Understanding Tibet

OCTOBER 16, 2018

WTN https://tibet.ca/en/library/wtn/14032

The Week, October 15, 2018 - The biggest star of the just concluded Himalayan Echoes literature festival (third edition) in Nainital was the articulate, dynamic and dishy Lobsang Sangay, elected president of the Tibetan-government-in-exile. Inviting him to the festival was indeed an inspired idea—good work, Janhavi Prasada (director of the festival). During her opening remarks, Prasada introduced the man, whose name means “kind-hearted lion”; the same man was once called a “hopeless son” by his father. Today, he is a globally sought-after leader passionately articulating the cause of his people.

At 50, Sangay cuts a dashing figure. Impeccably and fashionably attired, the Harvard-educated human rights law expert speaks his mind with clarity and fluency, especially when he describes the plight of his fellow Tibetans. He talked about his childhood in Darjeeling, where he was born to refugee parents, and sold sweaters to make ends meet. Despite the early hardships, he managed to win scholarships and come up the hard way. As the political spokesperson for Tibetans, he has an enormous responsibility on his hands. He says he gets all the guidance from the spiritual leader, the venerated Dalai Lama, who has anointed him the Sikyong (ruler or regent). It is a role he takes most seriously, as was obvious when our flight from Delhi landed in Pantnagar and a contingent of local Tibetans rushed to greet him and seek blessings.

At the festival, he was relaxed and charming, frequently cracking jokes at his own expense. During a conversation with author Patrick French, who has visited Tibet more than once and written about it, the sikyong reeled off several anecdotes of his many travels, narrating how many times important meetings at government levels were cancelled at the last minute because of pressure brought on organisers by the Chinese. His message of peace and non-violence translating into the eventual goal—Tibet for Tibetans—is delivered firmly with admirable determination. He talked about patience being the key attribute, one which Buddhism preaches and propagates. He cited examples of the Berlin Wall coming down when nobody expected such a development to ever take place. He mentioned the break-up of the Soviet Union, and stated that a similar turning point would come for Tibetans, too.

Listening to him in rapt attention were several prominent citizens of Nainital. Given the festival’s emphasis on the environment, ecological issues and the furthering of cultural arts and crafts of the region, the venue was appropriately festooned with Tibetan prayer flags and dotted with stalls showcasing local, artisanal produce.

NOVEMBER 14, 2018

By Gerald Roche and Lauren Gawne

The Diplomat, November 9, 2018- The Himalayas, the world’s tallest mountains, are a meeting point for Earth’s two most populous nations — India and China. These superstates face off across hundreds of kilometers of disputed Himalayan borders. They also interact with, and through, the Himalayan buffer states of Nepal and Bhutan.

Both India and China are currently growing more jingoistic at home and assertive abroad, creating an increasingly significant geopolitical faultline. However, a sole focus on the these two superstates misses important aspects of regional geopolitics. A look at the Himalayan language politics reveals both hidden actors and invisible victims in regional struggles.

The Himalayas are a global center for linguistic diversity. Setting out from Beijing or Delhi, the number of languages rises with altitude, conforming to global patterns that see linguistic diversity increasing in rough, mountainous terrain. This diversity is not neatly patterned: state, ethnicity, and language are not correlated. Knowing where someone lives or what identity they profess does not tell us what languages they speak.

Take Bhutan, for example. Though slightly smaller than Switzerland, and home to fewer than 1 million people, 21 indigenous languages are spoken in Bhutan. The country’s official language, Dzongkha, is enshrined in the national constitution and mandated in political forums. But it is not Bhutan’s most widely-spoken language. That honor goes to Tshangla, which is spoken by over a third of all Bhutanese. It is also spoken in India and China, demonstrating how Himalayan borders often disregard languages (and vice versa).

English plays a significant role in Bhutan, with the linguist George van Driem describing Bhutan as Asia’s “most English speaking country.” This is indicative of the country’s aspiration not only to participate in the global community of nations, but also to disembed itself from regional politics; English was selected as a replacement for Hindi, which served as the medium of education until 1964.

