My Take on Prisoners of Geography and Current Politics (22/06/2020)

Original post — https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-take-prisoners-geography-current-politics-tristan-tristan-collin/

On the 16th of June Indian and Chinese troops took to hand to hand combat on the Sino-Indian border in the Himalayas. This event brought a book to the front and center of my mind, the book Prisoners of Geography (PoG) by Tim Marshall

I’m no geographer, in fact, I was history in secondary, PPE in college, and now finance and business. However, this book is one everyone should read and I’m going to attempt to win you over with a brief example.

‘All leaders are constrained by geography. Their choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas, and concrete.’ — China (I actually said that in my head as Trump does, Chi-Na) has been at the forefront of much of the world’s mind and PoG gives us some very interesting insights into the countries actions. Let’s start with the Sino-Indian border which splits two of the world’s largest populations from one another. you’d be forgiven for forgetting that these nations share a border. Because it just so happens to be the Himalayas which houses many of the Earth’s highest peaks, including Mount Everest. This range acts like an ocean between these nations, making them so close but yet so far from one another.. until they’re not, as seen on the 16th.

So carrying on with China, why is Tibet so important? Again it’s all to do with the Himalayas — if China gives up Tibet and India was to use it to its advantage, then China might be rather unhappy. Looking from West to East you have India, the Himalayas, Tibet, a flat plateau, and then the Chinese Heartland. Do you see the issue? What is really the Indian-Tibet border is disputed by China as if India controlled it they could simply send troops over the Himalayas, into Tibet, and have a straight path into China with no big mountains or geographical walls to stop them (if they wanted to). Furthermore, Tibet is also considered China’s water tower as it is the source of 3 of China’s biggest rivers. China has the same water usage as the USA but 5-times the population… again do you see the interest here? China sees this are not as a human rights issue, but a geopolitical one as if anyone other than China has control of Tibet, they affectedly have David Jones’ locker, the Chinese version.

Now I’ll be the first my admit my ignorance on most political and human rights-related issues especially regarding the crisis in Tibet and all including China but I’m interested to see if any questions or discussions are sparked!