Matt Schiavenza From the Dragon to the Apple- A Sinophile in New York

Some Scattered Thoughts on T1Bet

As the uprising in T1bet has attracted international attention (and some condemnation), I've been struck by the similarities and differences between the T1betans and the other major disaffected Chinese ethnic minority, the Uighurs.

Both groups occupy "autonomous regions" on the western fringe of China, though the Beijing government's definition of "autonomous" might not jive with what you learned in school. Both regions did not join the Chinese empire until fairly recently and have been among the few ethnic groups within the country to periodically oppose Beijing rule. In both the TAR and Xinjiang, the federal government has encouraged settlement by the Han majority, who mainly separate themselves from the locals and do not bother learning either the Uighur or the T1Betan languages. In both cases, the Chinese government has made heavy investments in infrastructure intended to modernize what Beijing believed to be "backward" regions. Rebellions by restless locals are repressed without mercy. All claims to separateness are dismissed by Beijing. The T1Betans and Uighurs largely remain resentful of Chinese rule.

When the Uighur population of Xinjiang revolts, the international community yawns. The average Westerner doesn't even know what a Uighur is, much less that they are ethnically Turkic, speak an Altaic language related to Turkish, tend to resemble Mediterraneans in appearance far more than Chinese, and practice Islam. The Uighurs like to refer to their territory as "East Turkestan" and claim kinship with the peoples of the neighboring ex-Soviet Central Asian states. While their claims to sovereignty may be just as valid as T1Bet's, nobody will be organizing "Free Xinjiang" concerts or writing high-brow columns in major newspapers about their plight. Their cause is largely ignored, and that suits Beijing just fine.

T1Bet, on the other hand, has long been a cause celebre among Hollywood actors, musicians, and high-profile activists around the world. What accounts for the difference? I can think of three main reasons:

1. T1Bet has a charismatic, high-profile leader: the Dala1 Lama. Ensconced in India, where he has lived in exile since 1959, the DL travels the world lobbying various luminaries for support. He also has (wisely) adopted the mantle of non-violence, lending a Gandhi-like air to his causes. He, more then anyone, propagates the image of T1Bet as a land of peaceful Buddhist types who wouldn't harm a fly, much less smash up Han-owned businesses in Lhasa.

The Uighur population lacks any such figure, whether in Xinjiang or in exile.

2.T1Bet's unique geographical features have lent a mystical air to the region for centuries. The image of T1Bet as a mountainous Buddhist paradise where the becalmed locals are free to seek enlightenment has attracted scores of Westerners who, ignorant of the actual situation, feel naturally sympathetic to their cause. In the same way quite a few Americans lionize the long extinct Amerindian culture, the rest of the world feels similarly disposed to the T1betan one.

Xinjiang mainly consists of parched desert, oil deposits, and various other features that don't scream out "place of enlightenment and mysticism".

3. It has to be said, but the fact that Uighurs are Muslim and that several of them have been rounded up in anti-terrorism operations does not necessarily attract much sympathy in this "War on Terrorism" epoch. Their rather dusky Middle Eastern features don't exactly help, either.

As for my thoughts toward the present situation in the TAR, I've got little to add that would shed additional light, and those with far more historical knowledge than I are adequately covering the matter. As always, we'll see how everything turns out.

UPDATE: The original post erroneously stated that Uighur is an Indo-European language when rather, as Chris points out, it is an Altaic one.