The other important element of China's Tibet policy revealed by this study is Beijing's total lack of interest in negotiating with Dharamsala. China's gesture of going through the motion of willing to re-start negotiations with Dharamsala is a tactic employed to gain time. This is made absolutely clear in a document brought out of China and quoted in one of the exile Tibetan language newspapers. According to the highly classified document, a leading Chinese official said, "We have no need to engage in dialogues with the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama's return to China will bring a great risk of instability. We will then not be able to control Tibet. The Dalai Lama is now fairly old. At the most, it will be 10 years before he dies. When he dies, the issue of Tibet is resolved forever. We, therefore, have to use skilful means to prevent his return."(1)

A part of the official Chinese paranoia of His Holiness Dalai Lama is his widening appeal to an increasing cross-section of people in China. This is made clear from the reaction of the Chinese leadership to His Holiness the Dalai Lama's expressed wish to make a pilgrimage to Wutai Shan, an important Buddhist pilgrim spot, believed to be the abode of Manjushri, the Buddha of Wisdom. His Holiness the Dalai Lama repeated this wish when he visited Taiwan in 1997. Internally, the Chinese leadership rejected the request on the ground that the Tibetan leader's presence, even during a single visit, in China would make Tibetans and the Mongolians go crazy. He might even become a rallying-point for the human rights activists, followers of other religions and those simply disaffected. The leadership reasoned that it would prove extremely difficult to manage the excitement and turmoil generated by such a visit, which might spin out of control, with devastating political consequences.

This is one reason why the Chinese leadership has opted out of dealing with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The decision to both out-wait His Holiness the Dalai Lama and sideline him in China's on-going efforts to solve its Tibet problem is wrong and is clearly based on fear and paranoia rather than on any hard-nose examination of ground reality or the psychology of the Tibetan people. Till now His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been a moderating influence on the more radical elements of the Tibet movement. By ignoring him, the Chinese leaders are set on a head-long collision course with an angrier form of Tibetan nationalism. In this connection, Melvyn C. Goldstein wrote, "The crux of the matter is that Tibetans are unlikely to sit by for much longer watching Beijing transform their homeland with impunity. Nationalistic sentiment combined with desperation and anger make a powerful brew, and there are Tibetans, inside and outside Tibet, who favour a campaign of focused violence.(2)

"Such a strategy would not seek to drive China out of Tibet but rather pressure Beijing to adopt a more conciliatory line. If such a strategy was successful, it could help destabilize China, but even if only partially successful, it could curtail tourism, impede the growth of overseas investment, threaten the security of all non-Tibetans and heighten international awareness of the seriousness of the problem. It would, in essence, seek to demonstrate to China the futility of the hard-line policy by showing that ethnic sensibilities of Tibetans cannot be discounted."(3)

Apart from the unpredictability of the course of Tibetan nationalism without the moderating influence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Beijing's policy to conjure up the Tibetan leader as the enemy of the Chinese people to deflect the anger of China's resurgent nationalism away from the Beijing regime will prove costly and counter-productive. While Beijing wants the Chinese people to wallow in a one-party state, in the cyberspace the Chinese people are enjoying a measure of democracy and plurality of ideas and inspirations. Despite Beijing's efforts to paint the Tibetan leader in a bad light or to curtail the Chinese people's access to information technology, the Internet will increasingly undermine Beijing's hold on people and how or what they think.

By making him into an enemy, Beijing is denying itself both domestic and international goodwill, which is vital for China's continued stability and prosperity.

Lastly, Beijing's assumption that the mortality of the Tibetan leader puts time on its side and so it can filibuster on Tibet negotiations is a huge mistake. By assuming this and reducing the issue of Tibet to just the person of the Dalai Lama, Beijing is making a costly mistake of ignoring or choosing to ignore the common aspirations of a whole people and the strength of their beliefs, which, without the Dalai Lama's presence, will burst with dangerous consequences for China and Tibet.

For these reasons and in whatever way Beijing looks, "The Dalai Lama will be central to any compromise."(4) In order to do this, Jiang Zemin and his colleagues would need to act the statesmen rather than politicians desperately holding together an amorphous coalition. By re-starting serious negotiations with His Holiness the Dalai Lama which will lead to a mutually acceptable solution to the issue of Tibet, Jiang Zemin and his colleagues would help preserve Tibet's true personality within a confident, stable and prosperous China. This would rebound hugely in terms of international goodwill as people from Taiwan to Xinjiang look with new eyes to Beijing.

NOTES:

1. Published in Tibet Times, August 31, 1999, an independent Tibetan-language newspaper published from Dharamsala.
2. The Dalai Lama's Dilemma by Melvyn C. Goldstein, an article published by Foreign Affairs, January-February 1998, New York.
3. ibid
4. ibid

"If China want Tibet to remain with China, then it must create the necessary conditions for this. The time has come for the Chinese to show the way for Tibet and China to live together in friendship... If we Tibetans obtain our basic rights to our satisfaction, then we are not incapable of seeing the possible advantage of living with the Chinese."

His Holiness the Dalai Lama's memorandum to Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, September 1, 1992

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Last updated: 19-September-2000