Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said on Wednesday that resuming talks with China on his homeland’s future was futile unless it adopted a “realistic” stance, adding it was useless trying to convince Beijing he was not seeking full independence.
In comments likely to enrage a Chinese leadership already angry over his trip to Britain, the Dalai Lama also said a shift toward democracy and better human rights in China was inevitable and the Chinese people “really want change.”
The 76-year-old monk was speaking in Britain, which he is touring to spread a message of non-violence and compassion, touching upon issues including European economic woes, which he said were partly caused by “greed and ignorance.”
Photo: Reuters
“The issue is [the people’s] basic right. In future, unless they start a realistic approach for the Tibetan problem inside Tibet, there’s not much to discuss,” the Dalai Lama in an interview at Britain’s houses of parliament.
Beijing has snubbed British officials, warned of “serious consequences” and, according to an unsourced report in the British media that China did not confirm, threatened to relocate its Olympic team from the Leeds in protest at the Dalai Lama’s meetings with British officials.
China considers him a separatist for his long struggle for Tibetan autonomy, and tensions over the issue are at their highest in years after a spate of protests and self-immolations by Tibetan activists, which have prompted a Chinese security crackdown.
China has ruled Tibet since 1950, when Communist troops marched in and announced its “peaceful liberation.” Beijing insists Chinese rule has brought development and prosperity and denies trampling Tibetan rights.
The Dalai Lama, who has accused China of “cultural genocide,” fled to India in 1959 following a failed uprising, and unrest has continued sporadically ever since.
Earlier this month, two of the Dalai Lama’s envoys to talks with China resigned over what they said was the deteriorating situation inside Tibet and Beijing’s lack of a positive response to Tibetan proposals for genuine autonomy.
The Dalai Lama insists he is not seeking full independence, but says there is little he can do to convince Beijing, which he said was actually only interested in imposing its will.
“We both have mantras to recite. My mantra is ‘We are not seeking independence.’ The Chinese mantra is ‘Tibet is always part of China.’ I think the real effect of both mantras is limited,” the Nobel Peace Prize winner said. “This is not a question of convincing. I think they feel it is easier just to suppress.”
The Dalai Lama hoped, however, that China may take a different approach under a new president, virtually certain to be Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平), or will be forced to do so by an increased clamor for change among its 1.35 billion people.
“I hope Mr Xi Jinping, a new leader, new blood, looks in a more open, realistic way,” the Dalai Lama said, adding that Xi should usher in political reform in the same way that former leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in the 1970s and 1980s brought in the market reforms that have made China an economic powerhouse.
“Deng Xiaoping said: ‘Seek truth from facts.’ Then he followed the capitalist road for economic reasons. Now the political system — I think the time has now come to seek truth from facts,” the Dalai Lama said.
In any case, a shift toward democracy and better human rights in China is inevitable, he said.
“China has to go along with world trends. That’s democracy, liberty, individual freedom. China sooner or later has to go that way. It cannot go backward,” the Dalai Lama said.
“Chinese people themselves, they really want change,” he said, adding that his meetings with Chinese former officials and intellectuals supported his view.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema