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A Shadow over the Himalayas: India's Tibet Problem

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A Shadow over the Himalayas: India's Tibet Problem
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This article explains the central role of the Tibetan issue in complicating Sino-Indian relations. 

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It analyses three years of building tensions between China and India over, nominally, the Arunachal Pradesh that could very well have led to conflict. These tensions were ultimately diffused after a high-level, bilateral discussion held on the margins of the APEC meeting at Hua Hin, Thailand on October 24, 2009. The author explains that "the root cause of China's ambivalence towards India is not the persistence of disagreement over the demarcation of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), or the status of Arunachal Pradesh, but its own failure to assimilate the Tibetans into the mainstream of its civilization and politics." But New Delhi's misreading of the importance of the Tibetan issue for Beijing is also problematic. "New Delhi's failure to link the deterioration of relations...with China's growing problems in Tibet arises from the vast asymmetry in the importance China and India attach to Tibet. To India, the Tibetans in exile (around 120,000) remain refugees who sought political asylum, and have now only to be discouraged from taking hostile political actions against China from Indian soil. Beijing, however, regards them as a well-knit insurgent group based in India that skillfully mobilizes international sympathy and uses the internet to reach Tibetans within China to foment an insurgency."

Despite the calming of tensions following Hua Hin, "the underlying problems in Tibet remain. The Dalai Lama remains in India with his freedom and respect unimpaired. The Tibetan community in India continues to grow, prosper and communicate with Tibetans in the West, and within China via internet. The Tibetan ethnic and political identity therefore remains undented. Thus a resurgence of Sino-Indian tension whenever the Chinese face problems in Tibet remains a distinct possibility."

 

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978-2-86592-708-1

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A Shadow over the Himalayas: India's Tibet Problem

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Asia Map
Center for Asian Studies
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Asia is a nerve center for multiple global economic, political and security challenges. The Center for Asian Studies provides documented expertise and a platform for discussion on Asian issues to accompany decision makers and explain and contextualize developments in the region for the sake of a larger public dialogue.

The Center's research is organized along two major axes: relations between Asia's major powers and the rest of the world; and internal economic and social dynamics of Asian countries. The Center's research focuses primarily on China, Japan, India, Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific, but also covers Southeast Asia, the Korean peninsula and the Pacific Islands. 

The Centre for Asian Studies maintains close institutional links with counterpart research institutes in Europe and Asia, and its researchers regularly carry out fieldwork in the region.

The Center organizes closed-door roundtables, expert-level seminars and a number of public events, including an Annual Conference, that welcome experts from Asia, Europe and the United States. The work of Center’s researchers, as well as that of their partners, is regularly published in the Center’s electronic journal Asie.Visions.

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Building on the 2020 European Think Tank Network on China (ETNC) report, which assessed Europe’s positioning amid the strategic rivalry between the United States and China, this edition re-examines the geopolitical landscape in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s war in Ukraine and Donald Trump’s return to the White House. This report features 22 national chapters and one dedicated to the EU, analysing the evolution of Europe’s relations with Washington and Beijing, the range of approaches to dealing the US-China rivalry and how these are expected to evolve. 

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A Shadow over the Himalayas: India's Tibet Problem