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Tibetan Nation: A History Of Tibetan Nationalism And Sino-tibetan Relations
This detailed history offers the most comprehensive account available of Tibetan nationalism, Sino-Tibetan relations, and the issue of Tibetan self-determination. Warren Smith explores Tibet's ethnic and national origins, the birth of the Tibetan state, the Buddhist state and its relations with China, Tibet's quest for independence, and the Chinese takeover of Tibet after 1950.Focusing especially on post-1950 Tibet under Chinese Communist rule, Smith analyzes Marxist-Leninist and Chinese Communist Party nationalities theory and policy, its application in Tibet, and the consequent rise of Tibetan nationalism. Concluding that the essence of the Tibetan issue is self-determination, Smith bolsters his argument with a comprehensive analysis of Tibetan and Chinese histories and their close interrelationship.
732 pages, Hardcover
First published October 24, 1996
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March 9, 2017
Three years.... for three years this book has been hanging over my head. I found a copy in upstate New York at my workplace back in 2014. Moved to Korea for two years. Moved again, found a copy at my University library in 2017 and, bam. Here we are.
This book is a phenomenal use of primary source material and an excellent "summary" of Tibetan history. Smith covers the migration of pre-Tibetic peoples from the lowlands onto the Plateau, through every Chinese Dynasty's perceptio of frontier peoples to their west, every Tibetan indigenous political shift from the empire, to the Mongol period, to the succession of indigenous kings, and finally to the cho-yon developments concurrent with the rise of the Dalai Lamas in 1642.
The real core of the book, however, is the set-up for Tibet's modern demise through the foundation of the Qing period (1644-1911), the weaknesses of the Tibet's brief independence (1912-1950), and everything since then to the book's publication (1950-1996). It encompasses the latter 2/3 of the book, slowing like a train into the station as it comes to its final conclusion.
Smith examines with detail, that is at times indistinguishable from madness, the history, the interpretations of history, the propaganda, the legality, and the challenges to all facets of the problem of Tibet.
Because it's weighty, relatively unapproachable from outsiders, and can possibly be used as a doortstop or a weapon, the book would probably be best split into four parts 1. Tibet Before the People's Republic, 2. Tibet Since the People's Republic, 3. Tibet, the People's Republic, and the World, 4. Tibet among Tibetans.
1. Tibet Before the People's Republic. Self-explainable: describing the history of Tibet before 1950. A story that's been told time and time again, but through Smith's lens of politics and legality.
2. Tibet Since the People's Republic. So much of Smith's analysis is aimed at portraying the developments of Tibet since then including the violent confrontations between indigenous peoples and the Han Chinese, the developments of Chinese political institutions, the exile of thousands of Tibetans, the crimes of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and the successes of developments.
3. Tibet, the People's Republic, and the World. A large section of the book is dedicated to international responses to the Tibetan situation. First Tibet's relationship (on again, off again) with the British and Indians, later how American loyalty to Tibet was fleeting (owing to non-cooperation from India) but still active among Tibetan resistance fighters before 1972, and finally the internationalization of the Tibetan issue, including participation from Taiwan, the UN, and even El Salvador.
4. Tibet Among Tibetans. Smith does a great job at not appealing to emotion, and citing all of his sources, and then making good use of his citations without stopping to appeal to emotion. He simply makes his claims, and then cites them. The reader can then make their judgment. For example, he cites how many Tibetan have died in the '50s and '60s as numbers estimated by the Central Tibetan Administration (the Exile government), and then brings up later that the Panchen Lama, prior to his arrest and denigration, had come up with similar numbers. In many of his claims of common Chinese practices in Tibet (for example, the fact that the People's Liberation Army was constantly commandeering draft animals for their own use and then compensating the Tibetans with their cost either greatly reduced or not at all, or they were "redistributing herds" but taking the best animals and distributing them to the poor Chinese colonists who came to Tibet with nothing, as opposed to other poor Tibetans) are cited, and then compounded with personal interviews from Tibetan refugees, exiles, or locals during his '80s trip there.
All-in-all, splitting the book into a version of four volumes or parts might just make it weaker, if more approachable. Smith does an excellent job reading primary sources, citing them, and then analyzing their content for relevancy in the modern conflict of determining what the potential and path should be for modern Tibetans in a very scary and at times, very hostile world. My main complaint, other than the book's weight, is just how unbiased he is. He comes out of the gate in his introduction as a scholar of Mongol affairs who managed to be at the right place at the right time and secure one of the first Western visas for a trip to Tibet in 1982, where he managed to see, first hand, the result of 30+ years of Chinese policies. He made a promise to some of the people he met that he would write a book and tell the world of what he saw. Only he didn't just write his own reflections (unlike some previous non-Asians who were specifically invited for their Socialist sympathies and wrote glowing reviews of Tibet's communist transformation) he researched, made himself an expert on the local political developments, and then wrote this weight of a book: one that I'm sure is easy to dismiss for any hardliners or supporters of Chinese policy, made all the easier with Smith's declaration of bias in the introduction, but then much much harder to refute once you read through ~700 pages of primary source material, analysis, and numbers.
