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Tashi dele from Tibet [April-May 1999]

Tibet trip

Agelasto
2004-05-20 20:00:06

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his Establishment in India, the so-called government
in exile. The Dalai Lama won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, although some Chinese I have
talked with view that award more as a Scandinavian rebuke to the government for the
Tiananmen crackdown, than as an award for the spiritual leader?s positive deeds. The fact
remains, however, that as respected as the Dalai Lama is outside of China, he does not
figure in Tibetan policy. He has no influence whatsoever in the decisions made by the
CCP and various Chinese administrative units. His spiritual effect in Tibet may be
profound, for he is worshipped as a living god, but he has had absolutely no material effect
on the lives of Tibetans. I view this as a tragedy, for the Dalai Lama is perhaps the only
person in the world who can represent the interests of ethnic Tibetans and serve as a force
to help mold a positive Chinese policy in which economic development enriches the lives
of Tibetans while not destroying their culture..
To fully understand why the Dalai Lama is needed back in China is to realize how the
Chinese Communist Party makes decisions. The CCP does not listen to individuals or
indeed to governments who attempt to offer constructive criticism from abroad. Despite
American propaganda in the 1950s and 1960s that pictured the Chinese communists as
exporters of Mao-type guerrilla warfare, the Chinese state has generally practiced
isolationism. Even today as a world power it is reluctant to get involved in world affairs,
as its votes and abstentions in the United Nations reflect, and it certainly does not like
others to ?interfere in our domestic policy.? The Chinese like to mind their own business,
which is why the NATO bombing of their embassy in Belgrade made them so irate. If
anything, the Free Tibet demonstrations that dogged Premier Zhu Rongji on his spring
1999 visit to the USA had the result of making ...