ISAS Briefs

Tibet remains a complex issue in India’s relations with China. It has a historical context, a sensitive humanitarian dimension and contemporary political imperatives. All these impinge on the unresolved, conflict-prone border issue between the two Asian giants. Keeping this in mind, India has been diplomatically correct and politically cautious in responding to the 2008 Tibetan uprising. This uprising has gone much beyond the arson and rioting in the Tibetan capital Lhasa, affecting not only other parts of Tibet but also other regions of China such as Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan. In its scale, the uprising is comparable to the one in 1959 which led to the Dalai Lama’s flight and it is much bigger than in 1988 which was strongly suppressed by Hu Jintao, who then was in charge of Tibetan affairs.