This is an important book. Not just for people interested in Tibet, but for Smith's analysis of political ideas towards self-determination and how history should influence international legal decisions going forward.
This book is a phenomenal use of primary source material and an excellent "summary" of Tibetan history. Smith covers the migration of pre-Tibetic peoples from the lowlands onto the Plateau, through every Chinese Dynasty's perceptio of frontier peoples to their west, every Tibetan indigenous political shift from the empire, to the Mongol period, to the succession of indigenous kings, and finally to the cho-yon developments concurrent with the rise of the Dalai Lamas in 1642.
The real core of the book, however, is the set-up for Tibet's modern demise through the foundation of the Qing period (1644-1911), the weaknesses of the Tibet's brief independence (1912-1950), and everything since then to the book's publication (1950-1996). It encompasses the latter 2/3 of the book, slowing like a train into the station as it comes to its final conclusion.
Smith examines with detail, that is at times indistinguishable from madness, the history, the interpretations of history, the propaganda, the legality, and the challenges to all facets of the problem of Tibet.
Because it's weighty, relatively unapproachable from outsiders, and can possibly be used as a doortstop or a weapon, the book would probably be best split into four parts 1. Tibet Before the People's Republic, 2. Tibet Since the People's Republic, 3. Tibet, the People's Republic, and the World, 4. Tibet among Tibetans.
1. Tibet Before the People's Republic. Self-explainable: describing the history of Tibet before 1950. A story that's been told time and time again, but through Smith's lens of politics and legality.
2. Tibet Since the People's Republic. So much of Smith's analysis is aimed at portraying the developments of Tibet since then including the violent confrontations between indigenous peoples and the Han Chinese, the developments of Chinese political institutions, the exile of thousands of Tibetans, the crimes of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and the successes of developments.
3. Tibet, the People's Republic, and the World. A large section of the book is dedicated to international responses to the Tibetan situation. First Tibet's relationship (on again, off again) with the British and Indians, later how American loyalty to Tibet was fleeting (owing to non-cooperation from India) but still active among Tibetan resistance fighters before 1972, and finally the internationalization of the Tibetan issue, including participation from Taiwan, the UN, and even El Salvador.
4. Tibet Among Tibetans. Smith does a great job at not appealing to emotion, and citing all of his sources, and then making good use of his citations without stopping to appeal to emotion. He simply makes his claims, and then cites them. The reader can then make their judgment. For example, he cites how many Tibetan have died in the '50s and '60s as numbers estimated by the Central Tibetan Administration (the Exile government), and then brings up later that the Panchen Lama, prior to his arrest and denigration, had come up with similar numbers. In many of his claims of common Chinese practices in Tibet (for example, the fact that the People's Liberation Army was constantly commandeering draft animals for their own use and then compensating the Tibetans with their cost either greatly reduced or not at all, or they were "redistributing herds" but taking the best animals and distributing them to the poor Chinese colonists who came to Tibet with nothing, as opposed to other poor Tibetans) are cited, and then compounded with personal interviews from Tibetan refugees, exiles, or locals during his '80s trip there.
All-in-all, splitting the book into a version of four volumes or parts might just make it weaker, if more approachable. Smith does an excellent job reading primary sources, citing them, and then analyzing their content for relevancy in the modern conflict of determining what the potential and path should be for modern Tibetans in a very scary and at times, very hostile world. My main complaint, other than the book's weight, is just how unbiased he is. He comes out of the gate in his introduction as a scholar of Mongol affairs who managed to be at the right place at the right time and secure one of the first Western visas for a trip to Tibet in 1982, where he managed to see, first hand, the result of 30+ years of Chinese policies. He made a promise to some of the people he met that he would write a book and tell the world of what he saw. Only he didn't just write his own reflections (unlike some previous non-Asians who were specifically invited for their Socialist sympathies and wrote glowing reviews of Tibet's communist transformation) he researched, made himself an expert on the local political developments, and then wrote this weight of a book: one that I'm sure is easy to dismiss for any hardliners or supporters of Chinese policy, made all the easier with Smith's declaration of bias in the introduction, but then much much harder to refute once you read through ~700 pages of primary source material, analysis, and numbers.
This is an important book. Not just for people interested in Tibet, but for Smith's analysis of political ideas towards self-determination and how history should influence international legal decisions going forward.
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