Dalai Lama Shifts Stand on Tibet Independence

The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, Wednesday unveiled a conciliatory new proposal for the future of Tibet, suggesting that Tibetans would be willing to give up calls for complete independence from China in exchange for the right to have their own constitution and democratically elected government.

The detailed plan, distributed by the Dalai Lama’s representatives in Europe and the United States, says that the Chinese government could remain responsible for Tibet’s foreign policy. Although it calls for eventual demilitarization of Tibet, the plan also concedes that China might keep some troops in Tibet until then for defensive purposes.

Tibet “should become a self-governing, democratic political entity . . . in association with the People’s Republic of China,” said the Dalai Lama. In the past, the Dalai Lama had avoided spelling out what he thought the relationship should be between China and Tibet, the huge Himalayan region that he once ruled and that was occupied by Chinese troops in 1950.

Significant Shift Seen

Analysts said the plan represents a significant shift in position by the Dalai Lama, one that could lead to negotiations with China to resolve the most chronic and troublesome of its problems with minority nationalities. The Dalai Lama said that any negotiated proposal should be submitted to a referendum in Tibet.

“It sounds like he (the Dalai Lama) has modified his approach,” said one U.S. official. “There are some new elements here. Last fall, the Dalai Lama would not come out against the idea of independence for Tibet.”

Any resolution of the controversy over Tibet would remove what has become an increasing source of tension between China and the United States. The Chinese government complained bitterly last fall when Congress passed a resolution criticizing China for human rights violations in Tibet.

China views Tibet as strategically important territory. The Chinese troops stationed in Tibet hold a high-ground position in the center of Asia, helping to protect China from India and the Soviet Union.

Fled to India in 1959

The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of 6 million Tibetan Buddhists, fled from Lhasa to India in 1959 during an abortive Tibetan revolt against Chinese rule. In the late 1960s, during the first years of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, rampaging Chinese Red Guards destroyed most of Tibet’s sacred temples and monasteries. Some sites have now been restored or rebuilt.

Two months ago, after an outbreak of new unrest in Tibet, China announced for the first time that the Dalai Lama might be allowed to return home and live in Tibet if he would give up calls for Tibetan independence. Until that time, China had said that the Dalai Lama could return to China only if he were willing to live in Beijing, thousands of miles away from his homeland.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said Wednesday that China had no immediate response to the Dalai Lama’s plan. In the past, China has stressed repeatedly that it considers Tibet to be an inseparable part of China and has denounced the Dalai Lama whenever it thought he was suggesting that Tibet is an independent state.

Last March, during a trip to Washington, Chinese Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian branded the Dalai Lama as “an exile who attacks and smears the People’s Republic of China.”

Tibetan-Inhabited Areas

Some aspects of the Dalai Lama’s plan clearly will be unacceptable to China. He called for a new democratic government for “the whole of Tibet”--which includes not only the current Chinese region of Tibet but also areas inhabited by Tibetans in what are now the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan.

The Dalai Lama also issued what appeared to be a warning that the recent unrest in Tibet could worsen. “I will continue to counsel for nonviolence, but unless China forsakes the brutal methods it employs, Tibetans cannot be responsible for a further deterioration in the situation,” he said.

“The Chinese leadership needs to realize that colonial rule over occupied territories is today anachronistic,” he added. “A genuine union or association can only come about voluntarily, when there is satisfactory benefit to all the parties concerned.”

Riots in Lhasa

Last October, Chinese police opened fire on rioting Tibetans in Lhasa, killing at least six people. Several more Tibetans were killed in another riot in March. Since that time, Western analysts have reported several more anti-Chinese demonstrations in Lhasa by Tibetan monks and nuns.

Some leading Tibetan exile officials indicated Wednesday that despite the Dalai Lama’s statement, they have not given up on the idea of separation from China.

“I don’t think independence has been conceded,” said Tenzin N. Thetong, the Dalai Lama’s representative in the United States. He said that the importance of the Dalai Lama’s statement is that “this is the first time he’s made such detailed proposals” about Tibet’s future.

The Dalai Lama’s plan was contained in the text of a speech he planned to deliver to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. The speech itself was canceled because Parliament officials said they feared his appearance would offend China. But the Dalai Lama spoke to journalists and Parliament members in a conference room in Strasbourg, and printed copies of the proposal were distributed both in Europe and in the United States.