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July 31, 2008
TALKING WITH THE DALAI LAMA
by Lingxi Kong*
The Far Eastern Economic ReviewJuly 30, 2008 Ten students are gathered round a table in a seminar room at Columbia Universitydiscussing whether greeting scarves should be presented with one hand or two. Six
of the students in the group, including me, are Chinese. We are getting a crash course in basic Tibetan etiquette from four Tibetan students because the next dayall of us are going to meet privately with the Dalai Lama at a hotel in New York.
I had been at Columbia for three years, studying Latin and Greek as an undergraduate,when I became interested in Tibet. After the riots in Tibet this spring, I wantedto know more about the thinking of Tibetans, and I was able to meet the Dalai Lama
shortly afterward, a meeting that I found impressive and informative. So togetherwith a Singaporean Chinese student at Columbia, Kiat Sing Teo, I asked the DalaiLama's office if we could bring a larger group to meet him. This time we wanted
to include Tibetan students as well as Chinese, so the two sides would get to knoweach other as well as the person who some officials in my country have describedas "the wolf in monk's clothing."
The Dalai Lama was passing through New York this month on his way to Aspen, but as soon as we asked, he changed his schedule so that he could meet us in the hourbefore leaving the city for the airport. We had only a few hours to form a group
of Chinese and Tibetans who would want to join us. Although the world's press has been full of stories about "angry youth"in China railing at the Western media, and the Chinese press has been full of talk
about Tibetan "terrorists," by the end of the day many Chinese and Tibetanshad asked to come with us to the meeting. Some couldn't get to New York in timefor the meeting, but others went to considerable lengths. One Chinese undergraduate
booked a flight from Chicago just to be with us; he returned the same day. A youngTibetan schoolboy, barely 16 years old, postponed a flight out of New York so hecould accompany us and help discuss the issues with us afterward.
All the students in our group were diligent and well-informed. The Tibetan studentswere open-minded, receptive, keen to know us and to exchange ideas and experiences.One left Tibet eight years ago and has been studying mathematics in the U.S.; two
are still at high school in New York, but eager to learn more about their own country.Among the Chinese, Henry Hu is a doctoral student in political science who grew up in a well-to-do family in Anhui Province; Thomas Huang, who finished his high
school as the top one student in Guangdong Province, is a fourth year undergraduatestudying political science and physics at Grinnell College in Iowa. Shanshan Zheng,after her high school in Wuhan, came to New York with her immigrant parents, and
is in her fourth year studying British literature at Hunter College. Vivian Liu,a psychology major, is the daughter of a leading official in China who deals withTibet policies -- she has met Tibetan officials in the Chinese Communist Party many
times at her home, but this was the first time she met an exile official, let alonethe foremost Tibetan leader. Vivian told me even among her friends in China, peoplehave very limited ideas about the Tibetan issue. She wants to help them know what's
really going on. She called it "closing the gap of misunderstanding." Our meeting with the Dalai Lama lasted over an hour. We spoke mostly in English,to save time, though his Tibetan-Chinese translator, Kunga Tashi, was there to help
us if we wanted to speak in Chinese. We asked him questions, some tough, some generous,and we made suggestions. His answers and comments ranged widely. He told us thathe sees new hope behind the often disappointing news in the press of failing talks
or angry public sentiment. He reaffirmed his life-long commitment to democracy anduniversal values. It is "our common goal," he said, to have "an opensociety that enjoys rule of law and freedom of speech." He thinks that Confucian
ideas, starting with family values, are beneficial to our huge country of 1.3 billionpeople. But most striking was his unfailing trust toward the Chinese people and his viewthat the future of Tibet does not lie in the hands of the current Chinese leaders
nor in his own, but in the hands of the next generation of Chinese and Tibetan studentswho, born after 1980, will assume important roles in Chinese society – people notunlike those in our group. He even humorously suggested that "one of you may
become Chinese prime minister, if possible [smiling at Vivian], one lady prime minister." In the short run, China's government may claim triumph over this great, old sage: They might force him to live out the rest of his life in exile, or they might
leave him with no option but to return to China as a private citizen, without evenpermission to live in Lhasa. He may well comply, perhaps to avoid large-scale bloodshed.But his life-long commitment to democracy and openness is sure to remain a creative
force in the national life and thinking of our generation: It is planting seeds of hope and vision among the next generation of Chinese and Tibetan youths. In thefuture, though nationalism will still persist, I see in our small group and our
brief meeting signs that young leading intellectuals and activists from this generationare emerging in China who will grow up with an active engagement in public life and with a lasting respect for reason, tolerance and cultural diversity.
*Lingxi Kong is a Chinese inventor and classics graduate of Columbia University;he is currently doing research on ancient literary criticism.
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July 30, 2008
Tibetan writer, a rare outspoken voice against Beijing's policies, sues Chinese government
AP[Wednesday, July 23, 2008 15:58]
By AUDRA ANG,
Associated Press Writer
BEIJING, July 23 - The poet Woeser has long been a rarity _ a Tibetan living in China who doesn't flinch from publicly criticizing the Chinese government. Now the activist is taking another unusual step.
