BEIJING — China’s state press accused the Dalai Lama on Monday of “monstrous crimes,” a day after Chinese officials reportedly agreed with envoys of the exiled Tibetan Buddhist to keep the door open on dialogue.
The Chinese officials and the envoys met in southern China’s Shenzhen city on Sunday following international pressure on Beijing to reopen negotiations with the Dalai Lama amid seven weeks of deadly unrest in Tibet.
The talks broke up with an agreement to meet again although no date was set, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency.
But Beijing, which has blamed the Dalai Lama for the unrest that erupted in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, on March 14 and spread to Tibetan populated regions around China, showed no signs Monday that the talks had changed its position.
“Following the March 14 incident in Lhasa, the Dalai has not only refused to admit his monstrous crimes, but he has continued to perpetuate fraud,” an article in Monday’s Tibet Daily said.
The article, which did not refer to Sunday’s talks, described the Dalai Lama’s demands for “genuine autonomy” in Tibet and the “greater Tibetan region” as fraudulent.
The “Dalai Clique” is trying to “confuse public opinion and incite ethnic hatred,” the article said. The Dalai Lama’s attempt to realise a “greater Tibetan region, is part of his attempt to split the motherland,” it said.
The paper insisted that Tibetans currently enjoy full autonomy and don’t need the “genuine autonomy” the Dalai Lama has called for.
“The Dalai Clique refuses to recognise that the Tibetan people are the masters of their own homeland, enjoy ample democratic rights and wide-ranging economic and cultural rights,” it said.
In a separate article, the paper also denounced efforts by Western nations to use the “Tibet issue” to interfere in China’s internal affairs and maintained that such efforts were “doomed to failure.”
Meanwhile, the English-language China Daily called the Tibetan Youth Congress, run by exiled Tibetans, a “terrorist organisation” bent on separating Tibet from China.
China has repeatedly accused the Dalai Lama of wanting independence for his homeland, accusations rejected by the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner who has often stated that Tibet is a part of China.
The Tibetan government-in-exile says 203 Tibetans have been killed and about 1,000 hurt in the Chinese crackdown on the latest unrest. China says Tibetan “rioters” and “insurgents” have killed 21 people.
