Dalai Lama Return to Tibet May Be Simpler for China
written- 9/27/2003 By Jane Macartney, Asian Diplomatic Correspondent

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Tibet's exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, was lionized in the United States but denied a visa to meet Buddhists in Russia. Those different responses reflect China's dilemma on whether to deal or not to deal with the charismatic leader.

Beijing's response to the Dalai Lama's U.S. visit and his meeting with President Bush was muted compared with the rage that such encounters have aroused from China in the past.

One of the most likely reasons why Beijing did not jump on the White House meeting as a chance to let loose a barrage of angry statements about what it has called the Dalai Lama's "splittist" activities is the prospect that a solution to his exile may be back on the cards.

Russia, fearful of harming warming relations with neighboring China and saying Beijing viewed "negatively" the Dalai Lama's international activities, on Tuesday turned down a request for him to visit.

"The Chinese must be pleased the Russians caved in," said China scholar Geremie Barme, a professor at the Australian National University in Canberra.

"But they are far more concerned that the U.S. sees him and that he visits Japan," said Barme. "These are places that China really wants to influence, where it wants to be regarded diplomatically as a big player."

A meeting between the crimson-robed monk and the U.S. president feeds Beijing's fears that the Dalai Lama -- even after 44 years in exile -- still wants independence for his Himalayan homeland. He has said repeatedly he wants only autonomy.

But with the monk regarded as the 14th reincarnation of Tibet's spiritual and temporal leader now approaching 70, China appears to have shifted from a long-held view that his demise would deal a death blow to independence movements in Tibet and restarted talks with his representatives.

BETTER ALIVE IN TIBET THAN DEAD IN EXILE

"There was a view that once he was dead the Tibet problem would be resolved because there would be no central figure to muster resistance," said Barme.

The September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington may have helped to spur a change.

"With 9/11, they see that once the Dalai Lama is dead then many cells of resistance will abandon his message of a peaceful resolution of the Tibet question and become militarized," said Barme.

"They could face a serious terror threat," he said. "I would be shocked if the Chinese are so crude and simple that they think this can be resolved by the death of this man in exile."

Murmurings against Chinese rule erupted into violent protests in 1987 and culminated in martial law after riots in the capital, Lhasa, in 1989 when recently appointed President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao held the top job in the region.

China's communist leaders and the Tibetan monk and Nobel Peace Prize winner may have more in common than appears at first glance.

Greater opposition to the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet may come from Tibetans who have profited from Chinese rule and who have joined hands with a government that took over the isolated region when People's Liberation Army troops marched into Lhasa in 1951. The Dalai Lama fled eight years later.

"Opposition could come from local Tibetans who have made money and local Chinese satraps," said Barme. "They are terrified of clean government, of the Dalai Lama and the expression of popular will.

But Beijing may want the Dalai Lama's return as leader of a region already nominally autonomous and whose defense and foreign policy the exiled monk has agreed would be handled by Beijing.

Few expect any state, above all the United States, ever to recognize Tibet as anything but a part of China despite the emotions the Dalai Lama stirs with his sermons in Central Park.

Last year, the Dalai Lama's elder brother visited Tibet for the first time in 50 years and officials have hosted visits to China by his personal envoys twice in the past year.

While criticizing his U.S. trip, Chinese officials have declined to say if the meeting with Bush would harm the tenuous detente.

"I think they (the Chinese) would love to get him back in Tibet before he dies," said Barme.