"Lo Manthang, Nepal"

"Lo Mathang, Kingdom of Mustang"

"Monks Celebrating Sagadawa Tibetan Festival"

Nepal map

Lo Manthang sketch/map

Satellite map of the Annapurna region

Looking from Thorung La to Kagbeni

A group of trekkers at the top of Thoring La pass

Thoring La Pass view

A photospread showing the Thoring La crossing by a group of trekkers

Annapurna trekker January 1999 report on snow conditions

Crowds in Manang

Manang welcome wagon

Mandatory rest stop view

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ABCNEWS.com has now provided a very nice interactive map which shows the overall route believed to have been taken by the Karmapa. Key points along the journey are illustrated by numbers in red circles which are clickable links to pop-up text taken from the article. Below, we provide information from elsewhere on the Internet which provides additional details and illustrations of His Holiness the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa's escape. We will on occasion refer to the numeric dots on the ABC NEWS.com map:

ABC News reports that some two months prior to his escape, the Karmapa "received an 'insight,' that he should leave Tibet." Many weeks of finely-honed planning, including dummy runs, ensued. On December 28th, after convincing his guards that he would be in a solitary retreat for many days, he changed into a nondescript outfit and exited through a window. Beamish describes a "heart-stopping"  moment as His Holiness was slipping across the courtyard to avoid being detected by guards. Outside the gate, the Karmapa sped off in a Land Cruiser-like vehicle, driving continuously for two nights and a day to the Mustang border.

Reportedly, the most harrowing segment of the escape occurred in Tibet, when half the party decided to leave the car and walk through  uncharted terrain in the utter darkness to avoid a checkpoint, while the rest drove onwards. The ABC News article details how the two halves of the escape group almost never found each other after they had reached the other side of the checkpoint.

In the article, Beamish states that her sources informed her that His Holiness followed a longer route through Tibet which took him to a Mustang entry-point farther west in Nepal, rather than going more directly towards Kathmandu. (Points 1-3 on the ABCNEWS.com map.) A detailed high-resolution map permitting a review of most of the possible routes through central Tibet is available in a central Tibet map. (From the linked page captioned "general map with reduced scale of 1,200,000," click on the "download" link (underneath the caption) to view the map; we do not link you directly to the map image itself because it is a 1.5 meg download.) Other high resolution maps divided into grids are available at this location, the website of the French Tibet Map Institute.  (The grid location containing Tsurphu, misspelled as "Thurphu," home of the Karmapa in Tibet and origin point for his escape, is in map no. 2990, a .5 meg download.)

The ABC News article reports that the road from Tibet to Mustang  "ended not far over the border." (This terminus is north of point 3 on the ABCNEWS.com map. The following information details the route, indicated by the yellow line on the ABCNEWs.com map, between the Tibet-Mustang border and the start of the blue line on ABC's map.)

Beamish writes that the Karmapa and his fellows "abandoned the car, a road-less Mustang stretching before them. Accomplices helped them procure horses. Riding for two hours, they arrived at the walled city of Lo Manthang, its sun-baked houses rising mirage-like from a treeless valley." Lo Manthang is apparently a popular area for photographers, as we have also located on the web a number of breathtakingly beautiful photographs of Lo Manthang and environs, a few of which we link to here: "Himalayas Near Lo Manthang," "Lo Manthang, Nepal," "Lo Mathang, Kingdom of Mustang," "Monks Celebrating Sagadawa Tibetan Festival " (titles from website). (These photos are from the from the Corbis Collection.)

Beamish states that the Karmapa entered Nepal through the "geographical bulge along northern Nepal, passed an unmanned border post, and emerged through undulating mountains that unfold into the high desert of Mustang." Looking at the Nepal map available here , we think ABC NEWS.com must be referring to the bump at the north-westernmost tip of the bluish-shaded area labelled "Western" just above the spots labelled "Jomosom" and "Annapurna." A close up of the area at which the Karmapa reportedly entered Mustang is available in a sketch/map of that Mustang entry-point showing Lo Manthang and what appears to be the Kali Gandaki River valley, available by clicking here, from the website of a trekker who hiked through the area in 1998 or 1999. This map shows the route from Lo Manthang down the valley leading to Jomosom. According to Beamish, "The group rode all day and into an ebony night, then split up at a fork leading south to the district capital, Jomosom, and east to the forbidding Thorung La Pass." The Thorung La Pass is through the Annapurna range.

A satellite map of the Annapurna region, available by clicking here, indicates that the fork must have been near Kagbeni, which appears on the Lo Manthang map north of Jomosom. From Kagbeni, the Karmapa and monk-trekkers apparently crossed through the Thorung La Pass towards Manang. This is a well-known route for Annapurna range trekkers. (If you wish, you may also experiment with the "map-machine" at the National Geographic website.)

