Emily Yeh’s Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese Development examines the Chinese state’s territorialization and introduction of its hegemony of Tibet’s landscape and people through the People’s Republic of China’s projects of state and nation building in the Tibet Autonomous Region during the past six decades. The territorialization of Tibet and the introduction of Chinese hegemony were completed through three phrases and each resulted in changes in state, society and interethnic relations. These phases of Chinese territorialisation of Tibet are the introduction of state farms and communes in the 1950s and 60s; market liberalization and Han Chinese migration in the 1990s; and the intensive urbanization and rural housing construction in the 2000s. Yeh addresses the contradictions of Tibetan agency with regard to China’s state building and development by focusing her work on the disapproval of the Tibetans for these projects while still participating in these systems of hegemony. This involvement in the transformation and production of Tibet’s landscape and social-economic structure and the cultural politics of how Tibetans negotiate the contradictions of their ideals and desires for Tibetan development with the pressure of the Chinese state’s developmental goals for Tibet is the most compelling argument of this work (page 9). By addressing this hegemonic complexity Yeh challenges the pervasive narratives in the West of Tibetans being purely victimized, as well as the People’s Republic of China’s official discourse of the gift of development and grateful Tibetans living happily in the liberated post-feudalism new Tibet brought about by Chinese state development.
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...and cultural landscape. She questions if the People’s Republic of China’s push for an urbanized Tibet is an effort by the Chinese state to erase the cultural landscape of Tibet. However, this is another case in which Tibetans disagree with the Chinese state’s intervention in their lives but still participate by not resisting. I believe this final part of Yeh’s work is crucial to her argument, in that it illustrates the difficulties Tibetans face in fighting the hegemony of Chinese power. In theory, Tibetans could resist the gift of Chinese development, however, the People’s Republic of China holds greater economic, military, and international power than Tibet. In the end, Tibetans accept the Chinese state’s gift of development as a way to prevent conflict but also as a way to rise in international politics, even if it perpetuates China’s territorialization of Tibet.
In order to understand the political factors that influence both of these book; you need to get a background information on why China and Tibet have such animosity against each other. Tibet considers itself a free nation without any ties to China. It states that “Tibet declared itself an independent republic in 1912.Although its status did not receive widespread recognition, Tibet functioned as an independent government until China sent troops to Tibet in 1950” (BBC News). The Tibetans feel as though their freedom is being retained and they are being dictated by China which they did not approve of. China claims that Tibet proposers better with them leadin...
If China had not reannexed Tibet, that peace park would never have existed. Its entire raison d'etre is predicated on Chinese oppression and western interest. Without oppression the Tibetan traditions lose their most alluring aspect. Tibetan Buddhism is no longer dangerous or sexy. Without western interest, their potential converts and donation pool shrinks to a trickle crippling their ability to sustain the tradition.
For 48 years, China has occupied Tibet. In Tibet's history, there has been over 17 percent of the Tibetan people killed, and 6,000 monasteries ruined. For starters, Tibet was never part of China. During the first few years when China was in control of Tibet, the Chinese declared that Tibet should be part of China, because an Emperor of Tibet once married a Chinese princess. Years later, the Chinese said that Tibet was part of China because of the warrior Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan and the Mongolians were in control of Tibet, but they never made Tibet belong to China. Secondly, the Tibetan people and the Chinese are totally different, culturally and socially speaking. Both peoples have their own culture, way of life, and religion. Of course the language is very diverse, too. Tibet had their own government before the Chinese took over. It was led by His Royal Highness, the Dalai Lama. Before the Chinese came in and took over Tibet, Tibet had nothing to do with China. The Chinese invaded Tibet in July of 1949. They caused many disasters and much sadness to the Tibetan people. Today Tibet is nothing but a prison. The Chinese continually spy on the Tibetan people. Seventeen percent of the Tibetan population was killed. Many Chinese forcibly removed Tibetans out of their homes at any time, day or night, and sometimes these people were thrown into prison. These people also were often killed for no reason. Ever since the Chinese have taken over the Tibetan people, there have been over 1 millon people killed. There were 6 million Tibetans living in Tibet before the Chinese came and took over the country. In the capital of Tibet, Lhasa, the natives of Tibet are being rid of by the Chinese; the Chinese are filling up Lhasa with Chinese people and the Chinese want to make Tibet throughly Chinese. Today, the Tibetan people are a minority in their own country! All the better jobs go to the Chinese people living in Tibet. The Tibetan people cannot find jobs for themselves, the best job sometimes they can get is to become a truck driver.
Joanna Walley-Cohen is a professor of History at New York University and written two books on the subject on China (Exile in Mid-Qing China: Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758-1820 and The Sextants of Beijing.) In this book, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History Joanna Waley-Cohen refutes the long held notion that Chinese civilization is “monolithic, unchanging, and perennially cut off from the rest of the world.”(Waley-Cohen BackCover) Although the book lacks visual aides, there are two small maps in the entire book, it conveys her theory well enough and delivers an explanative, meticulous, although boring, account of Chinese history spanning from 200 B.C.E. until 1997 C.E. Ms. Cohen helps us “understand the many levels at which the Chinese across two millennia have used or integrated elements of foreign beliefs or technologies”(Jonathan D. Spence), and gives the reader a “Complling revisionist history of Chinese foreign relations” (Kirkus Reviews).
