SEVEN REASONS : WHY DALAI LAMA SHOULD NOT VISIT CHINA?

By VIJAY KRANTI | March 20, 2015

At a time when Dharamsala and Tibet appear to be at a very vulnerable position vis-a-vis Beijing, it will be imperative for Dalai Lama as well as his advisers, to seriously measure the pros and cons of his proposed visit to China.

Observers of Beijing-Dharamsala relations are these days keenly focused on the chances of Dalai Lama visiting China for a Buddhist pilgrimage to Wutai Shan. The issue might look casual or insignificant to the uninitiated who will see nothing special about a religious leader visiting a pilgrimage site. But knowing Tibet’s place in China’s geo-political aspirations and the significance of present Dalai Lama in their future game, this probable event holds the potential of changing the geo-political discourse of Asia far more than any eventful development of this region in recent decades.

Signals emanating from Dharamsala over recent years have led to speculations among many Tibet watchers that despite the eight-year long dialogue (2002-2010) having failed and stalled abruptly by Beijing, the talks are still on, though at some different levels. Many among Tibet-China watchers feel that an influential section among Tibetan exile leadership is keen to pull a deal between Dalai Lama’s ‘Central Tibetan Administration’ (CTA) in Dharamsala and the Chinese rulers of Tibet. Or, at least, to send him on a visit to China before it is too late for the ageing Tibetan leader.

CLEAR SIGNALS FROM BEIJING

Though senior functionaries in Dharamsala have been maintaining strict secrecy, yet recent developments, including an unpublicised meeting of a minister ranking Chinese official with Dalai Lama in Dharamsala few months ago, have not gone unnoticed from the prying eyes. And now a chain of signals from Beijing and other quarters confirm that Chinese leaders are desperate to receive the former exiled ruler and supreme religious leader of their colony –even if this visit is short and just for a ‘pilgrimage’.

Hu Shisheng, an important Chinese brain on Tibet related issues and a Director at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), run by the State Council of China, said on 24th February this year in Beijing that Dalai Lama’s pilgrimage to Mount Wutai (Wutai Shan) would be a ‘historic event’ and… ‘really a breakthrough’. In another commentary, published a day before President Xi Jinping visited India, China’s Sina.com quoted ‘informed sources familiar with the situation’ as saying that Dalai Lama’s return to China would be a ‘win-win’ situation. Chinese media has widely quoted Wu Yingjie, the Deputy Secretary of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) as saying that the talks with Dalai Lama’s personal envoy about Dalai Lama’s return were ‘proceeding smoothly’. On 2nd Oct 2014 the French news agency AFP even quoted Dalai Lama from Dharamsala as telling its reporter that he was in informal talks with Beijing over his ‘long held wish to make a pilgrimage trip to China’.

WAR OF WITS ?

It was exactly nine years ago on 10th March 2006 when Dalai Lama used his annual address on the national ‘Uprising Day’ of Tibet at Dharamsala to publicly express his desire to visit China for a pilgrimage. His statement came in the middle of ongoing talks between his envoys and Beijing. Observers initially thought that this statement was yet another salvo in the ongoing war of wits between him and Beijing. People around Dalai Lama believed that his visit to Tibet or China would attract a Tsunami of Chinese and Tibetan believers which would increase his bargaining power with Beijing.

BEIJING : FROM COLD TO WARM

But his statement was greeted with the usual sarcastic contempt that Beijing rulers have always kept reserved for the Dalai Lama since China occupied his country in 1951 and his subsequent escape to exile in 1959. On 13th April, 2006 Qi Xiaofei, Vice-Director of the Chinese State Administration for Religious Affairs said, “The Dalai Lama is not only a religious figure, but is also a long-time stubborn secessionist who has tried to split his Chinese motherland and break the unity among different ethnic groups.”

Interestingly, in July, the same year rumours of Dalai Lama visiting Kumbum, the most revered monastery near Dalai Lama’s birth place in Qinghai, spread like a wild fire. Soon the town was flooded with thousands of Tibetan and Chinese devotees to have a view of him. But as soon as the crowds started reaching a critical level the Chinese government media announced that it was a hoax and security forces pushed out the crowd. Observers believe that it was a well planned Chinese move to have a fair idea of and to prepare in advance for the public reaction if Dalai Lama actually comes on a visit.

