Communist China “Liberating” Tibet

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 4, 6 October 1950, Page 7

Communist China “Liberating” Tibet

-Communist China has announced its intention of “liberating” Tibet, but the two envoys from Lhasa, named Shakabpa and Gkalpo, who have gone to New Delhi for a conference with the Chinese Ambassador there, are not happy about the prospect of being liberated, writes a New Delhi correspondent. According to Shakabpa, Tibet has never been in bondage to anyone and therefore she has no need of liberation. That, of course, is not the view of Peking, for whom any people not enjoying the sunshine of Communist rule are the benighted slaves of imperialism.

A good deal of news has recently percolated down to India from Tibet. Outwardly Lhasa, the capital, preserves its ancient unruffled calm. The masses of the people appear indifferent to the threats of Communist invasion.

Though their conditions of life are far from wretched—one British resident, who lived and moved about in Tibet for many years, has testified that he never saw an illfed or ill-clad Tibetan —they have never had any share in the government of their country, which is divided between monks and nobles, and probably never expect to have any. Upper Class Nervous

But in the upper class there is much nervousness. Even for some time before the Communists had conquered China, rich families had begun to transfer their money to India and buy properties in Darjeeling. Now from Kalimpong, the principal gateway to Indo-Tibet trade, comes the report that this trade is rapidly dying. The average annual value of India’s exports to Tibet—cotton and woollen manufactures, grain, hardware, glass, sugar, dried fruits and tobacco—used to average £1,500,000 a year, the goods exported going both to Lhasa and thence to West China.

Now all trade to West China has ceased, while from Lhasa orders have been sent to agents in Kalimpong to stop buying on' Tibet’s account and even to sell whatever they have already bought. In Lhasa, too, rich officials and merchants have been hurriedly unloading their stocks, with a consequent heavy fall in prices. There does not appear to be much fear that the Chinese will actually invade Tibet. Had they meant to do so, the troops would probably have started before now.

It is at least six weeks’ march from. Sining, in Chinghai, the chief Chinese base, to Lhasa, and the passes, 12,000 feet or more high, will shortly be filled with snow and, though not impassable, at least very difficult for any array. The real strength of the Chinese lies in the political divisions in high" life in Tibet. The hope of the envoys from Lhasa is to arrange some compromise with the Chinese. Vague offers have been heard from Peking of “a regional autonomy” for Tibet, possibly on terms of her acceptance of the over-lord-ship of Peking. What that might mean in practice, no one can possibly say. But the prospects for a continuance of the rule of the Dalai Lama—or rather the Regent, Takta Rimpoche, for the Dalai is only 16 years old — and their friends are not bright. The trouble began with the quarrel 27 years ago between the former Dalai and the Panchen Lama, the second spiritual head of Tibet, accounted by some to be even superior to the Dalai, when the Panchen and his supporters fled to China.