In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled Lhasa, leaving the People's Republic of China with a crisis on its Tibetan frontier. Sulmaan Wasif Khan tells the story of the PRC's response to that crisis and, in doing ...so, brings to life an extraordinary cast of characters: Chinese diplomats appalled by sky burials, Guomindang spies working with Tibetans in Nepal, traders carrying salt across the Himalayas, and Tibetan Muslims rioting in Lhasa.What Chinese policymakers confronted in Tibet, Khan argues, was not a "third world" but a "fourth world" problem: Beijing was dealing with peoples whose ways were defined by statelessness. As it sought to tighten control over the restive borderlands, Mao's China moved from a lighter hand to a harder, heavier imperial structure. That change triggered long-lasting shifts in Chinese foreign policy. Moving from capital cities to far-flung mountain villages, from top diplomats to nomads crossing disputed boundaries in search of pasture, this book shows Cold War China as it has never been seen before and reveals the deep influence of the Tibetan crisis on the political fabric of present-day China.
A Change in Worlds explores the environmental, economic, and political history of the Sino-Tibetan Songpan region of northern Sichuan from the late imperial Qing Dynasty to the early 21st century. A ...historically Tibetan region on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, with significant Han and Muslim Chinese populations, Songpan played important roles in the development of western and modern China’s ethnic relations policies, forestry sector, grasslands and environmental conservation, and recent developments in eco- and ethnic tourism as part of various Chinese states. However, in spite of close associations with various Tibetan and Chinese regimes, the region also has a rich history of local independence and resilient nomadic, semi-nomadic and agricultural populations and identities. The Sino-Tibetan diversity in Songpan, partly formed by unique ecological conditions, conditioned all attempts to incorporate the region into larger and more centralized state homogenizing structures. This historical study analyzes the social force of markets and nature in the Songpan region in concert with the political and social conflicts and compromise at the heart of changing political regimes and the area’s ethnic groups. It presents new perspectives on the social transformation and economies of Tibetans and Han Chinese from the late Qing Dynasty to Mao era and contemporary western China. It not only allows for a new understanding of how the natural environment and landscapes fit into the imagination of the Sino-Tibetan borderlands, it also figures in the challenges of negotiating ethnic and market relations among societies. The mix of complicated relations over natural environment, resources, politics and markets was at the heart of the region’s social and political infrastructures, with far-reaching implications for both historical and contemporary China.
Through an ethnography of the social and medical worlds of a community of Tibetan refugees in India, this book addresses two main questions: first, how has the prolonged displacement of Tibetan ...refugees affected concepts of health in the exile community? Second, how has exile changed traditional Tibetan medical practices? It explores how social changes linked to exile have influenced concepts of health and illness in the Tibetan refugee community of Dharamsala and by looking at recent changes in the theory and practice of traditional Tibetan medicine investigates the role of traditional Tibetan medicine in sustaining public health in the exile community.
Following the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, the People's Republic of China gradually permitted the renewal of religious activity. Tibetans, whose traditional religious and cultural ...institutions had been decimated during the preceding two decades, took advantage of the decisions of 1978 to begin a Buddhist renewal that is one of the most extensive and dramatic examples of religious revitalization in contemporary China. The nature of that revival is the focus of this book. Four leading specialists in Tibetan anthropology and religion conducted case studies in the Tibet autonomous region and among the Tibetans of Sichuan and Qinghai provinces. There they observed the revival of the Buddhist heritage in monastic communities and among laypersons at popular pilgrimages and festivals. Demonstrating how that revival must contend with tensions between the Chinese state and aspirations for greater Tibetan autonomy, the authors discuss ways that Tibetan Buddhists are restructuring their religion through a complex process of social, political, and economic adaptation. Buddhism has long been the main source of Tibetans' pride in their culture and country. These essays reveal the vibrancy of that ancient religion in contemporary Tibet and also the problems that religion and Tibetan culture in general are facing in a radically altered world.
Open-access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295805023 In 2001 the Chinese government announced that the precise location of Shangrila—a place that previously had existed only in fiction—had been identified ...in Zhongdian County, Yunnan. Since then, Sino-Tibetan borderlands in Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai, and the Tibet Autonomous Region have been the sites of numerous state projects of tourism development and nature conservation, which have in turn attracted throngs of backpackers, environmentalists, and entrepreneurs who seek to experience, protect, and profit from the region’s landscapes. Mapping Shangrila advances a view of landscapes as media of governance, representation, and resistance, examining how they are reshaping cultural economies, political ecologies of resource use, subjectivities, and interethnic relations. Chapters illuminate topics such as the role of Han and Tibetan literary representations of border landscapes in the formation of ethnic identities; the remaking of Chinese national geographic imaginaries through tourism in the Yading Nature Reserve; the role of The Nature Conservancy and other transnational environmental organizations in struggles over culture and environmental governance; the way in which matsutake mushroom and caterpillar fungus commodity chains are reshaping montane landscapes; and contestations over the changing roles of mountain deities and their mediums as both interact with increasingly intensive nature conservation and state-sponsored capitalism.
