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Road Kill: Is Beijing Employing 'Japanese Tactics' Against Tibet?
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News and Politics :: Sino-Japanese :: Human rights and personal freedoms :: Sino-Tibet :: News and Perspectives ::
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posted Saturday, 25 March 2006
In a move which has been described as being being 'a vital for regional economic growth', and 'an important step towards raising the local standard of living', Beijing has, this week, announced plans to plough an estimated $US700 Million into road building and improvement schemes in Tibetan, during 2006.
According to Xinhua, China's state controlled news agency, the money is to be spent on the construction of 21 new or improved Tibetan highways and 9 other multi-carriageway roads.
In addition to highway construction and upgrade work, the money is also expected to be used to improve road links between Tibet and neighboring Nepal, and to upgrade local roads, from dirt tracks to asphalt roads, capable of supporting year round traffic from moderate to heavy cargo carrying vehicles.
In announcing the cash allocation, Beijing voiced the hope that enhancing Tibet's roads will help to facilitate the local movement of goods and people, and to attract factories and other economic interests to set up in Tibet. Thus helping to develop the local economy, and to improve the standard of living for native Tibetans.
This latest announcement was not made in isolation, and comes during an extended 5 year period that has seen $US1.81 Billion being spent in Tibetan road construction and improvement programs, and the construction of the 1,142 kilometer long Qinghai to Tibet railroad, which due to open this summer.
Beware Han Bearing Gifts
While Beijing's moves have been greeted by enthusiasm by some, not all observers have such buoyant opinions about Beijing's latest announcement.
Indeed, a number of critics have voiced that, rather than helping 'the average Tibetan', recent road and rail enhancement programs have actually been purposefully designed to allow Beijing to consolidate its hold on its reluctant neighbor. A move that is doing nothing but harming the Tibetan people.
As such, critics have voiced the opinion that this latest announcement is nothing more 'a thinly veiled plot to aid Beijing in its quest to eradicate the Tibetan identity'.
Controversially, some observers have even gone so far as to compared China's Tibetan road and rail enhancement program to the construction of the Manchurian railroads by Japan and, as such, have voiced that Beijing appears to have 'learnt the trick of the trade' from its former occupier.
Accusations made, in regards to the road construction program, include that:
- Beijing has been systematically confiscating Tibetan farmland in order to build roads that are of little or no use to the 'average' Tibetan people.
- Beijing has been using the construction, maintenance and management of transport links as a pretext to resettle an increasingly large numbers of Han workers and officials in Tibet.
- Beijing has been using enhanced transport links and economic 'sweeteners' to encourage Han industry to relocate to Tibet, in order to force out native Tibetans.
- Beijing has been using the promise of work, in the factories and industries attracted by enhanced transport links, to encourage Han workers to relocate to Tibet
State of Play
Officially, Tibet is guaranteed a high level of independence under Section 6 of Chinese constitution; which provides the sub state with the legal right to maintain its own cultural and religious identity.
| “In the past 40 years or so, Tibet has inherited and developed its cultural heritage, Tibetan customs and religions have been fully respected, and people have enjoyed full freedom of religious faith” Xinhua, State Controlled media agency, China |
In reality though, Beijing commonly encourages native Tibetans to take on Han traits, under the claim that they are advancing by discarding their own 'outdated cultural epitaphs' in favor of 'more advanced' Chinese practices, and routinely bans any aspects of Tibet’s indigenous culture that separates Tibetan and Chinese identities, or which Beijing fears could be used to encourage Tibetan nationalism.
These cultural restrictions include a blanket prohibition on the possession of images of the Dalai Lama, or a recording of his voice.
| "The Dalai Lama is not a simple or a pure religious figure. He is a political exile who undertakes secessionist activities abroad" Liu Jianchao, Spokesperson, Foreign Ministry, China (2005) |
Often, the only aspects of traditional Tibetan culture which are allowed to be practiced freely are those practiced in remote rural areas that remain outside of direct Han control, and those in Han areas which hold little bearing on modern day life and thus can be used both to promote tourism or to spread the idea that Tibetan traditions are ‘relics of the past’ that is maintained only out of respect.
On top of the erosion and prohibition of Tibetan culture, it is currently Chinese policy to encourage Han Chinese to migrate to Tibet, where they are often offered jobs that are unobtainable to Tibetans, and to provide 'sweeteners' to Han industries, including land confiscated from Tibetans, if they relocate to Tibet.
Even though a substantial amount of industry has relocated to Tibet, few jobs have been created for Tibetans, with many jobs going to Han migrants, and senior positions only being offered to Tibetans collaborators who are seen as being 'sufficiently Han-like'.
Manchuria 2?
Though considered to be 'coincidental' by all but the most hardened of conspiracist, and described as being little more than 'generic long term occupation tactics' by others, China's tactics in Tibet have been shown to bare a remarkably level of similarity to the 'Assimilation' tactics that were employed by Japan, against Korea, Chinese-Taiwan, Mainland China and the former Manchurian state.
Tactics under which Imperial Japan attempted to subdue and subsume the native peoples of the countries that it occupied during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, by slowly destroying their cultures, forcing them to take on 'Japanese characteristics', and by moving Japanese colonists into key areas. Leading some to question whether China 'had learnt more from Japanese wartime history than Japan had'.
Of course, such accusations are speculative at best, and deliberately provocative at worst, particularly as such tactics have also been deployed by numerous times by both Ameirca and the European powers during their colonization of Asian, not to mention during their wars with each other.
Coincidentally, Japan also often used regional development, including the construction of roads, railroads irrigation facilities, and industrial complexes, in order to consolidate its regional power base.
Head Count
In total, over 1 Million Tibetans are said to have died as a result of 'maltreatment' Since the PLA takeover of the region in 1951. However, these figures are disputed, and accurate statistics are almost impossible to obtain.
Current statistics do however indicate that there are now over 7.5 million Han Chinese in Tibet, and that they now outnumber the native Tibetans population by at least so 500,000 people.
Such figures exclude the 'floating population'; Han who are resident in Tibet, but who have not officially registered as being residents.
View Comments/Add a Comment (5)
1. Huan left...
Sunday, 26 March 2006 10:45 pm :: http://www.neomodernism.net
Assimilating invaders and conquerers of China by maintaining the Chinese
Culture has occurred for thousands of years. What is unknown to me is how
successful this is when the Chinese are the occupiers: Korea and Vietnam
both were conquered and yet retain their cultural identity. What will
happen with Tibet remains to be seen.
2. Huan left...
Sunday, 26 March 2006 10:45 pm :: http://www.neomodernism.net
Assimilating invaders and conquerers of China by maintaining the Chinese
Culture has occurred for thousands of years. What is unknown to me is how
successful this is when the Chinese are the occupiers: Korea and Vietnam
both were conquered and yet retain their cultural identity. What will
happen with Tibet remains to be seen.
3. Vincent left...
Tuesday, 28 March 2006 10:53 am
I can see how in terms of incorporating modern technology and motivations
into colonization China is emulating Japan, but I think the fundamental
idea behind Tibetan colonization was already established before the
Japanese invasion in the case of Inner Mongolia. The art of colonization
via massive resettlement was commenced (in modern times anyways) in the
late 19th early 20th century with the near obliteration, percentage-wise,
of the Mongolian population in Inner Mongolia.
4. ACB left...
Wednesday, 29 March 2006 11:32 pm :: http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com
"What will happen with Tibet remains to be seen"
5. onlinepaid.com left...
Wednesday, 26 July 2006 6:31 pm
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