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Today Programme Report - Text Only Version 成人快手 Radio 4 |
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19th January, 2004 China is the coming superpower, from which astonishing statistics emerge daily. We know the facts; but what is China like today, and how is it facing the problems that come with success and openness? See reports and pictures from Shanghai , Yichang, Lanzhou , the train journey to Lhasa and Tibet. Read Jim's final thoughts on his stay in China.  TIBET Tibet’s capital city is one of the most spectacular in the world, but maybe the best time to see Lhasa first is in the dark, before the sun is even up. It comes to life in the narrow streets and the square around the Jokang temple when Buddhist pilgrims and the city’s people begin their clockwise progress around it – the Barkhor – that marks it out as one of their holiest places. Juniper incense burns in high bulbous pots outside, scenting the air; a thousand candles flicker near the temple’s front door (sending up a sweet smell from the yak butter bubbling around them); the most devout of pilgrims – the prostrators – throw themselves rhythmically to the ground, making a swishing sound as their padded hands stretch out on the flagstones. They’re old and young, and many of them chant as they go, whirling their prayer wheels as they walk round and round in the dark.  Then the sun steals over the high mountains that encircle the city and the scene lights up – the gold on top of the temple, the rich colours on the doors and balustrades (every square inch is painted, inside and out), the maroon robes of the monks and the saffron and white scarves that the people wear, the weathered colours on the traditional clothes of the travellers from far corners. We saw some children decked out in Mongolian dress. And high over the city, the sun settles on the Potala Palace on its hill, seat of the Dalai Lama for eight centuries – a vast, tiered symbol and celebration of the Buddhist culture that dominates the city. The building seems to grow out of the rocky promontory, and despite its imposing character you don’t quite understand its size until you’ve climbed the steps that take you up to the great doors.Inside there are thousands of rooms. Most of the wood is richly painted, but there’s no feeling of a place that’s been spruced up for tourists (though thousands come). The wood is scuffed and aged, in places the stone crumbles, and it’s easy to imagine that it looked just like this generations ago.  Inside, the colours and the richness are quite overwhelming. Statues of the Buddha, Lamas’ tombs, relics and rich silks and jewels turn it into a magical place. Pilgrims chant; curious tourists are silenced by the sights; regulars add their personal bits of yak butter to the candle holders, and do the rounds as you suspect they do on most mornings. For an hour or two you’re out of the world.We spoke to the director, standing on one of the terraces, a Lhasa man who has intense pride in the place. But get on to politics – might a Dalai Lama come back to Lhasa some day? – and you get nowhere. The Chinese authorities speak of the precious culture, but the moment it spills over into “difficult” area, everyone in an official position stops talking.  We were accompanied throughout by helpful officials from the Chinese foreign ministry in Lhasa who did much to make our visit enjoyable; but who were also obliged to try to keep us on the straight and narrow. Foreign journalists who’re seen talking to locals in the street are reminded that it’s not allowed. On the rest of our trip, many of the old restrictions had gone. In Tibet, they remain.Looking down from the Potala Palace, the question is whether this is still the real Lhasa? A Chinese flag flies over the palace; but facing it far below is a huge concrete monument marking the fortieth anniversary (in 2005) of Tibet’s formal absorption into China as an Autonomous Region after fifteen years of suppression. The Chinese call the arrival of the army in 1950 a “liberation”, arguing that Tibet had been part of China since Kubla Khan in the thirteenth century. Most Tibetans took a quite different view; many still do. There are demonstrations – though not too many these days – and the Tibetan diaspora, loyal to the Dalai Lama in exile in Dharamsala, argues for independence  In the city itself, the ‘normalisation’ goes on. Away from the old town it’s a modern place of western shops, wide avenues, Chinese commerce. Here the ancient ways of Tibet and China’s contemporary revolution come face to face.There are flags everywhere, as you find across China. We found one that was surprising. It has the logo of the Carlsberg Brewery on it, fluttering alongside the obligatory Red one, sign of a partnership between the Chinese government and the Danish beer company, the biggest joint venture in Tibet. It’s becoming city of brands like anywhere else. The director of the Lhasa brewery, though, is proud of what he does: he employs a total of nearly 500 people, his profits are going up, 280,000 bottles of Tibet beer rattle into crates every day. They’re also producing mineral water called ‘5100’ – that’s the height in metres of its source, about 16,000 feet – which is selling across China. The beer, a sweetish lager made with barley largely imported from Australia, will soon be selling in the United States and – who knows? – London.  