This book provides unique insights into the challenges and potential solutions to alleviate poverty in western China. Many people are interested in China's economic and social development; the ...development of Tibet is an important part of this narrative. Unlike big cities in the east of China, Tibet is still underdeveloped, with severe poverty, relatively poor communications, poor infrastructure, transport links, and limited social services. Using deep and well-researched analyses, learned Chinese scholars share their policy insights, experience and knowledge of the underlying causes and potential solutions to this underdevelopment and poverty. The reader is also provided with firsthand accounts of different people in Tibet, ranging from local government officials to poverty-stricken herdsmen. This book gets at the heart of problems faced by ordinary Tibetans, such as dealing with impacts of natural disasters, lack of education, managing ecological resettlement, and trying to prevent the transmission of intergenerational poverty. Looking at these issues from a theoretical, policy, government and practical perspective, Breaking Out of the Poverty Trap - Case Studies from the Tibetan Plateau in Yunnan, Qinghai and Gansu covers the full range of issues in the development of the Tibetan Plateau.Sample Chapter(s)Chapter 1: Introduction (91 KB)Contents:Introduction (WANG Luolin and ZHU Ling)The Rational Behavior of Tibetan Farmers and Herders (YANG Chunxue)How Do Farmers and Herdsmen Participate in the Market? (ZHU Hengpeng)Sustainable Development of the Tricholoma Matsutake Industry in Tibetan-Inhabited Regions of Yunnan, and Their Participation in the Global Market: Discussions Based on Value Chain Analysis (YAO Yu)The Socioeconomic Impact of Cordyceps Sinensis Resource Management in Tibetan-Inhabited Regions of Qinghai (YAO Yu)Impoverishment Risks Caused by the Ecological Resettlement Project (JIN Chengwu)Preventing Intergenerational Poverty Transmission with Antenatal Care (ZHU Ling)Research on Compulsory Education in the Tibetan Regions of Qinghai and Yunnan Provinces (WEI Zhong)Effects of Radio and TV on the Cultural Lives of Farmers and Herdsmen (ZHOU Ji)Private and Social Aid in the Eastern Tibetan Regions (WEI Zhong)Snow Disasters and Relief Efforts: A Case Study of Tibetan Pastoral Areas in Southern Qinghai (ZHALUO)Systems and Technologies for Snow Disaster Prevention: Anthropological Observations on the Pastoral Areas in the Eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (ZHALUO)Readership: Undergraduates, graduates, academics and professionals interested in poverty alleviation and the social, cultural and economic development of Tibet, as well as the general public.
China is facing a national identity crisis. This is compounded by Tibet and Taiwan, where significant proportions of both populations do not identify with the Chinese nation-state. Could democracy ...realistically address the problems in China's national identity? Chinese nationalists argue it cannot; Chinese liberals remain unduly silenced. Baogang He opens up a dialogue in which Chinese liberals can offer viable alternatives in defence of key democratic principles and governance. He upholds the search for a political space in which democratic governance in China can feasibly be developed.
Founded in 1676 during a cosmopolitan early modern period,
Mindröling monastery became a key site for Buddhist education and a
Tibetan civilizational center. Its founders sought to systematize
and ...institutionalize a worldview rooted in Buddhist philosophy,
engaging with contemporaries from across Tibetan Buddhist schools
while crystallizing what it meant to be part of their own Nyingma
school. At the monastery, ritual performance, meditation,
renunciation, and training in the skills of a bureaucrat or member
of the literati went hand in hand. Studying at Mindröling entailed
training the senses and cultivating the objects of the senses
through poetry, ritual music, monastic dance, visual arts, and
incense production, as well as medicine and astrology. Dominique
Townsend investigates the ritual, artistic, and cultural practices
inculcated at Mindröling to demonstrate how early modern Tibetans
integrated Buddhist and worldly activities through training in
aesthetics. Considering laypeople as well as monastics and women as
well as men, A Buddhist Sensibility sheds new light on the
forms of knowledge valued in early modern Tibetan societies,
especially among the ruling classes. Townsend traces how tastes,
values, and sensibilities were cultivated and spread, showing what
it meant for a person, lay or monastic, to be deemed well educated.
Combining historical and literary analysis with fieldwork in
Tibetan Buddhist communities, this book reveals how monastic
institutions work as centers of cultural production beyond the
boundaries of what is conventionally deemed Buddhist.
The Qing empire and the Dalai Lama-led Geluk School of Tibetan
Buddhism came into contact in the eighteenth century. Their
interconnections would shape regional politics and the geopolitical
history ...of Inner Asia for centuries to come. In Common
Ground , Lan Wu analyzes how Tibetan Buddhists and the Qing
imperial rulers interacted and negotiated as both sought strategies
to expand their influence in eighteenth-century Inner Asia. In so
doing, she recasts the Qing empire, seeing it not as a monolithic
project of imperial administration but as a series of encounters
among different communities. Wu examines a series of interconnected
sites in the Qing empire where the influence of Tibetan Buddhism
played a key role, tracing the movement of objects, flows of
peoples, and circulation of ideas in the space between China and
Tibet. She identifies a transregional Tibetan Buddhist knowledge
network, which provided institutional, pragmatic, and intellectual
common ground for both polities. Wu draws out the voices of
lesser-known Tibetan Buddhists, whose writings and experiences
evince an alternative Buddhist space beyond the state. She
highlights interactions between Mongols and Tibetans within the
Qing empire, exploring the creation of a Buddhist Inner Asia. Wu
argues that Tibetan Buddhism occupied a central-but little
understood-role in the Qing vision of empire. Revealing the
interdependency of two expanding powers, Common Ground
sheds new light on the entangled histories of political, social,
and cultural ties between Tibet and China.
Assessing the legacies of revolution, social upheaval and reform among minorities in communist Asia, the case studies in this volume analyse the experience of conflict and social disruption, while ...providing an original comparative perspective on Tibet and Inner Asia.
