Beyond Shangri-La: America and Tibet’s Move into the Twenty-First Century

Knaus (Orphans of the Cold War), currently affiliated with Harvard’s Center for East Asian Research, looks at “America’s hesitant and intermittent recognition of [Tibetans’] human right of self-determination” from the Teddy Roosevelt administration to the present. Since 1947, the U.S. has never questioned China’s sovereignty over Tibet, while also supporting the Tibetan resistance force from 1958 to 1974. Knaus, who as a CIA operations officer helped train Tibetan resistance fighters, explains that Washington focused on its relationship with China and discouraged a U.S. visit from the Dalai Lama in the early 1970s, but has focused more on Tibetan rights since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and the Dalai Lama’s Nobel Peace Prize. Knaus effectively documents how Tibetans, led by Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama’s younger brother, have successfully lobbied for greater visibility and influence. In his concluding chapters, Knaus examines Tibet’s uncertain future after violent protests in 1987 and 2008, nine rounds of futile Tibetan-Chinese negotiations over Tibetan autonomy (from 2002 to 2012), and the Dalai Lama’s turning over political leadership of his government-in-exile to Lobsang Sangay in 2011. Though the clearly partisan Knaus could have examined China’s perspective in greater depth, overall, this is a well-documented study of the complex America-China-Tibet triangle. Photos. (Dec.)