Shift on Tibet Seen--but for Better or for Worse?

For Tibet, the rugged mountainous territory that has borne China’s political yoke for nearly half a century, the death of Chinese senior leader Deng Xiaoping produced a surge of optimism, albeit tinged with some apprehension.

Tibetan exiles in the United States, India and elsewhere say that Deng was the principal author of China’s repression of Tibet. As long as he lived, these exiles say, change was unlikely.

Now, they believe, change is possible, although they admit that they do not yet know if things will get better or worse.

In the short term, the prospects for improvement are not bright.

As Jiang Zemin, the Chinese president and Communist Party general secretary, and his allies try to consolidate their hold on power, they may decide that a crackdown in Tibet would do them more good than a relaxation of Beijing’s control.

But exiles say that, in a few years, Chinese leaders may decide that it is too difficult and expensive to maintain the central government’s grip on Tibet.

Already, Chinese intellectuals have begun to say that Beijing could give Tibetans the high degree of autonomy they are seeking without losing anything that is important to the regime.

“In recent months there has been increased repression in Tibet,” said Bhu-Chung Tsering, an official of International Campaign for Tibet in Washington. “Our analysis was that this was part of the power struggle in China. Tibet was a sacrificial goat in that process. That is likely to continue for some time.”

Tsering said Tibetan nationalists do not expect much from Jiang, “but maybe a second line of leadership will emerge which may be more in tune with the situation. They might come away with a different sort of attitude.”

He said Chinese public opinion seems to be shifting toward supporting greater freedom for Tibet.

In China’s autocratic political system, the views of the public are less significant than in a democracy. But if ordinary Chinese support Tibetan autonomy, the government probably would find it easier to ease its grip.

None of the current Chinese leaders is as closely tied to China’s Tibet policy as was Deng, who died Wednesday at 92.

As a commander in Mao Tse-tung’s victorious Communist army, Deng led Chinese military forces into Tibet in 1949, eventually imposing Beijing’s rule on the territory by 1951.

He was also a leader of the Chinese forces that crushed a Tibetan uprising in 1959 and drove the Dalai Lama into exile in India. He had been closely identified with Chinese policy on the region ever since.

“Any admission of China’s failures in Tibet would have amounted to a personal loss of face and reputation for Deng,” Tibet’s India-based government-in-exile said in a statement. “Deng’s much-heralded economic reforms have benefited China. But in the case of Tibet, the reforms have been used as an impetus for the transfer of Chinese population [to Tibet] which is now threatening to reduce Tibetans into an insignificant minority in their own country.”

The Dalai Lama, considered the god-king of Tibet, said he is ready to negotiate the future of the territory with Chinese authorities “any time and anywhere without preconditions.”

“I very much regret that serious negotiations on the issue of Tibet could not take place during Mr. Deng’s lifetime,” the Dalai Lama said. “The absence of Mr. Deng provides new opportunities and challenges for both the Tibetans and the Chinese.

“I hope the Chinese leadership will realize the wisdom of resolving the issue of Tibet through negotiations in a spirit of reconciliation and compromise,” he said.

The Clinton administration has made it clear that it will press Beijing to ease its grip on Tibet.

The U.S. government does not challenge China’s assertion that Tibet is part of China, but Washington regularly urges Beijing to keep promises that it made in the early 1950s to respect the autonomy of the people and culture of Tibet.

At the same time, the administration has rejected the demand from some Republicans on Capitol Hill to recognize the government-in-exile and appoint a diplomatic mission to the Dalai Lama.

Tsering of the International Campaign for Tibet called on President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to search out advocates of democracy in China “and give them every sort of support.”