The streets of Chabcha County in western Qinghai Province, China, were quiet yesterday as Tibetan monks marked the Dalai Lama’s birthday in their homes, wary that any public celebration could endanger a tentative softening by Chinese authorities.
Tibetans in China have always had to steer clear of public ceremonies revering their 78-year-old exiled spiritual leader who Beijing has denounced as a “wolf in monk’s robes.”
However, in the run-up to this year’s anniversary, authorities in Qinghai had discussed proposals to ease restrictions including allowing Tibetans to openly display photographs of the Dalai Lama, the International Campaign for Tibet said.
Photo: EPA
However, there was no sign of any celebration yesterday with many ordinary Tibetans not even aware it was his birthday.
At the Kumbum monastery close to Qinghai’s capital, Xining, monks prayed in a room next to another that was built as a shrine to the Dalai Lama, whose photograph was displayed.
“We’ll celebrate his birthday at our homes privately, but we’ll never do it in the open,” said Khedroob, 40, a monk at the Kumbum monastery. “But we don’t have to wait for a special day to celebrate, we celebrate him everyday.”
Khedroob said he had received a text message on his mobile telephone that authorities in Qinghai have discussed allowing Tibetans to display images of the Dalai Lama, but added that he did not know whether to believe it.
Officials had also discussed the possibility of ending the practice of forcing Tibetans to denounce the Dalai Lama and to reduce the police presence at monasteries, the International Campaign for Tibet said last week.
The report triggered speculation that the authorities are contemplating looser religious restrictions in the Tibetan regions of China.
The speculation has been fueled in part by an essay written by an academic from the Central Party School, who said that China could take some steps toward resuming talks with the Dalai Lama’s representatives, which broke down in 2010. That essay has given hope to observers looking for signs of change from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who took office in March.
China’s State Administration of Religious Affairs denied that the government is changing its policy toward the Dalai Lama. In a faxed reply to Reuters, the agency said the Dalai Lama has to give up his stance on independence for Tibet.
Beijing considers the Dalai Lama, who fled China in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule, a violent separatist. The Dalai Lama, who is based in India, says he is merely seeking greater autonomy for his Himalayan homeland.
Still, the timing of these possible policy shifts suggests that the Chinese Communist Party hopes to defuse tensions that have mounted since 2008, after riots that broke out in the Tibet Autonomous Region and the Tibetan parts of China led to a government crackdown.
If China was to allow grassroots worship of the Dalai Lama in Qinghai and neighboring Sichuan, it would mark a reversion to the norm before 2008, said Robbie Barnett, director of modern Tibet studies at Columbia University.
It is unclear whether these adjustments were mandated by Beijing, but there are signs that the new leadership is becoming more pragmatic when it comes to policy on Tibet, Barnett said.
“Under [former Chinese president] Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), the pragmatists kept quiet or convinced themselves to accept the Hu Jintao hardliner approach,” Barnett said. “Now they are shifting and indicating that was a failure.”
“But whether they can overcome internal resistance to change, and how far any change could go, that is the big question,” he added.
Tibetans were unsure if things had changed. A monk in the Ganzi monastery in Sichuan said by telephone that he had received a text message in Chinese that Tibetans were allowed to display photographs of the Dalai Lama.
“We are still too afraid to do so even though we have received these messages,” he said. “We can’t confirm whether it is true, since we haven’t been informed by the government.”
Elliot Sperling, a professor of Sino-Tibetan relations from Indiana University, said the Chinese government is taking a “utilitarian” position in attempting to engage with the Dalai Lama as it contemplates the thorny issue of his succession.
“None of this reflects a desire on the part of the government to change policy because it runs counter to human rights norms or because it is unjust,” he said.
Many Tibetans fear that Beijing will simply appoint its own replacement to the Dalai Lama — a scenario that will almost certainly cause violent protests in Tibet.
The Dalai Lama has suggested that his incarnation might be found outside of Chinese-controlled territory, and has said that the succession process could break with tradition — either by being hand-picked by him or through democratic elections.
Ultimately, it does not matter whether Tibetans are allowed to display photos of the Dalai Lama, Pema Rinchen, the abbot of Guangfa monastery in Sichuan Province, said by telephone.
“Because in our hearts, we worship him, and that’s enough,” he said.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
CYBERCRIME, TRAFFICKING: A ‘pattern of state failures’ allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, it said Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday accused Cambodia’s government of “deliberately ignoring” abuses by cybercrime gangs that have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds. The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centers and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including in the Southeast Asian nation’s capital, Phnom Penh. The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
RSS