Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (96 page)

Deng often said that he hoped to live to see the handover of Hong Kong,
but he died on February 19, 1997, four months before China resumed sovereignty. Had Deng been alive on June 30, 1997, he would undoubtedly have taken pride in his role in creating and implementing the one country, two systems policy—a policy that brought Hong Kong back as part of China, even if it retained a different system. Deng would also have agreed with Foreign Minister Qian Qichen's description of that day: “It was raining the whole day of the handover ceremonies, but I am sure that all Chinese in the world felt this was a refreshing shower, washing away China's humiliation.”
¹⁰²

Containing Tibet's Drive for Autonomy

When Deng became the preeminent leader of China in late 1978, he sought to improve relations between the leaders in Beijing and the Tibetans. To achieve this, he tried to reestablish relations with the one person he thought might make that possible, the Dalai Lama, who was then living in Dharamsala, India, with some 80,000 exiles. Deng set a low hurdle for resuming relations: on November 28, 1978, just three days after Hua Guofeng yielded to the new atmosphere at the Central Party Work Conference, Deng told Arch Steele, an American journalist long known for communicating Chinese Communist views to the outside world, that “The Dalai Lama may return but he must return as a Chinese citizen. . . . As for high-level people in Taiwan and Tibet, we have just one request: that they love the country.”
¹⁰³
During that same month, to assist his efforts to reach out to the Dalai Lama, Deng ordered the release of a number of Tibetan prisoners.

Deng knew that it was impossible to remove entirely the tensions between Tibetans and the Han majority, but he wanted to return to the relatively peaceful relations that had existed between Beijing and the Tibetans before 1956. During that pivotal year, the introduction of the “democratic reforms” in Tibetan areas in Sichuan had ignited pockets of resistance that spread into Tibet proper in 1958 and festered until 1959, when some of the most militant Tibetans marched across the mountains into northern India, where they settled in Dharamsala.

In the 1950s Mao had achieved relatively good relations with the Tibetans by allowing the Dalai Lama, who turned sixteen in 1951, to have a remarkable degree of freedom in ruling Tibet. In minority areas, with some 7 percent of the population, Mao had been willing to go slower in gaining control than in the rest of the country, where the Han majority lived. He was willing
to be even more patient with the Tibetans than with other minority groups in the hopes of gaining the positive cooperation of the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan leaders in eventually establishing a socialist structure. Even when the Dalai Lama fled with his followers in 1959, Mao ordered Chinese troops not to fire on them, in the hopes of eventually gaining the Dalai Lama's cooperation.

In May 1950, after Chinese troops had taken over the eastern portion of Tibet proper (later known as the Tibetan Autonomous Region), Mao had invited Tibetan leaders to Beijing where, with Han officials, they arrived at a seventeen-point agreement that accepted Chinese political control over Tibet, but allowed a measure of autonomy for Tibetans to practice their own religion, keep their monasteries, use their own language, and maintain their own customs.
¹⁰⁴
The agreement had established a framework whereby Tibetans accepted Chinese sovereignty but the Chinese granted for an unspecified period of time the right of the Tibetan government of the Dalai Lama to continue administrating Tibet proper, where roughly half of the four million Tibetans in China lived. Mao had agreed that in Tibet proper changes to Tibetan society and religion would come only when the Tibetan religious and aristocratic elite and masses agreed that it was time to implement them. After the seventeen-point agreement, the Tibetans, led by the Dalai Lama, were still able to collect taxes, adjudicate disputes, use their own currency, and even maintain their own army; the Communists had control of foreign affairs, military affairs, and border controls. Until a socialist structure would be introduced, the system in the 1950s had many features of that which had existed from 1720 to 1910 when under Chinese suzerainty, the Tibetans essentially ruled Tibet while the Chinese government was responsible for foreign affairs.

