Tibet

Everybody can understand that, for a range of geo-strategic reasons, Tibet is of key significance for China. The Chinese government’s unstinting insistence that Tibet belongs to China has underpinned its entire geopolitical strategy concerning the Himalayan region. From the Chinese point of view, Tibet is Chinese, has always been Chinese, and will always be Chinese. There is no need for further discussion. In the same way as Hong Kong, Taiwan and, more recently, various islands in the South China Sea, the matter is one of property and irredentism. 

The invasion of Tibet is the first principle of Chinese geopolitics in the Himalayas: to erase the position of Tibet as a “buffer state”. However, this could not be achieved immediately, and has to be understood as a process of progressive appropriation. It was not clear to China until the Sino-Indian war of 1962 that Tibet would become Chinese. The preceding years saw great unrest, starting with the 1950 military invasion of Tibet and the acceptance under duress of the 17 Point Agreement a year later. In 1956, when the Dalai Lama left Tibet to visit India for the 2,500 year anniversary of the Buddha, Premier Zhou Enlai did not have enough troops to handle a civil war or take control of 100% of the region. The appropriation of Tibet therefore happened “in slow-motion”.

Following the 1962 war with India, China’s internal political turmoil, the Cultural Revolution, and the changing balance of power in its military drew out the process of securing control of the region. Because China’s new borders included disputed territories with India (e.g. Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh), and because of the evolution of the local political organisation (e.g. in the case of the Tibetan Autonomous Region), it took almost 40 years to stabilise the political structure. Nevertheless, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) never lost sight of the goal of full control.

The Tibet issue is one of foundational significance to the PRC, so much so that any Chinese official hoping to rise through the state’s political structures to the highest levels of power must have proved his mettle by serving in leading functions concerning Tibet. As with every other region within China, the geopolitics of the Himalayan areas depend on the highest centralised decision-making structures of the Communist Party of China (CCP) politburo, following a vertical process. As such, this is managed not only at provincial level, but centrally by the national government via a top-down command structure comprising thousands of officials in an array of specialised functions.

To secure and sustain its position in Tibet, the Chinese state has employed all the classical ingredients of maintaining power and creating fear, including strong military power, storytelling efforts in the field of academia and historical research, as well as immigration and destabilisation. Later developments representing an evolution in strategy can be seen with the increased activity of the United Front Work Department, through its downstream entities in Tibet. This includes GONGOS (Government-Organised Non-Governmental Organisations) like the Tibet Development Fund, the China Association for the Protection and Development of Tibet, and the work of the Buddhist Association of China (BAC) to promote Han Buddhism above the traditional “Tibetan” or Himalayan variety. It has also extended to the instigation of a new Islamic presence in the heart of central Tibet (e.g. allowing Saudi financing of mosques in Lhasa).

In other words, China's hard power in relation to Tibet has facilitated its capacity to concurrently deploy soft power tools such as culture and religion. China’s budget for managing Tibetan affairs is enormous, includes propaganda, the military, and the construction of infrastructure such as airports, roads, and high-altitude railways. The apparently unending process of development demonstrates China’s unswerving determination to maintain and never surrender its position in Tibet.

India

Regarding the Himalayan areas which constitute China’s southern neighbours, particularly its largest geopolitical rival, India, there is a marked asymmetry in policy and rhetoric. For example, in contrast to China’s grandiose territorial claims, the contemporary Indian Republic’s assertions towards its Himalayan regions extend only to a relatively recent historical process related to the drawing of her borders by the British Empire. For over a century and a half, no line governed perpetually by New Delhi (i.e. the ‘McMahon Line’) is said to have existed, and the Indian authorities do not even maintain the pretence that contested Himalayan regions such as Arunachal Pradesh have been Indian since the dawn of time.

As such, this has generated an emotional impact in favour of China within its own population, but also among the international community which has endorsed the Chinese side, based on the balance of strength between China and India. One important weight on such a balance is that the Chinese are more unified than the Indians. This is why China has waged an asymmetric psychological war to sever the Indian region: it has been far easier for the Chinese to activate separatism in India than it has for India to activate separatism in China. The results of this asymmetry have been enormous. India has never been able to impose its voice on the Chinese government, whereas China has done so effectively in India, Nepal, Sikkim, and even Bhutan.

The geopolitical strategy of China in the Himalayas is a dynamic process of takeover and it is by no means complete. Over the long term, nothing but the reinforcement of military power has been observed. This has manifested in the ongoing build-up of infrastructure, particularly near sensitive border areas, and the increasing power of local military forces, ascending from provincial to national status in 2016. Through this, control is exerted over surrounding regions including Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and the Eastern region of Myanmar.