In U.S., Dalai Lama May Offer China an Olive Branch

Representatives of the Dalai Lama are pressing for a landmark accommodation with Beijing, one that might enable the exiled Tibetan leader to visit China soon and eventually open the way for Tibet to govern itself, according to U.S. and Tibetan officials.

The Dalai Lama, who is visiting the United States, is scheduled to meet President Clinton on Monday. Tibetan officials have been trying to draft a policy statement for him to unveil during his Washington visit--one that could spell out in detail how he views Tibet’s future relationship with China.

The Tibetan leader, who fled his homeland in 1959 after an unsuccessful uprising against Chinese rule, has been trying to negotiate a trip next year to the Chinese mainland, though not to Tibet itself. His supporters say he would like to visit Wutai Shan, a mountain range in China’s Shanxi province that is home to a Buddhist shrine.

“I think the Dalai Lama would like to go there to build some trust, to build a connection with whomever he meets [in the Chinese leadership], and to break down the images built up about him in the [Chinese] media,” explained John Ackerly, president of the International Campaign for Tibet. “It might break down the decades of misconception about who he is.”

Tibetan and U.S. sources cautioned that movement toward a settlement with Beijing is still at a very early stage. And there is no sign yet that China is ready to relinquish the tight political control it has exercised over Tibet for more than four decades.

The recent flurry of intensified diplomacy over Tibet was touched off by the seemingly conciliatory words of Chinese President Jiang Zemin during a June news conference with Clinton in Beijing.

Jiang avoided the usual Chinese denunciations of the Dalai Lama, suggesting that a settlement of Tibet’s future could be worked out if the Dalai Lama acknowledged that both Tibet and Taiwan are part of China.

However, more recently, other Chinese officials have reverted to a much tougher line on Tibet.

In a news conference Thursday, Yu Shuning, press spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said: “Up to now, we have seen no indication that the Dalai has stopped his splittist activities.” He suggested that ordinary Tibetans “have lost confidence” in the spiritual leader.

Still, the tone of Jiang’s remarks in June raised hopes for progress. In explaining the rationale for the Dalai Lama to make a major new policy statement in Washington next week, Ackerly said: “The Dalai Lama has wanted to respond to Jiang.”

Underlying the recent maneuvering are long-range factors that seem to be prompting the Dalai Lama and the Chinese leadership to explore the possibilities of resolving their differences.

For the 14th Dalai Lama, now 63 and still living in exile in India, a settlement might pave the way for a return home to Tibet. Even more important for the long run, it might guarantee a relatively smooth succession in the traditional way after he dies.

After the Panchen Lama, Tibet’s second most important leader, died in 1989, the Chinese regime rejected a successor chosen with the support of Dalai Lama, and instead named China’s own hand-picked candidate. That raised the prospect of years of confusion with rival candidates for various positions in Tibet.

For Beijing, a settlement with the Dalai Lama would represent another big step in efforts to gain undisputed sovereignty over the territories it claims as its own. Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese rule last year, and Portugal will relinquish Macao to China on Dec. 20, 1999.

If Tibet and these other territorial problems were resolved, China could focus more intensively on its efforts to persuade Taiwan to reunify with the Chinese mainland.

The Dalai Lama’s recent efforts to negotiate with Beijing have attracted considerable criticism from within the Tibetan exile community, especially among those who believe that no accommodation is possible between Tibet and China.

“The Dalai Lama remains a potent symbol, there’s no doubt about that,” observed Elliot Sperling, professor of Tibetan studies at Indiana University. “But there’s a certain amount of cynicism [among Tibetans] about the government-in-exile and its policies to abandon the position of independence.”

During the past year, the Clinton administration has been encouraging Chinese leaders to talk to the Dalai Lama and has made it plain that the United States stands willing to help both sides in any negotiations.

One U.S. official familiar with the ongoing Tibetan diplomacy said recent reports of a possible accommodation between the Dalai Lama and China are not wrong but rather “premature.” He said a trip by the Dalai Lama to China is “not imminent.”

The Dalai Lama has suggested that he would be willing to accept something short of an independent Tibet.

In his last big overture to China, in June 1988, the Dalai Lama made clear that he was willing to forswear full independence for Tibet. He suggested that China could be responsible for Tibet’s foreign policy, although he said Tibet itself should be demilitarized.

However, Chinese officials continue to maintain that Tibet is already autonomous.

Jiang’s insistence in June that the Dalai Lama acknowledge Taiwan as part of China represented a new issue in Tibetan diplomacy.

The Dalai Lama made an unprecedented visit to Taiwan in 1997. That trip heightened Chinese fears that Tibet and Taiwan could become linked as political issues, and that the constituencies overseas supporting independence for Tibet and Taiwan could team up against China.

The Tibetan leader has visited the White House before and has met with presidents Bush and Clinton. His visit Monday takes on added importance, however, because the Clinton administration has given a higher profile to trying to resolve the issue of Tibet than any previous administration.