By John Ruwitch
LHASA, August 25 – China’s governor of Tibet said on Monday recent visits by envoys of the banished Dalai Lama were key to improving the chances of his return but warned his coming trip to meet U.S. leaders could be a setback.
“We very much welcome overseas Tibetans returning for a look, including the Dalai’s representatives,” said the governor of the Tibet Autonomous Region, Jampa Phuntsog. “Coming to look around and talk is extremely necessary and also beneficial.
“By understanding the Dalai Lama’s real thinking, on the basis of the sincerity of his thinking, we can have some real progress,” he told foreign reporters in Lhasa.
Jampa Phuntsog’s effusive comments punctuated the softer line on Tibet Beijing has taken since September last year, when two of the Dalai Lama’s representatives met Chinese officials in the first direct contact between two sides since 1993.
The two envoys made another visit in late May.
The trips, releases of several high-profile Tibetan dissidents and government tours of the political hotspot for foreign media have prompted hopes of a breakthrough in Beijing’s decades-long impasse with the Dalai Lama’s government in exile.
But the Tibet governor said ties could be jeopardised by the Dalai Lama’s planned trip to the United States next month, during which he is expected to meet President George W. Bush.
“We resolutely oppose it, including Mr. Bush seeing the Dalai, no matter how chance the contact,” Jampa Phuntsog said.
“I’m afraid these kinds of activities are not beneficial to the discussions and improvement of relations between the Dalai and our government.”
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. He says he seeks greater autonomy for the Himalayan region and not separation from China.
Despite the visits, China says its policy on the Dalai Lama has not changed. It demands that Dalai Lama abandon what Beijing says is an independence movement and recognise Tibet and Taiwan as parts of China before talks on his future can begin.
But some analysts say China’s new leadership under Hu Jintao is more open to solutions that could grant Tibet greater autonomy and allow the aging god-king, 68, to return.
They argue the government led by Hu, who as Communist Party boss of Tibet presided over a military crackdown in 1989, sees an opportunity in Tibet to burnish its international image.
In an interview with the French daily Le Figaro published on Monday, the Dalai Lama said contacts with China must yield results in the next two or three years or he could no longer justify his conciliatory approach to youths clamouring for self-rule.
“Whether or not there is a big breakthrough depends on the Dalai Lama,” the Tibet governor said, evoking a condition uttered by the late leader Deng Xiaoping: “As Comrade Xiaoping said: the key is that there is patriotism. If he wants to come, he can only do so as a citizen of China.”
(Reporting by John Ruwitch, writing by Jonathan Ansfield; editing by Nick Macfie; Reuters Messaging: john.ruwitch.reuters.com@reuters.net;+8610 6586-5566 x202)