CHINA SINGING, OR ALARM BELLS ?

After a gap of nine years this sudden 180 degree turn in Beijing’s response to the idea of Dalai Lama’s visit to China clearly reflects a new kind of self confidence which is replacing the characteristic irritability, scepticism and even fear psychosis demonstrated by the Chinese leaders on anything related to Dalai Lama or Tibet over past six decades. It is this very change in the Chinese gestures and public articulation which deserves serious attention of the Dalai Lama, his advisors and his supporters when they sit to weigh the advantages and risks of the Tibetan leader’s proposed pilgrimage to China or fresh negotiations with Beijing.

Looking back at how deftly Beijing and Dharamsala have been playing their cards in past two decades, one cannot escape the stark contrast. While Beijing has been making impressive strides on almost every front to improve its grip on Tibet and check-mate the international opposition to its Tibet policy, Dharamsala has been consistently frittering away all the advantages and virtues that Dalai Lama and his fellow Tibetans had earned with great efforts since 1950s in their struggle against Chinese occupation of Tibet.

BEIJING TURNING TABLE ON DHARAMSALA ?

World has been watching with great admiration how a friendless Tibet and a powerless Dalai Lama of 1950-60s had moved gradually from near total oblivion to a star darling of the democratic world, especially the West by 1990s. Until the end of last Century, no Chinese leader had the guts to move openly in over three quarters of the globe without being jeered, accosted or shouted at by supporters of Tibet. In sharp contrast, the Dalai Lama was being decorated with the highest of awards; presented Mayor’s Keys to almost every city that could boast of having a door; received standing ovations at some of the most powerful Parliaments and; cheered like a rock star by ecstatic crowds at overflowing Olympic stadiums across the globe.

It was not too long ago when Tibetan flag waving supporters all over the world could virtually block the Olympic torch’s ceremonial journey to Beijing. Yet another campaign of international Tibet supporters around the turn of Century forced the World Bank to ask Beijing government to either withdraw its application for funding the ‘West China Poverty Reduction Project’ or get it rejected. Because the project aimed at promoting Han migration to Tibet through its economic development and the demonstrators did not want World Bank to finance such a project.

But things have been changing slowly and decisively in favour of China in recent years. So much so that the Belgian government was forced to join the league of countries like Thailand and Sri Lanka as it was forced by Beijing to refuse visa to Dalai Lama in 2006 just a week before he was scheduled to inaugurate the biggest ever international conference of Tibet Support Groups in Brussels. Only the other day South Africa expressed its inability to let Dalai Lama enter the country to participate in the world conference of Nobel Laureates just because it did not dare to make Beijing unhappy. And so much is the clout of Beijing that the Parliament of Spain was forced to rewrite parts of its constitution overnight last year so that the Supreme Court of Spain could not implement its judgement on two cases which related to human right excesses in Tibet by China. If implemented, this judgement would have forced the Interpol to arrest five senior Chinese leaders who included Hu Jintao, Li Peng and Jiang Jemin on their next travel to any country.

CHINA A BUDDHIST SUPERPOWER ?

Having realized the impact and grip of Buddhism, Buddhist institutions and senior Buddhist religious leaders over the Tibetan mind, Beijing leaders have been revising their policies since nineties. Freedom of limited religious practice and opening of some of the destroyed or defunct Buddhist monasteries and temples was introduced. Rehabilitation and locating many Tulkus, a typically Tibetan tradition of identifying high ranking incarnate lamas and sect leaders through rebirth, was allowed at a moderate level. Official search committees of lamas, headed by senior communist cadres, were allowed to search for the new incarnations of some popular deceased high ranking lamas.

