Sat, Oct 12, 2002 page8

• Dalai Lama needs to give up slack

  • By Hsieh Jiann 謝劍
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  In September, four representatives of the Tibetan government-in-exile in India passed through Beijing and travelled on to Lhasa. Two of them met with local leaders in Tibet and recently returned to India where they briefed the Dalai Lama about their meetings with Chinese officials.

  As the world knows, the Dalai Lama had contact with Beijing as long ago as the early 1980s in the era of then Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chairman Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦). The negotiations continued, on and off, until September 1988. At that point, presumably, Beijing had determined the Dalai Lama's bottom line and felt there was no need to continue. They therefore sent notice breaking-off relations. In addition to swearing never to recognize the government-in-exile, they also insisted that earlier proposals from the Dalai Lama, presented to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, retained traces of Tibetan independence sentiment.

  That proposal was a compromise that relinquished responsibility for national defense and foreign relations to Beijing but sought the creation of a nuclear-free zone and domestic autonomy throughout Tibet. Beijing asserted that the proposal could never be the basis for negotiation. At that point, the Dalai Lama had no choice but to change course and seek international support. After the 1989 Tiananmen Incident, all contact between the two sides came to a decisive end, and later -- as the leadership circle centered around then general secretary of the CCP Jiang Zemin (江澤民), then premier Li Peng (李鵬), and Shanghai mayor of the time Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基) gradually consolidated its control -- conditions changed.

  Beijing's attitude appeared to become even loftier, and its policies more conservative. Negotiation appeared out of the question.

  From the time of the first contact in 1981 until all relations came to a halt in 1989, there was frequent contact, but what really went on behind the scenes? What was each side's bottom line? Published records reveal that, on China's part, in 1981 Hu personally presented the Dalai Lama's elder brother, Gyalo Thondup, with a five-point policy towards the Dalai Lama to be used as a basis for negotiations.

  The policy stipulated that neither side should again raise the issue of the 1959 uprising in Tibet and both sides should instead look toward the future; Beijing would sincerely welcome the return of Tibetan exiles; the Dalai Lama could return to serve as a vice chairman of the National People's Congress, but with no position in the Tibetan government The policy also stipulated that he would be free to travel to Tibet at any time;t that upon his return, he would be allowed to make a public statement to the media; Beijing officials of ministerial rank would be sent to receive him; and finally he would have to recognize that China had already entered a new era of stability and prosperity. If he were still to have doubts about China's policy of reform and glasnost, he could stand aside and quietly watch the developments of the coming few years.

  To be fair, Hu's suggestions could be considered moderate. Apart from the terms relating to the Dalai Lama serving in the National People's Congress but not in the Tibetan government, other conditions that would have been difficult for him to accept and which appear designed to have kept him on a tight rein, the conditions were not harsh.

  The Dalai Lama's demands, however, have been revealed to have included the following points: Beijing's declared policy toward Taiwan of "one country, two systems" should also be applied to Tibet; the existing Tibetan Autonomous Region should be expanded to include a "Greater Tibet;" immigration of Han Chinese into Tibet should be stopped; Han cadres in the Tibetan government should be gradually phased out of their jobs; and the legal status of the Tibetan government-in-exile should be recognized.

  Politics is ultimately about pragmatism. A bird in the hand is worth 10 in the bush. Beijing long ago publicly refused to deal with Tibet in the same manner that it deals with Taiwan. As for the "Greater Tibet" plan, this must have been a scheme to revive the glorious Turfan Kingdom of the Tang era. Beijing's justification for refusing was that the government of Tibet had no experience in governing such a large region. Moreover, the world evolves.

  The so-called "Tibetan speaking regions" that the Dalai Lama wanted to include in "Greater Tibet" -- including Qinghai and portions of Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan -- have long since included populations of Qiang (羌), Yi (彝), and a dozen other ethnic groups numbering collectively in the millions. They would not integrate easily into the Dalai Lama's scheme.

  At the time of the last contact in early 1989, the list of representatives for the Tibetan side included the Dutch advisor to the Dalai Lama and scholar of international law, Michael van Walt van Praag. Beijing angrily rejected his participation on the basis that China does not accept foreign interference in its domestic affairs. This became the flash point that led to the breakdown in negotiations.

  Subsequently, some analysts concluded that Beijing wanted to influence the Dalai Lama through contact with the government-in-exile, but the Dalai Lama first stood them up by failing to take part in an official visit to China in 1985 and then upset them with his "Greater Tibet" plan and the inclusion of van Walt van Praag's name on his list of representatives. To continue with negotiations would have been pointless.

  The Dalai Lama is approaching his seventies. The political and religious movement he leads must return to its native soil. Otherwise, it will be unable to continue. In recent years, the outside world's support for the Tibetan government-in-exile has steadily diminished. Moreover, within the Tibetan refugee community there are divergent opinions. There are rumors that some individuals have already returned to Tibet on their own. Certain techniques of interference by China, such as naming a Karmapa Lama within the Tibet region, cause different factions in the Tibetan community to curb one another's influence and caused the parties in leadership positions to exhaust themselves with factional infighting that leaves all sides feeling insecure.

  For its part, Beijing is also in a less than ideal position. If it restarts negotiations, it may succeed in silencing its critics around the world. In the period leading up to Jiang's trip to the US, a feint can be made in this direction. Beijing likes to uphold ideology, always feeling that as long as the economy is well-managed, everything else will take care of itself. In this view, religion is looked upon as "feudal superstition" and deemed unworthy of serious consideration. But although the central government has invested tens of billions of yuan and launched major infrastructure projects in the interior provinces and administrative regions, it is still hemorrhaging money. It has been unable to make Tibet self-sufficient.

  The fundamental reason for this failure is that vast resources have been committed to support a large group of people (including, of course, a small number of ethnic Tibetans) engaging in "modernization." These people float freely over the heads of the Tibetan masses, constituting a corrupt privileged class, and there is no way to bring ordinary Tibetans into the mainstream of modernization.

  Beijing needs to obtain some sort of compromise from the Dalai Lama, reduce the level of opposition it faces within Tibet by relaxing ideology, let Tibetans sense that they are taking part in reforms and actively engage them in infrastructure work. This is the only route to stable and lasting government.

  But Beijing has always looked upon ideology as its lifeblood, and behind the back of the Dalai Lama, there has always been a hidden hand manipulating policy. Although the Dalai Lama has repeatedly announced that he does not want to separate from China, how much scope really exists for a turnaround in relations? I fear that there are few grounds for optimism.

  Hsieh Jiann is a professor at Fo Guang University.

  Translated by Ethan Harkness
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