Chinese Leaders Need Bold Vision and Courage to Resolve the Issue of Tibet: Special Envoy

By Lodi Gyaltsen GyariIn
an op-ed published in the South China Morning Post, Special Envoy of
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Kasur Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, expressed hope
that the present Chinese leadership will seize the opportunity and have
the courage to confront the difficult truths of contemporary Tibet,
reflecting the kind of boldness of vision shown by Deng Xiaoping and Hu
Yaobang.

Special Envoy Kasur Lodi Gyari/TibetNet Photo

I have spent much
of the past three decades representing His Holiness the Dalai Lama in
talks with Chinese leaders. Through these many years of intermittent
dialogue, I have sought to make the Chinese leadership understand the
will of the Tibetan people and the vision of His Holiness in finding a
common road to peace and reconciliation. Over the years, I
have also witnessed a drastic change in the nature and structure of
Chinese leadership – from the sweeping boldness of the Deng Xiaoping
era to the statesmanship and broad-mindedness of Hu Yaobang , to the
institutional constraints and lack of assertiveness in recent years. When
there was a visionary leadership, we could see that China was able to
take steps that helped preserve the unity and integrity of the country,
promoting the interests of all its citizens and creating a positive
international image. The attitude of the Chinese leadership to
the Tibetan issue has a direct bearing on the building of a harmonious
society in China and its image on the world stage. As part of
my work I have tried to understand the reasons behind the current
attitude of the Chinese leadership, and can think of three possible
mindsets. The first one is the view that China is rising and all ethnic
peoples need to modify their individual aspirations to fit in with this
new identity. The holders of this viewpoint in China seem to
disregard and undermine the distinct identity of the Tibetan people.
Beijing seems to mistake the artificial stability in Tibetan areas as a
sign of Tibetan acquiescence. But this is not the quiet of complacency
or contentment. Rather, it is the silence of growing desperation and
bitterness – the kind that multiplies under repressive conditions. It
is, frankly, the kind of silence in which the seeds of future violence
and instability  are sown.The second mindset is that if the
Chinese authorities are successful in improving economic conditions in
the Tibetan areas, the Tibetan people’s concerns will be addressed and
the whole issue will go away. This is, again, a very narrow
approach to resolving the Tibetan problem. The economic marginalisation
of the Tibetan people is a reality that the Chinese leadership needs to
address, given that official statistics place the Tibetans at the low
end of the scale of economic development. However, as Chinese
scholars and experts on the Tibetan issue know, Tibetans have a high
regard for their distinct culture, which has made a positive
contribution to the development of the new China. This
cultural and spiritual identity needs to be given space to flourish and
prosper among the Tibetan people. That cannot be achieved solely
through economic development, however well intentioned it may be.Economic
integration without any respect and sensitivity for their culture will
lead to more resentment by the Tibetan people. This was the clear
message that the Chinese authorities should have received from the 2008
protests all over the Tibetan areas.The third mindset is that
China should wait until the passing away of the present Dalai Lama,
when the Tibetan issue will naturally disappear. This thinking is based
on the belief that a leaderless and disoriented movement would fragment
into pieces and eventually become irrelevant. This is a
misplaced mindset for many reasons, and very counterproductive to
China’s own future. Those who subscribe to this view do not understand
that fragmentation today no longer means irrelevance; it means radical
unpredictability and vastly greater risk. Far from fading away, the
Tibetan political movement will reinvent itself in the absence of the
current, Fourteenth Dalai Lama, and become something far more complex
and unmanageable in the process. It is disheartening to see
just how far China’s leaders have drifted from the early days of bold
reform. The leaders I came to know in the early 1980s shared a
conviction about their historic role in bringing about the difficult
transition that was needed in post-Mao China. Leaders like Hu Yaobang
understood that the greatness of China’s future lay in the responsible
actions of its leaders to conduct the necessary groundwork for true
stability. Hu called for courageous policies relating to Tibet. Because
he was open and honest, dared to act, dared to face reality and dared
to bear responsibility, he won the hearts of the Tibetan people. It
is my hope that today’s leaders will seize the opportunity and have the
courage to confront the difficult truths of contemporary Tibet,
reflecting the kind of boldness of vision shown by Deng and Hu. For
our part, we have formally clarified His Holiness’ position in the
Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People, presented at the
Eighth Round of talks in November 2008. Through the Memorandum and the
related Note, presented in January this year, we have stated in clear
and definitive terms that we seek only genuine autonomy within the
framework of the People’s Republic of China, its constitution and its
laws.We have made it abundantly clear that we will respect the
People’s Republic of China’s core interest of sovereignty and
territorial integrity, including respecting the authority of the
central government and adhering to the regional, national autonomy
system. But the central government must also fully respect the
legitimate rights of the Tibetan people to maintain our distinctive and
unique identity, as this is our core interest.The Chinese
leadership needs to take responsibility and make a serious commitment
to finding a real solution to the issue of Tibet. The urgency of that
responsibility is all the more palpable because of the uniqueness of
this current window of time. Never before has there been a Tibetan
leader like His Holiness, who has so firmly and persistently pursued
such a challenging and treacherous path to achieve visionary change for
the Tibetan and Chinese peoples. The PRC proclaimed itself a
multi-ethnic state with all nationalities having equal power and
rights, rather than a state where a majority has political dominance
over the minority.China’s leaders have a historic choice to
make: will they steward China towards a peaceful future in which
Tibetans finally find a sustainable home within such a modern Chinese
state? Or will they look the other way as the seeds of alienation are
sown, with negative consequences for the distant future?I know
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has chosen the right side of history. I can
only hope China’s leaders will see fit to do the same. -Lodi
Gyaltsen Gyari is the Special Envoy of the Dalai Lama and head of the
Tibetan negotiations team in the talks with the Chinese leadership