Chinese policy and the Dalai Lama s birthplaces

Transcription

1 1 / 7 International Campaign for Tibet Chinese policy and the Dalai Lama s birthplaces Date : July 10, 2014 The Dalai Lama turned 79 this week, entering his 80th year on July 6. This ICT report focuses on the 2.65 m yuan ($427,454) renovation of his birthplace and the dramatic transformation of the area where he lived as a child. This report also presents new information and images of the birthplaces of the previous incarnations of the Dalai Lama in the context of shifting political considerations by the Chinese authorities, both at the national and local levels. The Chinese authorities seek to represent the renovation of the 14th Dalai Lama s birthplace, and restoration work on other homes of earlier Dalai Lamas, as an assertion of control and ownership of the Dalai Lama lineage. This is linked to Beijing s objectives of controlling and managing the successor of the Dalai Lama, notably involving new measures imposed by the atheist Party state aiming to ensure that Tibetan lamas could only be reincarnated with the permission of the government. [1] The Beijing leadership takes the enduring influence of the Dalai Lama seriously and in recent years has stepped up its efforts to strengthen its position as the official arbiter of Tibetan Buddhist culture. Consistent with this approach, the Chinese authorities have referred publicly to their imperative of recovering the home of the Sixth Dalai Lama, situated outside Tibet in the sensitive border area of Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, India, which Beijing claims as part of the People s Republic of China (PRC). A state media report stated the authorities intention if not to recover the entire territory, at least, the birth place of the Sixth Dalai. [2] The official recognition and funding for the childhood homes of the Dalai Lamas, particularly the 14th, is even so an implicit acknowledgement of the central role of the 14th Dalai Lama not only in Tibet s history but also in the present-day, despite the Chinese Party state s aggressive anti-dalai Lama campaign. Politically, the Chinese authorities condemn the Dalai Lama. But inside Tibet, they know they can t ignore him, said a Tibetan researcher from Amdo who is now in exile. Through emphasizing multi-million yuan projects such as the renovation of birthplaces and temples associated with the current and previous Dalai Lamas, the Chinese authorities aim to convey the message that they are protecting Tibet s heritage. In exile, the Dalai Lama has described systematic policies and practices of cultural repression and destruction in Tibet as a sort of cultural genocide. [3] In several of the Dalai Lamas birthplaces, there is the added irony that the renovation now being promoted by the authorities is due to earlier destruction during the Cultural Revolution, and would not have come about without determined efforts of local Tibetans to protect their religious and cultural sites. The Chinese authorities have implemented dramatic redevelopment in and near the remote village and house where the current, 14th, Dalai Lama was born on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau as part of ambitious economic plans for the area. In contrast to the attention given to the 14th Dalai Lama s birthplace by the Chinese Party state, the homes of earlier Dalai Lamas in different parts of Tibet are mostly less politically sensitive and in most cases low-profile and little-known. But a number of them, such as the birthplaces of the 13th, 11th and Seventh Dalai Lamas, have been subject to renovation and are still visited by pilgrims. The status of the Dalai Lamas birthplaces as tourist attractions is ambiguous; while the current Dalai Lama s childhood home appears in some Chinese-language tourist brochures, access for foreigners is patchy and sometimes restricted. Map of birthplace locations [mgl_gmap mapid="hhdl" lat=" " long=" " zoom="5" width="100%" height="450px" skin="retro" controls="pan,zoom,scale,streetview,overviewmap,scrollwheel" ][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-012.png"]gedun Drupa ( ) Shabtod, near Sakya, now Shigatse (Chinese: Rigaze), Tibet Autonomous Region (formerly U-tsang) [/mgl_marker][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-02.png"]gedun Gyatso ( ) Tanag Segme (U-tsang); present-day Shigatse, Tibet Autonomous Region [/mgl_marker][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-03.png"]sonam Gyatso ( ) Tolung (U-tsang), present-day Toelung Dechen, Tibet Autonomous Region

2 2 / 7 [/mgl_marker][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-04.png"]yonten Gyatso ( ) Mongolia [/mgl_marker][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-05.png"]lobsang Gyatso ( ) Chingwar Taktse, Yarlung Valley (U-tsang), present day: Chonggye County (Chinese: Qiongjie), Lhokha Prefecture (Chinese: Shannan) TAR Tibet Autonomous Region

3 3 / 7 [/mgl_marker][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-06.png"]tsangyang Gyatso ( ) Mon Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, India [/mgl_marker][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-07.png"]kelsang Gyatso ( ) Lithang (Chinese: Litang), Kardze (Chinese: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, the Tibetan area of Kham

