TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — Less than one year after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) People’s Liberation Army (PLA) invaded Tibet.
In 1951, the defeated Tibetans were forced to sign an agreement that retrospectively has been dubbed the first "one country, two systems," though like its Hong Kong successor proved to be just ink on worthless paper, and in 1959, the CCP imposed its Communist system, just in time for the horrors of the Great Leap Forward.
The CCP has bit by bit been throttling off Tibetan culture, language, religious practices, and customs and flooding the region with Chinese settlers to Sinicize the Tibetans out of existence. Secretary-General Xi Jinping (習近平) and the CCP want only obedience, and see the cultural genocide of the Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians, and others as their means to achieve it no matter the human cost.
The Free Tibet cause has attracted considerable attention over the years and has been championed by many, from volunteers and students to celebrities as diverse as Richard Gere, the Beastie Boys, and Chthonic. The dream that occupied Tibet could once again be free is a noble one.
Unfortunately, as long as China remains a unified state, it will never let it happen. The best-case scenario is the CCP regime falls and a more benign government takes over and restores autonomy as was promised in 1951. The Dalai Lama knows the hopelessness of the situation and has proposed just such an arrangement to the CCP, but they were not interested.
The reason why Tibet will remain occupied has nothing to do with their stated reason that “it is a historical fact that Tibet has since the ancient times been an inalienable part of the Chinese territory.” That is propaganda, and the only time China has ever invaded Tibet was in 1950-1951.
Tibet was invaded by the Mongols, who forced them into their Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), and the Manchurians who did the same with their Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), but no Chinese-ruled dynasty ever invaded Tibet.
CCP and domestic control
The real reason is simple—water.
There are two dimensions to this, domestic and geopolitical. The domestic dimension is the bigger concern for the CCP by far.
The first thing to understand in any CCP analysis is that it will always be first and foremost about preserving its power domestically, never mind the consequences. Whenever foreign analysts talk about “China not acting in its own interests,” that is a clue they do not understand this basic principle of how the CCP operates.
From imperial times through to today, dynastic power and controlling the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers went hand-in-hand. Controlling flooding along the Yangtze, and building canals and irrigation systems continue to be core issues.
Both rivers emanate from the area of Tibet annexed by Qinghai Province on the Tibetan Plateau, fed by runoff from glaciers. The plateau is so high, and with so many glaciers, it is commonly referred to as the “third pole.”
China has massive water problems nationally, much due to colossal mismanagement and poor planning, once again demonstrating that the CCP’s claim that their system of governance allows for more long-term, effective planning than other systems is total nonsense.
Industry and population centers have been put in places that make no sense considering the water available. Industrial, agricultural, and urban pollution have had a disastrous impact.
One report starts with this line: “Approximately 70% of China’s rivers and lakes are unsafe for human use” and goes on to add, “Recent estimates suggest that water pollution causes more than 100,000 deaths and US$1.46 trillion in economic losses each year in China.”
Another report in 2016 found that 80% of China’s groundwater in river basins is unsafe for humans. Then there is this paragraph in another study:
“This uneven distribution means that most northern provinces and important municipalities are water-stressed and face a potential threat of economic development (Table 2). Overall, nine provinces and municipalities suffer from absolute water shortages. All these places are in the north of China except Shanghai. Water supply is a problem even in flagship centres and cities. Population centres such as Beijing, Henan, Shandong and Hebei (with a total population of more than 250 million) are among the world’s most water-stressed centres with less than 400 cubic meters of water/person/year–these results are comparable to countries in the Middle East and well below the threshold of “extreme water scarcity” of 500 m3/person/year (Bray, 2018). For example, the 21.54 million people living in Beijing have to manage with less water than the people living in Saudi Arabia. In fact, Beijing is forced to cap its population at 23 million due to severe water shortages. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that, these northern provinces and municipalities account for 38% of China’s agriculture, 46% of its trade, and 50% of its energy production (coal and nuclear energy consume large amounts of water) (Parton, 2018a).”
China is also heavily reliant on hydropower, and depending on the source and definition of dams, has between 24,000 and 87,000 of them, far more than any other country, and is feverishly building more. Among those is the world’s biggest, the Three Gorges Dam, which some are concerned is at risk of collapsing, potentially killing millions of people.
The CCP needs control of the water to stay in power, and the source of most of China’s usable water is the occupied Tibetan Plateau. The same would be true of any successor government.
Potential for war
While many rivers emanate from the Tibetan Plateau, four important ones have geopolitical significance. Two flow through Southeast Asia, the Nu/Salween River which runs through Burma and Thailand, and the famed Lancang/Mekong River which transits Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
In river politics, those upstream have the advantage, and Chinese dams are siphoning off water and disrupting normal river flows and sediment that downstream farmers need. Across the downstream countries, freshwater fish are dying off, farmers have had less water for irrigation and the reduced water flow has allowed salt water from the ocean to move further inland, with disastrous impacts on local communities.
This has caused tensions with their smaller neighbors, but the CCP is only concerned about their interests and could care less about any humanitarian or environmental problems downstream. From their perspective, the dams have the added advantage of potentially being weaponized should they want to put pressure on any of those countries.
It is the other two rivers that should cause the most concern in the international community. These are the Yarlung Zangbo/Brahmaputra River which flows into India and Bangladesh, and the Shiquan/Indus River which runs through India and Pakistan.
With 48% of the water flowing off the Tibetan Plateau into India, this gives China considerable leverage over the economy of the northern part of the country. This has already caused some tensions.
Things could get much worse between the two nuclear-armed giants. Proposals have been floated in China to divert water that goes to India into the Yellow River, which only flows about 10% as much water as it did in the 1940s, to alleviate all those water problems northern China and especially Beijing face.
There are also reports of China potentially building around 100 dams upstream, including one that could be even bigger than the Three Gorges Dam near the tense Line of Actual Control (LAC) that slices through territory claimed by each and that battles have been fought over. Geopolitical analyst Brahma Chellaney, who has written a lot on the subject of the threat posed by China’s control of so much of the water in the region, commented on their plans this way: “China is engaged in the greatest water grab in history.”
No Chinese government no matter how principled and benign is going to stop occupying Tibet because of India. India’s young and dynamic population has already surpassed the Chinese population, which is facing demographic collapse.
India’s economy is booming through healthy business activity, while China faces systemic problems and is on life support through heavy government investments with diminishing returns fueled by massive debt spending.
At the very least an independent Tibet might fall into India’s orbit. Tibet and India have longstanding ties and India is home to a large Tibetan diaspora and the government-in-exile.
Or worse, India could invade Tibet and gain control of China’s lifeblood. In Beijing the debate would not be about whether India would do that or not, but if India could. That would be the worst nightmare of any Chinese leader.
