The basic attitude of the Chinese people toward the Tibetan people is clearly and authoritatively expressed by President Chiang Kai-shek in his message to the Tibetan people of 26 March 1959. With your permission I would like to quote two sentences from that message:
"The Government of the Republic of China has always respected the traditional political and social structures of Tibet, and upheld the religious faith of its people as well as their freedom to have their own way of life. Today I wish to affirm emphatically that regarding Tibet's future political institutions and status as soon as the puppet Communist regime on the mainland is overthrown and the people of Tibet are once again free to express their will, the Government will assist the Tibetan people to realize their own aspirations in accordance with the principle of self-determination."
Speaking as the President of the Republic of China, President Chiang Kai-shek naturally limited his observations to the republican period. As an historical fact, he might as well have said that China throughout the centuries, during both the imperial and the republican periods, has always respected Tibetan political and religious institutions. The reason for this is simple: all Chinese, irrespective of political and religious differences, have always acknowledged the Tibetan people to be a distinct nationality. The Tibetans have their own language, their form of Buddhism, and their own political and social system. So far as my delegation is concerned, Mr. President, the question of Tibet is the question of the rights of a minority nationality in a multi-national state.
Has the United Nations any legal, political or moral obligation towards the protection of the rights of a minority nationality? My delegation has never believed or advocated that Article II, paragraph 7 should be ignored. At the same time, we have consistently taken the stand that in the interpretation of Article II, paragraph 7, we should all be liberal. It is for this reason that the delegation of China in the United Nations, whether speaking in the Security Council or speaking in the General Assembly, has always sympathized with the struggle for freedom and independence in Asia and Africa. The sufferings of the Tibetan people under the Chinese Communists have exceeded the worst treatment that any colonial or dependent people in Asia or Africa has ever experienced. With or without the Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations owes it to human decency and to the rudiments of civilization to raise its voice against the atrocities which the Chinese Communists have committed in Tibet.
The Chinese Communists, both before and after the uprising of March of this year, have systematically made war on religion and religious institutions in Tibet, although they promised in the Agreement of 1951 to allow religious freedom in Tibet.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama in answer to a question put to him at a press conference held at Mussoorie, 29 June 1959, declared:
"The report is correct in stating that up to 1958, over 1,000 monasteries were destroyed, countless Lamas and monks killed and imprisoned, and the extermination of religious -activity attempted. From 1959 onwards a full-scale campaign was attempted in the provinces of U and Sung for the full-scale extermination of religion. We have documentary proof of these actions, and also of actions against the Buddha himself, who had been named as a reactionary element."
The Chinese Communists have spared no effort to make religion appear ridiculous to the Tibetan people. They have propagated such slogans as the following:
"The God and Gods are all false inventions for deceiving people."
"Reading the scriptures cannot eliminate poverty. Faith in God cannot bring any good fortune."
"If you do not believe in the God and Gods, you can doubtless be happy."
"Religion is an instrument of exploitation."
I have emphasized the Communist attacks on Tibetan religion because, in Tibet, religion is the foundation of all Tibetan life. The political, economic and social system of Tibet has made religion the very center of things. If you undermine Tibetan religion, you undermine the authority of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the whole structure of the Tibetan state and society.
The Communists have attacked Tibetan religion through the indoctrination of the youths of Tibet. After the Communists entered Lhasa in 1951, they established there a so-called school for Tibetan cadres. In the last seven years, this school has graduated 3,000 students. The more promising of the graduates of this school, together with youths recruited in other ways, have been sent to Communist indoctrination institutions in Peiping, Hienyang and" Chengtu. The training in these institutions is completely Marxist. Many of the students and graduates of these schools have joined the Communist Youth Organization; some have become even card-holding members of the Communist Party. The Chinese Communists plan to have by 1960 two Tibetan Communist activists in every village working side by side with a Chinese comrade.
In the same way, the Communists have tried to prostitute elementary education in Tibet. At first, Tibetan children refused to attend school. The Communists then offered not only free tuition but free board and free clothing. As a result of these material inducements, the Tibetans have begun to fill the schools. In some cases, grandfathers, fathers and sons sit on the same bench in a primary school.
When the 1958 fall term opened, the Lhasa School had 1,800 students and the Shigatse School had 2,400. Today, there are 24 such schools. Besides Tibetan and Chinese languages, elements of Marxism form the major part of Tibetan elementary education under the auspices of the Chinese Communists.
With such a program of indoctrination and brainwashing, the Tibetan people as a distinct nationality may disappear.
In addition to war on religion and indoctrination through schools, the Chinese Communists have emphasized colonization. Tibet proper has a very small population, only 1,200,000, although it has an area of over 400,000 square miles. The announced policy of the Chinese Communists is to settle one million Chinese in Tibet. Up to the summer of 1958, 300,000 Chinese had been settled, mainly along the Chinghai-Tibet and Sikang-Tibet highways. The tragedy is: the Chinese people do not want to migrate to Tibet; they do so only under brutal compulsion.
