China wants you to think that massive empire in red was a "vassal state" of the little orange crescent to its East.
You know, it's been a long time since my last article exposing China's lies. Nearly a year, in fact. Since then, I've devoted myself to journals, book reviews and commentaries on current events in America. But it's time for me to get back to the meat and potatoes of what this blog was originally about.
Zombies: Not Just in Movies Anymore
Does anyone remember the 1994/95 Power Rangers movie? I'll admit it's one that seemed a lot cooler when I was a watching it as a kid than when I look back at it as an adult. But for those who do remember it, you'll recall there's a scene where the villain orders the brainwashed parents "you will return to the construction site, where you will leap to your doom!" After this, the seemingly lobotomized parents begin lumbering off inexorably toward the site, chanting "leap, to our doom... leap, to our doom..." in a zombie-like state. They don't know what they're saying. But their brains are not functioning independently, and their master has given his final word on the subject so there's no concept of questioning it.
Listening to basically any Chinese official describe Tibet (or Taiwan, or Xinjiang, or Korea, or Vietnam, or Mongolia, or the Russian Far East, or the West Philippine Sea, or basically anything else the Party decides they want to annex) is reminiscent of that. What you get is a chorus of zombies chanting "ancient, and inalienable, part of China... ancient, and inalienable, part of China..." with no clue what's going on around them. They're just like the parents in the Power Rangers movie scene...
Their brains are not functioning independently, and their master has given his final word on the subject so there's no concept of questioning it.
Frankly, I've gotten used to this. China lies about everything, from their nation's age (they lay claim to 5,000 years to their role in WW2 (they claim they led the Allies to victory) to the origins of the Chinese Coronavirus (they claim it came from Italy The US India Kazakhstan Australia Whoever China is in a spat with this week) to what happened at Tiananmen Square to the reason so many buildings collapsed in the 2008 Wenchuan Quake to... well seriously, it's not a hyperbole to say "everything."
When you ask "what do you mean 'China lies about everything?' " my answer is "picture the opposite of 'nothing.' That's what they lie about." Absolutely every Chinese citizen I've ever spoken to (and the overseas Chinese colonists in Singapore, Malaysia and Canada are even worse) is so absolutely, fanatically convinced of the bullshit China peddles as "history" that any attempts to challenge it with facts, reports from scholars all over the world, or logic, are to their ears what heresy against doctrine would be to a Jesuit.
And certainly nowhere is this more obvious than in the case of one of the first nations China occupied and enslaved after their 1949 "revolution" (in which a spoiled merchant's son named Mao Zedong toppled the republic built by the visionary Sun Zhongshan). That nation, which for most of history was an empire whose very mention made helpless little China tremble in fear, is Tibet.
Pick a Lie and Stick With It, Please
I mentioned above that I'm accustomed to hearing lies from China's regime, but in the case of Tibet, they can't even seem to all agree on the same lie. Specifically, "if Tibet is 'part of China,' when did it become so?" Chinese netizens claim Tibet became part of China in 634 A.D.(1) when a Tang princess, who history refers to as "Wencheng (文成)," was wedded to the Tibetan emperor Songtsen Gampo (Journeyeast; Laird, 361). Chinese government sources, on the other hand, claim Tibet became part of China under the Yuan Dynasty (Cao & Sun, 136; Office of the State Council). And of course, rank and file Chinese claim "throughout history everybody conquers others, and we conquered Tibet fair and square in 1950.’" (Lau, 2). It's ironic that the last comes the closest to being true, if you're willing to call the barbaric brutality inflicted upon Tibet by the PLA "fair and square."
The first two, however, read like laughable parodies of history. I'll examine the absurdity of China's claim that Tibet became part of China under Yuan (hint: Yuan wasn't China, it was the Mongolian Empire and Tibet ranked higher on its pecking order than China did) in another article. For now though, I'd like to take some time to put the first of these claims (that is, "China acquired Tibet when Songtsen Gampo became a Tang vassal") onto the garbage heap where it belongs.
