Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Dalai Lama's Tibet Demands

In June the Dalai Lama met with Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times to explain his vision of an ideal compromise between China and Tibet: "The main thing is to preserve our culture, to preserve the character of Tibet....That is what is most important, not politics."

Check out the article here: An olive branch from the Dalai Lama.

Jin Canrong, a foreign relations expert at the Beijing Pacific Institute for International Strategy Studies thinktank, wrote a very mainland response back recently, saying that the Dalai Lama using Kristof as a mouthpiece reduces his crediblity and the desires for an "all Tibetans' area" (1/4 of China's landmass including parts of the Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, and Qinghai provinces) are counterproductive and could have implications of a very segregated, closed off territory that might lead to ethnic cleansing of non-Tibetans and lack of open business with the rest of China.

I agree with Jin, the Tibet issue is not a cultural issue but is instead it is a very political one. Politics isn't simple, it's not liberate the Tibetans and then everything will be solved, yet Kristof just reinforces this black and white perception, that the Chinese government is so repressive and unyielding. Let's not forget that even though Tibetans definitely should have more rights and the Chinese government's policies have plenty of room for improvement, China has helped with modernizing and raising the standards in Tibet.

Kristof published his op-ed right before the Olympics started and he hoped that in the spirit of the Games' cross-cultural exchange that China and the Dalai Lama will soon start negotiating and reconciling. I just want to say that in the Olympic Opening Ceremony, Zhang Yingmou had an entire scene of movable type blocks (supported by people) forming different stylizations of 和 "harmony" and also tons of PLA performers forming a dove in order to remind the world that China is not foremost a war monger--not now, not ever--but rather China prefers stability since Confucius.

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