tibetan. “
This is also the case in Tibet, where government officials are now required to speak Tibetan. I have no idea whether this is enforced though, I suspect it is enforced for those positions dealing with the population, perhaps less so only for those people dealing with the national PRC.
Comparisons with India, or Nigeria or that category of post-colonial multinational state is not a very good match, in view of the fact that China has been an historic nation for centuries, and is not the product of post-colonialism.
Comment by Andy Newman — 10 April, 2008 @ 11:47 am
“The fact that the US wants to make hypocritical noises about human rights, or just rattle their swords generally, makes no difference to who you might support in the situation, only to what arguments you might have to make along the way”
nuff said.
Comment by johng — 10 April, 2008 @ 11:51 am
Well the question of who has been a historic nation for centuries is a rather vexed question. If China has been a historic nation for centuries so has Tibet. If on the other hand you see modern nation states as transformative enterprises linking citizens to a state (which is the politically relevent criteria here), then part of the development of such modern nationalism involves more or less democratic responses to the realities involved in modernising countries were only a tiny minority are literate and dialect and language varies enourmously. To use the existence of a unified identity across centuries to try and claim that China does not fit into comparable frameworks to that of other post-colonial states is to ignore entirely the relationship between shifts in the nature of such identities and their changing content. Or on the other hand to use anachronistic arguments to back up dominant chauvinisms. What proportion of the population spoke the language of administration in the 16th century? I would suspect no higher then the numbers that spoke Persian in 16th century India. In most Indian states you could not get any job over manual with the state at no matter how exalted a level without fluency in the local language and the same holds true in large sections of the private sector. In many states less then salubrious forms of politics exist which sponser goons to enforce state regulations of this kind where there are local suspicians that they are not being enforced. But thats another story. The point is that despite this there is a key link between language and democracy, particularly important in states whose intergration into modernity occured via incorporation into the world system via colonialism. Modern Chinese identity and politics bears about as much simililarity to 16th century identity and politics as they would do in this part of the world. Almost none. As with here though the present is dressed up in the language of the past.
Comment by johng — 10 April, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
Taking apart some of the problems with #46
You cannot ignore the specificity of how Chinese society works. That seems like a useful summary of why the riots happened - the specificity of how Chinese society impacts upon Tibet causes a nationalist reaction.
Mandarin has been the common unifying language of government for centuries Not in Tibet it wasn’t. Tibet was an independent country. The language which the ruling class shared with the exploited was Tibetan. Only after 1959 did Mandarin become the ruling language, thereby excluding the vast majority of Tibetans.
As it stands Tibetans currently have more legal rights for their language than Welsh people do, and much more than Basques or Bretons in France. A facile and irrelevant comparison, given that there are practically no monoglot Welsh, Basque or Breton speakers.
And the argument about why Tibetan speakers are excluded from the best paying jobs is specious, both for the various reasons that johng gives, but also because such jobs are increasingly taken by fairly recent Han migrants. It’s not the educational level that determines whether you get such a job - it’s whether or not you speak Mandarin. Monoglot mandarin speakers are privileged above monoglot Tibetan speakers. Again, who is doing the privileging?
Comment by chjh — 10 April, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
glad chjh cleared that up. and he’s right there is no need to go into all my usual convoluted arguments. having said that it IS interesting that an argument like this would probably get you strung up from a lamp post or something in other parts.
Comment by johng — 10 April, 2008 @ 1:45 pm
the point here is that Andy wants to defend the state capitalist ruling class because either he thinks they are really communists in disguise or he doesn’t want to upset his leader GG. The repression from the chinese ruling class is clearly against all workers and peasants as well as some academics etc but there is also the specific repression in Tibet. Andy has come up with various quasi stalinist/maoist justification of imperilaism.. I really thought the arguement that china was socialist had been done and dusted after Tianamen Square.”Lets do the time warp” Andy!!
Comment by jj — 10 April, 2008 @ 1:49 pm
So chjh
In Poland or Hungary it would be pretty much impossble to get a job in many sectors of the economy unless you speak English. In the company i work for native English speakers transfer between jobs in berlin, Copenhagen and Warsaw without having to learn the native langauge, but native danish, Polish or Hungarian speakers cannot even get that job in their own country unless they also speak English, and certainly couldn’t come to work in the UK or USA without being fluent in English.
Does this make Poland, Hungary or Denmark colonies?
Who is doing privilaging?