In 1954–1955 the Dalai Lama traveled to Beijing to attend the 1st NPC meeting and while in Beijing he met Mao and other leaders and developed a warm and cordial relationship with them. Mao and the other Chinese leaders treated the Dalai Lama with great respect because he was not only a great religious leader but also the head of the Tibetan government with which Beijing had signed a formal agreement. During that time, the Dalai Lama agreed to establish a Preparatory Committee for a Tibet Autonomous Region that he would head. The Dalai Lama also agreed to reduce the Tibetan army to only 1,000 and to end the use of Tibet's own currency, although in the end the size of the Tibetan army was not reduced and Mao gave permission for Tibet to continue using its own currency. In most areas of China, China had introduced
preparatory governments in 1948–1950, and within a year or two established regular governments. On April 16, 1956, the Dalai Lama, who had returned from Beijing to live in Lhasa, had welcomed with a grand celebration a delegation from Beijing that would help establish a temporary government structure, which was expected to become a regular government within two to three years.
¹⁰⁵

China's problems with Tibetans erupted after 1955 when provincial leaders throughout China were told to accelerate the collectivization of agriculture. Mao said that “democratic reforms,” including collectivization, would be implemented among minority peoples if conditions seemed right, but they were not yet to be implemented in Tibet itself. The two million Tibetans outside Tibet proper were largely living in Sichuan, Yunnan, Qinghai, and Gansu. The leaders of Sichuan put together a plan not only to collectivize agriculture rapidly, but also to start “democratic reforms” in Sichuan's Tibetan and other minority areas. Collectivization that was launched in the Tibetan areas in Sichuan at the beginning of 1956, including the taking over of some monasteries, quickly precipitated a serious and bloody uprising in Sichuan's Tibetan areas, especially among the Khampa Tibetans, who constituted a large portion of Tibetans in Sichuan. The uprising was bloody because virtually every family in the Khampa Tibetan areas in Sichuan, where blood vengeance and raiding were endemic, had modern firearms and knew how to use them. After initial successes, the Khampas were overwhelmed by the much stronger PLA; in 1957–1958, they fled to Tibet proper with their guns. In 1957 at the height of the Cold War, the CIA began to train a small number of Khampas in Colorado and then dropped them back into Tibet to collect intelligence.
¹⁰⁶
Beijing directed the Dalai Lama to send the Khampas back to Sichuan, but the Dalai Lama refused. India had earlier invited the Dalai Lama to settle in India, and in March 1959 he led many of the most militant Tibetans across the mountains into India. Other Tibetans followed over the next two to three years.

After becoming the preeminent leader in 1979, Deng faced a more daunting problem in gaining the positive cooperation of the Tibetans than Mao had faced in the 1950s. More Han Communist officials had been sent into Tibet to tighten controls after 1959, arousing local resistance. In most parts of China, Red Guards were seen as revolutionary youth, but in Tibet, where they trashed temples and monasteries and destroyed works of art, they were seen as Han youth destroying Tibetan culture.

After 1979, in Tibet as elsewhere, Deng sought to make amends for the damages done by the Cultural Revolution. Deng understood the deep religious respect Tibetans had for the Dalai Lama as their spiritual leader. He knew the Dalai Lama was seen by Tibetans as the incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and hence a god. After the thirteenth Dalai Lama died, in 1937 a two-year-old had been identified as the incarnation, thus becoming the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. He was well trained in Tibetan culture and would become a deeply religious and learned man. In 1978 Deng hoped that through Tibetan intermediaries he could build a relationship with the Dalai Lama, reach some accommodation, and reduce the antagonism between Communist officials and Tibetans.

In the 1950s and 1960s Deng had personally been deeply involved in Tibetan issues. In 1951, the Communist troops sent to gain military control over Tibet were from the Southwest, a region then led by Deng Xiaoping, and the Northwest. Tibetan forces were weak and there was little armed resistance. As secretary general in the 1950s Deng was also involved in carrying out Mao's more “lenient” policy in Tibet proper as well as the more forceful policy imposing collectivization among Tibetans in Sichuan and elsewhere.