Who Conquered Who?
Let's begin with the myth about Tibet coming under China's sway in the Tang Dynasty.
King Songzan Ganbu was a brave and handsome king. When he was shown a portrait of Princess Wenzheng, he was struck by her air of dignified elegance. He sent a marriage proposal, but his hopes were dashed by King Tu Guhun of the Turkish tribe who spread slanderous rumours about him. (Journeyeast)
And of course, after falling hopelessly in love with this Chinese princess (or so goes the Chinese fairy tale), he then begged the Chinese emperor for her hand, but he was denied. He then sent troops to attack the Chinese capital, Chang'an, and was roundly defeated, but the gracious Chinese emperor, Taizong, benevolently granted the savage king Songtsen the bride he previously requested (Smith, 60 & 61).
The story then goes that the Chinese princess took pity on her "noble savage" husband and brought the secrets of metallurgy, sericulture and even writing to the supposedly backward and barbaric Tibetans.
What we have here is essentially a Chinese nationalistic fap-fest. China's pompous self-image as an advanced, refined, "Celestial Empire" of class and charm, where the women are angels of beauty, whom foreigners find irresistible and simply must have at any cost, and who eventually (grudgingly) accept their "barbaric" husbands and "civilize" them (read 'make them more Chinese') is such a trope that it sounds like a movie script.
...In fact, it has been quite a few movie scripts in China.
Of course, those movies were fiction. Just like China's version of this phase of history.
The truth is Songtsen Gampo wasn't a "king." His vassals were kings. The rulers of the Western Xia, the Qiang and the Bailang, who he conquered and incorporated into his own empire, were kings (Bushell, 443 & 444; Beckwith, 22 & 23). The rulers of Zhangzhung and Nepal, Songtsen Gampo's defeated and subjugated neighbors who surrendered their daughters to Gampo as his victory prize, were kings (Laird, 34). No, Songtsen Gampo was the emperor of Tibet, undisputed master of an empire that spread from China in the East to Arabia and Persia in the West. Kings came before him with tribute at his summons, bowed low before him and awaited his command. And this emperor, who kept the daughters of kings for his pleasure, decided the Tang emperor's favorite daughter would make a fine addition to his collection. So, he sent an ultimatum to Taizong, the emperor of battered little Tang (known today as "China"), demanding Taizong send his daughter to Lhasa to take her rightful place at the bottom of his harem. The letter made plain that if this demand was not met, 50,000 Tibetan troops, hardened by the harsh climate of the plateau and seasoned by a lifetime of victorious battles against the same barbarian neighbors Tang could not subdue, would pour into Chang'an (Pan, 237).
See, it must be remembered that this was pre-Buddhist Tibet. There were no pacifist lamas in yellow hats preaching peace and enlightenment or seeking what the 14th Dalai Lama refers to as the "Middle Way." This was a warrior empire whose nomadic ancestors were not many generations removed, who considered the proto-Mongol Xiongnu to be their kindred. This was an empire who went toe-to-toe with the Abbasid Caliphate, the Persian Empire, Tang China (considered China's most powerful Dynasty), and the Khans of the northern steppe all in one emperor's lifetime, and attained either victory or honorable truce on every front, and still managed to wrest control of the Silk Road from the Tangs and establish a rich trade with Europe and Africa while they were at it.
Of course, the Tang Emperor's country had long been so convinced of their own superiority that their official government records referred to all foreigners as "monkeys wearing hats" and "dwarf slaves" (Pan, 11), living in a zone of cultureless savagery and needing the self-anointed 'Central Nation to "civilize" them (Smith, 22). From the standpoint of an entire culture predicated on this level of ethnonarcissism, it's unsurprising that Taizong refused.
It's equally unsurprising that Songtsen Gampo made good on his threat and sacked Chang'an with ease (Laird, 34; Smith, 60 & 61).