At the same time that Bhutan was distancing itself from India and Hindi, it was differentiating its national language, Dzongkha, from Tibetan. Although Dzongkha is written in the Tibetan script, the spelling was reformed in the 1970s. Written Tibetan, like written English, reflects the historical state of the language more than present pronunciation. The reform brought the script closer to spoken Dzongkha, and efforts to bring written and spoken languages closer still continue today.

Writing Borders

This attempt to create distance from written Tibetan is an exception in a region where the language has deep historical roots and continuing transnational influence. In Himalayan Pakistan, a movement among the Muslim Balti people to write their language in Tibetan script has been part of wider efforts to carve out a distinct local identity.

In India, activists have been campaigning to have Tibetan (in India called Bhoti) recognized in the national constitution as an official language. Meanwhile, written Tibetan is promoted in schools right along the Indian Himalayas. While this is often welcome, it has also created controversies and placed pressure on smaller languages. This growth is partly the result of Tibet’s religious influence and international prestige. Indian strategy has also possibly played a part, with New Delhi aiming to create a Buddhist buffer against China, and exert control over Kashmir.

The transnational growth of Tibetan identity is not occurring in isolation from other factors. In Nepal, speakers of Syuba (a Tibetan language that is to Classical Tibetan what Spanish is to Latin, but with a speaker population of around 1,500 people) chose to use a modified version of Nepali’s Devanagari script. This allowed Syuba speakers to gain literacy in their own language by using their existing literacy in the national language. Limbuand Lepcha, both transnational languages spoken in Nepal and India, are more distantly related to Tibetan, and already have their own long-standing orthographic traditions influenced by the Tibetan script.

Transformations Across Borders

When ethnic groups and languages spread across national borders, different frameworks for managing diversity become apparent. Nepal’s constitution recognizes all of its 123 languages as “national” languages, including languages like Sherpa, Yolmo, and Nubri (although Nepali is still the “official” language). Across the border in China, these would all be considered dialects of Tibetan. The same goes for Ladakhi and Sikkimese in India, and Dzongkha in Bhutan.

In contrast to these countries, China is definitely a “lumper” rather than a “splitter.” Tibetans in China speak at least 16 different varieties of Tibetan, which in Nepal would be considered languages, but in China are “dialects.” Tibetans also speak at least another 26 non-Tibetan languages that are only distantly related to Tibetan. But these languages are also lumped together by the state as a single language. This is like grouping everything between Svalbard and Sicily as a single language because they once shared Latin as a common liturgical language.

At the same time states impose different definitions and statuses on languages, transnational languages can transcend localized differences. For example, Nepali is spoken in Nepal, India, and Bhutan. Despite its different status in these three countries, Nepali is still demographically and politically dominant over many indigenous and minority languages in the Himalayas. In Sikkim, although many people are highly multilingual, Nepali is not only a dominant lingua franca, but is also replacing many small languages locally.    

States Across Borders

Himalayan states can and do reach across borders. Recently, China has intensified efforts to exert influence and stake claims in disputed Arunachal Pradesh, despite a lack of de jure control of the region. For example, in April 2017, a series of “official place names” were announced by Chinese officials for six locations inside Arunachal. Though released in Chinese pinyin, all names were clearly Tibetan. China, claiming Tibet as part of its inalienable territory, used the presence of Tibetan place-names to legitimize their claims to disputed territory. China’s strategic intent was clear, given that the announcement coincided with the visit of the Karmapa Lama to the region.

A very different case involves the Lhoba (Luoba) people in China, who speak a number of languages (including Bangni, Bokar, and Taraon). A concerted propaganda campaign via Facebook, YouTube, and a dedicated Googlesite aims to show how well Lhoba people are treated by the Chinese state. Not only are the Lhoba people’s flourishing economy and vibrant culture displayed, but handy historical lessons are also provided on the relationships between Tibet, China, and Arunachal Pradesh — all from a Chinese state perspective.  

National Languages in Himalayan Superstates

Attempts to reach across borders and influence minoritized populations are countered by the promotion of national languages within Himalayan superstates. Recent efforts by the Modi government to promote Hindi in India, for example, have led to widespread claims of “Hindi imperialism.” This, in turn, has led Indian states to intensify promotion of regional languages, such as Bengali in West Bengal. In this case, Nepali-speakers in the West Bengal city of Darjeeling protested moves to impose Bengali medium education. Meanwhile, Nepali language protests have further alienated the local indigenous Lepcha population.