For example, the 11th Panchen Lama (1995) and 17th Karma Pa (1992), two top ranking Lamas were discovered and enthroned with a big public fanfare by Beijing. It’s a different matter that 6 year old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the ‘real’ Panchen Lama as claimed by pro-Dalai Lama monks, among the Tibetan search Committee, was arrested and has been never heard of since then. And the Karma Pa too, quietly escaped to India to join the Dalai Lama on the new-year eve of 2000. A few years ago Beijing announced a new law which prohibits recognition of any new incarnate lama without official certification by the Communist Party officials. Since then Beijing leaders have often repeated that only China has the final right to certify next incarnation of Dalai Lama.

CHINA’S ‘PERMANENT TIBET SOLUTION’

In order to present itself as the ‘Buddhist super power’ of the world, Beijing launched World Buddhist Forum in 2006. Since then it has already held three well attended international conferences of WBF. Not only that the Dalai Lama was kept out of these conferences, Beijing has also been trying to present its own puppet Panchen Lama Gyaltsen Norbu as the supreme international Buddhist leader. While Dalai Lama has spent his life time in reviving the world’s interest in Buddhism, China has ingeniously grabbed the commercial leadership in the business of Buddhist items and crafts as world’s largest supplier. During past eight years it has organized nine international Buddhist Items and Crafts Trade Fairs at Xiamen. Tenth such fair is scheduled for October this year.

A massive Buddhist tourist infrastructure around many revived Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and temples across Tibet has also been developed since the turn of new Century. Millions of tourists from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, both Koreas and most other Buddhist countries now throng these monasteries every year. Even as Chinese Communist Party, secret police PSB and army keep a tight control over the monastic life and other religious activities, an impressive visual and touristic grandeur of these centres which were rehabilitated in recent years, has started helping Beijing in removing its ‘anti-religion’ stigma and presenting it as a ‘pro-Buddhist’ regime.

With this changing international perception going in its favour, if China also succeeds in cobbling up some reasonable agreement with the present Dalai Lama, Beijing will comfortably have its way in installing its own puppet Dalai Lama to impose a permanent solution to its Tibetan problem after the present ageing Dalai Lama quits this world.

DHARAMSALA’S LOST OPPORTUNITIES

On the contrary, Dharamsala has been consistently losing its diplomatic, political and strategic ground in recent years, especially since it started its ‘negotiations’ with Beijing. Dalai Lama’s greatest political coup in recent years was the historic resolution passed by European Parliament on 6th July, 2000 which happened to be his 65th birthday. Issuing an ultimatum to Beijing for signing an agreement with Dharamsala on the “new statute for Tibet” through the Secretary General of United Nations, it called upon its member States to “give serious consideration to the possibility of recognising the Tibetan Government-in-exile as the legitimate representative of the Tibetan people..” if China failed in meeting this demand.

But what followed is a too hopeless diplomatic story of Dharamsala to be believed. China finally started talking to the envoys of Dalai Lama in 2002 but without involving European Union or UN. While Dharamsala has been claiming that it was a ‘Sino-Tibet Negotiations’ between Dalai Lama and the ‘Chinese Government’, Beijing let it be known unambiguously that it was just a ‘talk’ about the ‘scope of dialogue’ between the ‘personal envoy’ of Dalai Lama and the delegation of ‘Central United Front Work Department’ . Interestingly, United Front is a ‘department’ of Communist Party of China and not a ‘Government Department’.

Looking back at these talks it becomes clear now that no real ‘Negotiations’ took place between 2002 and Nov 2008. It was only during the 7th round in May 2008 (the last round before the Beijing Olympics-2008) that the Chinese side made its first ever demand on their Tibetan guests to present in writing what Dalai Lama expected from China. A ‘memorandum’ on Dalai Lama’s behalf was presented to the Chinese side by the Tibetan envoy during the eighth round which was held on 31st Nov 2008 following the successful conclusion of Beijing Olympics. This memorandum unambiguously offers to accept Tibet as a part of China “within the constitutional framework of People’s Republic of China” in return for ‘genuine autonomy’ for Tibet. But the memorandum was straight away rejected by the Chinese side saying that Dalai Lama was actually demanding ‘independence’ for Tibet in the guise of ‘genuine autonomy’. Adding insult to injury, the Chinese leader of delegation Mr. Zhu Weiqun, Chairman of the United-Front Department, asked the Dalai Lama to “do something beneficial for the Tibetan people before he dies”