Although many treks go the opposite direction, towards Kagbeni, the following sampling of photographs from such places as the YetiZone gives a sense of the extraordinary phenomena to which His Holiness and fellow travelers were privy on their trek to freedom. "Looking from Thorung La to Kagbeni ," "A group of trekkers at the top of the pass," "A view of a snowy Thorung La Pass." A "Photospread showing the Thoring La crossing by a group of trekkers " (our titles) is also available, though you should note that the page is slow to load because it contains a number of photographs.

Beamish notes that the trek through the pass was a dangerous gamble which could have been fatal had the Karmapa been unlucky with the weather, but it did not snow. "'They knew that this was a very difficult and dangerous undertaking. These people are so tough. They've been through so much, they're so strong of heart and sturdy of limb — and smart.' And lucky. Little snow had fallen. That would render the pass no more than a long slog, albeit a frigid one — 'a really good challenge at that time of year' but not insurmountable, said Steve Conlon, executive director of Above the Clouds Trekking." We note that the lack of snowfall at this time of year is not uncommon, and was apparently the case the year before as well, according to postings of Annapurna trekkers made in January 1999.

After the successful crossing, the party rested momentarily in Manang, also a favorite trekker spot; see: "Crowds in Manang ," "Manang welcome wagon," "mandatory rest stop view " (our titles). After a brief rest, the party availed themselves of a method of transport accessible for trekkers needing to get in and out from the Annapurna hikes quickly, chartering a helicopter to the lowlands, where they proceeded to the border by taxi, then through India by train and taxi, to Dharamsala. The journey onwards was not without other adventures, as Beamish describes. The ABC NEWS.com articles (parts I and II) are available at the ABC News website.

March 7-8

-UPDATED

Rediff On the Net

The Times of India

The Hindu

Encyclopedia Britannica Online (on the Sino-Indian war)

Simla Convention

New York Times

The People's Review (Nepal)

Wall Street Journal (Asia edition)

At the first ever Sino-Indian talks on security in Beijing, which ended March 7th, the Indian spokesman was asked whether the escape of the Karmapa to India had figured in the talks, and was forced to explain that the talk was on security matters. "We conveyed to the Chinese side our overall security objectives including the nuclear policy," he said. The Indian side emphasised the importance of principles of Panchasheel, 'which involves being sensitive to each other's sovereignty including sovereign rights of a country to determine' its security needs and 'to take measures for national security needs.'" Rediff On the Net. This is not an isolated occurence; the Karmapa recently has been mentioned in the Indian press in connection with India's foreign policy towards China, security matters, and in particular, India's nuclear testing program. The Times of India; The Hindu. What is going on here? To explain how this bizarre connection has come about, our research team has breathlessly dispatched the following report about the Sino-Indian war of 1962 and India's 1998 nuclear testing program. Strap on your history hats:

At the beginning of the 20th century, British interests had dominated much of India under the "British Raj" for over a century. Until the 1850s, Britain's interests were under the control of the British East India Company.  The East India Company's attempts under Hastings to open trade relations with Tibet in the 18th century have been remarked upon elsewhere.

In the 1850s, a Secretary of State for India was given cabinet level power in Britain and from then on the the British government exerted direct authority over India. During the late 19th century, British trade delegations, often enforced by British troops, were sent to neighboring countries to "open up" markets for Britain. By the last half of the 19th century, British controlled India extended to the Tibetan border. British attempts to open trade with Tibet were renewed beginning as early as 1861. The were continually rebuffed, until 1904, when British troops under McDonald and Younghusband marched through Tibet and into Lhasa. Numerous attempts to repel the British troops ended in failure, resulting in over 1000 deaths to Tibetan defenders. M. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, pp. 22-26 (U. Cal 1997).

China in the early 20th century was not happy with the British presence in Tibet, and the Qing dynasty twice invaded Tibet, to assert Chinese authority over Tibet.  The 13th Dalai Lama, by then a strong enemy of China, was forced to flee the country both times, and in exile in India began to develop plans to demonstrate Tibet's political independence. In 1913, the Qing dynasty fell and the 13th Dalai Lama rapidly moved to establish Tibet as an independent republic. China was persuaded by pressure from Britain to negotiate with Tibet about the status of Tibet in relation to China. Tibet representatives found it prudent to accept some connection to China, in return for broad autonomy in ruling the country. Britain was interested in a buffer between China and India, and served thus as the conference instigator, but British interest in establishing Tibetan sovereignty was limited to opening Tibet to British markets and stablilizing the region in the British interests.