The building of highways in Tibet by the Chinese Communists is a matter that de serves world-wide attention. The Sikang-Tibet highway, 2,271 kilometers and the Chinghai Tibet highway, 2,116 kilometers were both begun in 1950 and completed in December 1954. In addition to these two trunk lines, the Communists have built the Sinkiang-Tibet highway, 1,179 kilometers; the Lhasa-Yatung highway, 629 kilometers; the Heiho-Gartok highway, 1,300 kilometers; and the Gartok-Pulantsung highway, 255 kilometers. Other highways are under construction. Mr. President, the building of these highways has been a big burden on both the Chinese and the Tibetan peoples. The roads pass through many wide uninhabited areas of very high altitude. The workmen, their tools, food and shelter have to be either brought from China or squeezed from the monasteries, peasants and herdsmen of neighboring regions of Tibet. In the construction of these roads, both the Chinese and the Tibetans, including many monks, have been forced to work under impossible conditions. The popular hatred of the Chinese Communists by the Tibetans is, in large part, attributable to this road-building program.
Sir, the building of these roads cannot be justified on economic grounds. There is neither passenger nor freight traffic to justify such a sudden increase of highway transportation in Tibet. These roads are strategic roads. It should be noted that the Sinkiang-Tibet highway is continued by the Gartok Pulantsung highway, which ends on the north western frontier of Nepal. It should also be noted that the Lhasa-Yatung highway ends in that corner of land that borders both Bhutan and Sikkim.
In addition to these strategic roads, the Communists have built in Tibet a considerable number of airfields. The largest is at Gartok. The second largest is just outside of Lhasa. Shigatse, Gyantse and Yatung have smaller fields. In addition, there are two air bases on the lakes of Manasarovar and Yalwan.
In the 17-point Agreement concluded in April 1951, the idea of national defense plays a considerable role. Article 2 states:
"The local Government of Tibet shall actively assist the People's Liberation Army (the Chinese Communist Army) to enter Tibet and consolidate national defense." Again, Article 8 states: "Tibetan troops shall be reorganized step by step in the People's Liberation Army and become a part of the national defense forces." Before the Chinese Communist armed forces entered Tibet, there was, under the Dalai Lama, a Tibetan organized force of ten units, called Taipen, totalling about 5,000 troops, poorly equipped and poorly organized. At the battle of Chamdo, half of the Tibetan forces were either killed or disbursed. Today, the Communists have in Tibet a total armed force of more than 50,000. What is the reason for such a large force? The Communist reply is: "The force is for national defense." One must ask, "Defense against whom?" A force of this size, backed up by the airfields and a network of strategic highways, constitutes a potential threat. Across the Himalayas, as across any national, frontier, what is called defense by one party often looks like offense to the other party. Defense in excessive numbers calls for counter-defense on the other side. This is how armament races are generated. Now in Tibet, for the first time in many centuries, we have the beginning of an arms race. Now in Tibet, for the first time in all history, there is a force that can threaten the lands across the Himalayas.
Tibet has been a part of China for many centuries. The Chinese people have not migrated to Tibet because the soil and climate are not suited to Chinese farmers. Tibet has supplied China with a number of drugs. China has supplied Tibet with tea. Commerce between China and Tibet has not been of national importance to either side. With the exception of the latter part of the 19th Century and the early years of the 20th Century, Tibet has played no role in high politics between the powers. Today Tibet has become a center of world tension.
The whole enterprise of the subjugation of Tibet by the Chinese Communists cannot be justified on the grounds of Chinese welfare or Tibetan welfare. It is a part of the general expansionism and chauvinism of the Chinese Communists.
The innermost thought of Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese Communist boss, is expressed in a poem, of which he and his followers are very proud. Let me quote two stanzas of that poem:
"There spreads the land in winter's northern light,
For thousands of ice-bound miles the whirling dance
Of snowy mist holds it as in a trance. Behold, beyond the Great Wall a blanket of white,
And up and down the Yellow River the flight
Of raging torrents, the choppy rugged plains,
And the snow-clad mountains' silvery manes—
How they heave and arch to reach the heaven's height!
These lands, these rivers, their be witching charm
Inspired the conqueror-emperors of Ch'in and Han,
Tang and Sung, in splendor striving to expand.
Alas! All short of stature! And Genghis Khan
Knew only how to shoot a hawk for play.
For the towering figure watch the scene today!"
People who apologize for the Communists justify the use of force in Tibet on the ground of abolition of serfdom. They call the Tibetan nationalists the reactionary upper-strata. They point their finger at the dark features of Tibetan society. Those who know Tibet know the distortions of Communist propaganda. Hututenyan, an aide of the Dalai Lama, has this to say about the so-called serfdom in Tibet:
"The Chinese Communists accuse Tibet of having serfs. As a matter of fact, these so-called serfs all own a piece of, land and reap what they have sown. The. Chinese Communists call themselves 'agrarian reformers,' but under their farm system, all the farmers fall into a worse lot of being a type of new serf. They don't have enough to eat, they don't have enough to wear, yet they have to toil themselves to death."
The Communist atrocities in Tibet drive me to one conclusion; namely, international communism finds it impossible to coexist peacefully with the Tibetan political and, social system. To be sure, all the members of international communism call Tibet reactionary. Mr. President, three years ago, they called the freedom fighters of Hungary reactionary, Fascist, Horthay-ist. Today, they are heaping similar epithets on Tibet. International communism preaches the peaceful, coexistence of different political and social: systems. When this preaching was tested in Hungary, it was found that the Soviet Union did not practice what it p-eached. Today the test has come in Tibet and again it is found that the Chinese Communists do not practice what they preach. It should be remembered by all the delegates present that all the political and social systems existing in the world today, other than the communist system, have been condemned at one time or other by international communism as reactionary and feudalistic.
It is the belief of my delegation that the Assembly, in showing concern for the fate of the Tibetan people, shows its concern for, human decency. And, as time passes, we will discover that this question of Tibet is an important part of the problem of world peace and security.