A Tibetan army (numbering 200,000 according to Tang sources (Bushell, 444)) tore through Songzhou like paper on a straight line course for Chang'an, not even stopping to catch their breath as they rolled over battalion after battalion of the silken-shoed, peach-fuzzed little princesses whom the Tang laughably called "soldiers." Finally, they stood at the walls of Chang'an itself. They burned the city, tore down its walls, plundered and pillaged as they wished.
This was the capital city of Tang, viewed by China as "the greatest dynasty," and the best defense they could muster couldn't even slow the Tibetans down.
Finally, the Tang "army," if you wish to call it that, caught a break. A contingent of cavalry who arrived to Chang'an's defense late were fortunate enough to catch the Tibetans off-guard in the belief that there were no Tang troops left. The ensuing skirmish was Tang's first victory against Songtsen Gampo's army... ever. And it wasn't much of one.
But it was enough that Taizong was able to save face by offering the Tibetans a truce. And what would he give the Tibetan king as part of this truce? Why, his daughter of course. The very daughter who Songtsen originally demanded (Beckwith, 23; cited in Laird, 34), along with several entire caravans of silver and silk. The Tang emperor acquiesced to every demand Songtsen made. This "truce" was an unconditional surrender.
Of course, Songtsen Gampo was gracious in his victory, even sending back a suit of gold armor to his father-in-law as a dowry. Tang sources record this as a "tribute" mission by the "defeated" Tibetans.
...There's no academic way to put this.
When the week begins with your enemy at the gates of your city at the head of an army of 200,000 men while your general is telling you "I've got 26 raw, untested recruits to defend the city with," and by the end of the week that enemy is wallowing in luxury back at his spotless, untouched capital city thousands of miles away, surrounded by your money and plowing your daughter, while you're busy rebuilding your city, burying your troops, and telling their grieving widows "quit crying and get back to the silk wheel! We have to prepare the next installment of the payment to the man who did this," the guy who burned your house, killed your men and carried your daughter away is no "tributary vassal." You are.
And if he likes your daughter enough, he might send your balls back to you with instructions for you to re-attach them and get busy making another one.
Just ask the Tang emperor Taizong.
"Princess Civilizer"
The other part of this Chinese fairy tale, namely, that Princess Wencheng graciously brought China's "glorious" civilization to the "backward, barbaric" Tibetans, is as patently ludicrous as Taizong's claims of victory. First of all, "Wencheng" wasn't even her name. Records don't really tell what her name actually was.
Of course, considering Chinese women at the time didn't even have names unless they were given one by their owners husbands after they were bought married (Lewis 187), she may have lived and died nameless. In Tibet, she's known only as "Gyasa," a word having no meaning other than "Chinese wife." It was later Chinese sources who ascribed her the ex posto facto name Wencheng (文成), and even this name is a fine example of Chinese arrogance.
The character 文 (Pinyin: Wén) has several meanings. Its literal definition is "writing." But when used in tandem with other characters, it means "civilization." The connection is clear enough. The idea "those who cannot write are not civilized" is not a prejudice unique to China by any means. Meanwhile, the next character, 成 (Pinyin: chéng) means "to make." Not in the sense of creation, but in the sense of transformation, like "make a house into a home."
So, taken together, they either mean "Princess who brought writing" or "Princess who made them civilized." The second carries the rather brazen and unhidden implication that the Tibetans before were some kind of savage, mindless barbarians until the Chinese brought them the 'light of civilization', as per the Chinese mindset I described above. Considering that this regime is quite public about their attitude that "The Chinese are the most culturally advanced pioneers of civilization (Norbu, 96)" and that all civilizations and languages in the world are offshoots of "the mighty China (Liotta)," we shouldn't be surprised at this level of arrogance.
The first meaning, however, isn't much better.
Here's the way the Chinese tell it.