Comment by Andy Newman — 10 April, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
JJ
I suggest that you leave the psychoanalysis, really it is a little dodgy to look at the alleged “real reasons” why people think as they do.
Comment by Andy Newman — 10 April, 2008 @ 1:51 pm
chjh:
“Only after 1959 did Mandarin become the ruling language, thereby excluding the vast majority of Tibetans. ”
Actually no - the vast majority of Tibetans were already excluded by being serfs or slaves, illiterate, uneducated and outside of national life in any meaningful sense.
Also, while U and Thang have been more loosly part of China than other areas, Kham and Amdo were more linked in, and Tibetans definitely entered mandarin service from these regions.
In any event, I don’t know what the real issue is here, I agree that Tibetans are disadvantaged and that cultural and political autonomy on a similar model to macau or hong kong would be the way forward.
Comment by Andy Newman — 10 April, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
Andy, I’m beginning to think your getting yourself into a position where you are saying things you might have cause to regret. Its a shame because the original post was not half bad. These last apologetics for national oppression your churning out are things which no socialist should want to be part of. A complete regression to your previous position. Tell me. Do you perhaps think Tibetans are just thick?
Comment by johng — 10 April, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
“In any event, I don’t know what the real issue is here”
At last some insight from Andy!!!
Comment by jj — 10 April, 2008 @ 2:44 pm
“political autonomy on a similar model to macau or hong kong would be the way forward.”
thanks a lot Andy.. why ask the Tibetans what they would like when you have the answer already
Comment by jj — 10 April, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
“Disadvantaged”…………..Andy..don’t u think this is somewhat of a understatement!!
Comment by jj — 10 April, 2008 @ 2:47 pm
John, the argument that serfs are outside of national life and that the political nation only constitutes those who share a community of communication in national life is fairly orthodox marxism.
Look for example at the example of Bohemia, which was a German nation because the political classes spoke German, only with the abolition of serfdom did Czechs enter national life, as previously their culture was restricted to village and local church. That didn’t mean Czechs were thick, it meant that class was excluding them from national political life.
This is also true of Tibetan serfs, you should read the anthropological studies of Tibetan rural life before the peoples’ communes. Emancipation and the abolition of serfdom and slavery, the introduction of schools and roads have brought the majority of Tibetans into national life. I am sorry that you find such an utterely orthodox and uncontroversial marxist position outrageous.
You also do have to look at the similarity of the plight of Rural tibetans and their educational disadvantage in the context of the analogous disadvantage of the tens of millions of han Chinese who have exactly the same problems, many millions of whom also have no knowledge of mandarin. Millions of Han for example speak the Tai-Kadai group of languages.
Your problem is taking Tibet totaly out of context.
Comment by Andy Newman — 10 April, 2008 @ 2:57 pm
Why are you going all over this again Andy? On the one hand your saying that there was a Chinese nation for hundreds of years, with a culture and all that good stuff (despite the fact, that as you outline above Tibetan feudalism was not as repressive in terms of land tenure as it was in other parts of China, one reason why unlike in other parts of China, collectivisation could be seen as a threat by both serfs and landowners) and on the other hand when it comes to Tibet your repeating all this scorched earth rubbish about these people having no nation and no identity before one fine morning the PLA turned up.
This is beginning to sound about as lame and dishonest a discussion as one usually has with apologists for Israel. After all these Palestinians were not a proper nation either and, anyway, there’s no such thing as Palestinians.
I think whats happening is that your admirably taking the trouble to read proper and interesting stuff (despite disagreements some of it appearing above) and then your getting sucked back into this ideological drivel. The two things don’t match up. Sort yourself out man.
Comment by johng — 10 April, 2008 @ 3:12 pm
“You also do have to look at the similarity of the plight of Rural tibetans and their educational disadvantage in the context of the analogous disadvantage of the tens of millions of han Chinese who have exactly the same problems, many millions of whom also have no knowledge of mandarin. Millions of Han for example speak the Tai-Kadai group of languages”
In other words we’re back to the position that Marx lampooned in his On the Jewish Question. Hey we’re all oppressed what are these benighted heathen complaining about? Ignoring national oppression and hoping it will go away is something I thought we left behind some time in the 1970s.
