THE TABLET April 4th, 1959. VOL. 213, No. 6202

TH E TABLET

Published as a Newspaper

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

APRIL 4th, 1959

N1NEPENCE

Catholics and the American Presidency : Senator Kennedy’s Assurances

Pope John XXIII: The Formative Years: Ending the “Non E x p e d i t” The Measure of Family Life: The Census Report on Fertility. By Thomas Harper Conversation in Lusaka : Opinions in Northern Rhodesia. By .1. E. Alexander

Comparing Catechisms : The English, the French and the German. By T. W. Burke

Surrexit Dominus Vere: The Easter Message of Pope John XXIII

Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

WHO SPEAKS FOR ASIA?

V l/’HEN the Communist Chinese armies entered Tibet in 1950 and proceeded gradually to occupy key areas there, describing the operation as a liberation, an exchange of indignant Notes took place between Delhi and Peking. Those front Peking were dismissive and at" times contemptuous ; those from Delhi recognised the traditional Chinese suzerainty in Tibet, but at the same time described what was happening as “ deplorable ” and affirmed Indian rights in trade and communications. Mr. Nehru was shown a Chinese map on which not only Tibet but part of Northern Assam appeared as Chinese' territory, and defiantly declared that India would defend the frontier established in the days of British rule, “ map or no map.” But he soon showed that he was not really prepared to inherit the role of the British in India, to whom the Tibetans had always thought it possible to appeal against the Chinese in the last resort. They cannot, as they now know, appeal to Mr. Nehfu.

Four years after the “ liberation,” in 1954, the Chinese activity in Tibet had not diminished but had, on the contrary, been increased and consolidated ; yet in that year Mr. Nehru concluded an agreement with China by which the Indian privileges in Tibet of which he had spoken so bravely in 1950 were allowed to disappear and five principles of Asian co-existence, to which Mr. Nehru attached great importance, were enunciated. That was the decisive year for Asians trying to decide where the leadership of Asia lay : they could not judge it to lie with Mr. Nehru. Chou En-lai went to Delhi that summer, Mr. Nehru returned the visit by going to Peking in the autumn, and there was talk by both of “ two thousand years of peace ” ; a time-limit considerably longer than that genially if unexpectedly offered by M. Khrushchev to Mr. Macmillan in .Moscow last month.

The heavy hand with which the Chinese are now repressing Tibetan opposition to the situation in which Mr. Nehru acquiesced so easily five years ago has certain obvious parallels with the Russian repression in Hungary, even though there is no comparison at all between Tibet and Hungary as historical or present States. One of the parallels is in the reluctance of Mr. Nehru to use anything like the same forthright language which has come so naturally to him in denouncing very much milder British actions. This is particularly regrettable because what he now says or does not say will clearly have a great effect, even now, on Asian opinion. Another parallel is in the bitterness of the resistance, which, by all accounts, is more desperate than anything the Manchu dynasty ever encountered kt Tibet, and arises because Communism, whether in Tibet or in Hungary, is first and foremost concerned to destroy traditional ways of life, which are everywhere more tenaciously defended than any political ideas.

It is not at all a new claim which the Chinese are now making, tp suzerainty in Tibet. It has been not only made but intermittently enforced for three hundred years and more, with anything like a real Tibetan independence a recent development which followed the Chinese revolution of 1911 and lasted only until 1950. (Only a little more than half a century ago a British expedition to Lhasa involved heavy fighting and the flight of the Dalai Lama.) What is new is the nature of the claim which the present Chinese Government makes, not seeking primarily, if at all, to open Tibet to trade, but to implant a doctrine, so that the delegation which put the case for the Dalai Lama before the unhappy Mr. Nehru on Tuesday could speak of a religious struggle on behalf of Buddhism. What is also new is the ambitious setting of southward penetration in which the Chinese action has been taken.

The history of India is the history of successive invasions, from the original Aryans to Alexander the