Princess Wencheng was touched by her husband's love for her and gradually came to care for him and her borderland (2) home. She summoned Han artisans to [Tibet] to pass on their skills in metallurgy, farming, weaving, construction, milling, brewing and the manufacture of paper and ink. The local farmers were taught new agricultural techniques to raise different varieties of grain. Han astronomy and the Chinese calendar were also introduced to the region. Perhaps the most important innovation was the writing system developed by Princess Wencheng and the king, for before her arrival, [Tibet] was without a written language.
-(Journeyeast, emphasis added)
Wow. If the phrase "Yellow Savior Complex" isn't in everyday vernacular, I think we just established that it needs to be.
Picking this patchwork of fallacy apart takes some time. First of all, the notion that Wencheng taught the Tibetans new agricultural techniques and brought the "brilliance" of Chinese farming to Tibet is ridiculous for two reasons. First of all, when was the last time you heard of a princess who knew a thing about manual labor or farming? Secondly, there's not one single crop from the Chinese Central Plain that will even grow on the Tibetan Plateau. The Tibetans had their own specifically adapted agricultural techniques which, unlike those of China, had worked for centuries on the Himalayan heights. Ergo, what could a lowland princess have taught high altitude farmers about high altitude agriculture?
Regarding the claim that Wencheng brought China's "superior" metallurgy to Tibet, the best thing about this lie is that the source which debunks it comes from Tang China. Donald LaRocca of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art cites the Tang historian Du-Fu as follows:
"The men and horses all wear chainmail armor. It's workmanship is extremely fine. It envelops them completely, leaving openings only for the two eyes. Thus strong bows and sharp swords cannot injure them." (P. 21)
Du-Fu goes on to comment on the superiority of this chainmail compared to its Tang counterpart. LaRocca also notes that the Tibetans acquired this metallurgical skill from Persia, more than a century prior.
So much for Wencheng's claim to THAT contribution.
It is true that Wencheng introduced the Chinese zodiac to Tibet, though the article's implication that this was some sort of paradigm shift from "savage" to "civilized" is nothing more than the same classic 大汉主义(3) jingoism that leads Chinese government texts to assert that all of Asia watches the "Glorious Han" with envy and longs to be incorporated into China (Cao & Sun, 156).
But the biggest, most putrid pile of bovine excrement in the entire "Wencheng civilized the Tibetan savages" myth is the one she's the most famous for: the development of the Tibetan system of writing.
Songtsen Gampo did establish Tibet's first nationally standardized system of writing, it's true. However, one has to wonder what contortions the Chinese do to fit their heads far enough up their anal cavities to claim Wencheng had anything to do with it, given a few facts.
First, the system of writing Songtsen developed is a phonetic alphabet, not an ideographic one like the cave-drawings China uses (McIsaac). It has nothing in common with Chinese Hanzi, and in fact an Indian script was used as the model (Laird, 36; Harrer, 133). The credit for its development goes primarily to Tibetan scholar Thomi-sambhota, who was sent to India (you know, the one in completely the opposite direction as China if you're departing from Lhasa) by Songtsen Gampo with the orders to find a script suitable as a model for his standardized Tibetan.
Secondly, even this is not exactly new.
This [Sanskrit] script prevails in Central Asia from perhaps the fourth century onward, and it was a form of this script that was adapted by the Tibetans in the early seventh century, if not before, for the writing of their own language. (Snellgrove, 332)
Tibetan writing of the seventh century shows a regularity that would be highly unlikely unless the grammar of Thonmi merely standardized a system of writing already in use for some time. (Smith, 64; emphasis added)
So, a Tibetan scholar went to India and discussed with the scholars there how to develop a script to standardize the Indian-derived system of writing that the Tibetans were already using. And according to China, a Chinese concubine carried away to Lhasa as the spoils of war, somehow deserves credit for this.
Of course, Chinese lies regarding Tibet are so plentiful that a Wumao can buy a dozen of them with the wages of a single post.
They claim after the Mongolian Empire fell, Tibet submitted to Ming China (Cao & Sun, 161). This is bullshit (Laird, 137).