Comment by johng — 10 April, 2008 @ 3:14 pm
I should add that the author of the book I qouoted is Georges Nzongala-Ntalaja
Comment by skidmarx — 10 April, 2008 @ 3:37 pm
I should say apropos of JJ’s comments about Maoists that actually existing Maoists, whilst obviously having large differences with someone like me, often have a rather more nuanced position on the question then Andy does (at least when Andy is reverting to the kind of stuff immediately above). Partly of course this is because there are no Maoists in China and China has not even provided lip-service in support of actually existing Maoists engaging in actual struggles in place like Nepal or India (clue they’re on the other side and implementing the kinds of policies these activists are currently cutting their teeth resisting), and in addition most of these Maoists have their bases in areas whose relationship to the central state is much like Tibets to the rest of China: and for similar reasons. So the practice of Maoists engaged in struggle is utterly at variance with the practice of the Chinese state. So whilst they will tend to be (rightly) hostile towards imperialism there is a bit less of an enthusiasm about the State itself and willingness to defend its every last twist and turn.
Where the Maoist ideology still cuts, and there is ambivulence about the attitude to China, its in terms of the commitment to the abolition of feudalism and associated slogans of about peoples democracy which locates the enemy as semi-feudalism and imperialism rather then capitalism, the implication being that these problems can today be solved on the basis of thouroughgoing bourgoise reform (usually combined with armed struggle of course). Sadly this is misconcieved as the example of China today shows were the development of capitalism is worsening rather then curing such inqualities. The fact that in many places outside of China these problems are worse does not change the fact that the adoption of the current Chinese path would not resolve these contradictions. It would deepen them. Ironically enough its the very ruling classes that these groups confront who are often the most enthusiastic about the Chinese path.
Which obviously creates rather serious ideological problems. Usually the response is, well, we don’t have time to think about that. Fair enough in one way. But these things come back and bite you.
Comment by johng — 10 April, 2008 @ 3:57 pm
#29 ‘Sorry but China is not in any sense socialist and is a rival capitalist power.’
But what are its internal contradictions and where is it heading?
How can the working class and national minorities affect that?
The state still has control over the terms under which Western multinationals employ Chinese Labour. It doesn’t have to follow the dicates of the World Bank and IMF.
It’s not a major debtor nation, like the USA is. The local capitalist class don’t control the political system in the way they do in the US or America.
Nor are Chinese troops permanently stationed in overseas countries. Tibet has historically been linked to China for centuries, whereas US troops are in Britain, Germany, the Balkans and the Middle East.
I therefore, won’t put an equals sign between China and the US, even if China’s rapid growth is leading to a situation of parity in industrial production.
To suggest that this is all down to capitalism poses fundamental questions regarding the character of the epoch and the theory of Permanent Revolution.
Apparently, the semi-colonial bourgeoisie is now able to overcome imperialism (having fought a civil war against what Marxists always regarded as the Comprador Bourgeoisie)
Truly a sideways move of enormous proportions!
While China’s trajectory is not necessarily socialist, a split over policy within the CCP could alter the situation quite dramatically. The fact that the recent changes in policy were geared towards environmental and social welfare concerns shows how popular discontent is being reflected at the upper levels of the bureaucracy.
Leaving aside the label socialist, think about the numerous situations where imperialism has intervened against radical nationalist governments e.g. Nasser’s Egypt, Mossadegh’s Iran, Árbenz Guzmán in Guatemala and even the sending of US marines to secure the oil fields in the Mexican Revolution.
Nor is it necessary to label the contradictory political phenomenon that is modern China as “Socialism” to link the demand for Tibetan Autonomy, opposition to Han chauvinism and state repression to Socialism. Socialism is what socialists generally demand.
Tibet is not in a position to develop Socialism independently, far less so than Ukraine was in 1939. It’s a backward agricultural region with a relatively tiny population, whereas Ukraine was an industrialised region, the centre of the Soviet Coal Mining industry and gateway to the Crimean oilfields.
As far as I can see, the only people demanding a “free Tibet” are those most closely linked to Western interests and media. They’re not to the left of the Dalai Lama, who is a good diplomat, but certainly not someone who wants to use the slogan of Socialism. They’re to his right, including the elements in Tibet who the most xenophobic and nationalist and would probably like to kick out all foreigners, other than the foreign powers who could guarantee their complete seperation from China. I can’t see any basis for socialists linking up with them.
As to China’s role in globalisation:
Sure, it’s a fact. I already pointed out the way in which Rover was dismantled and rebuilt there.
I was on the demos in Birmingham too. How could a socialist support that?
The point is we have even less state controls over our economy than the Chinese government has.
If we did, it would never have happened. The plant would have been re-nationalised and kept in Longbridge.
