09/24/2020: The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier with author Benno Weiner

The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier is among the first in-depth studies of an ethnic minority region during the first decade of the People’s Republic of China: the Amdo region in the Sino-Tibetan borderland. Dr. Weiner demonstrates that the Communist Party’s goal in 1950s Amdo was not just state-building, but also nation-building. Such an objective required the construction of narratives and policies capable of convincing Tibetans of their membership in a wider political community. Rather than immediately implementing socialist reforms in the ethnocultural frontier region of Amdo after its “liberation” in 1949, the CCP pursued relatively moderate United Front policies meant to “gradually” persuade Tibetans and Amdo’s other non-Han inhabitants of their membership into the new Chinese nation. At the outset of 1958’s Great Leap Forward, however, United Front gradualism was jettisoned in favor of rapid collectivization. This led to large-scale rebellion, overwhelming state repression, and widespread famine; there was no “voluntary” and “organic” transformation for Amdo. Instead, the region was incorporated through the widespread and often indiscriminate deployment of state violence.

In this talk followed by an extended audience Q&A with Dr. Roberts, Dr. Weiner discusses 1958’s Amdo Rebellion and explores the ways in which the violence of 1958 and its aftermath continues to hamper the state’s efforts to integrate Tibetans into the modern Chinese nation-state.