Subject: CACCP Weekly 08/24/97
Focus:
Getting ready for upcoming Florida Splendid China Protest demonstration on 10/12/97 to commemorate the 48th anniversary of the occupation of Eastern Turkestan.
1. Accomplishments
2. Plans
3. Action List
a. A Call to Action
b. Florida Pleasure Passport Campaign
c. Collecting letters/articles
4. Misc.
a. Statement by U.S. Rep. Frank R. Wolf
b. New Textbook highlight schism over Taiwan's history
c. Separatist Muslims 'like rats' + comment
d. (TIN) Cultural Policy: History Book Banned, Tibetan Culture Declared "Non-Buddhist"
1. Accomplishments
Wrote letters to congressional representatives
2. Plans
Assimilate incoming data...
3. Action List
a. A Call to Action
In support of the new movie release of 'Kundun' and 'Seven Years in Tibet' in October, volunteers are being solicted to support this effort in your area. It is a multi-faceted plan and action packages wil be made available.
To join this effort, please email Rangzen@aol.com or trinley@churchward.com to get the latest details. More data about this important endeavor will be released as soon as it is available.
b. Florida Pleasure Passport Campaign
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1730/fpp1.html
The business arrangement between AAA, Splendid China, Bok Tower, Cypress Gardens, and Fantasy of Flight is known as 'Florida Pleasure Passport'.
We have suggested letters to these establishments to ask them to stop supporting FSC. Your letters are still coming in as well as the responses from the particulars named above (minus FSC).
Addresses for mailing letters
Bok Tower Gardens
1151 Tower Boulevard
Lake Wales, Florida 33853
Cypress Gardens
PO Box 1
Cypress Gardens, Florida
Fantasy of Flight
PO Box 1200
Polk City, Florida 33868-9417
American Automobile Association
Florida/Louisiana/Missippi AAA
1000 AAA Drive,
Heathrow, Florida, 32746-5080
Phone: 407-444-4000
*****
c. Collecting letters/articles
Please send copies of your letters to the editors, school board members, etc., so that they can be included in our web-pages. Let your voice be heard. Thanks to those who have mailed your letters in.
Any articles mentioning Splendid China are welcome also, we prefer to re-print in it's entirety so we can't be blamed for an 'out-of-context' quotations.
4. Misc.
a. Statement by U.S. Rep. Frank R. Wolf
Tibet - A First-Hand Look
August 9 - 13, 1997
This report provides a brief account of the findings of Congressman Frank R. Wolf during his visit to Tibet in August 1997. Congressman Wolf is just the second sitting Member of the U. S. House of Representatives to visit Tibet since the Chinese occupation began in 1959. His first person discussions with individual Tibetans provide a sobering look at life there under a brutal People's Republic of China (PRC) regime and paints a far different picture than the one served up by the Chinese government in Beijing.
Introduction:
I recently returned from a journey to Tibet where I visited during the period August 9 - 13, 1997. Accompanied by a member of my staff and by another Western man fluent in Tibetan and steeped in its culture, history and religion, we traveled with U.S. passports and on tourist visas issued by the government of China. At no time was I asked nor did I make known that I was a Member of Congress. Had I done so, I am sure that my visit would not have been approved just as other Members of Congress requesting permission to visit Tibet have been turned down.
Only one other sitting Member of the U.S. House of Representatives has visited Tibet since China began in 1959 its relentless (and largely successful) effort to squeeze the life and very soul out of this country, its culture and its people. Only three U.S. Senators have visited Tibet in the last several decades and they were closely shepherded by the Chinese.
Aside from U. S. ambassadors in Beijing and Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck, I am unaware of visits by senior officials from any presidential administration during these years.
To be sure, an approved delegation visit to Tibet would not likely be all that revealing since frank conversations with individuals could not take place. I cannot think of another place in the world where a tighter lid is kept on open discussion. Government agents, spies and video cameras guard against personal outside contact. Offenders, even suspected offenders, are dealt with quickly and brutally.
