China and Tibet, Inevitable Change
Following China´s occupation of Tibet a Tibetan Government in Exile formed in India by fleeing members of Tibet´s former government. China has complained about the activities of the Tibetan exile government. However, China once hosted the Korean Government in Exile when Korea was occupied by Japan. The Korean Government in Exile then supported activities within Korea to free it from Japanese occupation, including mass protests.
by Yeshua Moser-PuangsuwanRecent and well publicized rejection of Chinese rule by Tibetans is not something new. The current demonstrations were preceded by both large and small scale, but continuous, acts of defiance and non-cooperation by Tibetans with Communist rule, since invasion by China. What is new is the scale and extent of that rejection beyond the Tibetan Autonomous Region to ethnically Tibetan areas within Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces of the PRC. This widespread dissent requires China to come to terms with their annexation of Tibet. China could profit from reflection on their role in supporting Korean resistance to Japanese occupation. Decolonization was traumatic for Japan, but today South Korea and Japan respect and trade with each other.
In the late 1800´s, Russia, China and Britain competed for dominance of Tibet. At the same time another struggle for dominance by Russia, China and Japan was taking place on the Korean peninsula. Japan sidelined Russian and China, and annexed the territory of Korea in 1910. At the time, the annexation was given a paper thin veneer of respectability under the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty. That treaty has been rejected and recognized as illegitimate by both modern Japan and Korea today, who now maintain full trade and diplomatic relations as neighboring states, despite this history.
After annexation popular dissent organized into a movement of resistance. In March 1919 demonstrations took place across the peninsula calling for the independence of Korea. This movement received some of its inspiration from Woodrow Wilson's 14 point speech, which in part called for a right of self-determination as the basis for nations at the January 1919 Paris Peace Conference (which gave birth to the League of Nations). A Korean Declaration of Independence, written by a Korean historian and a Korean Buddhist monk, circulated nationally. Throughout March 1919 demonstrations demanding self-rule and independence from Japan took place across the nation. Japanese occupation forces responded with a crackdown which left several thousand dead and with tens of thousands of people imprisoned. This led to the formation of a Korean government in exile which found sanctuary in neighboring China. The exile government was considered the de-jure representation of the Korean people, and supported continued pro-independence activities within the country, including the 1929 student uprising.
Japan´s occupation of Korea only ended with the collapse of their empire in World War II, after which an administrative decision by key victorious powers partitioned the peninsula into two countries, a condition which has continued to plague the country until today.
Today, Japan´s annexation and occupation of Korea is universally disowned, not only by the former occupying power but, by all countries. The pretense with which China incorporated Tibet was to drive out foreign ´imperialist aggressive forces´. None were ever encountered during the Peoples Liberation Armies push into Tibetan lands, despite the veneer of a Seventeen Point Agreement, publicly rejected by the Tibetan exile government as "thrust upon Tibetan Government and people by the threat of arms". China´s claim to Tibet echo those of Japan regarding their annexation of Korea, or the propaganda of any other colonial power.
The Tibetan Government in Exile, which was set up by fleeing Tibetan officials during China´s seizure of absolute power in Tibet, is recognized as the de-jure represetatives of the Tibetan people. The exile government´s titular head, the Dalai Lama is globally recognized as the de-facto representative of the Tibetan people, and is respected even by some citizens of the PRC, but not the ruling Communist Party. The Dalai Lama has consistently called for negotiations with the People´s Republic of China, and a nonviolent solution to the problem. He repeatedly warned the PRC that they should enter into negotiations if they wished to avoid bloodshed in Tibet. This was not a threat by the Tibetan leader, but a realistic assessment of how much repression a people could take. It is not too late for the PRC to negotiate on the future governance of Tibet with the genuine leadership of the people. Otherwise they will be doomed to repeat history, to paraphrase former US president John F. Kennedy ¨Those who make nonviolent change impossible, make violent change inevitable.¨
Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan is the co-author of Truth is Our Only Weapon: The Tibetan Nonviolent Struggle and a former lecturer in Peace, Conflict & Human Rights at Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand.
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