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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 23-Nov-2008
Generational split among Tibetans increases chances of conflict with China.

Web Log - November, 2008

Generational split among Tibetans increases chances of conflict with China.

Tibet's government in exile ended negotiations with China on Saturday.

Although this severing of ties would seem to be a minor event, it could spiral into a significant confrontation, because of the extreme paranoia of the Beijing government.

Frustrated from 30 years of failure from the Dalai Lama's "middle way" approach, young Tibetan leaders have been pushing their elders to declare Tibet's independence from China, while the older leaders support a more conciliatory approach toward Beijing.

Historic ethnic Tibet region within western China Over the centuries, parts of Tibet were taken by the Han Chinese, incorporated into separate provinces of Qinghai, western Sichuan and northwestern Yunnan. <font face=Arial size=-2>(Source: BBC)</font>

Historic ethnic Tibet region within western China Over the centuries, parts of Tibet were taken by the Han Chinese, incorporated into separate provinces of Qinghai, western Sichuan and northwestern Yunnan. (Source: BBC)

This generational confrontation took place at an extraordinary meeting of over 500 Tibetan exiles in Dharamsala, India, the headquarters of the exiled Tibetan leadership, led by the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama called the meeting last month after he bluntly said that he has "been sincerely pursuing the middle way approach in dealing with China for a long time now but there hasn't been any positive response from the Chinese side." He added: "As far as I'm concerned I have given up."

In the end, the conference ended on Saturday with a re-affirmation of the Dalai Lama's "middle way" approach, with a goal of autonomy of Tibet within China. The small group of young people demanding independence were outvoted.

As I always like to say, all of this shows Generational Dynamics in action.

Tibet's last crisis war was the Tibetan rebellion against the Chinese in the 1950s. There were riots last spring, timed to commemorate the climax of the rebellions, when the Chinese crushed the rebellion on March 10, 1959. At that time, hundreds of Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, fled to India, where they've lived in exile ever since.

These riots occurred across a centuries-old fault line between two ethnic groups: the Tibetans themselves, and the Han, the principle Chinese ethnic group. The Tibetans and the Han have fought numerous crisis wars for centuries.

However, it's been only 49 years since the 1959 climax of the last crisis war, and so Tibet is in a generational Unraveling era. That means that last spring's demonstrations would have to fizzle before too long. This is what I predicted last spring when the demonstrations began, and that is in fact exactly what happened.

This generational confrontation among the Tibetans is a further predictable development. The elders, including the Dalai Lama himself, who lived through and survived the bloody, genocidal rebellions of the 1950s, have devoted their lives to making sure that no such war should ever happen again. Thus, the "middle way" is really a fairly standard attitude for people in a generational "Artist" archetype, the survivors of a crisis war.

The younger generation is in the "Prophet" archetype (like America's Boomers). They were born after the last crisis war, and they have no such compunction about avoiding another war, and they do not fear a greater level of confrontation. As years and decades go by, there are fewer survivors of the crisis war remaining, and there are more people in generations born after the war. So the level of confrontation increases until it finally leads to a new crisis war.

In fact, the Han Chinese are already far more confrontational than the Tibetans, a fact which probably neither side recognizes or understands. For the Han Chinese, the last crisis war was the Communist Revolution civil war, ending in 1949.

Earlier this year, we saw a very angry and paranoid Beijing government reacting harshly to the Tibet demonstrations and to the worldwide anti-China protests that preceded the Beijing Olympics. Those protests ended, however, in the worldwide sympathy for the Chinese people following the horrible Sichuan earthquake devastation in May, beginning a period of international good will directed at China.

Thus, the decisions by the Tibetan exiles to sever negotiations with Beijing are liable to be far more significant on the Chinese side than on the Tibetan side, because they might produce an overreaction.

The news from the Tibetan exiles comes on top of an increasingly severe unemployment crisis, as millions of people, especially migrant workers, are thrown out of their jobs by factory closures resulting from sharply reduced exports because of the worldwide financial crisis.

The thing to watch for in the coming weeks is how the Beijing government will handle all this. A new Tibetan crisis, on top of the financial crisis, could cause Beijing's paranoia to return in full force, resulting in miscalculations.

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Geopolitical topics thread of the Generational Dynamics forum.) (23-Nov-2008) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 23-Nov-2008 Generational split among Tibetans increases chances of conflict with China.

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 23-Nov-2008
Generational split among Tibetans increases chances of conflict with China.