Chinese Actions in Tibet are Wrong
22nd March 2008


Twenty years ago as a young broadcaster I toured China with a polyglot group of kiwis. We were guests of a Chinese government that was just getting the hang of managing the outside world. Our party included a couple of MPs (both of whom, by the way, were seeking re-election), some trade unionists, businessmen, radical Maori, lesbian feminists and a boy scout.

Our chaperone was Mr Hu. Mr Hu had a gold tooth and chain-smoked – to the delight of the trade unionists. Mr Hu smoothed our passage through the Great Hall of the People, Mao Tse Tung’s mausoleum, dark satanic mills, the terracotta army and an apartment block exclusively for one-child families.

Mr Hu was a good party man in every sense. He drank us under the table each night while never forgetting his duty to communism. He was courteous and professional, but one thing baffled him. He could not understand multi-culturalism. At official functions he became visibly agitated while we mihi-ed, chanted and laboured through a litany of introductions. Why didn’t we unite and speak with one voice, he asked. Why did we show so little respect to our leaders - the politicians?

There is a luxury in totalitarian states of seeing the world in black and white. Power that resides in the barrel of a gun and not a ballot box makes absolute sense to the person holding the gun. When that power has been hard-won the rightness of it assumes a moral authority. In the West this was called the Divine Right of Kings. The Chinese were more prosaic: they called it the Mandate of Heaven. Traditionally in China this mandate resided in the emperor and his family. When that family lost its grip on power the Chinese believed the gods passed the mandate to whoever was strong enough to take over. It’s a familiar tale – to the victor go the spoils.

Mr Hu’s frustrations with our group’s messy multi-culturalism were the product of the black and white world in which he lived. I enjoyed Mr Hu and greatly admired what I saw in China, but I found his discomfort satisfying. In our stumbling way we were demonstrating to Mr Hu our commitment to human rights, particularly minority rights.

I’ve been thinking about Mr Hu this week as the stories of violent protest rolled out of Tibet. I’m sure these stories don’t air in China but I feel confident that if he saw them Mr Hu would absolutely approve of the actions of the Chinese government. It would seem perfectly natural to him that China asserts its authority over the Tibetans. He may even be puzzled that the Tibetans would challenge that authority. Can’t they appreciate the benefits of being part of China? Why do they cling to their feudal beliefs and out-moded practices?

Tibet suffers the same arrogance and destructiveness from China that colonised populations have endured for centuries. It’s the story of Native Americans in the Wild West, of Maori in colonial New Zealand, of Africans down through the ages.

The Chinese cloak their theft of Tibet in a bogus historical legitimacy, claiming it has traditionally been part of China. Their invasion of Tibet in the early 1950s was largely ignored by the international community. Tibet was a backward and useless little corner of a world that was preoccupied with the Cold War.

While China remained poor it had only limited power to realise its ambitions in Tibet. Tibet’s leaders were driven out of the country, replaced by Chinese administrators and soldiers, but daily life for most Tibetans was endurable and the country remained cut off.

China’s recent prosperity has changed things dramatically. Massive road and rail projects have connected Tibet to China and the world. China has flooded Tibet with settlers, bulldozed Tibetan villages and replaced them with factories and high-rise apartments. The intention is to edge out Tibetan culture and language, break up its institutions and gradually erase its identity.

Perhaps China has been emboldened by the Tibetans’ Buddhist pacifism. The events of the past week will have done little to shake that conviction. A few hundred protesting monks can do little damage to Chinese authority. Unless, that is, they find support from more powerful friends.

New Zealand has only a small voice but we’ve proved that when we lay aside our fears of standing up to bullies, when we act from our deepest convictions, we can make a big noise.

In my view this is one of those times. I think we should, politely but firmly, tell China that its actions in Tibet are wrong. To publicly demonstrate our beliefs is as vital to maintaining our own dignity and freedom as it is to defending the dignity and freedom of the people of Tibet.