Book Review: "A History of Tibet," by Chen Qingying

Here's a Riddle.

When is a non-fiction book not a non-fiction book?
When it's from a Chinese government-owned publisher, of course.

And here to prove this adage is Chen Qingying, the former director of the history and religion institute under the "China Tibetology Research Center." Considering that we've already established that China's academic community is government-appointed, government watched, and has the Party telling them in advance what findings are acceptable to find, this CV from the author tells you all you need to know about the book. But for laughs, let's review it anyway.

The Propaganda Starts Before It's Even Opened

The back-of-book synopsis is riddled with China's signature gift for using vitriolic hyperbole and emphatic superlatives in lieu of substance. The final sentence of this synopsis is "It proves with undeniable facts that Tibet is an inseparable part of China." Notwithstanding the fact that the book hardly "proves" anything (it rarely offers any evidence other than its own insistence, citing few "sources" other than other reports written by the Party under the same threat of "report history the way we said it happened or be shot"), it must be pointed out that nowhere on Earth except China is a government so intent on "proving" a position they know is so readily and easily denied by every concerned party.

Right From the Start

On page 1, the very first sentence of the Foreword is "Tibetan ethnic group is an important member of our multi-ethnic country." So from the opening line we see China's attempt to relegate the ancient Tibetan nation to the status of "ethnic group," a watered-down English translation of a Chinese term chi-mi, that more closely means "loosely bridled (Smith, 26)." The undisguised connotations of all "ethnic groups" being wild animals in need of domestication, is so axiomatic to China's superiority-complex-driven culture that they are not even capable of grasping how racist it is, nor would they find anything wrong with this racism if it were revealed to them, as the Chinese only consider racism offensive if they're on the wrong end of it.
From there, it goes on to assert that Tibet has been part of China since it was absorbed into the Yuan Dynasty. Well, I have already covered THAT delicious little logical fallacy as well. Hint: there never was a "Yuan Dynasty of China." It was called the Mongolian Empire, and the Chinese were the lowest slave caste in its ethnic hierarchy. The book's first page goes on to admit that the Party's intent is to "absorb" Tibet's culture (you will be assimilated; resistance is futile), and that this is a necessary step for Xi's Nietcszhian vision of the "Zhonghua Minzu Weida Fuxing," which, as we have already established, is essentially a code word for his belief in the Han's right to global ethnosupremacy.

And all that is on page 1!

But the funniest thing on page 1 is the final sentence.

[This] book consults others' works and includes many new research results as well.

I have a note in the margins that reads "I will eat my sable hat if this books cites a single source," because in all the book reviews I've done of Chinese propaganda (and judge for yourself how many I've read) I've never once seen a single book that offered any evidence the writer even knew how to write a citation. "Bee-coz dee Kom-moo-nee-sa-ta Pah-tee eez say so" is the only evidence any of them have EVER offered.
Well, in all fairness, that sable hat didn't go down so well, because the book does, in fact, cite sources.

...Six times.
In the entire 184 page book.

And five of those six citations are other Party-ordered, Party-funded studies under Party supervision, and the sixth is a blog by a Chinese jingoist with no history credentials.
Still, that's six more than I was expecting. This renowned Chinese professor included almost as many citations and sources in a 184 page book as a 9th grader in America is required to use in a 2 page Brit-Lit paper. The Shi-Na Minzoku are learning.

Will wonders never cease?

"Creative" History

On pages 6 and 7 the book shows classic Chinese writing. First it lies, then it undercuts its own thesis. The lie is the portrayal of Tibet as an impoverished place where people struggled to survive (with the less-than-subtle implication that the "Glorious Han" saved the supposedly "backward" Tibetans from their wretched lives) (p. 6). It is worthy of note that Sir Charles Bell (p. 134), and countless other 19th century travelers through the nations of Tibet and China commented in stark terms on the poverty of the Chinese peasants compared to their far more prosperous Tibetan counterparts, and Heinrich Harrer (p.263 & 320) states quite plainly that Tibet never knew famine or starvation until the Chinese brought it to them, a view echoed by expert Tibetologist Warren W. Smith (554) and the 14th Dalai Lama himself in his October 26, 1965 address from New Delhi (quoted in Smith, p. 539).
The undercutting of its own thesis is on page 7, when a book claiming to wield "undeniable proof" that Tibet is part of China, cites evidence of Tibet's cultural origin millennia before anything we could even generously call "China" ever existed.

Of course, the book then paints a delightfully distorted view of Songtsen Gampo, who I have already written about at length. In the parallel universe where Chen Qingying lives, Songtsen was a Tang vassal (p. 19) who sought the Tang emperor's friendship when, after attempting what the book claims was an utterly unprovoked attack on a Chinese vassal (p. 20), the supposedly "warlike" Tibetan King realized he could not beat the Tang emperor (p. 21).
...Except that he DID beat the Tang emperor, resoundingly, but that's another story. And of course, the book completely omits Songtsen Gampo's sacking of the Chinese capital when he carried off the Emperor's favorite daughter, Wencheng, as a captive concubine. In Chen's version, Gampo begged the Tang emperor to wed Wencheng and the Tang emperor agreed, in the hopes his daughter would "civilize" the Tibetans (p. 22)

The Great Genghis "Con"

And yes, in case anyone wondered if this book does the usual Chinese backflips to try and prop up their laughable claim that the Gennghizid Khanate was somehow Chinese (a claim that is central to their fictitious claim of "ancient and inalienable sovereignty" over Tibet), this book only disappoints in one way: namely, I was expecting a professor to at least come up with a semi-CONVINCING lie.

