International-Affairs.org

The recent news about anti-Chinese riots in Xinjiang follow those in Tibet in 2008 and have similar causes. Xinjiang is in the far west of China. It should be seen as part of the wider Chinese Empire rather than an integral part of China. Its population was originally Uigher, a Central Asian people who are mostly Muslim, in contrast to the bulk of the Chinese population who are Han. It was originally occupied by China under the Ching Dynasty as a means of protecting China from incursions by the Central Asian tribes. It was essentially a buffer between China and the very real threats at the time from Central Asia, particularly from the Mongol tribes. However, in recent times the Chinese government has been persuading Han people with incentives and subsidies to migrate to Xinjiang and other parts of China’s western empire. The scale of migration has been such that the Uighers like the Tibetans are now a minority in their own lands. Full-scale Sinification of these provinces is the aim of China’s “West” Policy. While there can be no doubt that China has brought much needed infrastructural development to the “West”, the process of sinification has been of great detriment to the Uigher’s culture. As in Tibet in 2008, there is now a revolt against this sinification policy. This why the attacks have not just been on the visible signs of Chinese authority, particularly the police and government officials, but also on the Han population. The Han migrations are seen as a policy of ethnic cleansing. While the Chinese authorities can probably put this revolt down, the simmering discontent will continue and the repression of the Uighers intensify.

The 50th Anniversary of the flight of the Dalai Lama from Tibet, gives us cause to reflect on the outrageous claims made by China to justify their annexation of Tibet. China claims that Tibet has been part of China since the 13th Century. This is untrue. The reality is that China was invaded by the Mongols in the 13th Century and it became part of the latter’s extensive empire. Far from Tibet becoming part of China, Tibet was part of the Mongol Confederacy, which conquered China. When the peasant uprising that expelled the Mongols consolidated itself and became the Ming Dynasty in 1368, Tibet ceased to be part of China, as even the most cursory glance at maps of the time would show, and was never part of China throughout the Ming period (1368-1644). In 1750, the Ching Dynasty managed to make Tibet a protectorate after 30 years of skirmishes. However, this did not last long as China ability to exert power at distance declined in the 19th Century. During the Second World War, China maintained a legation in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, which was now in the British sphere of influence. China gained control of Tibet by invasion in 1952.

What is true is that part of the wider Tibetan cultural region, as opposed to the political region centred on Lhasa, in Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan have been part of China for some time. However, the claim to Tibet, the political entity, is based upon a three card trick. Some parts of Tibet have been part of China for some time, therefore, it is all part of China.

Why the international community lets China get away with these monstrous claims beggars belief.

This week’s Israeli election highlights the daunting problems facing the Obama Administration if it wishes to bring the “Peace Process” closer to an acceptable solution for all parties involved. We are continually faced with an analysis biased towards seeing the Palestinians as the major obstacle to any settlement. Their fracured politics means that the Israelis can continue to claim that “they have no credible partner for peace”. Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Administration in the West Bank cannot control Hamas in Gaza and, after the recent conflict in Gaza, has almost certainly lost support because of its lack of response to the plight of the Gazans. Hamas refuses to recognise Israel’s “right to exist” and continues to wage a low-level war of home made rockets against Israeli towns in the south. How can Israel negotiate in these circumstances?

This week’s election demonstrates, just as clearly, that the problems on the Israeli side are as bad if not worse. Israel’s system of strict proportional representation has delivered a result making it almost ungovernable. No party has gained even 25% of the vote meaning that any coalition put together from these fractious parties is going to include at least four of them, each requiring its own particular polices and constituency to be acknowledged and catered for. Even an unlikely  “grand coalition” including the two largest parties, Kadima and Likud, would require at least one further party to give it a thin majority in the Knesset.  Any dispute among the coalition parties could lead to withdrawal of support and the fall of the government at any time. Any coalition is unlikely to survive for long. Given the diversity of views on such matters as borders, settlements in the West Bank, the Golan Heights, what to do about Hamas and now even the status of Israel’s Arab citizens, any negotiations on a “two-state solution” acceptable to the Palestinians, and hopefully to the international community, are unlikely to get far.

The upshot is that the Israeli- Palestinian dispute is likely to remain at an impasse and a festering sore on all attempts to stabilise the Middle East region while more conflict in Gaza and posibly with Lebanon beckons. Does it now need to be acknowledged that the parties are incapable of resolving the conflict and that the international community needs to think about imposing a solution as fair as possible to both sides. To go back to the future, and to quote the remark made by George Ball back in the late 1970s, is the problem for Israel’s friends in the international community “how to save Israel in spite of itself”.

International Affairs.org, the home site of Noel R. Tracy, Associate Professor of Political and International Studies, Flinders University, will begin posting items sometime this week, around February 12-14. Come back sometime soon.

Welcome to International-Affairs.org,  the home page of Associate Professor Noel Tracy who will be regularly posting analysis and commentary about the unfolding global financial and political situation.

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