They claim a Chinese emperor first conferred the title of Dalai Lama upon the Dalai Lamas (Cao & Sun, 161). This too is bullshit. It was a Mongolian translation of a title they were already using (Laird, 142 & 143).
But of course, on ANY given subject, rebutting all of China's lies would fill a library. I'll get around to as many of them as I can in later articles.
(1) Chinese government white papers put the year of this marriage at 641 A.D. rather than 634.
(2) The use of the term "borderland" to describe a city more than 2,000 American miles from anything even remotely under Chinese rule at the time, tells a lot about China's egotistical mindset that their authority has no boundaries.
(3) "Da Han Zhuyi." The literal translation is "Great Han Chaunvinism," but in China it doesn't even have passively negative connotations. Xinhua, Chinadaily, People's Daily and of course, Global Times use it basically as a synonym for "patriotism."
Works Cited
Beckwith, Christopher. The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia: A History of the Struggle for Great Power Among Tibetans, Turks, Arabs, and Chinese During the Early Middle Ages. Princeton, 1987. Princeton University Press.
ISBN 0-691-02469-3
Bushell, S. W. "The Early History of Tibet. From Chinese Sources." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. XII, 1880
Cao Dawei & Sun Yanjing. Trans. Xiao Ying, Li Li & He Yunzhao. China's History. Beijing, 2010. China Intercontinental Press.
ISBN 978-7-5085-1302-7
Harrer, Heinrich. Seven Years in Tibet. New York, 1997. Putnam.
ISBN 978-08747-788-85
Journeyeast. "The Han Princess and the Tibetan King." Tripod (blog). Web. 24 Feb, 2021. http://www.members.tripod.com/~journeyeast/wenzheng.html
Laird, Thomas. The Story of Tibet - Conversations With the Dalia Lama. New York, 2006. Grove Press.
ISBN 978-0-8021-4327-3
Larocca, Donald. Warriors of the Himalayas - Rediscovering the Arms and Armor of Tibet. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006.
ISBN 978-0-30011-1538
Lau, Hon-Hsiang. "Tibet was Never Part of China Before 1950: Examples of Authoritative pre-1949 Chinese Documents that Prove It." National Security. Vol. II, Issue I. Web. 24 Feb, 2021. https://www.vifindia.org/sites/default/files/national-security-vol-2-issue-1-article-HSlau.pdf
Lewis, Mark Edward. China's Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty. Cambridge, 2009. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
ISBN 978-0-674-03306-1
Liotta, Edoardo. "Chinese Scholars Are Claiming That English Is a Chinese Dialect." Vice. 9 Sep, 2019. Web. 26 Feb, 2021. https://www.vice.com/en/article/mbmben/chinese-scholars-are-claiming-that-english-is-a-chinese-dialect
McIsaac, Tara. Expert in Chinese Petroglyphs Supports Theory Ancient Chinese Made It to America. Ancient Origins. 1 July, 2016. Web. 26 Feb, 2021. https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/expert-chinese-petroglyphs-supports-theory-ancient-chinese-made-it-america-020882
Norbu, Jamyang. Warriors of Tibet - The Story of Aten and the Khampas Fight for the Freeodm of Their Country. London, 1986. Wisdom Books.
ISBN 978-0861-710-508
Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. Tibet -- Its Ownership and Human Rights Situation. (Chinese Government White Paper). China.org. Sep 1992. Web. 24 Feb, 2021. http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/tibet/9-1.htm
Pan Yihong. Son of Heaven and Heavenly Qaghan: Sui-Tang China and Its Neighbors. Bellingham: Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 1997.
Smith, Warren. Tibetan Nation - A History of Tibetan Nationalism and Sino-Tibetan Relations. 1996, Boulder. Westview Press.
ISBN 978-0-813-332-802
Snellgrove, David. Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Boston, 1987. Shambala Publishing.
ISBN 987-08777-33119