Jiang’s visit must
By Nancie Caraway
spotlight plight of TibetCHINESE President Jiang Zemin arrives in Honolulu tomorrow en route to a high-level summit in Washington, D.C., with President Clinton. Jiang's visit to the islands has mobilized the commitments of two local groups: the business community and Tibetan human-rights activists. A lot is at stake, symbolically speaking, in this historic short visit. Hawaii will present President Jiang with his first look at the U.S., and the symbols of first encounters resonate. As a newly empowered world leader (he recently rose to president, and leader of the Communist Party and military), Jiang will be deciphering "Americanness."
What will he conclude about the issues Americans care about most? Will the symbols presented by Hawaii citizens prove or disprove the assertions of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang's predecessor? Deng declared in 1989, in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre, "Don't worry (about Western sanctions), China is a big fat piece of meat; they'll be back."
Every nation has its moral Achilles' heel. America bears the weight of slavery, colonialism and the extermination of native Americans. China bears the stain of Tibet.
Almost a half century ago, Chinese troops invaded the tiny Himalayan nation, bringing to a sudden and violent end Tibet's centuries-old peaceful culture. Tibet's unique brand of Buddhism, symbolized by the Dalai Lama as its spiritual and temporal leader, formed the core of Tibetan life. In the wake of the invasion, the Dalai Lama and nearly 100,000 Tibetans fled to India.
More than a million Tibetans have died from the brutal Chinese occupation: 6,000 monasteries and relics destroyed; Tibetans routinely imprisoned and tortured for expressing their views; freedom of religion severely curtailed; nuns brutally raped in Chinese prisons.
International human-rights monitors have documented China's assault on Tibet's ancient culture. Recent repopulation campaigns are flooding Tibet with thousands of ethnic Chinese, turning Tibetans into aliens in their own land.
Why does a non-violent land of Buddhist peasants threaten mighty China? We are told that "historically," Tibet was always a part of China. But does the pathology of imperialism, practiced by any country or tribe, lend itself to reasoned explanation? America's own checkered history should tell us that any number of phantoms are fabricated to justify land grabs.
Jiang may see on the streets of Honolulu the symbol of Amnesty International, a single lighted candle on a dark background. Its flame has special meaning because Hawaii's AI members are working to secure the release of a Tibetan prisoner of conscience.
Ngodrup, sentenced to 11 years in a Drapchi prison, is the "adopted" prisoner of Hawaii AI supporters. Ngodrup is being held for the "crime" of providing refreshments to Tibetans who demonstrated in 1988 for independence.
Today, Tibet leads the world in its peaceful vision. This spring, the Third World Parliamentarians Convention met in Washington, D.C., and called again for talks without preconditions between representatives of the Dalai Lama and the PRC on Tibet's future.
This global body saluted the Tibetan people who have "in the face of grave adversities and suffering, consistently maintained their 'nonviolent policy' to protect their rights and gain their freedom." And the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, India, legitimizes itself as a democratically elected, parliamentary body, hopeful only of returning to its ancestral home.
Through his tight-security window on Hawaii, Jiang just might see our local symbolic tug of war. Merchants will tell him, "Buy this." Tibetan human-rights advocates will call for "negotiation and peaceful co-existence."
Perhaps Hawaii's nurturing spirit will convince China's president that a free and independent Tibet is his country's ticket to global pride, and both commercial and moral prestige.
Nancie Caraway is a political scientist and an writer.