4 4 / 7 International Campaign for Tibet [/mgl_marker][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-08.png"]jamphel Gyatso ( ) Thobgyal (U-tsang), Shigatse, Tibet Autonomous Region [/mgl_marker][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-09.png"]lungtok Gyatso ( ) Dan Chokhor (Kham), present-day Sichuan [/mgl_marker][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-10.png"]tsultrim Gyatso ( ) Lithang, Kardze (Kham) [/mgl_marker][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-11.png"]khedrup Gyatso ( ) Gathar, Kham Minyak (Kham), near present-day Dartsedo (Kangding) in Sichuan [/mgl_marker][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-12.png"]trinley Gyatso ( ) Lhoka (Chinese: Shannan), Tibet Autonomous Region [/mgl_marker][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-13.png"]thupten Gyatso ( ) Dagpo Langdun (U-tsang), Tibet Autonomous Region

5 5 / 7 [/mgl_marker][mgl_marker lat=" " long=" " icon="/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/hhdl-14.png"]tenzin Gyatso ( ) Taktser, Kumbum (Amdo), present-day Qinghai [/mgl_marker][/mgl_gmap] Renovation and urbanization of Dalai Lama s birthplace area reflects China s political priorities The extensive renovation [4] of the current Dalai Lama s birthplace in Taktser (Chinese: Hong Ai), in the Tibetan area of Amdo, which at the time was under the control of a Chinese Hui (Muslim) warlord, [5] and has since been incorporated into the PRC s Qinghai Province, [6] has taken place in the context of rapid urbanization in his home area. While the refurbishment took place, the house, built in traditional style around a central courtyard, was surrounded by a three-meter high boundary and security cameras were installed. Now that the renovation is complete, the building and its surroundings are scarcely recognizable from the small farmer s dwelling found by a search party of Tibetan lamas who identified a two-year old boy called Lhamo Dhondup as the Dalai Lama s reincarnation in the 1930s. In 1937, when the Dalai Lama was a toddler, his parents were Tibetan farmers, subsisting on cultivation of barley, potatoes and produce from yaks, hens and sheep.

6 6 / 7 According to the Chinese state media, $2.65 million yuan ($427,454) was allocated for the renovation and rebuilding of this rural village, constructing new houses, roads, shops, a sewage treatment plant and drinking water facilities at Taktser. [7] The village was promoted in the state media as a positive example of the provision of housing and fast-track urbanization: More than 70 years after the Tibetan spiritual leader left, Hong Ai is at the front of China s massive drive to raze shanties and build safe, modern homes for the poor rural residents of the region. [8] This was the second time for some inhabitants that their houses had been razed; for some, it had happened during the Cultural Revolution. Urban development in Ping an county has proceeded at a dizzying pace, and the Chinese authorities announced last year that the county where the village is located, Ping'an County in Haidong (Tibetan: Tsoshar) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, will be absorbed into a new city to be given the name of the prefecture, Haidong. (Xinhua, May 17, 2013). [9] The county town of Ping an (Tsongkha Khar in Tibetan), which is around 20 minutes drive to the Dalai Lama s birthplace, is being

7 Powered by TCPDF ( 7 International Campaign for Tibet transformed into an industrial city with a focus on developing high-tech industry and boosting infrastructure construction. [10] A foreign visitor to Ping an in May 2014, told ICT: Passing through Ping an today one can see miles and miles of Chinese-style high-rise apartment construction. There s very little visible sign that this is a Tibetan area, and the sheer scale of construction is more reminiscent of large Chinese cities in the interior than it is of anywhere else on the Tibetan plateau. Because it s so close to Xining, it seems like it could very easily become a satellite city which retains almost none of its Tibetan heritage. A new bullet train that climbs hundreds of meters onto the Tibetan plateau to speed through Qinghai, passing near the Dalai Lama s birthplace, is due to open later this year. The line, that has been dubbed the high speed Silk Route, will link the capitals of Gansu province and Xinjiang (East Turkestan). The 1,776-km long project, due to be completed this year, is the longest highspeed railway under construction in the world and the first in China to be built partly across a plateau. [11] The expansion of the rail network in Tibet along with the rapid and large-scale development of mineral and hydropower resources across the plateau are key elements of China s centrally planned development targets for Tibet, and also essential to the development of tourism. The mountains are too high and the road is too long [12] / 7