The negotiations were held in Simla, India, with Sir Henry McMahon, a secretary in the British foreign office, representing Britain. Chinese negotators initially agreed to give Tibet autonomy, under what was to become known as the Simla Convention . However, before it could be signed, the agreement fell apart when, inter alia, the Tibetans and Chinese could not agree on establishing a border between China and Tibet. Despite numerous attempts to find compromise solutions to this problem, the Chinese delegation eventually refused to continue negotiations or sign the Convention.

After the Chinese walked out in 1914, McMahon, representing Britain, negotiated directly with Tibet. Britain was unwilling to support Tibetan independence by recognizing Tibetan sovereignty and concluding a treaty directly with the government of Tibet. However,  McMahon obtained permission to enter into a "diplomatic note" with the Tibetan government which bound the British government and de facto Tibet government to the the otherwise unsigned provisions of the Simla Convention. The Simla Convention provisions included an agreement on a border separating Tibet and its neighbors, including China and India. This border became known as the McMahon Line. China never agreed to the Simla Convention or the border established by the McMahon Line. M. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, pp. 30-34 (U. Cal 1997).

India was at the time under the control of the British, but obtained its independence in 1947 (in the process suffering the unconsolable losses resulting from the partition of India and Pakistan which resulted in sectarian violence and over a million dead). In the 1950s, China took over Tibet and asserted that Tibet was part of China and hence extended to the borders of what was formerly Tibet. Unfortunately, for India, the borders of Tibet, by then claimed to be China, were demarcated by the McMahon Line. China had another understanding of the border. Thus a border conflict between China and India was born.

Initially, newly independent India had sought a cordial relationship with the newly constituted government of China, in the hope that both would share mutual interests in being non-aligned countries. The countries in fact signed an agreement which memorialized Nehru's foreign policy of nonalignment. The central principles of the policy are what we have often seen referred to in the press as "Panchsheel."  

India's foreign policy, defined by Nehru as nonaligned, was based on "Five Principles" (Panch Shila): 'mutual respect' for other nations' 'territorial integrity and sovereignty'; nonaggression; noninterference in 'internal affairs'; equality and mutual benefit; and 'peaceful coexistence.' These principles were, ironically, articulated in a treaty with China over Tibet in 1954, when Nehru still hoped for Sino-Indian 'brotherhood' and leadership of a 'Third World" of nonviolent nations, recently independent of colonial rule, eager to save the world from Cold War superpower confrontation and nuclear annihilation. China and India, however, had not resolved a dispute over . . . the section known as the McMahon Line, which stretched from Bhutan to Burma (Myanmar) and followed the crest of the high Himalayas. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

(Note that the Panchsheel doctrine is an oft-repeated term used by both India and China in speaking about how the countries would relate to the Karmapa's request for asylum.)

The McMahon Line continued to create a point of dispute between India and China throughout the '50s and into the 60s. Across the border in India were the states now known as Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. India asserted its territorial rights to the entire territory on its side of the McMahon line. China ignored India's claims, and went as far as to build roads from Tibet through what India considered its sovereign territory. In the late 1950s, India's troops were stationed on the border to enforce its territorial claims. In 1959, the Dalai Lama escaped to India, apparently across the McMahaon line, thus exacerbating the tension in China's eyes.

In 1962, while the United States was occupied with the Cuban Missle Crisis, war broke out in the disputed border area and Chinese troops killed or captured 7000 Indian troops. After the Cuban crisis was resolved unexpectedly quickly, however, both the United States and Britain provided India with military support against China. Possibly as a result, China eventually withdrew from the territory it occupied. That border dispute was not settled. and the war has colored foreign relations between India and China ever since.

In fact, the best explanation we have seen of the dispute between China and India over Sikkim involves the McMahon line. "Beijing has not made any claim to Sikkim; all that it has done is not to recognise India's takeover of that state since it involves recognition of the present Sikkim-China border which is part of the 'McMahon line' which Beijing has never accepted as constituting the boundary between India and China." The People's Review (Nepal). India and the Tibetan government in exile thus stand together in asserting the integrity of the McMahon line.

This tension persisted for decades, but in the last few years, relations between the China and India have been thawing. They took a nosedive again, however, when in 1998 India engaged in nuclear testing in the Indian subcontinent. This action, and remarks made by the Indian government, enraged China. The New York Times reported at the time that

[Indian Prime Minister] Vajpayee angered China by citing Beijing's growing arsenal of nuclear weapons, the unresolved border disputes between the two countries and China's history of transferring crucial nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan as the principal reasons why India decided to conduct the nuclear tests. The Indian officials' remarks prompted political opposition leaders to charge that Vajpayee was jeopardizing years of painstaking negotiations with China that had begun to show dividends in recent years, with growing cross-border trade, and moves toward troop pullbacks in disputed areas.

The 14 year-old Karmapa has arrived in India amidst this mix, and given his prominence has understandably become the straw figure for any number of interest groups to use to promote their agenda. Perhaps this is part of being a bodhisattva.

