Tibet: An Underexplored Strategic Lever

On Wednesday, August 10^th, the Indian Air Force (IAF) deployed a military helicopter to transport Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to a sacred monastery located in a remote village near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), a contested border shared with the Chinese to its east. Afterwards, the Indian government leaked a photo of its air force personnel standing around the Buddhist monk in a deliberate show of solidarity with Tibet, who has faced an uptick in persecution by the Chinese government in recent years. In June, the CCP announced its plans to relocate approximately 130,000 Tibetan people over the span of eight years under the pretense of “both the ecological protection and people’s demand for a better life,” according to Forestry and Grassland Administration Director Wu Wei. The state-affiliated Xinhua News Agency reported that 18,000 former residents of Tsonyi County have already been relocated, many of whom are subsistence farmers accustomed to nomadic traditions for centuries.

One of the prized Tibetan natural resources burbling in the minds of top party officials is freshwater. In 2005, former Party Premier Wen Jiabao asserted that water scarcity endangered “the very survival of the Chinese nation.” Twelve provinces north of the Yangtze River comprise a plurality of the country’s agricultural production, industry, and coal power generation, yet the north relies on water from southern provinces, including Tibet. Many of the largest rivers on the planet are sourced in the Tibetan Plateau, such as the Yellow River, the Yangtze, Salween, and Mekong, making the plateau region the largest freshwater repository in all of Asia. The repurposing of river flows for China’s own industry and agriculture could become a “necessary evil” if a domestic freshwater crisis were to become more dire. Tibet’s geography also provides China with immense bargaining leverage against neighboring countries in Southeast Asia who rely on the Mekong for their own economic consumption.

Tibet also holds vast domestic reserves of over ten different metals, including lithium, which is an essential component in electric car batteries. Many predict that the mineral will become one of the defining strategic resources of the 21^st century as the world inexorably weens off of nonrenewable resources. The lithium industry is expected to grow almost eightfold by just 2027, and China currently leads the globe in battery manufacturing and electric car exports. By extracting more lithium from Tibetan reserves for EV production, China could further ensnare American producers seeking to isolate their supply chains from the “workshop of the world.” Hence, China’s motivations to expand mining operations in the region are at least twofold: it can turn greater economic profits in emerging industries while making its geopolitical competitors more dependent on its industrial components, adding risk to potential Western decoupling.

Coupled with Tibet’s geographic advantages, however, is a complicated 60-year history which spills over China’s borders. After the 1959 Tibetan uprising, the Dalai Lama helped to set up the Tibetan government-in-exile in the remote Indian province of Himachal Pradesh, where most Tibetan refugees have resided since. Known today as the CTA, the organization labels itself the “continuation of the government of independent Tibet.” Beijing considers the CTA to be a separatist entity principally aimed to sow discord within China, as it has with pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong. India’s unique position lends it another diplomatic card in its deck in the event of any major impasses with Beijing. The Indian government has shown a willingness to use Tibet’s delicate position as a tool to influence China’s decision-making calculus, especially during the unresolved border tension in Ladakh, which is now entering its third year.

One of the soldiers killed at the height of the Sino-Indian border dispute in 2020 was a Tibetan refugee who served under the Indian Army’s Special Frontier Force (SFF), a unit of Tibetan soldiers whose existence has never been acknowledged officially by the Indian military. At the soldier’s funeral, Senior Bharatiya Janata Party Leader Ram Madhav placed a wreath on the soldier’s coffin, adorned with the flags of India and Tibet. This public display was designed to send a strong message to Beijing about Tibetan refugees’ role in Indian strategy. The standoff also triggered many officials within the ruling BJP Party to recommend conferring India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, on the Dalai Lama as a signal to Beijing that the Indian government strongly condemned China’s actions along the Himalayan border. Experts believe that the border crisis has done irreparable harm to Sino-Indian relations, making India’s use of the Tibet card more likely in years to come.

One of the issues capable of turning such regional tensions into a potential crisis is the debate over who succeeds the Dalai Lama. The Chinese government has been explicit in its plans to handpick a successor who will comply with the party’s political aims, even reportedly going as far as to groom a selected group of senior lamas friendly to Beijing. US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price stated that “the Chinese government should have no role in the succession process,” and the Dalai Lama has also condemned the PRC’s public statements on the matter. If the Buddhist spiritual leader insists that his succession takes place within Tibet, it could compel the Chinese government to take drastic measures to tighten its control over the autonomous region. Latest reports state that the 87-year-old is in good health, leaving the matter on the backburner for now. However, if the issue were to arise at the same time as, for example, another potential demonstration of force near Taiwan or a skirmish on the Himalayan border, it could constrain the US and/or India’s abilities to deescalate concurring crises at once. Conversely, added US-Indian pressure in Tibet could help to preempt a Chinese attempt to alter the status quo in other contested areas near its orbit.

The U.S. has recently made considerable progress in delineating its policy on Tibet. Last month, U.S. Representatives Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Michael McCaul (R-TX) introduced the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Act, designed to strengthen bipartisan efforts to promote dialogue between the PRC and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. The bill would make it U.S. policy that the Tibetan people deserve the right to self-determination under international law, and that the legal status of Tibet as a sovereign entity remains unresolved. It would also expand the State Department’s efforts to counter PRC’s disinformation tactics aimed to manipulate and erase the history, culture, and political institutions of Tibet. By firming up its support behind Tibet’s leadership, the U.S. can pressure the Chinese government to consider a rapprochement or suffer greater international condemnation for violating international law yet again. Washington could look to bolster this policy by integrating India more fully in any potential dialogue between Tibet and China. India’s efforts to stabilize tensions in the short term would also help to reduce the blow when Tibetan religious leaders look to choose a successor to the Dalai Lama in the future.

Getting ahead of the curve on Tibet gives the U.S. an opportunity to further galvanize the international community around human rights, lay out the various costs to Chinese leaders more explicitly if it chooses to double down on aggressive behavior, and develop more cohesive strategic ties with the world’s largest democracy in India. Acting now weakens Beijing’s imperial grip as it prevents more subjugation of Tibetan life in the future.

John Kraus is a graduate student in International Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and is currently a Research Assistant at Yorktown Institute.