Human Rights Protection:
My interest in Tibet and the driving force behind my visit centers on work to help in stopping religious persecution and protecting basic human rights. In 1996, the House passed three measures concerning these issues, one specifically relating to Tibet. This year I introduced H. R. 1685, the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act of 1997, which contains specific provisions relating to Tibetan Buddhism. It has over 100 cosponsors. These are areas about which I and others care very deeply.
In Tibet humane progress is not even inching along and repressed people live under unspeakably brutal conditions in the dim shadows of international awareness. I want the world to know what is going on in Tibet. When people know, they will demand that China change its policy of boot-heel subjugation and end what one monk I met termed "cultural genocide."
I found that the PRC has a near-perfect record of vicious, immediate and unrelenting reprisal against the merest whisper of Tibetan dissent. I met with monks, men and women on the street and others who risked their personal safety and well-being to steal a few moments alone with me to tell how bad conditions are in Tibet and to petition help and support from the West.
Tibet on the Map:
Tibet is known as the roof of the world and, indeed it is. The Tibetan plain rises above 12,000 feet. At night, with skies so clear, more stars beam down on the observer than one can imagine. Beneath this roof is the former home of the Dalai Lama, the religious leader who ruled the country from the impressive Potala Palace in the capital of Lhasa. In 1959, when China commenced a relentless program to erase Tibet from the pages of history, the Dalai Lama left his homeland for India where he and countless other Tibetans who followed remain in exile today.
Tibet is about the geographic size of western Europe with a Tibetan population of around six million. It has been estimated that in the past two decades nearly one million Tibetans have been killed, starved or tortured. At the same time the PRC has undertaken a program of mass infusion of Chinese people who probably now outnumber Tibetans in their own country. There are no valid census data, but some estimate that in the capital of Lhasa there are about 160,000 Chinese and only about 100,000 Tibetans. The difference in numbers may be less startling in remote areas but the inescapable conclusion is that China is swallowing Tibet. Stores, hotels, bazaars, businesses and tradesmen are largely Chinese. Storefront signs bear large Chinese writing beneath much smaller Tibetan inscriptions.
Driving out from Lhasa, one encounters as many Chinese villagers, shepherds, farmers, construction workers and travelers as Tibetan. In short, Tibet is disappearing.
Tibet lies along the border of Bhutan, Nepal, India and Pakistan and is rich in resources including agriculture, timber and minerals. Its importance to China is both strategic and economic. China seems certain to maintain its death grip on this land and strives to do so behind sealed doors. There is no independent press in Tibet. I did not see a single newspaper or magazine available to the people. Television is extremely limited and tightly controlled by the PRC. Outside press is not welcome and not allowed. Only Voice of America, to which virtually all Tibetans listen, and Radio Free Asia, which is relatively new, beam information into Tibet.
Nothing goes the other way except slips of information carried out by occasional tourists and visitors.
Tibet Up Close:
What do the Tibetan people say? Before my trip I was told that individuals would seek me out as an obvious Western visitor to hear their story. I was also told this was very dangerous to them; that informers were everywhere and being caught talking to a westerner was a guaranteed ticket to prison and more. Frankly, I was skeptical that anyone would approach us. I was wrong. Someone took advantage of almost every opportunity for a guarded word or two.
During our first encounter with a Tibetan who realized we were westerners and one of us was fluent in Tibetan, we found that he could not contain himself. "Many are in jail, most for political reasons." We saw Drapchi prison, which is off the beaten path in a slum area. Guards in pairs were ever present.
We saw the Sangyip prison complex and then Gusta prison. Prisons seem to be a growth industry in Tibet. We told the Tibetan not to take chances. He said it is so important that we see these places that he didn't care and we continued on what had become a nightmare tour. We passed the main security bureau, the intelligence headquarters and then the prison bureau, each heavily guarded. All the while we heard about monks and nuns and common men and women who were dragged away to prison and torture. He said, "Don't worry about me at all," and continued to tell of the torture to which prisoners were subjected.
