Articles By Claude Arpi
Doklam Redux?
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 24 Nov , 2018
The 40th anniversary of “China’s reform and opening up” is being celebrated across China in 2018; the Chinese propaganda affirms: “Over the past 40 years, the country has transformed itself from...
Patel-Nehru rift over Tibet & China was deep
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 21 Nov , 2018
On October 31, the world’s tallest statue, the Statue of Unity dedicated to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The work on the 182-metre tall statue has been...
The Chinese dichotomy
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 14 Nov , 2018
China is a country full of dichotomies. Take Buddhism. On one side, China promotes Buddhism; on the other hand, Beijing severely represses the Buddha dharma. On October 28, the World Buddhist...
How old CIA reports reveal that China has been repressing Muslims since the...
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 12 Nov , 2018
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently released a 117-page report entitled “Eradicating Ideological Viruses – China’s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims;” it gave fresh...
The Party carries the people in its heart …when they are away from the border
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 01 Nov , 2018
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) policy on the Indian borders is two-fold: one, to build ‘model’ villages (the villagers are said the ‘Guardians of the sacred land and the builders of...
Landslide in Tibet: Both India and China have reasons to worry about
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 30 Oct , 2018
Some recent happenings on the Tibetan plateau have serious implications for India; in particular the devastating landslide on the Yarlung Tsangpo, a river which becomes the Siang in Arunachal...
New Problems of Internal Security Caused by the Chinese Occupation of Tibet
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 28 Oct , 2018
In a few days, the world’s tallest statue, the Statue of Unity dedicated to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel will be unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The work of 182-meter tall statue has been...
Back to the future in China?
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 26 Oct , 2018
On September 13, 1971, a Chinese Trident 1E airliner crashed in Inner Mongolia; everyone on board was killed. The special flight carried Marshal Lin Biao, China’s Defence Minister and...
Chairman Xi’s New Mega Project and China's Internal Politics
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 24 Oct , 2018
More on the environmental havoc in Tibet Three days after posting the story below on the landslide on the Upper Yangtze, VTIBET.com reported a “Barrier lake forms following landslide in...
Why China cannot be considered a Dependable Global Power
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 22 Oct , 2018
We are perhaps at a turning point in China’s relations with the rest of the world. During recent weeks, a series of events has showed that the “peaceful rise of China” may not be that...
Why suppress right to historical knowledge?
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 19 Oct , 2018
One of the biggest failures of the present Government has been its ignorance of the importance of post-Independence history. Four years after it was elected to bring about some transparency,...
India and the Dalai Lama's Successor
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 12 Oct , 2018
Recently, an article titled The Dalai Lama has chosen his successor appeared on an Indian Web site. Tibet watchers did not take the content seriously because the same author had earlier announced...
Only a miracle can save Tibet from the clutches of the Chinese Communist...
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 05 Oct , 2018
A very special document, never published before: the Report for the months of March, April and May 1959 sent by the Indian Consul General in Lhasa (Maj SL Chibber) to the Ministry of External...
Rafale row: How India's pain is now China and Pakistan's gain?
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 30 Sep , 2018
A lot of ink has recently flowed over the Rafale (‘gust of wind’ in French) planes, but to understand the issue, it is necessary to go back a few years. In February 2013, during the biannual...
A life completely devoted to Ladakh
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 27 Sep , 2018
The mountainous ‘Land of the Passes’, as Ladakh is known, is celebrating the centenary of one of most illustrious sons, the 19th Kushok Bakula Rinpoche. Born on May 27, 1918, at the Royal...
Emperor Xi’s ‘Voice’ war expands, don’t ignore it
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 25 Sep , 2018
Summers are hot in Beijing; this explains why every year, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) takes the direction of the beach resort of Beidaihe, north of the Chinese capital. The...
After Doklam, how China is opening a new front on the Himalayan border:...
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 23 Sep , 2018
In recent months, the Sino-Indian relations have seemingly witnessed a thaw, especially after the visit of General Wei Fenghe, the Chinese defence minister, to Delhi and a few days earlier, the...
The new panacea for the Middle Kingdom’s problems?
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 20 Sep , 2018
Railways have recently been in the news in the Chinese press, particularly new railway lines on the Tibetan plateau and its periphery. Yesterday, an article dealt at great length about the...
The Rafale Deal and after
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Courtesy: Uday India | Date: 15 Sep , 2018
The Rafale deal was again in the news recently. The periodicity is often (in fact always) linked to the political situation in the country. This time, the hue and cry was synchronized with the...
Exposing a repressive campaign in Xinjiang
By: Claude Arpi | Date: 14 Sep , 2018
Chinese brutality towards the Uighur Muslim minority is not new but what is surprising is that nobody dares to question Beijing. Why these double standards? Last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW)...