Jianglin Li's Tibet in Agony chronicles in some detail the Tibetan uprising of 1959 and focuses in particular on the factors that prompted the fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso (1935–), to flee into exile in India following a mass insurrection centered in Lhasa in March of that year. Most of this history has already been described and analyzed by previous scholars, and aside from minor details gleaned from interviews and previously unexamined documents, there is little that will be new for specialists in modern Tibetan history.
In the preface to this English edition, Li describes herself as “a Han Chinese from mainland China, daughter of two lifetime Communist Party members,” who “grew up with the Party line that Tibet is a legitimate part of China and that the Dalai Lama is a ‘wolf in sheep's clothing’—a treasonous ‘splittist’” (p. vii). She came to question these beliefs during graduate study in the United States and subsequently became deeply interested in exploring for herself the facts of the Tibet question. She indicates that she conducted numerous research trips in South Asia and interviewed Tibetans who had direct knowledge of the cataclysmic events of the 1959 invasion of Tibet by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the Tibetan resistance (particularly in eastern Tibet). But despite her apparent belief that she is an unusually enlightened Han, Li frequently employs, without any apparent introspection, common Han tropes that portray Tibetans as noble savages devoted to fighting and religion in equal measure. In the opening chapter, she cites a Chinese view of Tibetan men as “barbarous ruffians” (p. 6) and states (without providing any indication of sources):
Indeed, at times they seemed like brigands with their red cloth headbands, hard-bitten faces, robust physiques, and freewheeling manner. Nonetheless, they were pious Buddhists, and they bristled at any affront to their religion. In their eyes, the task force that had humiliated their lamas was an “enemy of the Dharma,” the Buddhist Law. (p. 6)
At many points, the book also suffers from a lack of evidence, even where the arguments are plausible. One of Li's most significant conclusions is that—contrary to an often-cited notion that Mao Zedong initially pursued a “gradualist” approach and delayed making major changes to society and religion in central Tibet—Mao laid plans for fundamental transformation of his newly conquered territory from the beginning (pp. xi, 66–67). She also asserts that, contrary to Mao's preferred timetable, a senior general stationed in Lhasa named Tan Guansan 譚冠三 (1908–85) precipitously launched a brutal military action that killed thousands of Tibetans. Li argues that because Tan had disobeyed clear orders to wait before employing military force, the only way he could avoid punishment was to decisively defeat Tibetan resistance and to greatly exaggerate the military capabilities of his adversaries. These notions are plausible and accord with accounts of the battle from Tibetans, but Li's conclusions are necessarily speculative, since most of the principals involved are long deceased and no documentary evidence of their decision-making processes is available.
One useful contribution Li makes to the history of modern Tibet is a detailed presentation of Chinese oppression in the eastern provinces of Kham and Amdo, which involved large-scale slaughter of Tibetans, destruction of monasteries, and forced collectivization. This history has already been presented in a number of publications, and the impact of refugees from eastern parts of the plateau who fled to central Tibet and shared accounts of their sufferings has been discussed by most historians who have written about the Tibetan uprising. Li, however, fills in details based on eyewitness accounts and provides one of the best descriptions to date of the scale of devastation wrought by Chinese forces and the role of these atrocities in turning the populace against their self-proclaimed liberators.
Li does not, however, present a particularly compelling analysis of what lay behind the ferocity of the initial phases of the invasion in the east of the Tibetan plateau. She frequently refers to the common Chinese trope that the men of Kham were fierce warriors vastly outgunned by the well-equipped PLA. She also refers to “Han chauvinism” (da Hanzu zhuyi 大汉族主义; literally “Han greatism”) as an element in Chinese actions. This was certainly in play, but it is also worth noting that Mao and his generals had little intelligence regarding Tibet. The thirteenth Dalai Lama, Tupden Gyatso (1876–1933), had worked to modernize Tibet's military with British assistance, and in meetings with his commanders Mao lamented the lack of firsthand information regarding the areas they intended to “liberate from foreign imperialists.” He was concerned with the possibility that Tibetans’ fighting capacity might have improved since a British military expedition invaded the plateau and marched to Lhasa in the early twentieth century.
Military communiqués from Mao and PLA commanders suggest that the most probable reason for the excessive use of force, extensive slaughter of residents of eastern Tibet, and destruction of buildings (particularly monasteries, which were centers of power) was a perceived need to decisively pacify the regions behind their forward forces (pp. 8–9). These areas could not adequately be defended or militarily occupied due to the small number of PLA soldiers in relation to the vastness of the Tibetan plateau. The PLA advance was also hampered by difficulties faced by Chinese unaccustomed to physical activity at high altitudes and logistical problems involved in supplying them with food and armaments.Footnote 1
Li writes in a novelistic style and freely mixes information gleaned from oral interviews and Chinese records, including official documents produced by military commanders and civilian authorities installed following the invasion and early occupation of Tibet. The result is something of a hodgepodge, and it is often difficult to discern what is firsthand information and what has been cobbled together from other sources (and what is pure speculation on Li's part). The book thus reads more like a historical novel than an academic study, with gaps in citation and a pervasive tendency to report as fact Li's conclusions regarding the motivations of historical actors and their internal mental processes. She seems to believe that she understands what her subjects were thinking and feeling in 1959, describing Tibetans as “depressed” or “anxious,” “waiting impatiently,” “sad,” “shouting at the top of their lungs,” “badly shaken,” “berserk,” etc.
Li's account is further marred by frequent infusions of purple prose. An example is a description of the Dalai Lama's mental state after he returned to Lhasa following a 1959 meeting in Beijing:
The Dalai Lama had nowhere to turn. He knew that his secluded land had drifted beyond the ken of world politics.… [B]ombs that had thundered down onto Lithang Monastery seemed to have gone as unnoticed as tiny grains of sand slipping silently into an ocean. (p. 22)
Similar examples of overwriting abound.
Tibet in Agony might be welcomed by non-academics, but it is unlikely to be of much interest to specialists, who will already be familiar with the events Li describes. In the preface, Li promises to present extensive new evidence about “the little-known history of the early Chinese social engineering program … and the resistance it engendered.” But most of what is contained in this book has already been more cogently reported and better analyzed by specialists in Tibetan history.