They are routinely beaten with sticks and kicked and poked with electric sticks (cattle prods with a huge electric charge). Political prisoners are isolated from the general prison population and kept in unlighted and unheated areas with no sanitary or medical facilities and almost no food or water.
He added that the people have no rights. They cannot talk freely. Even though Tibetans view the Dalai Lama as their spiritual and political leader, they are forbidden to show their love for him. Possessing a picture of the Dalai Lama is an offense which could draw harsh and brutal punishment and imprisonment. "We (Tibetans) must have permission from the Chinese to do everything," he said. "We can do nothing on our own."
He further said, "The Chinese say we have freedom of religion but it is a lie. Despite the Chinese saying that Tibetans have freedom, there are no freedoms--not even one. Everything is controlled by the Chinese and we are repressed. We listen to Voice of America say that the West supports Tibet, yet they continue doing business with China. That doesn't help. Tibet feels left out and ignored."
"The Dalai Lama has asked America and Taiwan for help," he continued. "Please help the Dalai Lama because we are being ruined. The Chinese send Tibetan children to China for education and teach them Chinese ways. Tibet is disappearing little by little. The Tibetan language is being increasingly de-emphasized in schools and our culture is being wiped out."
All this from one man telling of his agony and the agony of his people. Yet, he ended by saying, "I am not afraid. Someday the sun will again shine in Tibet." Throughout, we found overwhelming support for and faith in the Dalai Lama by every single Tibetan with whom we had contact.
Religious Persecution:
We visited numerous monasteries where monks, nuns and others sought us out.
Their stories amplified what we had already learned. Every monastery we visited was tightly controlled by a small group of resident Chinese overseers. Every report we heard told of a dramatic reduction in the number of monks at each monastery. Many were imprisoned for not turning their back on the Dalai Lama or even refusing to give up pictures of him. Young monks under 15 (it was possible to enter a monastery as young as 6 years of age) were turned out. Since the cultural revolution many monasteries had been largely destroyed. Rebuilding has been painfully slow.
The slightest resistance to Chinese interference was met by the harshest punishment. It was common to hear reports of monks being imprisoned, many during "reeducation" which involves turning one's back on the Dalai Lama.
Imprisonment is for a long time. Imprisonment means years of brutal beatings with infrequent visitors from the outside. And when imprisonment finally ends, monks are expelled from their monastery and exiled to their home village. Many try to escape to India or Nepal. Many do not make it.
We were told on several occasions that all monks are afraid. When asked what message they would like me to take back to America, I was told to say that they are not allowed to practice their religion and that the people are suffering greatly. Their biggest hope is to be free from China. One said, "Please help us. Please help the Dalai Lama." He said if he were overheard talking to us he would immediately be put in prison for four or five years.
Other monks voiced their concern with not being free to practice their religion. Hundreds have been imprisoned simply for not removing pictures of the Dalai Lama from places of worship. Their prayers are restricted and they have few opportunities to talk away from the overseers, even in the monastery.
From monasteries all around Lhasa and the surrounding area, the message was the same. I am reluctant to be too specific in describing conversations because I do not want them traced back to a specific monk or person. To do so would be to impose a heavy sentence and punishment on someone already suffering an unbelievable burden.
At one place we met a woman at worship. When she realized we were American, she burst forth. As she talked she began sobbing. Tears poured down her face as she told us of conditions. She said, "Lhasa may be beautiful on the outside but, inside, it is ugly. We are not allowed to practice what we want to practice. Senior monks are gone and there are no replacements and they are our teachers."
Asked for a message to America, she said, "Please help us. Please help the Dalai Lama. When there is pressure from the West, things loosen up a bit before returning to as before. Please have America help us."
