The Snow Lion and The British Lion : Tibet-India Relations 1890-1947 begins....

To fully appreciate the dealings of Chinese governments with others, it is necessary to get a feel of the Chinese need for ‘face’. To many Indians, and others for whom the end justifies the means, the Chinese concept of ‘face’, and the importance attached to it, is often either unknown or disregarded. ‘Face’ is like the ‘honour’ of the Imperialist British, and thus similar to the Hindustani sub-continental concept of ‘izzat’. The Han Chinese are extremely sensitive to everything regarding ‘face’: any situation threatening them with any loss of ‘face’ makes them hide between lies and hypocrisy. The Chinese application of ‘face’ is best shown by examples.

. The events at the passage of the Olympic torch through Paris and San Francisco, wherein ‘Free Tibet’ protestors managed to either show the Tibetan flag or disrupt the run, made China lose ‘face’ in the eyes of the world.

. The preventive measures taken by the Indian Government to prevent any such possibility when the Olympic torch passed through Delhi in April 2008, when extra-ordinary security measures were taken, gave China ‘face’. With the large Tibetan population in India, and an Indian public which is overwhelmingly sympathetic to Tibetans rather than Chinese, the stretch through Delhi was both fraught with potential for trouble as well as symbolic for the Chinese. They were thus duly appreciative of India’s efforts. (That this showed a ‘respectful’ attitude towards China, which the Middle Kingdom expects and almost demands, is a separate facet, but not unrelated. That the Chinese had also, in all likelihood, made a back channel deal with the Dalai Lama to help ensure that the passage of the torch, and the Olympics Games themselves, went off without incident from Tibetans in India as well as in the PRC does not detract from the point.

To be continued.....