China and the Future of Tibet

Abstract

Recently a flood of articles on Tibet has appeared in the New York Times and other newspapers throughout the world. Many of these articles contain patently false information about the situation in Tibet and the position of the Tibetans in exile. I feel, therefore, that it is time I contributed a brief article toward clearing up some of these misconceptions. Tibet is geographically, racially, and culturally different from China. Historically, too, Tibet has always been an independent country and has never been “an integral part of China.” The very fact that it has to be referred to now as “part of China” is a clear indication of its separate independent status in the past. If it had always been a part of China, what was the need of changing the boundaries in the maps of Central Asia prepared after 1959? Another indication of Tibet's independent status is the great pains taken by the Chinese Communists in explaining to the Tibetans the status of Tibet. They make a distinction between China and “The Middle Kingdom”: Tibet is not a part of China, but it is under the Middle Kingdom, just as China is. Tibet and China, they explain, enjoy equal status, and both are parts of the Middle Kingdom.