The Tragedy of the Mountain Kingdom of the Spirit

China and Tibet existed together for many centuries in what might be thought of as a symbiotic partnership, where each derived positive benefits from the other. Tibet is a poor country with few natural resources. What was important, it might be said, was its spiritual power, not its material wealth. It was this that the Tibetans used in their exchanges with their more powerful neighbour to the east; passing on something of their spiritual knowledge-and magic-in return for protection and other forms of support. It was a mutually-beneficial relationship that went back to the time of the Mongols.

In 1244 the Mongols, who had conquered much of China, reached an agreement with the powerful Buddhist religious order of Tibet. In return for access to some of the more esoteric branches of Tibetan knowledge, the Mongols appointed the monks to rule the area on their behalf. It was the beginnings of the patron/priest relationship. Even Kublai Khan's chief spiritual advisor was a Tibetan Buddhist, famed for his alleged magical powers. The relationship between the Mongols and the Tibetans deepened over time. It was Altan Khan, a later Mongol ruler, who is though to have bestowed the title of Dalai Lama on the Tibetan holy man who converted his people to Buddhism. The fifth Dalai Lama was even to call on Mongol troops to defeat his internal enemies. And thus the partnership was established, one of equals. And for as long as the rulers of China coveted Tibet's spiritual wealth, then it remained for all practical purposes as an independent nation. From the Mongols to the Manchus, Lhasa was the spiritual centre of the Chinese world.

But Tibet's unique spiritual heritage, the tradition of Lamaism itself, was accompanied by growing political weakness. The whole structure, the balance between spiritual wealth and earthly power, was threatened as external forces came into play in the nineteenth century, when Britain and Russia began to struggle for influence in Central Asia in the so-called Great Game. When the British invaded Tibet in 1903, forcing the then Dalai Lama to take refuge in China two things became clear: Tibet was incapable of defending itself and its weakness was a threat to the security of the Chinese state. It was from this point that the ancient symbiosis began to degenerate. The Chinese managed to re-impose their control of the area but were driven out by the Tibetans themselves after the onset of the Revolution of 1911.

When the Communists came to power in 1949, ending decades of anarchy and civil war, the old spiritual bond between Tibet and China was gone forever. All that remained was a security threat. Mao Zedong, fearful that Tibet would fall under the control of the western powers during the Cold War, invaded and occupied the country in the early 1950s. The Chinese arrived no longer as protectors but as nationalists, determined to continue with the creation of an integrated and unified state. It was against this background that Tibetan cultural identity was seen not as an asset but as a threat. The Mountain Kingdom of the Spirit was simply no longer needed.

Mao and Degeneration

It was Mao's belief that there was a specifically Chinese road to socialism, though in pursuit of that road he effectively turned the classic doctrines of Marxist materialism inside out, with quite disastrous consequences for China and the Chinese people.

You see, in terms of economic development and industrial resources, China of the mid-twentieth century was about as far removed from that stage of advanced historical development that Karl Marx had believed to be the essential precursor of a successful revolution. Short of many natural resources it possessed one thing in abundance-people. And it was people who were to be the raw material in Mao's great experiment.

Now, though Lenin had always stressed that there was a subjective element to the whole revolutionary process, that it was an act of political consciousness, Mao took this subjectivity to what might be described as an anti-materialist extreme. Distrustful of experts and obstacles, distrustful of bureaucracy, he placed his greatest intellectual emphasis on achieving goals by an 'act of faith' alone; that even the most difficult things were not beyond the power of will. In other words, it was the will of the people, the power of the masses, that would enable the Chinese to catch up with the Soviets and the advanced industrial powers of the west.

This, in essence, is the key to the Great Leap Forward. By this Mao hoped that steel production would increase if the energy and will of the whole nation could simply be directed towards that particular end, regardless of technical and practical objections. Revolutionary zeal would be enough. Of course it was not. The steel that was produced was of poor quality and the neglect of other areas of the economy, agriculture in particular, was to create one of the worst man-made famines in the whole course of Chinese history. Despite this Mao did not abandon his belief in revolutionary spontaneity, which was to emerge once again, with equally disastrous consequences, in the Cultural Revolution.

In thinking of the deleterious effects of these forms of anti-materialist and, it might be said, anti-Marxist voluntarism, one should also consider the actions of Pol Pot, Mao's greatest and most murderous disciple. I have been to the Killing Fields; I have seen.

Mao still haunts modern China, a little like the ghost of Banquo, although less relevant, less frightful, even, with the passing of the years.

In memory of Jiang Jielian, Murdered on 4 June, 1989

Jiang Jielian would now be thirty-seven if he had been allowed to live. I don’t suppose you have ever heard of him. Why would you? Of no great note, he was murdered along with hundreds of others by the so-called ‘People’s Liberation Army’ near Tiananmen Square twenty years ago today, 4 June 1989, the day he turned seventeen.

Jiang is likely to have been totally forgotten but for the efforts of his mother, a remarkable woman by the name of Ding Zillin, a retired philosophy professor and founder of the Tiananmen Mother’s group, an organisation which has campaigned for a true account of what happened on that day twenty years ago. In spite of the most intense intimidation and harassment, Jiang has made determined efforts to honour the memory of her son. Even her attempt to leave her house today to buy roses meant a battle with the police;

The police wouldn’t let me out of my house. I told them I would die before they could stop me.

Her aim was to place these flowers on that spot on the Avenue of Eternal Peace, some three kilometres from Tiananmen, where her son was shot. She has only been allowed to do this twice before, in 2007 and 2008, when China, like Nazi Germany in 1936, was putting on an ‘acceptable’ face to the world in the approach to the Olympics.

Ding has now disappeared, presumably to be held incommunicado until the anniversary is over. Please remember her when western governments issue hypocritical and pious statements about ‘human rights’, small coinage when it comes to business deals with repellent states and repellent political systems. Human rights are one thing when it comes to places like Zimbabwe, quite another when it comes to China. Our greed keeps these Communist brutes in power. Please, please check where a product comes from before buying; I always do. I would never buy anything made in China.