Surely no political process in the modern world is more shrouded in mystery than the way the Chinese select a new supreme leader — except perhaps the occult divination practised by the Tibetans. We may already be sure that Xi Jinping will succeed the dour and uncharismatic Hu Jintao as the 14th General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, but precious little is known about him or his views.
By contrast the 14th Dalai Lama is a global celebrity, as venerated as Nelson Mandela, welcomed by kings and presidents as if he were indeed the head of state. Yet he is 72 and one day soon the Tibetans will have to search for the 15th reincarnation, inevitably a child, who will have to continue to lead the Tibetans in a David-and-Goliath fight.
The prospect is alarming, as China grows ever more powerful and assertive. It is why the veteran American correspondent Tim Johnson has chosen to assess what has gone so wrong for the Tibetans. In Tragedy in Crimson, he travels around the world investigating why a movement that has become so well organised and backed by A-list Hollywood celebrities has failed so dismally to achieve any of its aims.
As Johnson points out, the latest Tibetan uprising in 2008 was born out of frustration at the lack of progress and the fears that it will soon be too late to stop China absorbing Tibet irrevocably. For a long time, the immense physical barrier of the Himalayas saved the Tibetans from the fate of the Mongols. The arrival of the railways after 1900 brought tens of millions of Chinese settlers to Inner Mongolia and Manchuria, swamping the indigenous Mongols and Manchus in a sea of Han Chinese. Now that Lhasa is linked by train to the rest of the country, the same thing could be happening. In the meantime Tibetans have become poorer and ever more marginalised, as the Chinese force them to live in towns.
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