In 1978 Deng had many reasons for trying to reduce hostilities between the Han majority and the Tibetan minority. A calmer relationship could strengthen Tibetan ties to China and form a bulwark against possible Soviet penetration into Tibet. It could lessen the risk that a revolt by one minority group against the Chinese could stir up resistance by other minority groups. It would reduce the drain on national resources caused by the continuing conflicts with Tibetans. Above all, perhaps, at the time when Deng wanted to establish good relations with Western countries to help with modernization, it would ease foreign complaints about Chinese treatment of Tibetans. When Deng met President Gerald Ford in December 1975, Ford asked about the Dalai Lama. When Deng met George H. W. Bush on September 27, 1977, Bush not only took a special interest in Tibet and the fate of the Dalai Lama, but also asked to visit Tibet—and because Bush was an “old friend of China,” Deng gave special permission for Bush to travel there.
¹⁰⁷

In late 1978, when Deng began to reach out to the Dalai Lama's intermediaries, the 80,000 Tibetans who had settled in India were among the Tibetans most alienated from Chinese rule; they were a diverse group that did not easily reach agreement, but as a group they were less willing to compromise
on important issues than many of the Tibetans who remained in China. Moreover, since the Chinese did not permit Tibetans within China to organize to represent their interests, the exile community in Dharamsala in northern India spoke on behalf of all Tibetans and took a strong stand against China.

The best channel for Deng to reach the Dalai Lama was through the Dalai Lama's Mandarin-speaking second-oldest brother, Gyalo Thondup. Deng's meeting with him was arranged by Li Jusheng, the second in command of the NCNA in Hong Kong, who had been meeting with him for several weeks. When Deng met Gyalo Thondup, he told him he hoped that the Dalai Lama might return to China, take a look at Tibet, and, if he wished, remain in China. If he preferred, the Dalai Lama could first send his representatives to observe the situation in China; as Deng admitted to Gyalo Thondup, China had some political work to do before the Dalai Lama returned.
¹⁰⁸

On March 17, 1979, a few days after Deng's meeting with Gyalo Thondup, the NCNA announced, “The Tibetan Autonomous Region legal organs have decided to be generous in treating all those who took part in the Tibetan uprising [of 1959].”
¹⁰⁹
On the same day, after a meeting of the four prefectures in Tibet, it was announced that many verdicts against Tibetan officials dating from the Cultural Revolution would be reversed. In promoting reconciliation, Deng relied on reports of Communist officials in Tibet, and was unaware of the seriousness of the Tibetan resistance and the powerful influence of the Dalai Lama around the world. When Deng met Vice President Walter Mondale in August 1979, he told him, “As for the matter of the Dalai Lama this is a small matter. . . . It is not a very important question because the Dalai Lama is an insignificant character.” Deng went on to say that it was an illusion for the Dalai Lama to think of having an independent state.
¹¹⁰

At that time Deng had some reason to be hopeful that the Tibetan situation was improving. After he met Gyalo Thondup, it was arranged for the Dalai Lama to send a delegation of Dharamsala exiles to Tibet to observe the situation and to meet with local officials. In the following months, two more delegations from Dharamsala visited China. It turned out that the Chinese officials advising Deng had vastly underestimated the alienation of the Tibetans against the Han and the resistance that would be stimulated by the visit of Tibetans from Dharamsala. When one of the Tibetan exile delegations visiting Qinghai province was greeted by exuberant crowds of Tibetans expressing
support for the Dalai Lama, Beijing officials were shocked and embarrassed. Hoping to avoid further unpleasant surprises, the Chinese officials immediately asked the first party secretary of Tibet, the Han former general Ren Rong, what they might expect when the delegation visited Lhasa. Ren Rong predicted there would be no problem. But in Lhasa there was an even larger outpouring of support for the Dalai Lama.

As a result of his misstep, Ren Rong was fired by Hu Yaobang who directed that Ren leave Tibet so he would not undermine efforts to establish good relations with Tibetans. Ren Rong was replaced by another former Han general, Yin Fatang, who soon became Deng's man in Tibet. Yin had spent some two decades in Tibet and was sufficiently committed to the building of Tibet that he remained there and helped build schools after he retired as party secretary.

The visits of these three delegations backfired. Deng had been led to believe that under Communist leadership, Tibet had achieved enough stability and economic growth since 1959 that the delegations from the exile community would be favorably impressed by the conditions they saw in Tibet. But they were not. On the contrary, they became vocal critics of Chinese treatment of Tibetans.