Every single person with whom we spoke had positive feelings toward America. We were always given a thumbs up or a smile or a comment such as, "America is great." People would not stop talking to us, even when their safety was threatened. Sometimes we had to turn away just to keep them from being seen talking with us. Some even risked exposure by gesturing to us from roof tops to meet with them.
The Chinese Stranglehold:
China's assault on the city, the countryside and the environment has been no less harsh than its assault on the people. Tibetan areas in Lhasa are being demolished and replaced with smaller and more confined structures with the remaining space given over to Chinese uses. The area at the base of the Potala Palace has been completely leveled and a new open space similar to Tiananmen Square has been created. Forests are being leveled and many have seen convoys of trucks piled with timber moving north into China.
This is not a pretty picture. The glowing reports of progress from Beijing or Shanghai where business is booming, skyscrapers are rising and industry, education and the standard of living are all soaring has a false ring when heard from the plain of Tibet.
America and the rest of the free world must do more to urge China to back off from its clear goal to plunder Tibet. The true story of Tibet is not being told. Aside from a courageous few journalists working largely on their own, the real story about Tibet is not reaching our ears. America and others must strive for more open coverage.
The U.S. government's policy seems to be based solely on economics; to open more and more markets with China and to ignore every other aspect of responsible behavior. The American people need to hear this message about Tibet. Knowing the real story, I believe the American public will decide that we need to do better and that we can do better. I hope this report is a beginning.
The clock is ticking for Tibet. If nothing is done, a country, its people, religion and culture will continue to grow fainter and fainter and could one day disappear. That would indeed be a tragedy. As one who visited a Soviet prison camp during the cold war (Perm Camp 35) and Romania before and immediately after the overthrow of the ruthless Ceausescu regime to see things first-hand, I believe conditions in Tibet are even more brutal.
There are no restraints on Tibet's Chinese overseers. They are the accuser, judge, jury, prison warden and sometimes executioner rolled into one.
Punishment is arbitrary, swift, vicious and totally without mercy and without recourse. Recommendations for Action:
Based upon these observations, I make the following recommendations:
1. The administration must appoint a special representative for Tibet who both understands the conditions there and who will aggressively pursue improvements.
2. The administration must raise with the PRC the issue of Tibet both before and during the forthcoming visit by Chinese President Jiang Zemin to Washington. Efforts to obtain the release of political prisoners must be part of this initiative.
3. Efforts to open Tibet to the international press and human rights groups must go forward. As long as the Chinese continue to exercise power away from public scrutiny, brutal excesses will continue.
4. I urge my colleagues in the House and in the Senate to make every effort to travel to Tibet. Congressional delegations (CODELs) traveling around Tibet will make a difference.
5. I urge my colleagues in the House and in the Senate to adopt a prisoner of conscience, and contact the PRC time and again on his or her behalf and also to frequently write directly to the prisoner
6. I urge strong efforts to have officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and our Bureau of Prisons visit Tibetan prisons to observe conditions and treatment of prisoners and to strive for improvements.
7. I urge the administration to press for representatives from the free world to attend trials of Tibetans accused of political crimes as has been done in eastern Europe and elsewhere.
8. I urge religious leaders around the world to pressure the PRC for permission to visit Tibet.
9. I urge the administration and others to press the PRC to engage in negotiations and dialogue with the Dalai Lama concerning the future of Tibet.
The International Campaign for Tibet
1825 K St. N.W, Suite 520
Washington, D.C. 20006
Phone: +1 (202) 785-1515 / Fax: +1 (202) 785-4343 E-mail: ict@peacenet.org / Internet: http://www.peacenet.org/ict ICT is a non-profit human rights and democracy monitoring group that promotes education and awareness on the current situation in Tibet.
Brute force, no matter how strongly applied, can never subdue the basic desire for freedom and dignity
b. New Textbook highlight schism over Taiwan's history
By Christopher Bodeen
NY Times 8/19/1997
Taipei, Taiwan-A new series of textbooks, innocuously titled "Getting to Know Taiwan, hardly seems a subject to a subject to set off street protests, arson threat and political turmoil.
