From the Los Angeles Times

Beijing to meet Dalai Lama envoy

The Chinese say their move is a response to requests from the Tibetan's side. No mention is made of international pressure leading up to the Olympics.

By Mark Magnier
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

4:14 AM PDT, April 25, 2008

BEIJING — In an apparent bow to international pressure, the Chinese government said today that it will meet with a representative of the Dalai Lama in "coming days."

Friday's terse statement, carried by the official New China News Agency, made no mention of the global pressure that has sparked a crisis for the government four months before it hosts the Olympics.

Rather, the statement said the Chinese move was a response to repeated requests by the Dalai Lama's side, adding that Beijing's policy has been "consistent, and the door of dialogue has remained open."

Overseas Tibetans said they welcomed the news, but some remained wary. "If they are really genuine in reviving this dialogue, it's very welcome," said Tsering Tashi, a representative of the Dalai Lama at the Office of Tibet in London. "But it shouldn't be just for the sake of saying it. They should really mean it and there shouldn't be preconditions."

Whether the Chinese are serious about improving relations or are primarily driven by public relations motives will become more apparent in time, analysts said, but the last sentence of Friday's four-paragraph statement didn't suggest a desire to build trust.

China hopes that through contact and consultation, the "Dalai side" will stop trying to split China and end its bid to plot and incite violence and its efforts to disrupt the Olympics, the statement said, "so as to create conditions for talks."

The Dalai Lama has said repeatedly that he is not advocating a separation of Tibet from China and that he supports a successful Chinese Olympics. Chinese officials have dismissed these statements as prevarications or cynical negotiating tactics.

China, under international pressure over Tibet, wants to take the initiative and has concluded that speaking directly is better than talking through the media, said Wang Yong, a professor at Peking University.

The one-nation, two-systems model adopted in Hong Kong offers an approach to enhance Tibetan autonomy, Wang said, but in the current charged political atmosphere it would be difficult to achieve. "The two sides lack trust," he said. "We need to see what the Dalai Lama wants to achieve."

Global leaders, including President Bush, have called on Beijing repeatedly to negotiate with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader to ease the crisis that has tarnished China's international reputation and turned the Olympic torch relay into a magnet for protesters. China's ethnic Tibetan area has seen a broad crackdown sinice riots broke out in mid-March that killed dozens of Chinese and Tibetans.

"International pressure is one of the main reasons the Chinese now feel they have to talk," said Khedroob Thondup, the Dalai Lama's nephew and a member of the Tibetan parliament in exile. "I definitely think this is a public relations move intended to address international concerns."

China and representatives of the Dalai Lama have held six rounds of talks and had other high-level contacts since the 1980s. The last round broke off last July after Beijing's position hardened, exiled Tibetans say.

Steps that China might take to build confidence include allowing a delegation to visit Tibet and assess the situation, allowing international humanitarian groups in, and releasing some of the hundreds of Tibetans reportedly now in jail. Steps the other side might take, Chinese experts said, include using the Dalai Lama 's influence to end unrest, avoiding his alliance with international pressure groups and convincing Beijing he is not secretly advocating independence.

"The Tibetan problem should be solved by China, not by Westerners," said Wang.

Gao Wenhuan in the Beijing bureau contributed to this report.