Journey to the Lost Horizon

For the moment at least, China's leaders are holding steady to the foreign-policy course laid down by Mao Tse-tung. One sign is their decision to continue the long-planned, 23-day China tour by former U.S. Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, in Chinese eyes a symbol of American toughness toward the Soviet Union. Last week, midway through his 7,250-mile itinerary, the ex-Secretary traveled to distant provinces along China's northern and western frontiers, including Tibet, which no American is known to have visited in 26 years. TIME Diplomatic Editor Jerrold L. Schecter, one of three U.S. journalists on tour with Schlesinger, filed this account of the journey:

Seen from 27,000 feet, through the windows of the British-made Trident jet that the Chinese provided for the trip, the majesty and mystery of the Himalayas extend into snowcapped infinity. We glided over the headwaters of the great Mekong and Salween rivers, then followed the Tsangpo River, which is the source for the Brahmaputra in India. Near the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, the mountains rise brown, harsh and uninhabited from a narrow valley that grudgingly spreads to a width of a mile at the airfield where we touched down.

Lhasa, "Place of the Gods," is two hours distant by car. The dirt approach road skirts willows and irrigated fields plowed by peasants steering teams of black yaks. The closer we came to Lhasa, the more Chinese faces we saw--and the more signs of the political fervor they brought with them, incongruously, to this high, remote corner of the world. A red-lettered slogan on a farmhouse wall commanded in both Chinese and Tibetan script: "Never forget class struggle is the key link."

Over Lhasa, the golden roof of the Potala Palace sparkled in the thin air. Once the living heart of Tibetan Buddhism, spiritual and temporal seat of the Dalai Lama, Potala is now a cultural relic. It remains an architectural wonder. Designed as fortress, labyrinth and spiritual sanctuary, Potala rises 13 stories high and stretches 460 yards along the dominating hillside. Across the front of the palace, in giant white letters on a black background, was a solemn epitaph: ETERNAL GLORY TO CHAIRMAN MAO TSE-TUNG, GREAT LEADER AND GREAT TEACHER.

The current Dalai Lama, 14th in the line of succession, fled the palace for India in 1959. Eight years after Chinese troops seized control of Tibet, he had attempted an uprising against the Communists that ended in bloody failure. Thousands of Tibetans were slaughtered as the Chinese consolidated their control. Even the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution reached into this mountain fastness. Now, our Tibetan guide told us, "Tibet is an inalienable part of China."

As for the Potala, he said, it is used "to teach class education, Tibetan culture and language." Visitors are shown the Dalai Lama's brocade-lined private quarters at the very top of the palace. The long corridors, which were once dimly illuminated by lamps that burned yak butter, now have electric lights. But the palace's past is still evoked by a pantheon of Buddhist deities in prayer halls, and by the rows of sutras (books of Buddhist scripture) piled on wooden shelves.

In the old days, we were told, 5% of the population owned all of Tibet's land and 70% of its livestock. Roughly 1 million Tibetans--or more than half the total population, now 1.7 million--were serfs. We were shown a block-long exhibit of primitive torture instruments, knives, whips, chains and an iron pot in which the hands of serfs were boiled. Secretary Schlesinger was also shown a picture of Broadcaster Lowell Thomas, who visited Tibet in 1949. The country's rulers consider Thomas an "American imperialist" because he sought, on behalf of the Dalai Lama, to obtain U.S. aid for Tibet against the Chinese in the late 1950s. Also on display were parachutes and U.S.-made radio transmitters, part of the equipment used in the Dalai Lama's rebellion. Explained one guide in Chinese: "The Dalai's traitorous clique couldn't bear the successful development of Tibet."

The final portion of the exhibit was "Socialist New Tibet," where "the emancipated serfs have organized to develop production." It is a hall filled with all kinds of grains, fruits and vegetables, furs and agricultural machinery, along with various exhortations for communal economic development. In a filled-in swamp below the Potala, the Chinese have built an administrative complex and guesthouse.

No New Monks. Chinese control seems complete, with a full administrative cadre on two-year tours and People's Liberation Army troops much in evidence. Tibet has 25% of China's area, but accounts for less than 1% of China's total population (about 850 million). Less than a dozen of Tibet's 5,000 former monasteries are functioning, and no new monks are being recruited. Buddhism is no longer practiced in Tibet.

In the white-walled old quarter of the capital, Tibetans still rise at dawn to sweep and water the dirt streets, harnessing donkeys while children troop to Chinese-run schools. Old ladies stick out their tongues at foreigners in the traditional greeting of respect. Elsewhere, the new China is being built. Traditional Tibet has become a dying wonder of the world.

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