In China, meanwhile, the state has been aggressively promoting the national standard language, Putonghua, with particular intensity since the language was formally nominated as the national tongue in 2000. The impact on linguistic diversity has been disastrous. Half of the country’s languages are endangered. Increasingly, linguistic grievances lead to protests. Tibetans have taken to the streets to protest the removal of Tibetan from schools. Many of the 153 self-immolators have focused on their lack of language rights in their testimonies. Meanwhile, the non-Tibetan languages spoken by Tibetans are even more threatened, due to the state’s refusal to acknowledge their existence.

Rising Tensions and Sinking Prospects

Although Himalayan superstates are marginalizing minority languages through the promotion of national tongues, states are not the sole linguistic oppressors in Himalayas. Languages like Tibetan and Nepali, through their local demographic dominance, official recognition, cultural prestige, and transnational support, also contribute to the marginalization of the Himalaya’s smaller languages.

For these groups, the region is not simply a checkerboard of domineering states, but also a complex and constantly shifting fabric of local and transnational actors. And unfortunately for the speakers of the Himalayas’ indigenous and minority languages, the only shared feature of all these actors is a hostile indifference to small languages and a willingness to cynically exploit them for strategic interests.

As tensions continue to rise across the Himalayas, the prospects for these languages to be sustained into the future appear to be sinking.

Gerald Roche is an anthropologist and Senior Research Fellow at La Trobe University in the Department of Politics and Philosophy. He has previously worked at the University of Melbourne and Uppsala University, and lived on the Tibetan Plateau in China from 2005-2013. His research currently focuses on the politics of language in Tibet.

Lauren Gawne is a linguist and David Myers Research Fellow in the Department of Languages and Linguistics at La Trobe University. Her research focuses on the Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal. She has previously held positions at Nanyang University of Technology (Singapore) and SOAS (London).

WTN - republished from New York Times.

NOVEMBER 29, 2018

New York Times, November 19, 2018- When was the last time you watched a movie with a Chinese villain?

If you can’t remember, that may not be too surprising. Take the 2012 remake of the Cold War drama “Red Dawn.” It depicted Chinese enemies invading an American town.

At least it did until the script was leaked and angered the Chinese state media.

In the end, MGM spent US$1 million (S$1.37 million) digitally erasing evidence of the Chinese army, frame by frame, and substituting in North Koreans instead.

China wields enormous influence over how it is depicted in the movies Americans make and watch. It’s part of a broader push by the government to take control of its global narrative and present a friendlier, less menacing image of China to the world.

China’s booming box office and seemingly inexhaustible cash reserves have provided a much-needed boost to Hollywood as it faces slowing ticket sales in the United States and challenges from Amazon and Netflix.

But Hollywood’s embrace of China has not come without strings attached.

So when the creators of “Pixels” wanted to show aliens blasting a hole in the Great Wall of China, Sony executives worried that the scene might prevent the 2015 movie’s release in China, leaked studio emails show. They blew up the Taj Mahal instead.

In the 1960s, Marvel Comics introduced a mystical guru character known as the Ancient One into its universe. He was portrayed as an elderly Tibetan man.

But in the 2016 movie “Doctor Strange,” the Ancient One is Celtic, played by white actress Tilda Swinton. Moviemakers decided to change the character’s ethnicity early in the process, reportedly to avoid offending the Chinese government.

As recently as two decades ago, major Hollywood movies were sharply critical of China.

“Seven Years in Tibet,” which depicts Chinese soldiers brutalising Tibetans, was one of the top 100 grossing movies of 1997. Also that year, Disney released Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun” — a sympathetic portrayal of the Dalai Lama’s early life in Mao-era China and his subsequent exile in India — despite objections from Chinese authorities.

“You’re not going to see something that’s like ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ anymore,” said Professor Larry Shinagawa at Hawaii Tokai International College who specialises in Asian and Asian-American studies. Studios that make films critical of China, he said, risk being banned from releasing movies in the country.

At stake for China is more than just the validation of Hollywood’s power brokers and celebrities.