As it goes in Taiwan, though, even mundane matters of junior high school history and geography tap directly into a core question of identity: Is this island of 21 million people a nation in its own right, or just an offshore province of China.
The textbooks being introduced in Taiwan classrooms in September have caused a flurry of disputes between the Education Ministry and conservatives who say" Getting to Know Taiwan" is part of an effort to poison tender young minds with the notion that the island is separate from China.
They threw eggs at the Education Ministry building last month and threatened to burn it down. The rival pro-independence camp asserted that these opponents should face a firing squad.
Education officials say the book series is merely aimed at familiarizing Taiwanese youngsters with their island's history, landscape and people-lessons that received only glancing attention, at most in the past.
The fuss itself stems from history.
Taiwan, a frontier territory loosely ruled by China for centuries, has been cut off from the mainland for the past 100 years-first as a Japanese colony, then as the base of the Nationalists who ruled China until Mao Tse-Tung's Communists drove them out in 1949.
The exiled Nationalists, insisting they were still the sole legitimate government of all China, set out to transform Taiwan into a miniature clone of the lost mainland. Any notion of separateness was suppressed, and to advocate independence for Taiwan was treated as sedition.
Taiwan studies constituted just one out of 25 chapters in the junior high school history curriculum, and took up barely an hour of the entire school year. The whole curriculum was designed to portray Taiwan as just one small portion of the greater motherland.
Today, the emigre generation has dwindled and a native-born Taiwanese, Lee Teng-hui, is president. Advocating independence is legal, and pride in being Taiwanese is encouraged.
But the education system hasn't caught up with changing times.
Classes stress the ancient kingdoms of the warring states period-475-221 B.C.-but make only passing mention of the names of Taiwan's current county seats.
They have to learn the reign titles of the emperors of the Ching dynasty, form 1644 to 1911, but not the names of Taiwan's aboriginal tribes.
"Students know the names of ancient Chinese capitals, but can't even name the longest river in Taiwan," say David Lin, executive secretary of the National Association of Students' Parents.
Even worse, the old curriculum inculcated a sense of Taiwanese inferiority, says Tu Cheng-sheng, who edited the social studies volume of "Getting to Know Taiwan."
"Now we want to build identification and love for Taiwan," Tu says. That, says conservative lawmaker Lee Ching-hua, is tantamount to teach student that they're not Chinese. "The text is deeply political*.. "Getting to Know Taiwan" is paving the way for Taiwan independence," he says.
The critics say the textbooks play down centuries-old links between China and Taiwan, and seek to portray the Taiwanese character as different from China's, ignoring religious and linguistic ties.
Old textbooks taught that "China's peaceful reunification is the sincere wish of all China." The new ones say only that the two sides hope to "establish peaceful, friendly relations."
China regards Taiwan as a renegade province and previously has threatened to invade the island to prove the point. While it hasn't commented on the textbooks, it is bound to see them as part of Taiwan's alleged drift toward independence.
To assuage the conservative critics, the textbook series' editors have made changes, but these are largely sematic, and the Education Ministry says nothing will stop "Getting to Know Taiwan" from entering classrooms.
"We're trying to take out the politics. We don't have the right to decide for children whether they should support either reunification or independence," says Tu, who also heads the Institute of Research and Philology at the prestigious Academia Sinica.
Chinese history still will be taught in the second year of junior high-two hours a week, compared to just one for Taiwan history.
Shi Cun-mei, a junior high history teacher, says it's high time more space was devoted to Taiwan.
"Everyone has an opinion, but all we ask for is accuracy and basic
objectivity, she says.
Junior high students don't pay that much attention to history class anyway, since it account for just 50 of 700 points on the high school entry exam, she says.
