The Tibet Question and the West

In the past two decades, the "Tibet cause," defined in opposition to the Chinese "occupation" of Tibet and "violations of human rights" of Tibetans, has gained widespread currency within the international media. This has as much, if not more, to do with changes within the West, as with what is perceived as Chinese intransigence and the Tibetan diaspora's strategy of internationalization. Within international politics, the Tibet Question is defined, somewhat simplistically, as the debate over the status of Tibet vis-à-vis China. ¹ The West, as a political actor, is seen as a sympathetic outsider or an imperialist intruder. However, both the Chinese and the Tibetans ignore the fact that they are "prisoners of modernity," a modernity whose terms have been dictated by the West as a political actor as well as an ideational construct. Whether one likes it or not, the West is already within the Tibet Question, as the dominant vocabulary available to political communities derives mostly from Western ideas and language. This dominance of the West is demonstrated very clearly in the discussion of the Tibet Question, where instead of resisting the hegemony of Western ideas, arguments from all sides buy into them with a vengeance. Ironically, the Chinese state, which defies the West politically, does so without questioning its wholesale adoption of Western conceptions of statehood, sovereignty, and realpolitik. Similarly, the Tibetans, exoticized as products of a uniquely non-Western culture, argue for their independence using the same Western ideas that they considered as alien until mid-twentieth century.