In speeches and at forums, President Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasised the need to “tell China’s story well” — to make sure a coherent, compelling and, most important, Communist Party-sanctioned narrative of China’s rise to power reaches global audiences.

“There is a notion that its propaganda has not worked well enough,” said Mr Orville Schell, director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society. “So this is where the film industry comes in. There’s a real sensitivity to the blockbuster power of Hollywood.”

China has raised its influence in Hollywood by bankrolling a growing number of top-tier films.

Of the top 100 highest-grossing films worldwide each year from 1997 to 2013, China helped finance only 12 Hollywood movies.

But in the five years that followed, China co-financed 41 top-grossing Hollywood films.

Hollywood studios are also eager to grab a slice of China’s fast-growing box office market, which surpassed the US' in total revenue for the first time ever in the first quarter of 2018.

Success in China can make up for a disappointing box office performance at home or even transform a hit into a global blockbuster. By the same token, getting shut out of the Chinese market can be devastating for a movie.

That’s a powerful incentive to avoid causing any offence to China.

One of China’s top movie regulators spelled it out in a speech at the US-China Film Summit in Los Angeles in 2013.

“We have a huge market, and we want to share it with you,” said Mr Zhang Xun, then the president of the state-owned China Film Co-Production Corp, speaking to a room full of Hollywood executives.

Then came the condition. “We want films that are heavily invested in Chinese culture, not one or two shots,” she said. “We want to see positive Chinese images.”

China’s campaign to push a positive image abroad has extended beyond Hollywood.

The 2016 film “The Great Wall,” a US$150 million China-Hollywood co-production starring Matt Damon, was China’s highest-profile attempt to make a crossover hit. It was, by most measures, an international flop.

Since then, China has stepped away from the big-budget co-production model, focusing instead on making features that cater to its large and still-expanding domestic market. To do that, it has enlisted Hollywood talent — producers, technical experts and even top celebrities.

But they have had to walk a fine line.

A number of actors, musicians and other celebrities have been barred from entering the country over behaviour deemed inappropriate or critical of the Chinese Communist Party.

Here’s why some of them were barred from China:

Justin Bieber: “Bad behaviour,” according to Chinese authorities.

Björk: Shouting “Tibet, Tibet” at the end of a performance.

Jon Bon Jovi: Using an image of the Dalai Lama during a concert.

Miley Cyrus: Pulling “slant eyes” while posing for a photo.

Lady Gaga: Meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Elton John: Dedicating a performance to Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei.

Katy Perry: Wearing a sunflower dress, an anti-China symbol, at a performance in Taiwan.

Brad Pitt: Starring in the 1997 film “Seven Years in Tibet.”

Perhaps most central to China’s soft power push is CGTN, the international arm of the state broadcaster CCTV.

With employees from more than 70 countries and regions working on television channels broadcasting in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Russian, CGTN’s mission is to report news for global audiences “from a Chinese perspective.”

The difference in the “Chinese perspective” was most evident in CGTN’s coverage this year of an unexpected proposal to abolish presidential term limits in China’s constitution.

While Western media outlets raced to explain why the amendment, which would open the door to Mr Xi’s indefinite rule, was unprecedented, CGTN’s anchors were calm — and eerily synchronised — in their message praising the change.

It is difficult to tell whether China’s push to soften its image through movies, media and cultural projects has been successful.

“Chinese soft power has not been that successful outside of the developing world,” said Prof Stanley Rosen from the University of Southern California who studies Chinese society and cinema.

I remember in 2010, standing in the Nangpa La pass with Janusz Lipinski on the border between China/Tibet and Nepal, which used to be the most common escape route for Tibetan refugees fleeing repression in Tibet. There at 5000 meters, in what is essentially a glacier, stands the highest located military posting anywhere in the world. Young Chinese military border patrols sealing off the border with guns and radar surveillance.

This article highlights what we witnessed the beginning of in 2010 and how it has continued since then. Tibetans find it ever harder to escape, making Tibet more and more sealed off. What will happen when there is no escaping Chinese repression? With people having less and less opportunities and less and less hope? Might that development not essentially be a bad thing even for the Chinese regime? Read more

Text in full, if locked on Wall Street Journal: