Illusion And Reality: Essays On The Tibetan And Chinese Political Scene 1978 to 1989 – Jamyang Norbu

Description

“The few freedoms being uneasily enjoyed by the Chinese people are not constitutionally guaranteed. They are largesse that the rulers of China have temporarily granted their subjects for a number of self-serving reasons, an obvious one being the anaesthetising of Western sensibilities on the moral question of doing business with the largest totalitarian nation in the world. One day, when everyone has gotten over the first flush of economic liberalisation, the regime, during some period of economic slump or civil disorder, will invariably sense some real or imaginary threat to its pre-eminence and will fall back on more true and tried methods of ruling it citizens.”

These prophetic lines were written by Jamyang Norbu in early 1985, arguably the most euphoric moment of Deng Xiaoping’s period of “Liberalisation”. This First collection of Norbu’s Tibetan Review essays is an illuminating and entertaining account of contemporary Tibetan and Chinese Political developments and relations. It is also perhaps the most discerning account of a critical periods in modern Tibetan history that began with deng’s rise to power and ended with the brutal crushing of the Lhasa demonstrations and the massacre at Tiananmen Square.