For the The Times of India, India's lukewarm reception of the Karmapa is a "signal" to Beijing of India's decision to refrain from joining a United States-European Union led alliance against India if China agrees to withdraw its support for Pakistan:

Unlike conventional wisdom, which implicitly identifies India's security interests with those of the US-EU, a stronger Chinese posture vis-a-vis NATO is likely to result in a greater effort at accommodation with India. Beijing is wary of India joining a future "Containment Alliance" that embraces Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Hanoi and Jakarta, and has therefore been paying attention recently towards improving its ties with New Delhi. An example has been the visit of a delegation from the China Association for International Friendly Contact, led by its Deputy Secretary-General, Chen Zuming. After the unenthusiastic Indian response to the arrival of the (Chinese) Karmapa, signals from Beijing indicate a slow moving-away from Pakistan-centred containment of India towards strategic cooperation. Should the NPC avoid anti-India resolutions (for example on the nuclear question) and instead focus on closer India-China ties, that could be a sign that the ghosts of 1959 and 1962 are finally dissipating in Beijing.

For the editors of The Hindu, India's treatment of the Karmapa is sign of diplomatic "sensitivity" to Beijing's concerns, which should encourage Beijing to minimize its opposition to India's attempts to join the nuclear club:

On a number of other vital areas, both countries have been showing accommodation and understanding. India has consistently stood by China to thwart repeated attempts by the U.S. to get the international community to criticise Beijing's human rights record, attempts that India agrees amount to interference in internal affairs. In the most recent incident, over the highly sensitive issue of the flight of the 17th Karmapa Lama from Tibet, India has demonstrated commendable sensitivity to Beijing's concerns and must deem itself to have passed the diplomatic test. It is yet one more proof of the maturity that has come to attend the bilateral equation. There is no reason why the two neighbours cannot find ways to address their differences and divergences over the issue of nuclear non-proliferation. To ensure the success of the effort to redress the imbalances of the unipolar world in which both countries have been victims and build an equitable global order, India and China must strive hard to remove all irritants in their bilateral relationship.

All these viewpoints have some validity. It is undeniable that China is extremely sensitive on certain issues in a way disproportionate to their real importance. As the editorial in the Wall Street Journal (Asia Edition), put it: "The fact is Chinese authorities consider Tibet and by extension the Karmapa Lama a 'Chinese concern.' In such matters Beijing will risk its international reputation." So avoidance of embarrassment to China during delicate diplomatic negotiations is understandable.

However, there is no reason to believe that India is willing to "risk its international reputation" by denying the Karmapa his rights to live in a free society. Moreover, India has no self-interest in doing so. India's relationship to the Karmapa, an applicant for asylum who freely chose to enter the country, is a purely internal affair of India's. Accordingly, the principles of Panchsheel dictate that China stay out of India's handling of the Karmapa application.

As the editorial in The HIndu points out, both China and India agree that such internal affairs are no other country's business. To link this internal matter of India's domestic affairs to China's foreign policy would be to ask for a linkage that many Western countries would be more than happy to then turn around on China. So we would think that such a link is also not in Beijing's interest.

It would seem to us, fundamentally, that China and India will reach accommodation on military, strategic, and foreign policy issues if each has substantial and real interests in those areas that coincide with each other. As The Times of India points out, there is a good reason to believe India can provide some strategic value to China, and China is wise to take that into consideration in moderating China's policy toward India's nuclear program.

As observers from the shores of another country, we cannot be very informed about India's interests, but from here it seems that India's domestic interests in the Karmapa and China's domestic interests in His Holiness can never form a basis for mutual interests. India and China are diametrically opposed in the way they handle domestic policy. China is an officially athiest country which demands communal obligations from its citizens. India by contrast recognizes and nurtures innumerable religions, and provides extensive civil and political freedoms to its citizens as a matter of ancient Indian right.

If India and China harbor any hopes of building cordial relations, both countries must acknowledge and let go of intereference with these domestic differences, while at the same time proceeding to see if other areas of interest overlap. We accept India's desire to continue its "sensitive" handling of the Karmapa's application for asylum. In the end, though, it is inevitable that India will determine that it is in the best interest of both India and China that the Karmapa be granted asylum, the right to freely study and practice his Buddhist religion, and the right to minister directly to his world-wide flock.

Perhaps if India can establish a working relationship with China, India's leadership can show China's leadership a way to provide such liberty that will be in the best interest of China as well. In this case, the Karmapa will one day have the liberty to return to minister to his flock in Tibet. The Times of India and The Hindu articles are available on line at the newspaper's websites.  Other links are in the body of the text above, and in the sidebar.

February 28-March 3

Click here to go to the news archive containing references to articles on His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa dated February 28-March 3, 2000