TAKEN FOR A RIDE

On the one hand China successfully managed to drag the dialogue without yielding anything. But on the other hand it made best use of this period to achieve all those pre-determined important milestones which would take its grip over Tibet and international position to a point from where it could thumb its nose on anyone who dared challenge China on Tibet. Be it EU, the UN or Dalai Lama himself. For example China amazed the world in July 2006 by completing and inaugurating the 1142 km long railway link to Lhasa in just five years in the most difficult terrain of the world. It also successfully concluded Beijing Olympics-2008 without letting it meet the sad fate of Moscow Olympics.

This period also witnessed an unprecedented pace of economic and infrastructure development in Tibet which was accompanied by massive settlement of Han population across Tibet from the mainland. As a result, Tibetan populations have been reduced to nearly a meaningless minority in almost every town and city of Tibet today. Add to this an impressive network of more than 58,000 km of roads, 19 military and civilian airports, an undisclosed number of nuclear missiles, optical fibre link integrating Tibet with rest of China and a railway network that now almost touches Nepal border. All this has converted Tibet Autonomous Region into an enviable Chinese fort from what it used to be as the most vulnerable outpost of China until nineteen nineties.

China also used this period to enrol Nepal’s help in blocking most of escape routes of new refugees from Tibet to India. As a result, the number of Tibetans fleeing Tibet to join forces with the Dalai Lama and his establishment in India has reduced from an average of over 2500 to a trickle of less than 200 in past couple of years.

AVOIDABLE DIVIDE IN DHARAMSALA

One of the most debilitating losses for Dalai Lama during this 8-year long dialogue period was the deep confusion, demoralization and division that the Tibetan refugee community and International Tibet support movement suffered as a result of feverish attempts by Dharamsala establishment to please the Chinese leaders. Diktats from the CTA against holding anti-China demonstrations and attempts to impose a blanket ban on raising slogans in favour of ‘Rangzen’ (Tibetan independence) nearly killed the pro-Tibet international movement which hardly had a parallel in recent world history. It is not surprising that while Tibetan refugee community stands confused and divided on ‘autonomy-vs- Rangzen’ debate, a large number of Tibet support groups across the world today are lying almost defunct or having lost their steam, even self esteem.

Unfortunately public expression by Dalai Lama of his unhappiness about Tibetan Youth Congress in some context in a religious congregation a few years ago, hurt the image and morale of this most influential and the largest socio-political organization of the Tibetan refugee community. An influential lobby in Dharamsala establishment, which claims to be committed supporter of Dalai Lama’s ‘middle-path’ exploited this public expression of the supreme leader in browbeating the pro-Rangzen groups including TYC as ‘anti Dalai Lama’. Similarly another comment of the Dalai Lama about certain set of prominent political thinkers of the refugee community too was misquoted and exploited by some ‘middle-path’ enthusiasts to demoralize and corner the followers of the ‘Rangzen’ school among the Tibetan community. Such avoidable developments have severely damaged the social and political unity of the Tibetan community. Interestingly, all this has been going on in the name of keeping the Chinese leadership in good humour despite the fact that Beijing has been consistently rejecting Dalai Lama’s idea of ‘Middle Path’ and ‘Autonomy’ as Dharamsala’s secret ploys to split China from the back door.

CHINA VISIT : THE MOUSE TRAP ?

It is difficult for anyone to predict how much religious virtues or political mileage Dharamsala can hope, if at all, from Dalai Lama’s visit to China. But we have a long history of Tibet-China relations to believe that Tibet or Dalai Lama have never been a match to Beijing’s skills in interpreting or showcasing any positive step from Dalai Lama as an endorsement or confirmation of the communist leaders’ actions and claims on Tibet. Most glaring example was the Dalai Lama’s visit to China in 1954 which Beijing leaders presented to the world as an endorsement of Chinese rule over Tibet. It therefore leads one to believe that the proposed visit of Dalai Lama to China in present situation is bound to fill all that moral, legal, political and strategic void which China has been miserably missing about her colonial control over Tibet, especially since the 1959 flight of Dalai Lama into exile.

