LONG MARCH: Tibetans want political autonomy and religious freedom

The Dalai Lama has been the visible face of the Tibetan cause ever since he fled Lhasa and came to India after a brutal clampdown by Beijing 43 years ago. Since then he has been making consistent but largely futile efforts to negotiate the "future status of Tibet" with the communist leadership in China. An economically resurgent Beijing contemptuously brushed aside the temporal head of Tibet and bulldozed its own agenda in this critical region.

However, after decades of Chinese intransigence on Tibet, there are signs of softening, raising hopes that the issue will have a positive outcome. Much of this has to do with the immense US pressure on China to negotiate with the Dalai Lama or his representatives. The visit of the Dalai Lama's envoys, Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen, to Lhasa recently is seen as a significant shift in the Chinese approach. This is the first official contact between Beijing and the Tibetan Government-in-exile based in Dharamsala after a hiatus of nine years. In June 1993, the Dalai Lama had sent a two-member delegation to Beijing to clear the "misunderstandings" on some issues raised by the Chinese during their meeting with his elder brother Gyalo Thondup the previous year.

Beijing has preferred to deal with Thondup since he met the then Chinese supremo Deng Xiaoping in Beijing in the spring of 1979. Interestingly, Thondup visited China in July this year but the Tibetan Government-in-exile insists that it was a "private affair" and had nothing to do with the negotiations on Tibet. That the Dalai Lama chose Gyari, his envoy to Washington, and Gyaltsen, the envoy to the European Union, as his emissaries is an indication that he does not rely on his elder brother. The two men are confidants of the Dalai Lama and Gyari has worked closely with the US State Department's coordinator on Tibet, Paula J. Dobriansky.

IN SEARCH OF PEACE

1979: Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping initiates talks with Gyalo Thondup and promises to resolve all issues other than the full independence of Tibet.

1981: Communist leader Hu Yaobang announces a policy on Tibet. Dalai Lama is assured of his political status but cannot settle down in Tibet.

1987: Dalai Lama proposes a peace plan. Urges China to declare Tibet a demilitarised zone and to end the Chinese population transfer policy.

2002: Dalai Lama's special envoy L.G. Gyari visits Beijing and Lhasa, re-establishes contacts and seeks a formal dialogue on "genuine" autonomy for Tibet with the Chinese authorities.

According to sources in the Tibetan Government-in-exile, Gyari and Gyaltsen met Lekchok, the Beijing-appointed chief of the Tibet Autonomous Region, on September 15 in Lhasa.

A Tibetan, Lekchok works under the overall Chinese military and political authority in Lhasa. While the special envoys are said to have conveyed the Dalai Lama's message of seeking "genuine autonomy" for Tibet under the overall Chinese framework, the Tibetan Government officials claim that the two representatives are not carrying any specific proposals from Dharamsala to Beijing. According to them, the envoys are visiting Lhasa and surrounding areas to see the conditions under which the Tibetan people are living under the Han Chinese authorities and to discuss Beijing's point of view on the five-decade long dispute.

Experts see the visit as a major effort to re-establish contact with the Chinese leadership and build mutual confidence towards an institutionalised dialogue between the Dalai Lama and the Communist Party leaders. The Chinese, on their part, want the Dalai Lama to publicly "renounce" his quest for "independence" of Tibet. Earlier this month, the official China Daily newspaper quoted Ye Xiaowen, director of the State Administration of Religious Affairs, as saying, "We continue to hope that the Dalai Lama will stop activities to split Tibet from the motherland during the remaining days of his life."

Gyari and Gyaltsen will also visit Beijing to meet officials of the United Front, the ministry that deals with non-communist issues, to ascertain the views of the Chinese leadership and return to Dharamsala by the end of this month. "Whether the Chinese leadership is interested in a dialogue on the Tibet issue will become clear only after the return of the two envoys from Lhasa," says Tashi Wangdi, the Delhi-based representative of the Dalai Lama.

THIRD PARTY: Jiang is under pressure from Bush (right) to talk to the Tibetans

While the re-establishment of contact between Dharamsala and Beijing has evoked keen interest, China watchers do not read much into the visit of the two envoys. According to them, the Chinese initiative on Tibet is largely aimed at improving relations with Washington, which links the resolution of the Tibet issue with "fuller political and economic engagement" between Beijing and the Bush Administration. The recently announced regulations on missile related exports, release of Tibet's longest serving political prisoner Jigme Sangpo and the visit of the envoys are seen as part of the run-up to the crucial summit meeting between US President George W. Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin at Crawford Ranch in Texas in October.

These steps will also be part of Jiang's legacy if he chooses to hand over the baton to his successor-designate Hu Jiantao at the Communist Party conference in November. The US has already welcomed the envoys' visit to Beijing, with the State Department spokesperson saying that "the process of dialogue can resolve long standing differences and result in greater freedom, including religious freedom for the Tibetan people".

The US has also raised Beijing's comfort level by putting the East Turkestan Islamic Movement from the restive Xinjiang province on its list of terrorist organisations. However, the US is worried about the whereabouts of Gendhun Choekyi Nyima, the boy recognised by the Dalai Lama as the Panchen Lama, who is being held incommunicado by Beijing for the past seven years.

Brahma Chellaney of the Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research says that the latest Chinese effort on Tibet is "not sincere" but part of an "image dressing" exercise by Beijing to tell the world that it is more "reasonable than expected".

The China expert, however, is critical of the Indian policy on the Tibet issue. "India continues to sit on the sidelines and does not examine the implication of the Tibetan card," says Chellaney. The de facto prime minister of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, Samdhong Rinpoche, has even gone on record saying that the resolution of the Tibet problem was essential for resolving the long standing India-China border dispute and for peace in Asia.

However, the Indian Foreign Office has only academic interest in the visit of the two envoys to Beijing and Lhasa and South Block describes the move as an "internal affair" of the Chinese and the Tibetan Government-in-exile. It is only interested in ensuring that the Dalai Lama and his followers do not indulge in political activities against China from Dharamsala. It is another matter that at every bilateral meeting, the Chinese have accused India of inciting the Tibetan people.