The Chinese have repeatedly tortured, imprisoned, and murdered Tibetans all for what they claim is national unity. While the oppression of the Tibetan people began in the 1950’s with the invasion of China, it continues just as strongly today. From religious oppression and unfair trials to the torture of nuns and monks, the Chinese abuse even the most reverent aspects of Tibetan culture. Political prisoners, whether they are monks, nuns or lay people, are tortured with utter disregard for human rights. Chinese laws have also been established to eradicate the Tibetan people entirely. Women often must endure forced abortions and sterilization due to Chinese birth policies. Through all of these crimes against humanity, China repeatedly commits acts of genocide as established by the United Nations.
What can we learn from the two Tibetan biographical texts (Korepa and Shungseb Jetsun) about how Tibetan Buddhists understand their religion?
“China in Ten Words” undeniably exhibits the passion of the Chinese in a deeply intimate yet ominous manner. Hua directs readers along a progressive path, touching upon stepping-stones such as economics, politics, societal concepts and history. Such fields are meant to serve Hua’s ultimate objective to “clear a path through the social complexities and staggering contrasts of contemporary China.” It would not be far fetched to declare Hua remotely successful in hitting his target, although China remains a collaboration of successes and failures that arguably could use an additional word or two to address. However, there is no denying Yu Hua has stimulated the minds of reader’s, encouraging profou...
“China is a nation that appears to be severing its roots by destroying its past. Demolition and construction were everywhere on such a scale that I was unsure if what I was seeing was being built or destroyed, destroyed or built ... And yet, paradoxically, the Chinese have traditionally had a deep identification with their native soil and an attachment to place.”
In my movie, “Seven Years in Tibet”, we follow the journey of an Austrian man named Heinrich Harrer. This movie was based on the true events of his life and on the book he wrote detailing the events. In the early (enter date here) Heinrich left behind his wife and kids to climb the Himalayas. While there in the mountains he is captured and put in a prison camp. On his 3rd escape attempt he finally succeeds and finds himself in the company of the young Dalai Lama. The two grow to be great friends and Heinrich tutors the young boy. The movie stays fairly accurate to the history, messing up on just a few points that were really hollywoodised either for time or drama purposes. Nevertheless it gives a very accurate portrayal of Heinrich Harrer's
This paper will examine the many ways in which Tibetan families have been directly and indirectly affected through examining the inherent components that define a Tibetan family, and how these have changed since the Chinese occupation. Family life in Tibet has changed forever and the Tibetans have been forced into a metamorphosis and restructuring of their family life to assume a new form. It looks as though their former heritage is likely to be lost forever.
... if we are to disregard Luciani’s deconstruction of the concept of modernity as explored above – which casts doubt over what it means to be modern – it is clear that even in Lipset's terms, modern day China is a testament to the failure of modernization's teleology. As yet, there are no signs of burgeoning political freedom or free elections despite the rising power of the country and the very real probability that it may soon challenge America's coveted 'last remaining superpower' status. Despite the superficial presence of MacDonald's, it remains fundamentally unrecognizable to Western eyes, and there seems to be little chance of it turning to democracy, so long as the regime continues to exercise authoritarian rule by denying a culture of openness in purported favour of one of ‘collective security’.
In Tibet, what they did for entertainment at their homes was that they played outside all day long when they were little. Yina said, “When I was young, I would sneak out of the house and play outside all day, so I wouldn’t have to do chores and more things”. In Tibet, they hated playing inside because it was too boring and there was nothing to do. They had few or no toys to play with too, so they played with sticks and things you would find outside to play with. Most of the parents and grandparents mostly work while the children play. Yina's parents and grandparents are “completely different people than the people in the US” (Yina). People in the US don’t live their grandparents while in Tibet four to five generations live in one household
Oracles, especially chief oracle-priests, have always had major roles in the Tibetan government. In fact, as Avedon notes in In Exile from the Land of the Snows, for the last 1300 years the chief oracle-priest or state-oracle oracle has had the final say on “virtually every key decision of the state.”[1] This disproportionate degree of influence that the chief oracle-priests exercised on the internal as well as the external affairs of Tibet, had often led to situations where “the chief medium became the playball of political intrigues.”[2] The present Tibetan government in exile continues to heavily rely on the state-oracle oracle and others including a rainmaker and two other oracles, who are part of the Dalai Lama’s core group of advisors. Some even claim that the state-oracle oracle’s influence has never been as dominant as it is now in Dharamsala, the home of the Tibetan community in exile[3]. The Tibetan government needs to rectify this imbalance of power and employ a more democratic way of making political decisions. In other words, they need to reduce the oracles’ roles in the Tibetan government.
...olyandry: Kinship, Domesticity, and Population on the Tibetan Border. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Historical conceptions of China’s culture and global position shaped the PRC’s perspective. Central to this is Sino-centrism and its edict from heaven for dynastic China to spread civilisation (Xinning 2001: 70). Imperial China’s tribute system represented a “Pax Sinica” and the physical manifestation of Sino-centrism, with its success affirming Chinese cultural superiority (Y. Zhang 2001: 52). Instructive in this is Sino-centrism’s similarity to, and conflict with American Manifest Destiny, itself an articulation that Anglo-Saxon American’s are God’s chosen people, with a superior culture and who are pre-ordained to spread civilisation to inferior peoples (Hollander 2009: 169). The PRC’s nationalism can be seen in part as a rejection of this competing celestial mandate, linking China’s decline to foreign intervention and the acceding to unequal treaties that saw the loss of peripheral territories considered intrinsic to historic China (Kissinger 2011: 112). In this way, the PRC’s formation as a modern nation state is the recrudescence of Sino-...