Beyond ‘Middle Way’: Tibet Needs a Course Correction

“Apart from independence, all issues can be discussed,” once communicated by Deng Xiaoping to his Tibetan interlocutor in 1979 is frequently presented as one of the primary premises underpinning Tibet’s case for genuine autonomy within the framework of the Middle Way Approach. It has often been invoked as an opening proposition in the Sino-Tibet conflict discussions. This statement is particularly prominent in both the opening pages of the Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People and Note on the Memorandum on Genuine autonomy for the Tibetan People presented to the Chinese counterparts.

In 1997, the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile—then known as the Assembly of Tibetan People’s Deputies—unanimously adopted a resolution in supporting the Middle Way Approach proposed by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. The Middle Way Approach, thus, became the official policy of the Tibetan government-in-exile. For nearly three decades, this policy has remained in effect, despite three major changes in China’s leadership and His Holiness’s devolution of political power in 2011 to a democratically elected Tibetan leader.

Based on this approach, nine rounds of dialogue were held between the envoys of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and their Chinese counterparts. In 2008, Tibet witnessed an unprecedented national uprising in the months preceding the Beijing Olympics, followed by relentless global campaigns and repeated call for dialogue from many world leaders, the Chinese side were compelled to reach out to the Tibetan envoys. At the eighth round of dialogue, the Tibetan side presented, to little avail, a Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People, which detailed the nature and scope of the autonomy it sought. The memorandum, however, was immediately rejected. In an effort to further address and clarify China’s concerns regarding the Memorandum, a separate document, titled Notes on the Memorandum of Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People, was subsequently submitted at the ninth round of dialogue. Once again China rejected the proposal.

After the little success at the eighth round of dialogue, a first-of-its-kind Special General Meeting was convened in Dharamsala, India, on November 2008. A total of 560 participants from 19 different countries took part in the meeting. The participants included representatives from the three pillars of the Tibetan government, executives of autonomous governing bodies, representatives of various civil society organizations, envoys of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and other invited participants.

Among the several recommendations adopted during the meeting, two points are particularly noteworthy. First, in view of the Chinese government’s response in the past, strong views were expressed calling for an end to the practice of sending envoys for dialogue and it was advocated that complete independence or self-determination should be pursued if the current approach failed to produce results in the future. Second, the meeting acknowledged that, given China’s rejection of the proposal, the dialogue process had failed to produce any substantive results toward resolving the Sino-Tibet conflict and that the responsibility for this failure lay entirely with the Chinese government. The ninth and final round of talks was held in 2010, with no resumption of dialogue in the sixteen years since.

In 2012, Special Envoy of His Holiness the Dalai Lama Lodi G. Gyari and Envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen resigned from their posts expressing frustration over China’s lack of positive response.

A year earlier, in a statement delivered by Envoy Keslang Gyaltsen at the Tibet-Inter Group Conference on Genuine Autonomy at the European Parliament in Brussels in 2011, confirming China’s rejection of the memorandum, he underscored China’s lack of sincerity from the outset of the dialogue process with China adopting a position of “no recognition, no reciprocity, no commitment, no concession and no compromise.”

Both the envoys were prominent members of the Task Force on Sino Tibet negotiation set up by the Tibetan government in exile to formulate strategies and policies to encourage China in the peaceful resolution of the Sino-Tibet conflict. There had been 32 meetings since its inception. Under the current leadership, the Task Force was formally dissolved to replace it with a four member Permanent Strategy committee which has convened 8 meetings so far.

Toward the end of the previous administration’s tenure, while serving as a member of Parliament, I inquired its position on the current stalemate in the dialogue process to which it responded that given China’s current hard-line policies in Tibet, the administration placed little hope. The administration further clarified that it continues to regard both the Memoranda on the Middle Way Approach to remain valid despite China’s rejection of them.

Since Xi Jinping assumed power in 2012, China has adopted an ever more draconian approach toward Tibet. A record 84 cases of self-immolations occurred in 2012 alone. So far 159 Tibetans are known to have self-immolated in Tibet. With sinicisation at its core, systemic coercion is unfolding across all spheres of Tibetan life. From mass relocation to mass DNA collections, China’s apparatus of control is far-reaching. Over 140,000 Tibetans have reportedly been forced to relocate from their villages, while an estimated 1.2 million DNA samples have been collected from Tibetans across the Tibet Autonomous Region alone. Every facet of Tibetan Buddhism is under intensified suppression, to name a few, China's Order No.5 and Order No.19, mandating CCP’s approval in recognizing reincarnation and permission to perform religious activities. In its pursuit of forced assimilation, the Chinese government has reportedly placed around one million Tibetan children, some as young as four years old, in its colonial boarding schools, separating them from their families, their language and culture identity.

The recent implementation of Ethnic Unity and Progress law this July presents the latest and most consequential step in its forced assimilationist policy whose groundwork had been laid long before. What was once pursued through policy and practice has now been given a legal framework, providing the authorities with even greater scope to oppress and suppress those who refuse to conform, including through forms of transnational repression as outlined in Article 63 of the law.

The day following the implementation of the law, Loga Rangzen, a Tibetan from a family where two of his uncles died fighting the Chinese occupation, carried out a daring act of protest by live streaming his self-immolation before the UN headquarters in New York. In his final message he underscored Tibet’s loss of independence as the root of the prevailing challenges Tibet and Tibetans face and called for the restoration of Tibet’s independence.

With assimilation at its core, the law effectively precludes every proposals presented by the Middle Way Approach, including its key principles of preserving Tibetan language, culture and religion. Khedroob Thondup, nephew of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and a former Tibetan Parliamentarian, argues that the new law represents a “legal death knell for the Middle Way Approach.”

Notwithstanding the failure of the Sino-Tibet dialogue, the Middle Way Approach has remained the official policy of the Tibetan government-in-exile for the past almost three decades.

It is noteworthy to recall that in April 1959, following years of China’s failure to abide by the terms of the 17-Point Agreement, which was signed under duress, one of the first acts of His Holiness, then both the temporal and spiritual leader of Tibet, upon his arrival to India in exile along with his people, was to declare the 17-Point Agreement null and void.

Correspondingly, in September 1991, due to China’s failure to respond positively to His Holiness’ Strasbourg proposal, presented in the European parliament three years earlier, the Tibetan government in exile underlined China’s lack of earnestness and thereupon declared the proposal no longer binding.

Apart from Independence, steadfast efforts were made by the Tibetan side to encourage their Chinese counterparts toward a peaceful resolution of the Sino-Tibet conflict through the Middle Way Approach—a compromise, nonetheless, that yielded little in the way of results. With the dialogue process leading nowhere and appearing increasingly unlikely to resume in light of a series of belligerent policies and measures pursued under the current Chinese leadership, including the new ethnic unity law, perhaps now, more than ever, is the time to revisit and restore Tibet’s original position in pursuit of Independence.

It is within the prerogative of the Tibetan government in exile, as a full-fledged democratic institution, to respond to China’s latest failure to engage positively by declaring the memoranda it submitted to be no longer binding and re-adopting its original policy of pursuing Tibet’s Independence, as it has done in the past.

The Tibetan freedom movement has outlived Mao, Deng and successive Chinese leaders. It’s time to outlive their statements too and set a course correction by charting its own course forward.