THREE PRECIOUS CONSTITUENCIES

As a diehard team of optimists and well meaning people, Dharamsala might be hopeful of driving a lot of world focus on Tibet through such a visit. It may also have many reasons to believe that a visit of Dalai Lama to China can open new doors for negotiations. Or, it will help Dalai Lama to understand the real intentions of Chinese leaders on Tibet. Dharamsala must also be quite genuine about its own intentions and expectations. But with centuries-long unhappy experience of Tibetan leadership in dealing with China, it will be too naive to believe that they can beat China in extracting advantages out of any given situation.

Therefore sending Dalai Lama on a China visit in a situation when odds are heavily stacked against Tibet vis-a-vis China, there is a serious risk of confusing, demoralizing and finally losing all the three constituencies on whose support Dalai Lama has attained his popularity and Tibet has survived as an issue all these years in the world conscience. These constituencies are:

– Tibetan masses, living under the Chinese rule or in exile, who have successfully braved and maintained their resolve against Chinese colonialism while enduring all difficulties and dangers;

– Tibet support groups across the world who relentlessly and successfully gave an international dimension to the cause of Tibet and;

– the international community which includes parliaments, political leaders, civic society and action groups whose deep faith in democratic values and human rights of Tibetans gave Dalai Lama and Tibet the support and strength on which they stand today.

SEVEN RISKS

At a time when Dharamsala and Tibet appear to be in a highly vulnerable position vis-a-vis Beijing, it will be imperative for Dalai Lama as well as his advisors, to seriously measure the pros and cons of his proposed visit to China. To put these risks in specific terms:

One, the travel of a ‘refugee’ Dalai Lama to the same country from where he escaped 56 years ago on the ground that the conditions created by the colonial occupants of his country were too difficult and inhuman to live there, will amount to no less that issuing a ‘no objection certificate’ to whatever China has been doing in Tibet all these years. As an obvious corollary to this he is bound to lose his political, legal and moral identity and rights as a ‘refugee’ on his return to exile from such a visit.

Two, his visit will send this message to those millions of brave Tibetans who have endured all the atrocities and injustice at the hands of their colonial masters, that since their supreme leader has no problem with China, they too must stop bickering against Chinese occupation. Self-immolation by more than 130 Tibetans in recent years (135 on record so far) to express their frustration against the Chinese colonial rule over Tibet only proves that unlike the dominant group of Tibetans in Dharamsala who appear to be pushing Dalai Lama to give up or patch up, the Tibetan people inside Tibet have not given up their national resolve or courage to face the Chinese regime. But the Dalai Lama visiting China and hugging Beijing leaders is bound to deflate all the moral steam, patriotic zeal and national resolve out of Tibetan masses.

Three, Tibet support movement across the world has already lost most of its energy and enthusiasm because of Dharamsala’s near-fanatic diktats against anti-China postures in recent years. It will be near impossible for these support groups to hold on to their cadres and support base when the world watches their hero hugging and shaking hands with the same ‘villains’ whom these groups have been opposing all these years. Once this support base and organizational structure crumbles or melts away, it will take another life time for Dalai Lama or his establishment to resuscitate international Tibet support movement back to life.

Four, enormous world media coverage of the visit of Dalai Lama to mainland China on the invitation and hosting of Tibet’s colonial masters will simply leave this clear and unambiguous signal to the world that “all problems between the Dalai Lama and China have been sorted out”. This means that all those individuals, organizations and action groups across the world who loved, admired and supported Dalai Lama simply because he was the best symbol of fight against the tyranny of colonialism, communism and anti-democratic powers will be made to believe that he no more needs their support.

Five, Beijing is bound to present this visit of Dalai Lama as the endorsement and certification of China’s position on Tibet from none other than the supreme leader of Tibet and Tibetans. Hence it will lay its claim over all the respect, credibility and sheen that it had lost due to its sad record as a colonialist occupier of Tibet.

