China urges Dalai Lama to dissolve Tibetan government-in-exile

Tue, 02 Feb 2010

Beijing - China on Tuesday urged the Dalai Lama to dissolve the Tibetan government-in-exile, calling the body a major obstacle to progress in the "sharply divided" talks between the two sides. The existence of the Tibetan government-in-exile "will always be antagonistic" to China's ruling Communist Party, Zhu Weiqun, deputy head of the party's United Front Work Department, told reporters.

Zhu was speaking after talks last week between party officials and two envoys of the Dalai Lama, who lives in the Indian town of Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Chinese officials were disappointed that the envoys had made no concessions from a policy position presented at the previous talks in November 2008, particularly by continuing to refer to the government-in-exile and to the Dalai Lama as its "lawful representative," Zhu said.

"The Dalai Lama is the head of a separatist political group," he said.

Si Ta, a second party official who met the Dalai Lama's envoys, accused the Buddhist leader of showing "total defiance" and trying to undermine the Communist Party and its system of "autonomous regions" in ethnic minority areas of China.

Chinese officials told the envoys that they "only represent the interests of the former serf owners" in Tibet, Si said.

But Zhu said there was "some progress" despite the "sharply divided" positions.

He said the Dalai Lama's senior envoy, Lodhi Gyari, "sincerely looks forward to the next round of talks."

Zhu warned that diplomatic relations between the United States and China would be damaged if US President Barack Obama meets the Dalai Lama as expected this year.

Any meeting between Obama and the Dalai Lama would "seriously undermine the political foundation of Sino-US relations," he said.

On Monday, Du Qinglin, the head of the United Front Work Department, who led the Chinese side in the talks, was quoted as telling the envoys that negotiations could only succeed if the Dalai Lama abandoned his policy of seeking "genuine autonomy" for a "Greater Tibet."

The talks were the first for 15 months and the third round of negotiations since violent anti-Chinese protests erupted in dozens of Tibetan areas of China in March 2008.

The last round of talks in November 2008 ended acrimoniously with China's rejection of the Tibetan envoys' reported demands for wide-ranging Tibetan autonomy.

Beijing continues to accuse the Dalai Lama of seeking independence for China's 6 million Tibetans, but in recent years the Buddhist leader has publicly renounced independence in favor of maximum cultural and religious autonomy for Tibetans within China.

China's top leaders met last month to lay out a new five-year plan for Tibet. Objectives included raising per capita income to the national average by 2020 and major investment in infrastructure.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/307050,china-urges-dalai-lama-to-dissolve-tibetan-government-in-exile.html.