Dalai Lama scales down demand for self-rule

The Dalai Lama hopes that the major political concessions he offered today would allow Beijing to negotiate seriously on his scaled-down demands for autonomy within the constitutional framework and agree to let him visit sacred Buddhist sites in China.

After the recently concluded fifth round of talks between the Dalai Lama’s representatives and the People’s Republic of China last month, there was speculation that a major political move was in the offing from the Tibetan leader.

The Dalai Lama made an unusual reference today to the 17-point agreement he had signed with the Chinese government in 1951, which formed the basis for political integration of Tibet with China with significant safeguards for autonomy.

After the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet to India in 1959, the Tibetan leadership has generally repudiated the 1951 agreement as an imposed settlement.

In a major shift today, the Dalai Lama said “the issue of Tibet was purportedly decided in 1951 through an agreement between the central and local governments, taking into account the special status of Tibet and the prevailing reality”.

Since then, the Dalai Lama said, “I have made every possible effort to secure implementation of the policy to allow self-rule and genuine autonomy to Tibetans within the framework of the People’s Republic of China”.

Underlining the “distinctiveness” of the Tibetan minority nationality within China, the Dalai Lama said his demands for “self-rule and genuine autonomy” are in tune with the “provisions of the Chinese constitution”.

Trying to remove the suspicions of Beijing that he is not serious about renouncing separation from China, the Dalai Lama emphatically stated that he seeks Tibet’s “future within the framework of the Chinese constitution”.

“Anyone who has heard this statement would realise”, the Dalai Lama said in Dharamshala, “that my demand for genuine self-rule does not amount to a demand for separation”.

The Dalai Lama’s repeated references to the Chinese constitution, his recall of the 1951 agreement, and his description of Lhasa as the local government and Beijing as the central government seem part of a calculated attempt to inject some life into the stalled negotiations with China.

At the fifth round of talks in February the two sides, according to the Dalai Lama, “were able to clearly identify the areas of major differences and the reasons thereof”.

The Dalai Lama’s special envoy, Lodi Gyari had said in a statement last month, that “fundamental differences” exist between the two sides and there is no agreement on how to proceed forward.

Given the hard negotiating style of the Chinese government on Tibet, it remains to be seen if Beijing will be propitiated by the latest political concessions from the Dalai Lama. At the same time there is an expectation that by letting the Dalai Lama return for a one-time spiritual pilgrimage before the Olympic Games scheduled in Beijing during 2008, China might win some important political mileage worldwide.