Based on the above considerations, this thesis echoes Robert Cox’s statement: “there is no such thing as theory in itself, divorced from a standpoint in time and space…theory is always for someone and for some purposes” (Cox, 1996: 27). This very statist notion of sovereignty also collaborates with mainstream international relations studies by terminating the relevance of other forms of agency such as class, gender, ethnicity and pre-/non-modern states (Shih, 2003). Contrary to this common sense is an “organized hypocrisy” lying behind almost every eloquent, sophisticated claim (Krasner, 1999). Sovereignty appears as the bedrock of all “legitimate” claims, regardless of which state has made it, whether weak or strong. History of the Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama has been reincarnated 13 times since 1391, when the first of his incarnates was born, and normally a centuries-old method is used to find the new. Furthermore, recent scholarship has pointed to the fact that, while taken as granted and empirically concrete, “sovereignty” has always been / continued to be a constructed / constitutive “idea” which is subject to specific historical-epistemic-economic-political conditions (Bartelson, 1995). One topic occupying the central place of limelight is nonetheless “sovereignty”, a word originating only from the political history of Western Europe in the mid-17th Century, and by no means a self-evident concept for Tibet and Imperial China (and perhaps the two consecutive Chinese republics after the 20th century should be included). A lot of people look at His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, the repression of the Tibetan people and think this is an issue of religious freedom, human rights, spirituality, all of which are true, but its also a profoundly geopolitical issue on the Asia. Two opposing stances of Tibet’s standing vis-à-vis China have dominated academic and popular sources ever since. We have a guest today whos going to help us understand the geopolitics of the Tibet issue. The disputes over the status of Tibet and its relations with China have been passionately debated from legal, historical, political and even environmental grounds since its takeover by the PRC in 1951.
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