We defend that, even if it’s not definable as “socialism”
The same sort of arguments apply to China and its relations with its neighbours and the world.
China has never shown any indication of wanting to control anywhere that isn’t either traditionally its own territory, like Hong Kong, Taiwan or Tibet, or an area being used as a threat against it, like Korea was when McArthur’s forces landed there. It doesn’t export capital to anything like the degree that the US or EC do.
So it can’t be treated on an even-steven basis.
That in turn has to dictate the tactics towards Tibetan nationalism and mass protests in China over pay, conditions, health and safety etc…
Just blurring over the possibility that these could be turned to the right, as happened in Eastern Europe, Russia etc. is to totally ignore the experience of recent history.
Comment by prianikoff — 10 April, 2008 @ 7:06 pm
Pranikoff:
China has never shown any indication of wanting to control anywhere that isn’t either traditionally its own territory, like Hong Kong, Taiwan or Tibet, or an area being used as a threat against it, like Korea was when McArthur’s forces landed there. It doesn’t export capital to anything like the degree that the US or EC do.
Reply:
Exactly, precisely describing the xenophobic China-bashing which lies at the root of a bourgeois movement to free Tibet. When China has the impact on the world, economically, politically, and militarily, which the US has, then it will be time to for socialists and Marxists to focus their ire on Beijing. China’s development, as with the development of every nation on this planet, is result of the external pressure arrayed against it by US imperialism. Internally, inequality in China has deepened in line with the penetration of capitalist norms of production, consumption, and exchange. The contradictions within Chinese society have deepened as a result, with a concomitant increase in the regularity of strikes and workers’ self activity as a consequence. The last remnants of the planned economy in China are disappearing and we should lament that, not celebrate it. China’s record on human rights is as nothing compared to that of the US.
I cannot help thinking that a very large dose of unconscious racism is evident in some of the opinions posted on this issue.
Comment by John W — 10 April, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
“…I cannot help thinking that a very large dose of unconscious racism is evident in some of the opinions posted on this issue.”
Spare me.
Aside from being one of the most interesting and informative debates I’ve come across in a while, it is completely free of any racism. The weaker moment in an otherwise excellent series of postings by JohnG was when he used the rhetorical flourish to accuse Andy Newman of said (re: thick Tibetans etc.).
I have my doubts about Andy’s positions regarding Tibet and socialist attitudes toward the situation but I wouldn’t go beyond *implying* a dangerous logic, and certainly not suggest racism as a motivation.
Nor is it ‘racist’ to categorise a society as being capitalist, state capitalist, a degenerated, deformed or bureaucratic workers’ state. These are political terms developed by anti-racists (in the main) so let’s keep ‘em in that category.
I would disagree with ‘prianikoff’ (and my implication John W) by putting a ‘greater than’ symbol in front of the ‘equals’ sign in the China=Capitalism equation.
Why?
For a whole range of reasons (and if it’s useful we can go on with more later). First off, the elite (I prefer ruling class) aren’t offended by the description. In fact, they even proselytise for it (especially externally). Second, the labour theory of value holds, as does the contradictory component of ‘the organic composition of capital’ leading to the rate of profit falling (more of this over the next decade). The economy is fundamentally driven by the imperatives of capital accumulation (for its own sake), is anarchic (”plan?” my arse), and surplus value is systematically extracted, invested and integrated within a global capitalist system.
Thirdly, it’s getting bigger and bigger and more integrated. From the CIA to left-ish economists the answer to ‘How Big is China?’ has a wide variance. From somewhere slightly behind Germany to larger than Japan and set to overtake the US in 10 to 15 years.
Having had to don a ‘comprador’ hat and travel up and down Guandong P for almost two years (don’t ask why, I’ll lose any string of credibility) it’s important to understand how willing and perfectly able CCP members are to make the inward investment case to foreign firms. Sure, there are odd legal forms that rankle with investors (like Class A equity splits going to the local PLA regiment etc.) but when challenged on them (and the challenges now fund a large part of the entire US legal industry) Chinese capitalists (sorry, elites) know full well how to respond. Their reaction on these issues is to point up how often multinational corporations face shareholder ‘rebellions’ from institutional investors.
Oh, and on a much stickier note, has anyone been paying attention to the amount of equity that’s been bought up by Chinese ‘corporations’ in those very same US-based financiers recently?
Of course, all this means you’re left with an old-fashioned, hostile, band of brothers. There will be splits, faction fights and even open conflicts (just as there are between Democrats and Republicans in the USA). I’m with the moles in Tibet and Washington DC.