As for learning about China, Shi says, "They always ask, "What does this have to do with me?"
c. Separatist Muslims 'like rats' + comment
South China Morning Post
Saturday August 23 1997
Separatist Muslims 'like rats'
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Muslim separatists in Xinjiang must be isolated and eradicated like "rats in the street", according to delegates to an officially sponsored meeting of Islamic officials in the region.
Local press reports quoted delegates to the fifth assembly of the Xinjiang Islamic Association as saying all separatist forces in the northwestern region must be crushed to ensure social and economic stability.
Xinjiang is China's only Muslim-majority region and has seen repeated clashes between the ethnic Han Chinese and the majority Uygur Muslims, some of whom seek an independent state.
"We must work together to isolate the principal separatist elements, so that they become like rats in the street, followed and cornered by passers-by," Xinjiang Daily quoted an assembly delegate as saying.
A comment from a reader
These "Islamic" officials must have had a quite good training in Marxist-Leninist historic materialism since they preach the class struggle instead of submitting to Allah. The name Islam means "peace", therefore peace with God. A follower of Islam is called a Muslim, which means "obedient to God and peace-loving".
d. -(TIN) Cultural Policy: History Book Banned, Tibetan Culture Declared "Non-Buddhist"
A play has been banned and a book withdrawn from sale in Tibet in the run-up to a new campaign to "make socialist literature and art prosper".
The campaign orders Tibetan writers to reflect the views of the working class, redefines Tibetan culture as non-Buddhist, and attacks resistance to Chinese cultural influence in Tibet.
The banning of the two works, both of which were accounts of 17th century Tibetan history, came to light after they were publicly condemned in the speech which launched the literature campaign in the Tibet Autonomous Region, delivered by the region's Party Secretary on 11th July.
The new campaign, which singles out for attack Tibetan historians and researchers at the University of Tibet, condemns the teaching of religion at the University and the inclusion of Buddhism in the study of Tibetan history and culture.
The banned book and the play were both about the Potala Palace, formerly the seat of the Dalai Lamas' government in Lhasa, and included references to Sangye Gyatso, the chief minister of the 5th Dalai Lama (1617-82), who was responsible for constructing much of the Palace.
"The political tendencies and ideological contents of literary and artistic works are not controlled strictly and accurately," said Party Secretary Chen in his 11th July speech, according to the text published in the official Tibet Daily on 16th July and issued in translation by the BBC Monitoring Service last week.
"There are also a small number of literary and artistic works which, by turning things upside down, extol what should not be extolled, and even go all out to sing the praises of the separatist chieftain Di-ba Sang-jie Jia-cuo," Chen continued.
There are no previously known reports of Chinese condemnation of Sangye Gyatso as a "separatist" leader, but official Chinese histories criticise him because during a face to face meeting in Beijing in 1693 he tricked the Qing Emperor Shengzu into giving him an honorary title by handing him a letter of greetings from the 5th Dalai Lama - who had in fact died 11 years earlier. The Emperor found out about the death in 1695, by which time Sangye Gyatso had appointed the 6th Dalai Lama without informing China.
Gyatso then rejected further requests from Shengzu, including a demand that the then Panchen Lama should be sent to Beijing.
The banned play, "Potala'i Sangdam" or "Secrets of the Potala", was produced by the Lhasa Theatre Troupe in 1996 and toured China until the Tibetan authorities banned it late last year, citing unspecified "political reasons". The play was based on a film produced by the same group which has been banned for at least six years, reportedly because it showed the 5th Dalai Lama meeting the Chinese Emperor Shizu in 1652 without performing a kow-tow.
The book that has been withdrawn was a lavishly illustrated guide to the treasures and history of the Potala Palace with commentaries in Chinese, Tibetan and English edited by the scholar Thubten Gyaltsen. The book was withdrawn in about December last year, reportedly because of official disapproval of a portrait of Sangye Gyatso which was included in the book.
- Tibetan Culture "Non-Buddhist" -
Party Secretary Chen's attack on Tibetan scholars is part of an new ideological definition of Tibetan culture, refuting in particular the view "equating Tibetan national culture with Tibetan religion, alleging that the Tibetan national culture is actually a Buddhist culture and that there would be no Tibetan national culture without a Buddhist culture".
