News and Views on Tibet

Dalai Lama seeks more contact with China

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NEW DELHI – The Dalai Lama wants greater contact between his envoys and Chinese authorities to boost relations following the success of recent meetings, the exiled spiritual leader’s representative said on Wednesday.

A four-member team led by special envoy Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari returned to India earlier this week after a two-week visit to China, the second direct contact between China and the Dalai Lama’s representatives since last September.

“His Holiness is particularly pleased the Chinese leadership has a positive assessment of our recent direct contact,” Gyari, who headed the team, said in a statement.

“He is encouraged by the development and reiterated the importance for us to continue to make vigorous efforts to advance this process further.”

Analysts say the re-establishment of contacts between China and the Dalai Lama’s representatives reflects a slight softening in Beijing’s position as it tests the waters for some kind of political solution and tries to improve its image overseas.

Gyari said more steps were needed to improve relations.

“Both sides agreed that our past relationship had many twists and turns and that many areas of disagreement still exist. The need was felt for more efforts to overcome the existing problems and bring about mutual understanding and trust,” he said.

Last September, the Tibetan god-king’s envoys visited China in the first direct contact between them since 1993.

Tibetans in exile have been running a government in Dharamsala ever since they fled with the Dalai Lama in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule. The Dalai Lama seeks greater autonomy for the Himalayan region.

Beijing, which imposed Communist rule on Tibet after its troops entered in 1950, established direct contact with the Dalai Lama in 1979 and allowed him to send representatives on four fact-finding missions, the last of which was in 1985.

But it suspended official dialogue, mostly through the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, in 1993 and had maintained only sporadic and unofficial contacts until last year.

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