Tibet

The Hon. AMANDA FAZIO [5.22 p.m.]: On 2 April 2008 Ms Lee Rhiannon moved as formal business a motion on Tibet that referred to the Sino-Tibetan dialogue and was critical of the People's Republic of China. I believe the motion was not a fair reflection of the actual situation in the People's Republic of China and the Government of Tibet in Exile, which is headed by the Dalai Lama. The motion also failed to recognise that Tibet is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. I will address four key issues that relate to the coverage of Tibet given by the mainstream media. Tibet was officially incorporated into the territory of China's Yuan Dynasty in the mid thirteenth century. Since then Tibet has remained under the jurisdiction of the Central Government of China. In 1653 and 1713 the Qing Dynasty granted honorific titles to the fifth Dalai Lama and the fifth Bainqen Lama, hence officially establishing the titles of the Dalai Lama and Bainquen Lama and their political and religious status in Tibet. The Dalai Lama and other living Buddhas had to be recognised and appointed by the Central Government in order to secure their political and legal status in Tibet.

The current Dalai Lama—the fourteenth—was appointed by the Chinese Central Government in 1940. In 1954 the Dalai Lama attended the First Session of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China, during which he was elected as vice-chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee. No government of any country in the world has ever recognised Tibet as an independent State. There was no such word as "independence" in the Tibetan vocabulary at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is the view of China that Tibetan independence is a fiction of the imperialists who committed aggression against China in modern history. After the British started the opium war of aggression against China in 1840 China was reduced from an independent sovereign country to a semi-colonial country. Imperialist forces took advantage of a weak Qing Dynasty and began plotting to carve up China, Tibet included. To bring Tibet into Britain's sphere of influence, British aggressors invaded China's Tibet twice, one in 1888 and again in 1903, but failed. After that, they changed tack and began plotting to separate Tibet from China.

For example, in 1913 the British inveigled the Tibetan authorities into declaring independence and proposed "Britain be the weaponry supplier after the total independence of Tibet". However, all Britain's schemes failed. Around the 1950s America failed to separate Tibet from China. To help resist the People's Liberation Army entry into Tibet the United States shipped weaponry into Tibet through Calcutta. On 1 November 1950 the United States Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, wrongly called China's liberation of its own territory of Tibet an invasion. Before the democratic reform in 1959 Tibet was under the despotic, religious and political rule of lamas and nobles, a society darker and crueller than the European serfdom of the Middle Ages. In light of Tibetan history and the region's special situation, the Central Government adopted a very circumspect attitude toward the reform of the social system in Tibet, promising not to impose coercive reform and stating that it was to be carried out by the Tibet local government on its own.

However, some members of the Tibetan ruling class were hostile to reform and wanted to preserve serfdom forever so as to maintain their own vested interest. With the support of the Americans, separatists waged a failed armed rebellion on 10 March 1959, which they termed an uprising. The Central Government's policy toward the Dalai Lama is clear and constant: the door of dialogue remains open to the Dalai so long as he truly stops seeking "Tibetan independence" and recognises Tibet and Taiwan as inalienable parts of the Chinese territory. Over the years the Central Government has provided many opportunities for the Dalai Lama and his followers, through negotiation, to give up their separatism and return to China. The Central Government leaders have since 1980 met with a number of delegations sent back by the Dalai Lama and reiterated on many occasions the Central Government's policy towards the Dalai Lama. Let me spell out the differences.

Firstly, the Dalai refuses to recognise that Tibet has been part of the Chinese territory since ancient times, claiming that Tibet is a country occupied by China. Secondly, he refuses to recognise the existing social system in Tibet, attempting to overthrow it and replace it with another one. Thirdly, he insists on establishing what he calls "the Greater Tibet area", which covers almost a quarter of the Chinese territory, but has never existed in history. Fourthly, he requests the Central Government to withdraw troops from the "Greater Tibet area". Fifthly, he wants to move all non-Tibetans out of the so-called "Greater Tibet area". These requests by the Dalai Lama repeat what the British proposed early last century in their notorious plan to carve up China. It was instantly rejected by the then Chinese Government and is not acceptable for the current government. The media and those who support campaigns to free Tibet frequently refer to the Dalai Lama as "the Tibetan spiritual leader". The Dalai Lama is also the leader of the Government of Tibet in Exile, which continues to refer to the "illegal invasion and annexation of Tibet."

The Government of Tibet in Exile has also claimed that the living and working conditions of Tibetans has worsened and that human rights violations have occurred. The lives of Tibetans have improved immensely compared with the situation under self-rule before 1950. From 1951 to 2007 the Tibetan population in Lhasa-administered Tibet increased from 1.2 million to almost 3 million. The gross domestic product of Tibet today is 30 times what it was before 1950, and workers in Tibet have the second highest wages in China. Tibet now has 25 scientific research institutes, as opposed to none in 1950. Infant mortality dropped from 43 per cent in 1950 to 0.661 per cent in 2000. Life expectancy rose from 35.5 years in 1950 to 67 years in 2000. The motion moved by the Greens accepts unquestioningly the view of the supporters of a free Tibet campaign. For this reason the House should be very careful about supporting such motions.