"Buddhism is a foreign culture," said Chen, describing the idea that Tibetan culture is Buddhist as "utterly absurd". Tibetan culture flourished for over a millenium before the introduction of Buddhism in the 8th century.
"The view of equating Buddhist culture with Tibetan culture not only does not conform to reality but also belittles the ancestors of the Tibetan nationality and the Tibetan nationality itself," he said.
The speech criticises "some others [who] say that college teaching material will be void of substance if religion is not included and that in that case, colleges would not be real colleges ... They have no reason whatsoever to make such an allegation." The attack is believed to refer to Tibetan staff at the University in Lhasa who have complained about a plan to reduce the religious content of Tibetan studies.
Chen attacks unnamed people "claiming to be authorities" who have made "such shameless statements confusing truth and falsehood", and goes on to link them to the pro-independence movement.
"Comrades who are engaged in research on Tibetan culture should be
indignant at such statements. Making use of religion in the political field, separatists now go all out to put religion above the Tibetan culture and attempt to use the spoken language and culture to cause disputes and antagonism between nationalities," says Chen. "This is the crux of the matter," he added.
- Sinification Essential -
The new ideological position on Tibetan culture also defines foreign, predominantly Chinese, influence as essential to ensuring the strengthening of the culture. "All comrades who are conscious and strive for cultural progress should welcome cultural exchanges and be a promoter in this regard," says Chen. The remarks suggests that any opposition to sinification will be seen as opposition to social progress and improvement.
"It is absolutely necessary and beneficial to have cultural exchanges between various nationalities," Chen explains. "Advocating cultural segregation by the Dalai clique is aimed at practicing political separatism".
Chen later makes it clear that the exchange should be mainly with China.
"They were created together by comrades of Tibetan and Han nationalities in literary and art circles, which were a result of learning from one another and of their concerted efforts," he says of his favourite Tibetan songs.
"Tibetan literary and artistic works cannot do without exchanges and merging with cultures of other nationalities. A prerequisite and a large background are that the Tibetan nationality stands erect among the 56 nationalities of the Chinese nation," he notes, arguing that the Tibetan Empire became prosperous in the 8th century because it sent Tibetans to study in Chang'an, the then Chinese capital.
Although the main purpose of the nation-wide literature campaign is to encourage selectivity in the "study and use for reference of foreign cultures", the campaign in Tibet does not refer to selective borrowing from Chinese culture.
Chen's attack on the view which regards Tibetan culture as unvariegated or as mainly Buddhist is in line with most modern scholarship on the subject, as is his view that cultures gain from absorbing outside influences.
- Threats -
The "progessivist" and secular definition of culture in Tibet indicates increasing sophistication in China's ideological handling of the Tibetan dispute, but it is likely to cause serious concern among Tibetan intellectuals because of implicit threats in the speech against any critics of the new position.
"Only the Dalai clique can make such shameless remarks. To win some support from the international hostile forces, he has to tell some tales and fabricate some lies to malign our country and its policies," Chen says of the argument that Tibetan culture is at risk. "What merits our attention is that there are some people in the interior of the country who are also peddling such arguments," he adds.
The Party Secretary refers to "the Dalai" seventeen times in his speech, defining any divergence from the new position on culture as support for the exile leader and the pro-independence movement. Support for the movement is a criminal offence in Tibet.
"This is retrograde, old-fashioned Marxism," says Professor Ronald Schwartz, a Canadian sociologist who specialises in Tibet. "It takes culture in Tibet very seriously and sees it as a threat to the regime in a way that Beijing would not if Chinese writers were exploring these little avenues."
"Ever since the liberalisation there has been this group of intellectuals in Tibet who have stayed out of politics visibly at least because they saw their function as preserving Tibetan literature and culture," says Professor Schwartz. "For over a decade they have been able to recruit their students and teach their classes, and what he has finally done now is to go for that group, which had been immune until now."
The use of these arguments by the Party leadership could explain why China has recently encouraged the work of leading Tibetan and western intellectuals researching pre-Buddhist Tibet. Study of the pre-Buddhist era, when Tibet had no political links with China, had until now been seen by academics as a way of avoiding recruitment by Chinese politicians seeking support for Beijing's sovereignty claims.
The tone of the campaign is likely to accelerate the existing slow-down in Tibetan publications in Tibet and China. There is only one fully operative Tibetan-language printing press in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and funding for academic and literary publications has been hard to obtain since 1992.
- Nation-wide campaign -
Each province and region of China is expected to carry out its own version of a nation-wide campaign launched in May to "promote and prosper socialist literature with Chinese characteristics". The campaign is based on a speech on advancing literature and art issued by President Jiang Zemin in December last year.
The national campaign calls for an end to the adoption in Chinese art of Western-inspired decadence - probably a reference to pornography, which is now prominent in Chinese fiction - and for more artistic creativity and discussion, as well as study of classical Marxist theory on culture.
Writers and artists are also told to mix more with "the people" and to serve socialism.
The Tibet campaign does not mention artistic creativity and discussion or advocate "letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend", the slogan which dominated Jiang's original speech on culture last December.
In the Tibet campaign speech - unlike the published national speeches - Party Secretary Chen applies a class analysis to Tibetan culture, dividing it into working class culture and ruling class culture.
Ignoring the distinction between working class and upper class culture is equivalent to the Dalai Lama's claim that traditional Tibetan culture is under threat, says Chen, pointing out that this is based on the assumption that there is only one culture in Tibet and that the Dalai Lama and his serfs all did the same work or shared the same culture. "What he [the Dalai] called the restoration of traditional religion, culture, and history, in short, means the restoration of the system of unification of the state and the church and the serf system," said Chen.
Chen's definition of working class culture does not include any reference to religion and implies that both religion and "things enjoyed by the upper ruling class, which constituted the culture of the ruling class," should not be taken up by contemporary Tibetans.
The speeches by President Jiang and the People's Daily commentaries had avoided class analysis, did not mention the working class, and listed fine arts, photography, literature, film, and calligraphy amongst praiseworthy art forms.
The Tibet Party Secretary commends art created "by working people", which he defines as "folk dances, poems, songs, and regional dances" created by members of the working class. He describes these art forms as "the inexhaustible source of traditional national culture which we should inherit". The phrase relates to Chen's other principal argument, which is that all except for the best aspects of traditional culture should be rejected and discontinued. "In inheriting the culture, it is necessary to analyse it, to discard its dross, and carry forward the good part of it.
The development of national culture is a result of "developing what is useful or healthy and discarding what is not"," said Chen, quoting Chairman Mao.
Works held up as exemplary in the Tibet campaign are mainly socialist songs and dances, notably three Tibetan songs from the 1950s - "On Gold Mountain in Beijing", "Bitter Becomes Sweet After the Arrival of the Communists", and "Emancipated Serfs Are Singing".
Praise is also given for a contemporary work called the "Wall-Building Song" because it is "about the life of working people" and "ideologically and emotionally reflects the happiness, anger, grief, and joy of the masses". Raidi, Chen's immediate deputy, is cited as praising a recent dance piece called "Emancipated Serfs Go to College".
In the same speech Chen returned to the issue of increasing Chinese-language education in primary schools, first raised by one of his deputies three months earlier. "In Tibet, it is practical and correct to vigorously develop bilingual teaching according to the provisions of the "Law Governing Regional National Autonomy"," Chen said, again linking any disagreement with this to "discord sown and sabotage carried out by hostile forces". As in the April statement, the speech was unclear about whether the change means an increase in the number of lessons devoted to learning Chinese or in the number of subjects taught through the medium of Chinese.
