At last the Chinese government has proposed reopening talks with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. The mystery is that Beijing did not realize the necessity months ago, long before the Olympic torch began its controversial world tour past crowds of pro-Tibetan protesters. By some vagary of the political system, no one in the government seems to have realized what a publicity disaster the torch carrying would become. Given that both the government and ordinary Chinese people have invested such effort and hopes in the Summer Olympics, this was an extraordinary piece of bad judgment.
However, those outside China who are now suggesting that had Beijing been talking the Dalai Lama, there would have been no protests at all, are very probably wrong. So emotionally charged has the issue of Tibet become for the Western liberal establishment (which at the same time wholly ignores a similar issue among China’s Muslim Uighur population in Xinjiang) that the multicountry procession of the Olympic torch was bound to be used as an excuse for demonstrations.
The irony is that the Dalai Lama himself, though obviously heartened by the renewed spotlight on Tibet, has not changed his life-long commitment to peaceful protest. He seeks not Tibetan independence but rather autonomy within China that will permit his people to live according to their ancient traditions. Nor has he ever disapproved of China’s staging of the Olympics.
Rather than demonizing the Tibetan leader, the Chinese should have been negotiating with him these past months. Now they enter into talks as if under duress and are strongly suspected of seeking merely to assuage international opinion until the Games are over. The Dalai Lama’s people are hoping that the proposed discussions will amount to more than a temporary publicity sticking plaster. Were Beijing to offer to review its entire policy of the enforced integration of Tibet within China, with large-scale immigration by Han Chinese, and even produce an outline agreement on the eve of the Olympics, the current public relations disaster would be transformed into a triumph.
This is, however, to ignore the visceral views of the majority of Chinese, who regard Tibet as an integral part of the country. Thanks to 60 years of Communism, there is also a strong ethic of conformity and an inherent disapproval of diversity. This is applied as much to China’s Muslim and Mongol communities as it is to the Tibetans. With its newfound confidence and rising economic power, China is not in the mood to compromise. What is more, in its long history, the rise of regional powers has always spelt disaster for central government.
Nevertheless, as it once again achieves great-power status, Beijing must learn to compromise, albeit from a position of strength. It did it successfully in taking back Hong Kong and benefited hugely from the former British colony’s financial expertise. It could do it again through a wise accommodation with the Dalai Lama over the future of an autonomous, but still Chinese Tibet.
