Blair raises Tibet with Hu Jintao
The Chinese press has published an unusually factual and restrained bylined article summarising the Dalai Lama’s “Middle Way’ approach, and providing a further indication that officials in China recognise the significance to the Tibetan government in exile of the issue of the Tibetan areas of Kham and Amdo, now incorporated into the Chinese provinces of Gansu, Yunnan, Sichuan and Qinghai. The article appeared in English in the People’s Daily on 22 July, the second day of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s visit to China from 21 24 July as part of an Asian tour, and appeared to be aimed at an international rather than domestic audience. In separate meetings with Party Secretary and President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Blair said that he welcomed the recent contact between the Chinese authorities and representatives of the Dalai Lama. He also raised human rights concerns with the Chinese leadership.
The article, which first appeared in the English language official magazine ‘China’s Tibet’, reiterates the usual official line that the Dalai Lama is ‘disguising’ his claim for independence with his stated call for genuine autonomy. But it also gives the most substantial and detailed assessment of the Dalai Lama¹s aims and approach known to have appeared in the Chinese official press, even stating that the Dalai Lama’s ‘Middle Way’ has become ‘mature in content’. Its restraint in tone is consistent with the lack of anti-Dalai Lama rhetoric in the Chinese official press for several months.
A Tibetan analyst based in the West with connections in China and Tibet said: ‘This article is very unusual it’s surprising to see the Chinese press taking such a close look at Dharamsala policy. It coincides with the increasing debate on the situation in Tibet in Beijing today. There are more and more Tibetans coming to study in Beijing, and they talk very openly about ideas of autonomy, the ‘Middle Way’, and the political situation in Tibet, together with some Chinese intellectuals. Of course this is happening in the context of change in China generally.’
Both the UK and US governments have called for Beijing to engage in dialogue with the Dalai Lama ‘without preconditions’. The People’s Daily article makes the counter-claim that the Dalai Lama ‘attaches conditions’ to negotiations for example, that ‘the 14th Dalai Lama called for negotiations on high-level real autonomy of the Tibetan area which, according to him, would cover Tibetan-inhabited areas in Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan provinces’, a reference to the traditional Tibetan areas of Kham and Amdo. The People’s Daily article states that these areas have never formed a cohesive ‘administrative and economic region’ but the references convey the impression that attention is being paid to the Tibetan exile government’s emphasis on the importance of these areas as integral parts of Tibet. The issue of Tibetan territory has been considered by many analysts to be the key point of contention in terms of achieving a resolution between China and the Tibetan government in exile.
During his one and a half day visit to Beijing, British Prime Minister raised the issue of the two visits of the Dalai Lama’s Envoys to China in September 2002 and May this year with China’s most senior leader Hu Jintao, a former Party Secretary of Tibet, during their dinner on 21 July. The Tibetan delegation has expressed optimism regarding a third visit by the Dalai Lama¹s representatives to China and Tibetan areas this year. During the meeting between Blair and Hu Jintao, Hu mentioned his experience as Party Secretary in Tibet in the context of a discussion about economic development and China’s campaign to develop the western areas of the PRC and the two leaders had a general conversation about Tibet. This approach differed from Blair’s last encounter with China’s senior leadership during his visit to China in 1998, when the then President Jiang Zemin apparently lectured him on the situation in Tibet and the ‘Dalai clique’. The UK delegation to China also handed over a list of political prisoners (no Tibetan prisoners were on this list), although according to usual protocol this occurred in the margins of the visit and not during high-level meetings.
The Tibetan analyst said: ‘It is not possible to gauge at this stage whether this apparently more relaxed environment will result in any genuine political change regarding the situation of Tibet. It’s hard to envisage any concrete progress occurring on the Tibetan situation without a much bigger political shift in Beijing.’
This is one in a series of independent reports by Kate Saunders commissioned by the Australia Tibet Council, Free Tibet Campaign and the International Campaign for Tibet
Contact: ks@insidetibet.net (tel: + 7947 138612).
