China to Tibetans: Stay Put
中国对藏人说：不要乱动来源：大西洋月刊
发表时间：2013年1月31日
翻译：卜花儿 @Buxoro
西藏专家谈中国最近对藏人护照的严厉管制
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| 图左为有关更改藏人护照申请护照程序的西藏自治区文件； 图右为中国针对所有公民申请护照程序的政府文件。 |
为了更清楚地了解北京为什么现在要限制护照的发放，《大西洋》月刊通过电子邮件采访了哥伦比亚大学西藏研究所主任，国际西藏研究专家罗伯特·巴奈特(Robert Barnett)教授。
问：中国政府为什么现在要停止对藏人发放护照？
答：中国方面至今还没有对此做公开解释，但我们从流出的内部文件中得知，此事始于对一年多前发生，相对来说不太大的一件事。他们实在有些小题大做，2011年12月，有几千藏人得到许可，用合法护照经过尼泊尔去印度，听取达赖喇嘛的佛法传授。尽管没有违反任何中国法律，他们回来后都被关了两个月左右，接受政治教育，护照也被没收。官方声称，收回护照只限于政府雇员与中共党员，实际上，他们没收了所有去参加法会藏人的护照。
至于当前的护照限制，一开始也是为了防范那些还想做类似事情的人。但现在，他们好像是将其扩大到了在西藏的所有藏人，借口是因为要换发新的电子护照，所有护照都要收回，甚至连持有效护照，马上要外出旅行的人也不放过。新规定还说，在得到新护照之前——如果真有可能得到的话——藏人要写保证，声明在国外期间不做任何可能危及中国国家安全的事情，回国后还要与警察面谈，回答是否遵守所做的保证。自从2008年发生抗议以来，藏人的生活在很多方面都受到前所未有的限制，然而，这一次是更加出人意料。
问：2008年以来，对藏人还有什么其它限制？
答：有很多。诸如，中国政府派共产党干部进驻所有寺院，要求所有寺院挂毛主席像（及其他中共领导人像），把军队布在拉萨藏人区的每个角落，只允许参加旅游团的外国人进藏，复印要实名登记，其他藏区的藏人要有当地警察保证才能进拉萨，等等，等等。
问：这个护照问题只是针对藏人吗？在西藏生活的中国公民（汉人）有没有受到影响？
答：为换发带有个人电子数据的新护照，从字面上说，对汉人也应该收回护照。但到目前为止，我听到的是，在西藏的汉人的护照有没被收回的，也有人说，即使汉人的护照被收走，也会马上还回来。就我们所知，至今还没有藏人拿回护照。
问：这次对护照的管制会影响到很多人吗？中国实施这种限制的动机是什么？
答：过去二十多年来，中国的西藏政策的重点是以大量的资金投入，来赢得人心。结果有相当一部分藏人，特别是生意人与退休人员，成为城市中产阶级，他们会经常去尼泊尔或印度旅行。很多年以前，除非是官员，藏人是拿不到护照的。但最近十来年，对这些城市里的新中产阶级，限制放宽了不少，他们自己很多也曾当过小官，或是官员的亲戚，当局觉得他们的风险不大。但在2008年之后，有一个变化是，政府对这些人也不能信任了。这批人的人数还相当不少，我估计有几万，也许更多，他们是人口中重要的，有影响力的一部分。
问：总的说来，你能预见在习近平领导之下，中国的西藏政策会有什么变化吗？
是的，我期望新的领导人能尝试较为柔和的方法，因为现行政策有损中国在国外的形象，破坏国内的稳定，但是这会面临从强硬派官僚方面而来的巨大内部阻力。其结果是，任何变化在很大程度上都只是象征性的，外人几乎无法察觉。
A leading expert on Tibet discusses China's recent crackdown on passports for Tibetans
Tibetan monks prepare to attend a prayer meeting for tourists at a temple in Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai province July 19, 2012. (Stringer/Reuters)
The Chinese Communist Party's repression of its Tibetan minority now extends, apparently, to travel: Radio Free Asia reported last week that few Tibetans have been issued passports since last spring. Beijing has yet to comment officially about this issue, but its approach to Tibet has stiffened since cracking down on anti-government protests in the territory in 2008.
In order to get a clearer sense of why Beijing now restricts passport issuance, The Atlantic spoke with Professor Robert Barnett, the director of the Tibet Studies Institute at Columbia University and one of the world's preeminent experts on the region, via e-mail.
Why has the Chinese government stopped issuing passports to Tibetan people? Why now?
The Chinese have given no public explanation so far, but we know from leaked internal documents that it started as a response to a relatively small event last year, one that they have treated as if they were a major threat: a few thousand Tibetans were given permission to travel legally on passports in December 2011 to Nepal, and they then went on to India to attend religious teachings by the Dalai Lama. When they returned, although they hadn't broken any Chinese laws, they were put in detention for some two months and given political re-education and their passports were all withdrawn. Officially the authorities claimed that these passport cancellations would be done only to government employees and Chinese Communist Party members -- but in fact they did it to all the Tibetans whom they suspected of having gone to these Buddhist teachings.
The current passport restriction, then, was initially designed to weed out people who might do this sort of thing again. But now they seem to have extended it to all Tibetans in Tibet, using the excuse that their passports -- even if they are valid and even if they're about to travel somewhere -- have to be replaced by new-issue electronic passports. And the new rules say that any Tibetan, before getting a new passport, if indeed they ever get one, must make a written declaration not to do anything while abroad that might threaten China's national security, and must be visited by the police and interviewed once he or she returns to see if they kept this undertaking. Though there have been many kinds of unprecedented restrictions applied in many spheres of Tibetan life since the protests of 2008, this is one of the more surprising ones.
What are some of the other restrictions placed on the Tibetans since the 2008?
There have been many. These include the Chinese government putting Communist Party cadres in every monastery, requiring every monastery to display pictures of Chairman Mao Zedong, putting troops on every corner of the Tibetan quarter in Lhasa, limiting foreign visitors to guided groups, having to give their names before photocopying, not being allowed to enter Lhasa without a police guarantee if they're from another Tibetan area, and many more.
Are the Tibetans being singled out on this passport issue? Are Chinese citizens living in Tibet similarly affected?
There was some word that the passport withdrawal would be done to Han Chinese citizens too, under the name of adapting to new electronic/bio data passports. But thus far I hear that there are Chinese people in Tibet whose passports were not taken, and others say that even if Chinese ones were taken, they get them back quickly. Tibetans so far have not reported any being returned, as far as we know.
Will this crackdown on passports affect very many people? What is China's motivation for enacting this restriction?
China's main policy in Tibet for the last 20 years or so has to been to win people over by pouring huge amounts of money into the area, so quite a lot of Tibetans -- especially businessmen and retirees -- now constitute an urban middle class that travels to Nepal or India as often as possible. For many years, no Tibetans could get passports unless they were officials, but in the last decade or so this was relaxed for these new middle class urbanites, who are mostly former minor officials themselves or relatives of such officials and so were probably considered slightly less of a risk. What has changed, following the protests of 2008, is that these people are no longer trusted. This group, by the way, constitutes quite a few people: I would guess that they number in the tens of thousands at least, perhaps many more, and they are a significant, influential sector of the population.
Do you, more generally, foresee any change in Beijing's policy toward Tibetans under the new Xi Jinping administration?
Yes, I'm expecting the new leaders to try to take a softer approach, since the current policy damages China's image abroad and its stability at home, but there will be heavy internal resistance to it from bureaucrats and others invested in the hard-line approach. As a result any change is likely to be largely symbolic and almost imperceptible to outsider
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