Troop of Iraq - Democracy in Tibet.
Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 11 April, 2008 @ 12:14 am
Pranikoff said: “To suggest that this is all down to capitalism poses fundamental questions regarding the character of the epoch and the theory of Permanent Revolution.
Apparently, the semi-colonial bourgeoisie is now able to overcome imperialism (having fought a civil war against what Marxists always regarded as the Comprador Bourgeoisie)
Truly a sideways move of enormous proportions!”
I would suggest that you get hold of a copy of Deflected Permanent Revolution by Tony Cliff.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1963/xx/permrev.htm
Some people online criticise people for referencing other thinkers as ‘holy writ’ but I think it would clarify the discussion no end.
I understood Newman is a former member of the SWP, in which case I am really surprised at the degeneration of his politics to support of the CCP.
I appreciated no end his article, which was richly informative, but I’d suggest a little more study and less blogging would be rewarding. And with that, I’ll take my own advice and sign off.
All the best.
Comment by andrew — 11 April, 2008 @ 12:46 am
Mmm it’s late, but just dipped in here before I go to bed.
JOhn G #61 and #62
There is a lot of talking past each other here, and a careless misreading of what I am saying from both you and chjh.
I am not arguing, nor have I ever argued that the Tibetans are a “non-historic” people, I specifically wrte an over long article to refute that charge when Liam mac uaid made it against me. Specifically the Tibetans have been a Staatvolk , and there has been an ethnically Tibetan, Tibetan speaking ruling class, with its own high culture, and national community of interaction.
Charlie at #50 made the argument that only in 1959 were the majority of Tibetans excluded from national life by mandarin becoming the state official language. This is a non-Marxist approach to the question of nationality, because although Tibetans were a Staatvolk, the majority of Tibetans were not part of the national community, which only involved about 200 aristocratic families, who formed a rulig feudal caste, and who had almost no social interaction with the peasantry. Interestingly, even when the aristocrats were given government responsibilities, they usually delegated their official role to a servant, unless the job was in Lhasa. Nations don’t exist as a primary category, but are themselves the product of history and class struggle.
In the terms used by traditonal Marxism to describe this, the serfs were not part of the nation, but tenants of the nation. Which is not to say that there were no feelings of identity between all Tibetans based upon language, religion and ritual but they did not form a national community in the sense of a modern nation, notwithstanding the fact that the aristocrats had a national state, and themselves had a national culture. Serfs were totally excluded from that national community, and this is backed up by the ethnographic research.
The paradox is that it is Chinese rule, through emancipation and abolition of slavery and serfdom, and through the introduction of education and improved transport (roads, radio, etc) who have brought the majority of Tibetans into national cultural and political life; and also the shared predicament of rule from Beijing in interaction with the older culture, and the influence of the exile community, has created the modern national consciosness shared by all Tibetans. But as far as I can work out from the reports and internet available reserach, with the partial exception of the monastaries, the largest single nationwide institution that Tibetans participate in is the Communist party, which is loyal to Beijing.
Now the question of context is importnat, becasue most of the entirely justified social and economic greivenaces felt by Tibetans are experiences they share with rural Han Chinese in other parts of China, especially those hundreds of millions of han who also don’t speak mandarin. there are also a number of policies - such as no one-child policy and preferential university access, and proportionate over-represetnation in the national Peoples Congress and other high positions in the CCP which favout Tibetans and other national minorities (thought strikingly NOT becoming head of the CCP in Tibet!).
the Tibetans do have specific national grievances, but also tend to experience those greivances they have in common with other Chinese as being about nation, when they are in fact about class, rural backardness, etc. That does not make their greivances any less real.
the dalai lama, and the exile leadership have a good understanding of the political situation it seems, by calling for autonomy within the PRC. Because Beijing will never give up Tibet for strategic, ideological and practical reasons, yet aitonomy could alloe the Tibetans to address theose ethnic and cultural greivances they have. There is no other route open, there are just 2.7 million Tibetans in the TAR, and only 300000 live in towns.
But pro-Pentagon cold-war liberals want to talk up independence (echoed by some toy-town revolutionaries in the West), which makes the Beijing government more intransigent over the real issue of autonomy and the practial issues of han chauvinism and less likely to redress the greivances of Tibetans; and the same B52 liberals describe the problems which beset poor Tibetans in the TAR as unique and specific to Tibet, when in fact many of the day to day problems are shared by hundreds of millions of han Chinese in rural areas - and this way of arguing has allowed the Tibetans to become perceived in China as a Trojan Horse for anti-Chinese propagnada. the ferocious anti-Tibetan backlash in China (on hundreds of blogs for example) is fuelled by a percepetion of anti-Chinese racism in the West.
