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CHINA REJECTS DALAI LAMA'S CONCILIATORY STATEMENT In his annual March 10 statement in Dharamsala the Dalai Lama repeated his position that he did not seek Tibetan independence from China. He said that he sought only autonomy for Tibet within China. Nevertheless, China immediately rejected the Dalai Lama's overture, demanding again that he should truly abandon Tibetan independence and cease all separatist activities. China's Foreign Ministry accused him of persisting in the wrong standpoint, disregarding Tibet's social progress and achievements in human rights, and attacking China's policies in Tibet. In another statement to a foreign journalist, the Dalai Lama expanded upon his position. The Dalai Lama was reported to have said, "This is the message I wish to deliver to China. I am not in favor of separation. Tibet is a part of the People's Republic of China. It is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China." Also in a March 10 statement the Kashag of the Tibetan Government in exile reiterated that the Dalai Lama's Middle Way was the firm policy of the Tibetan Government. It said that what the Tibetan people needed was to have genuine autonomy within the PRC. The Kashag said that it would continue to promote an atmosphere conducive to negotiations between China and the Dalai Lama. The Kashag asked all Tibetans and their supporters to contribute to the creation of such an atmosphere conducive to negotiations. A Tibetan Government in exile spokesperson said that he could not understand why China kept demanding that the Dalai Lama should give up Tibetan independence when he had clearly done so. The spokesperson, Thupten Samphel, also said that he had no idea what the Chinese meant about the Dalai Lama's supposed separatist activities. The history of China's policy on Tibet reveals what the Chinese mean when they accuse the Dalai Lama of separatist activities. China has consistently rejected any negotiations on the political status of Tibet, even including the conditions of Tibetan autonomy. In the first series of negotiations in the early 1980s China refused to discuss any issue but the Dalai Lama's unconditional return to China. At that time China hoped that the Dalai Lama's return would provide the final legitimization of Chinese rule over Tibet. Since then, China has apparently decided that it can rule Tibet better without the Dalai Lama than with him. Tibetans in exile have continually attempted to revive negotiations based upon a statement attributed to Deng Xiaoping at the time that any issue except independence could be discussed. However, as China's policy on negotiations at that time as well as since has demonstrated, what Deng meant was that no issue about Tibet's political status could be discussed. Since Tibet's claim to independence is the source of the issue of Tibet's political status, China cannot admit any such issue. When China says that it will discuss any issue except independence this does not mean that it will discuss any issue of Tibet's status up to but not including independence. What this means is that it will not discuss any issue of Tibet's political status at all. China will not even discuss the nature or territorial extent of Tibetan autonomy since this would be equivalent to an admission that Tibet had or should have some status within China less than as an integral part of China. Not only the "idea of Tibetan independence," as China says, but Tibet's claim to autonomy as well, is based upon the history of a Tibet as a political entity separate from China. China insists that Tibet already has as much autonomy as any other of China's minority nationalities and will not have any more. To grant Tibet a special autonomous status would be to acknowledge Tibet's separate historical status. This is what Deng Xiaoping meant in 1979 and it is what China means today when it says that the Dalai Lama has not really given up independence. What China means is that the Dalai Lama should deny that Tibet was ever independent of China or that Tibet deserves any special status within China because it was once independent. China insists that the Dalai Lama should not accuse China of any abuses of Tibetan human rights, including killing them for resisting Chinese rule. The Dalai Lama should not accuse China of destroying Tibetan culture. Instead, as the current Chinese Foreign Ministry statement demands, he should praise China for liberating Tibetans and for improving their human rights and economic conditions. The Dalai Lama should stop his accusations against China in his international travels and he should stop all meetings with foreign leaders. The Dalai Lama should abolish the Tibetan Government in exile since the very existence of that government means that the Dalai Lama does not accept the legitimacy of the Chinese government in Tibet. The Tibetan Government in exile's spokesperson, Thupten Samphel, does not understand why the Chinese say that the Dalai Lama has not abandoned independence He does not understand what are the Dalai Lama's separatist activities. However, Thupten Samphel's own position in the Tibetan Government in exile is a manifestation of what the Chinese mean by the Dalai Lama not giving up independence. Thupten Samphel's very position in a Tibetan exile government is to the Chinese a separatist activity. Every official and every department and every function of the Tibetan Government in exile is a separatist activity according to the Chinese. Only by abandoning the Government in exile and all his international activities can the Dalai Lama satisfy China's demand that he give up independence and separatism. Therefore, it is unlikely that the Dalai Lama can satisfy China's conditions short of unconditional surrender to China's demands. Therefore, it is probably futile for the Kashag to hope that it can create an atmosphere conducive to negotiations with China while the Kashag itself continues to exist. The Dalai Lama's and the Kashag's hope that appeasement of China will produce negotiations with China or any concessions by China on Tibet's status is also very likely futile. 03/26/05