We spoke to the deputy director of the Development and Reform Commission – and important government figure here – who says it’s proof of how Chinese investment will help people - jobs, more water and electricity, higher incomes. Who can argue with the figures? But he acknowledges that it’s not the whole story.He speaks of the defence importance of Tibet, providing a natural screen behind the south-west mountains, and an important piece of terrirtory for national security and what he calls geo-politics. That’s the context in which economic development is seen. Tibet is important to China for many reasons. You sense his frustration, as if China’s not getting the gratitude it deserves. He says Tibet won’t be changed: its environment is precious and even the mining – for copper, iron ore, boron, maybe, they hope, uranium – won’t destroy it. But, for example, the train line that will increase tourists, workers and freight – is also a useful military link. Everything here is complicated and laced with suspicion on one side or the other – but the deputy director wants to talk about the good economic news and is irritated at political questions. Didn’t we come to talk about the economy? he asks. Out in the streets the rickshaws still weave in and out of the car lanes – fun but hairy journeys – but a western gloss is being painted on. What’s this on one of the avenues? A Playboy shop. Surrounded by other high-end shops it’s selling quite expensive clothes and shoes and the manager says it’s local money that’s coming in.  Tibet is big business. The tourists – more than 3 million this year already – outnumber the population, and 90% of them are Chinese. Business is finding openings. There is money; but does it change the place? When you wander through the old town, taking in the incense, watching the devotion; you’re in a place and among people that surely can’t be homogenised. But there’s strain. China’s opening out – to encourage business and tourism (10,000 from Britain this year so far) – promises economic growth (there’s no doubt about that) but is it a force that only acknowledges the local culture because it sells, and because to crush it absolutely would produce untold trouble. The pictures from Burma last month of monks and soldiers confronting each other didn’t make happy viewing in Beijing.China’s story – of development, greater prosperity, investment in agriculture and business and of respect and understanding of the culture – will never be accepted by the loyal supporters of the Dalai Lama – he’s the 14th – who has been in exile since 1959. He helps to sustain the campaigns for a freedom which so many Tibetans say (as openly as they can) has been snuffed out by force. Though few Tibetans under 50 have ever seen their spiritual leader – whose predecessors wielded all the political power here - Lhasa preserves memories of the brutality that came with the People’s Liberation Army in the fifties when the country was sealed off from the world.  China’s position is painful, as well as ambiguous. It’s committed to huge investment and officials talk about respect for the culture that goes along with it. Treasure those temples! But it only needs the Dalai Lama to pop up in Washington, as he did when we were in China, and the American ambassador in Beijing is summoned for a dressing down - told that honouring the spiritual leader is an interference in China’s internal affairs.So the state’s position is : we respect your traditions, so long as they’re stripped of any politics. Which, to a Tibetan Buddhist, is like asking for a limb to be cut off.  One of the complaints from those who raise the banner of Free Tibet is that the world’s powerbrokers have pushed their cause to one side in pursuit of better relations with China. But, thanks in part to that policy, its opening out – China’s vigorous engagement with the world - it’s going to be harder to prevent any debate about Tibet.China may be tested to keep its word when it says that Tibetan culture shouldn’t die; nor be reduced to the status of a theme park attraction on the roof of the world. The building, the investment will go on and more prosperity is surely likely to tell. That’s what China assumes. We spoke to some pilgrims outside the Jokann Templem and found them as moved by the experience of coming here as their ancestors must have been. In Tibet this kind of religious devotion seems entirely natural. Watching the scenes inise the temples and the Palace is to get some idea of what it must have been like in a mediaeval European cathedral. You’re moved by the solidity of their sense of a culture that encompasses religious devotion but is a way of life too, making them inseparable. In the Palace, next door to the fabulously decorated room where the old Dali Lamas used to dispense wisdom and power – the Hall of the Glorious Radiance, it’s called – there’s a smaller room where the current Dali Lama met the Chinese Prime Minister for the last time before going into exile nearly half a century ago; in this brocaded salon, gleaming with coloured silks and gold, winking candles giving it a ghostly light, with air that reeks of incense and the past, the modern story of Tibet began.  The Buddhist treasures survive in the palace; the steps up the steep hill front to its doors are crowded with pilgrims as well as tourists. Down at the temple tomorrow morning, before dawn, there will be a crowd walking round in the Barkhor once again; the incense will rise and snake into the doorways, the candles will let the treasures glow. A sense of permanence will be reasserted.Some say the country has already been destroyed, and can’t recover. China says the opposite. Yet there’s persistent talk of a deal with the Dalai Lama in which he returns after accepting that Tibet should no longer aspire to separation from China. Despite this week’s rhetoric – a traditional fireworks display - don’t assume it can’t happen. He’s already said that complete separation might not be the only way. For China, it would be a huge step to make an accommodation, but would be more dramatic than so many other things the country has done in the past generation? It may be in the interests of the new China – perhaps as it has never been before – to listen to ancient voices as well as its own modernisers. Neither side can have a clean victory : Chinese development can’t expunge a culture so strong. But how many people in Tibet will want to turn their backs on the prosperity that is surely on the way? For a place so beautiful – ethereal, inspiring, peaceful in so many ways – Tibet is still the unwitting source of a lot of pain. The 成人快手 is not responsible for external websites |
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