Six, if the Dalai Lama chooses China as the destination of his Buddhist pilgrimage, the communist masters of Beijing are bound to lap it up as the final ‘ISO’ certification of China as world’s ‘Buddhist Super Power’ by the supreme spiritual leader of Buddhism. It will be interesting to see how a Dalai Lama and his exile establishment who have spent their life time in painting colonial rulers of their country as ‘anti-religion’, ‘anti-Buddhism’ and ‘destroyers of Dharma’ will manage this contradiction?

Seven, and last, but surely not the least, is the dreadful scenario of this happy looking marriage between Beijing and the Dalai Lama going to the rocks any day in future. Having dealt with China all their life, who else understands better than the Dalai Lama and his fellow Tibetans, the real levels of honesty and loyalty that Beijing leaders hold towards their own commitments or agreements with others? On such a fateful day Tibetans would be shocked to discover that there is no one standing behind them as all cheering and clapping crowds have already melted away and the Tibet support movement has closed its shop long ago. In the eventuality of Beijing masters of Tibet turning back to their old games in Tibet, it is anybody’s guess how much enthusiasm or commitment the world would be left with to save the Dalai Lama and his countrymen once again?

It is therefore high time for everyone who stands by the Tibetan people to realize and accept that Dharamsala has already lost a significant share of its political and strategic ground on the Tibetan front to Beijing and stands on an utterly weak and vulnerable ground vis-a-vis its (all) mighty opponent. Even his most optimistic sympathizers and supporters would agree that the Dalai Lama has nothing significant to gain from a Chinese ‘pilgrimage’ except some media grand-standing or, may be, some spiritual virtues as a practicing Buddhist. But who else other than the Dalai Lama himself would understand that such ‘gains’ are too petty and personal for a man who is already the darling of world media and is so deeply revered as the embodiment of Avalokiteshwara — the God of Compassion?

GREAT HOPES IN DALAI LAMA

Many critics of Dharamsala have expressed fears that a dominant section among the Tibetan exile leadership appears desperate on cobbling up a deal with China on whatever terms. But even a junior student of history or diplomacy can testify with full confidence that history, especially the history of nations and peoples, keeps changing and that the world has consistently witnessed the mightiest of regimes melting away into oblivion without a whimper.

Innumerable examples of countries like India and Israel would help Tibetan leadership to understand that the greatest strength of a nation does not lie in opting for most comfortable solutions in a crisis, but in enduring difficult times and wait to be available on the day when history holds your rightful share to be returned to you. It will require a deep rethinking and detachment on the part of the Dalai Lama to distinguish between the historic responsibilities which his great institution has bestowed upon him and the current desperation that is guiding a dominant section among his advisors.

On the part of such group of desperate advisors too, they are advised not to lose their faith in Dalai Lama’s political, social and spiritual wisdom. They should understand that by transferring his political powers to a democratically elected exile ‘government’ of Tibet he has already empowered and freed the Tibetan society to take Tibetan struggle far beyond the physical limits of his own life span or even relying on the institution of Dalai Lama in their struggle. This means that Dalai Lama has already realized the capacity of Tibetan society to take ahead its national struggle for many generations to come irrespective of whether the next Dalai Lama is leading them or not.

As a professed follower of Mahatma Gandhi, Dalai Lama is already aware of the enormous powers that Gandhian way of thinking and action holds. Therefore, a far better option for him would be to adopt some of the techniques which Gandhi successfully employed in dealing with the British colonial Raj that was far more powerful than today’s China. For example, by sitting on a hunger strike for the cause of those 135 Tibetans who gave the supreme sacrifice for the freedom and human rights of their colonized countrymen, Dalai Lama can shake the world conscience far deeper than by visiting Wutai Shan and getting photographed by the international media as he shakes hands of the occupiers of his nation.

Vijay Kranti is a senior Indian journalist and Tibetologist.

He can be contacted at v.kranti@gmail.com and www.vijaykranti.com

The views expressed in this article are that of the author and should not be attributed to Tibet Express.