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Tibetan Issue threatens to derail Beijing’s relations with Taiwan

Rajaram Panda, Ph.D. - 9/16/2009

The Tibet issue in India-China relations is destined to remain a non-issue for determining the bilateral relations. As eminent Sinologist Professor V.P. Dutt mentioned in his lecture organized by the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi, on 4 September 2009 Tibet is China’s problem, not India’s, and China will have to talk with the Dalai Lama directly and there is no second option. China may not recognize Dalai Lama as the representative of Tibet but the whole world recognizes him as the spiritual head and his legitimacy in Tibet. In the present situation, it does not seem likely that the Tibet issue will be near any resolution. Despite aggressive posturing, China is also unlikely to precipitate a crisis that has always the potential of exploding into an international crisis whose costs would be huge for China in economic terms. This single reason would deter China from pursuing an aggressive policy towards Tibet. On the other hand, if at all, the Taiwan issue would get priority in China’s foreign policy.

What is the link then with Dalai Lama’s recent visit to Taiwan and the Chinese reaction? When Dalai Lama landed in Taiwan in early September to comfort victims of Typhoon Morakot, the reactions from Beijing was measured, though provocative. The immediate reaction from Beijing was reflected in its cancellation of an event meant to highlight improving relations between China and Taiwan. It also scrapped two planned exchanges, though Beijing was eager to protect the gains made during Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s 15-month-old administration.

Though the Dalai Lama announced that his visit had only humanitarian purpose with no political agenda, his presence nevertheless sparked a controversy. China brands the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader as “splittist” and loudly protests against any nation hosting him. When Dalai Lama toured the storm-lashed southern Taiwan, the self-governed island it considers a Tibet-in-waiting, and inalienable part of Chinese territory destined to return to the fold, China was outraged. Beijing regards Taiwan as part of its territory and resents activity that highlights its lack of control over the island’s politics.

Since taking office, Ma has jettisoned his predecessor’s anti-China policies, bringing Taiwan’s economy ever closer to the mainland’s. Ma also speaks frequently in favour of a peace treaty with Beijing. After Ma’s assumption of office, relations between Taipei and Beijing are at their highest point since the two sides split amid civil war in 1949.

Dalai Lama has close contacts with Taiwan’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party and his current visit by the DPP is the third by him to Taiwan since 1997. Beijing sees Dalai Lama and the DPP as separatists-in- arms. But the truism is that Dalai Lama has a large international following and managed to keep the heavy-handed rule over Tibet in the spotlight.

Typhoon Morakot tore across the island from 7 to 9 August 2009, dumping record amounts of rain and triggering floods and landslides that killed 670, with 106 more missing and presumed dead. Beijing was perhaps perturbed that Ma signed the letter of invitation to Dalai Lama to visit the land of 23 million people but very diplomatically refrained to meet the spiritual leader just not to derail the warming of relations with the mainland. This is not to say that there were no opponents in Taiwan to Dalai Lama’s visit but they were in a distinct minority.

Ma did take cognizance of the cancellation of the two high-level visits by mainland officials to Taiwan and the nixing of ceremonies to celebrate expanded air service across the 100-mile (1260 km)-wide Taiwan Strait appeared to be related to the Dalai Lama’s visit. It is unlikely, however, that Beijing would retaliate further because of Dalai Lama’s visit or that Ma would give it cause to do so. According to China expert Yang Kai-huang of Ming Chuan University in Taipei, the mainland’s reaction was restraint and that China could have acted much more harshly and the fact that Beijing did not opt for hard option speaks volumes of Beijing’s matured diplomacy not to derail the blossoming economic relationship between the mainland and Taiwan.

In order to assuage the feelings of Beijing, the spiritual leader restated his position that he was not seeking Tibet’s independence or separation and wished close relationships of Taiwan with the mainland China. It may be remembered that since 2002, Dalai Lama has pursued a so-called “middle way” in talks with China, seeking greater autonomy and religious freedom for Tibetans through non-violent methods.

It is feared that Dalai Lama’s controversial visit may prove to be a setback for cross-strait relations at a time when relations between Taipei and Beijing had begun to warm up. Under Taiwan’s China-friendly policy, Ma worked for a successful cross-strait economic deal that sought to avoid irking Beijing. Understandably, therefore, Ma’s Kuomingtang party was not happy with the opposition for playing politics with the Dalai Lama’s visit. Though Dalai Lama remained unperturbed, claiming that the opposition to his visit was a sign of freedom of expression, the truism is that the Tibet issue is unlikely to be resolved if both parties continue to harden their stances. Ultimately, it transpires that the Tibetan issue will continue to remain as an irritant between Beijing and any other country playing host to the Dalai Lama and the onus squarely lies on Beijing how it handles the Tibetan issue. There is no escape from having a dialogue with the spiritual leader, which unfortunately Beijing has consistently rejected. A re-look by Beijing seems to be the desirable approach.