Tibet in Chinese Foreign Policy and the Implication for India

Tibet’s place in the Indian imagination today exemplifies both the cultural proximity of the past as well as a strategic calculus brought about by tensions in the India-China relationship for nearly 70 years. However, neither quite takes into account the evolution of Tibet’s place in the Chinese imagination and polity itself. In accessing Tibet largely through Western lenses in the past century and more—even the Dalai Lama’s presence in India has been viewed by and large through a Western-constructed identity as the leader of an oppressed ethnic group—India has both forgotten its own organic connections to Tibet and legacy of travel and analysis of that region as well as ignored the possibilities of rethinking its relationship with Tibet. This rethinking needs to be done keeping in mind the current modern geopolitical environment certainly but also India’s own changed national circumstances—including its relationship with modern Buddhism and its geographic peripheries. What the Chinese have done in Tibet under their control have both cautionary and salutary lessons for India.