From the late 12th century to the early 13th century, Mongols arose in the Northern Prairie [known in most of the world as the Nation of Mongolia]. Genghis Khan unified some small tribes and founded the Mongolia Khanate in 1206, embarking on a path of creating a new dynasty with unprecedented unity of Chinese people and regions.
-P. 37, bracketed notation mine

Read that carefully. The author flatly admits that Genghis was Mongolian, acknowledges he was from FAR outside the borders of anything that had ever been "Chinese," and then asserts that this somehow makes his dynasty Chinese. This is like an Apache historian calling General Nelson Miles an Apache warrior, crediting him with uniting the Apache lands (which would include Florida, Maine, Hawaii and Alaska) under his rule, and calling the US the Apache Empire... it might make a cool concept for a Harry Turtledove style alternate history novel, but for those of us from THIS universe it's just ridiculous. When do the conquered get to claim that their conqueror was one of their own? Only the Chinese are this delusional.

Can You Come Up With Some NEW Weak Evidence, Please?

In my earlier article about the fallacy of China's claim that the Ming held control over Tibet, I asserted that China's best "evidence" of this sovereignty was a handful of honorary titles awarded by the Ming Court to a handful of crime lords on the fringes of Tibet, and a few Ming proclamations "granting" Tibetan officials titles they already held. This book does a wonderful job of proving this for me, and it spends 16 pages (52 - 68) cataloging these titles one by one, no matter how insignificant. These pages are of course peppered with the usual assertions that they form some kind of "proof" of Ming control over Tibet.
It goes on to paint the British as invaders during the Qing Dynasty (94 - 134). There is even an entire chapter entitle "Resistance Against British Aggression."
...So, who wants the job of explaining to Chen that the 13th Dalai Lama was quite vocal in his desire for INCREASED British presence to drive out CHINESE aggression? (Bell, 114 and 137), and that the same Dalai Lama's final testament expressly referred to what he called the "Red Chinese Menace" as the greatest threat to Tibet?
I somehow doubt those inconveniently well-documented facts would jive well with Chen's attempts to claim the 13th Dalai Lama was a loyal and submissive vassal of the Qing (p. 122), once he repented of his devious attempts to use British influence to protect his own power (p. 113) from the "rising democratic tide" of the brewing Communist revolution he foresaw in China.
...Yes, Chen actually spins it that hard. According to him, the most revered Dalai Lama in history was a scheming and petty despot who allied with invaders to protect himself from the just and righteous wrath of the Great Democratic Protector: China.
Next time you turn on a Star Trek re-run, look to see if Spock has a beard.

Buying Their Own Propaganda

The firehose of bullshit that started on page 1 never dies down to a trickle, even at the end. The book ends on the usual Chinese note of desperately trying to claim that the Tibetans were grateful to the Chinese for their "Peaceful Liberation (p. 164)," and that the desperate Freedom Fighters who stood up against China's oppression were just a handful of bad apples under the influence of the everpresent-yet-always-only-nebulously-defined boogeyman, "the West (p. 180)." They're always ambiguous about who "the West" is, but the clear implication is that all of Europe and North America somehow move with one unanimous voice and that this voice has nothing better to do with its time than constantly scheme against China (which makes you wonder; if the Western Powers are so fearful of China then why have we never simply exterminated them in a nuclear holocaust, especially considering their inability to retaliate, but I digress; let's not dwell on our sins of omission).
In any case, if the book's claim about Tibetans being grateful to China is to be believed, than what of the million and a half Tibetans who fled the country, or the half million more who, despite being unarmed starving civilians, were slaughtered by the PLA on their way out of the country (Norbu, 124 - 150; Dorjee, 37)? Oh, I suppose only a "hostile Western Anti-China Force" or "reactionary" would dare ask that question instead of sitting down, shutting up, and mindlessly swallowing the Party's story, right?

So Who Should Read It?

Frankly, I'm hard-pressed to think of anyone for whom this book would be useful or informative (indeed, it could quite accurately be described as COUNTERinformative). I suppose for those of us whose work (or hobby, in my case) requires us to somehow survive the consumption of Chinese propaganda so we can shit out a rebuttal that is more coherent than their claims, then it's useful to get a good solid dose of just what exactly the Chinese try to tell themselves (and, as is evident by bothering to translate it into English, expect the rest of the world to believe) about history. After all, Chinese bullshit is to a China-watcher what mace and tazers are to a cop: you just have to tolerate being exposed to the effects from time to time to keep your certification valid.