So the political climate that is being created, and that you to a small degree are participating in, is the worst possible context for the Tibetans, where the Beijing government will crack down harder, and political solidarity with Han Chinese is undermined, and an ethnic wedge is driven between different nationalities within the PRC who share many of the same problems.
It is simply scandallously irresponsible to be stoking up a political climate that will make compromise less easy, when the Tibetans are the ones with most to gain by compromise, and the most to lose by confrontaion.
Comment by Andy Newman — 11 April, 2008 @ 2:29 am
#68 ” I would suggest that you get hold of a copy of Deflected Permanent Revolution by Tony Cliff.”
That would be easy. I could just go to my bookshelf. Must have first read that at least 25 years ago.
I’d suggest reading a bit more widely, including Trotsky in the original, rather than as interpreted by Cliff. A bit of Ted Grant and even Robert Chester might be useful too.
Comment by prianikoff — 11 April, 2008 @ 8:03 am
“the majority of Tibetans were not part of the national community, which only involved about 200 aristocratic families, who formed a rulig feudal caste”
Identical to anywhere else in the world including China. So what? Why are you singling out Tibet’s modern national myths whilst regurgitating Chinese ones? Thats the asymmetry here. Its also true, Battersea’s senstitivity not withstanding, that there is anti-Tibet racism in China (and in the Chinese diaspora). Anyone who has gone on some of the blogs will come across the most disgusting racism and chauvinism directed against Tibetans. None of them would have ANY problem with the kind of stuff that Andy has been writing in the last couple of posts (although they would have a big problem with some of the material posted in the first part). This is a real issue. Most Chinese propaganda is perfectly compatible with this disgusting chauvinism and racism and must be challenged.
Secondly on the question of Chinese capitalism. Well it might be true that if we were following the Chinese path a few industries would be nationalised. Its also true that you would face vicious repression if you were a trade unionist and the only trade union you would be allowed to join would be one run by the state. This is rather unlikely. However in neighbouring countries there is great interest in the Chinese model and elements of it are already being adopted. Capitalism is a competative system and if something works other capitalist countries will adopt it. This is simply part of the general logic of global capital. These innovations have produced large struggles and strikes. In China they will produce large struggles and strikes (and the state unions have been forced to adapt themselves to this to a small degree). They are regressive and not progressive.
It also means all across the region the widening of the gap between rich and poor, between the centre and periphary, and more and more revolt and struggle. The sharpening of ethnic and national tensions is simply part of that. I think it is disgraceful for Andy to continue to try and smear those who disagree with him as ‘irresponsible’ or pro-imperialist in such a situation. The way to oppose right wing elements fishing in these troubled waters is to be 100 per cent clear about opposing the oppression in Tibet, and not reproducing drivel which tries to minimise the national element in this oppression. This means the left actually turning up to the demonstrations being held, whether or not they agree with the main slogans. Once you are clear about this THEN its possible to have further arguments. But emphasising the working class, particularly in that region, means emphasising the wholly anti-working class neo-liberal policies of the regime, policies also being adopted by China’s neighbours to the south. There is great potential space for unity between workers and radical activists across the region, as opposed either to western liberals or hypocritical injunctions from western countries who actually oppose the development of trade unions in China because it would bite into their profits.
But doing this effectively means popularising at every turn slogans which depart from old illusions. This Andy’s position does not do.
Comment by johng — 11 April, 2008 @ 11:48 am
Just quickly in response to one of Andy’s points in #59:
Charlie at #50 made the argument that only in 1959 were the majority of Tibetans excluded from national life by mandarin becoming the state official language. The point was that Mandarin is not, and has never been a unifying language in Tibet. The Tibetan language was to some extent a unifying factor tying the exploited to the old ruling class, so their exclusion from national life wasn’t total. Whatever the degree of exclusion, it got worse, not better, in 1959.
Comment by chjh — 11 April, 2008 @ 7:48 pm
Shameless plug - people who’ve followed this argument may be interested in an article I’ve written for the latest International Socialism Journal - available here http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=457&issue=119, though you really ought to buy a copy.
Comment by chjh — 1 July, 2008 @ 8:48 pm