After being repeatedly denied a passport for three years, the Beijing resident has sued the government demanding to be given the document she needs to travel outside the country, hoping the fight will draw more attention to China's tight grip on Tibet and its people.
Woeser's willingness to openly confront authorities makes her stand out. Most Tibetans are reluctant to do that, even more so than environmental and human rights activists. If they complain at all, they often do so in hushed tones and under the cloak of anonymity.
Their reticence speaks volumes about the harshness of Beijing's repression in their Himalayan homeland _ which communist troops took control of in the 1950s _ and its policies aimed at diluting Tibetans' culture and identity.
Woeser, who like some Tibetans uses only one name, says China's clampdown in Tibet has worsened since violent protests against Chinese rule in March that Beijing says killed 22 people, but foreign activists claim took many times that number.
The lawsuit is another way to draw attention to Tibet's treatment, she said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"I'm not expecting to win. But if you don't take action, there's no chance to let the outside world know the truth," Woeser said. "It's an opportunity to talk about the unfair treatment of Tibetans over the years."
The 42-year-old woman, who stands barely 5 feet tall, has sought to be a channel for her people's voices.
In 2005, she started blogging on issues rarely discussed in Tibet: AIDS, prostitution, environmental damage and a new railroad that critics say is flooding that region with Chinese migrants.
"She went into unknown territory. I think no Tibetan had ever spoken out so openly in print or in the media," said Robbie Barnett, an expert on modern Tibet at Columbia University in New York.
"When she first started to write about these things, I think everyone assumed that her position would be impossible to sustain. But she has never faltered. ... The risks she took were off the chart," he said, calling Woeser "a poet who forgot to be afraid."
Her essays and poems are filled with colorful and sometimes brutal detail about the Tibetan way of life. They provide a glimpse into a deeply religious culture that has been shut off to much of the world.
Her stance is not without cost: Her books are banned in China, and security agents watch her apartment. At one point, she was confined to house arrest. Authorities shut down three of her blogs.
The fourth was one of the few sources of news coming out of the sealed-off region during the March crackdown. Then hackers posted threats against her on the blog and rendered it unusable. She has since started a fifth blog that is still running _ for now.
That Woeser has become a symbol of dissent is an unlikely turn. Her parents were loyal communists, and her half-Chinese, half-Tibetan father was a deputy commander in Tibet for the People's Liberation Army.
Born in 1966 _ the start of Mao Zedong's radical and devastating Cultural Revolution _ Woeser spent her childhood in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
"I was devoted to Chairman Mao," she recalled.
She began questioning that view when she left Lhasa to go to high school and university in Chengdu, the capital of neighboring Sichuan province.
For the first time, she was a minority and often felt discrimination. She read banned translations of the Dalai Lama's autobiography and John Avedon's "In Exile from the Land of Snows," which chronicles the lives of Tibetan exiles and Chinese persecution of Tibet's Buddhists.
"There were things in there that were the opposite of what we had been taught," Woeser said.
After school, she became an editor of a literary journal in Lhasa, where she met monks who described the protests and subsequent crackdown in Tibet in 1989 while she was away. Those conversations further radicalized her views.
In 2004, the government literary association expelled her for "political errors" after she published a collection of essays which mentioned that the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader vilified by China's leadership, is revered by Tibetans.
The stigma and loss of her job drove her to Beijing, where she married Wang Lixiong, a Chinese democracy activist and author.
It was in Wang's hometown of Changchun that Woeser applied for a passport in 2005 after police officials in Lhasa told her she would never get one in her homeland.
When Woeser sent friends to make inquiries, police told them she posed a danger to state security, the reason often given for keeping dissidents in check.
Woeser dismisses the label.
"I'm an author who writes from home all the time. If I really am posing a threat to society, doesn't it make the great country of China seem very weak?" she said with a laugh.
For Tibetans, it is nearly impossible to get a passport, and many risk their lives trying to flee across Himalayan mountain passes into Nepal and India.
"It's hard to say whether she will win or not," said her lawyer, Mo Shaoping, who has made his name defending China's dissidents. "Both Woeser and her husband are sensitive figures ... but no matter who they are, they should enjoy their basic rights as citizens."
Earlier this year, Woeser was unable to accept a Freedom of Expression prize from the Norwegian Authors' Union in person because she does not have a passport. Her husband accepted the award in Oslo on her behalf.
"I still have hope in China, which is such a strong nation," Woeser said. "I hope it will be strong enough to give me a little space."
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July 23, 2008
A website by my friend
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July 14, 2008
No progress in dialogue as crisis in Tibet deepens
International Campaign for Tibet
July 5th, 2008
World leaders gathering for the annual meeting of the Group of Eight industrial nations on the Japanese island of Hokkaido on Monday must raise Tibet with Chinese President Hu Jintao, given the disappointing results of the seventh round of dialogue with the Dalai Lama's envoys in Beijing last week and the ongoing crackdown in Tibet.
The Dalai Lama's Special Envoy, Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, said today that the latest round of talks with China were disappointing and difficult, and had failed to lead to any breakthrough. This round of talks were particularly crucial due to the deteriorating situation in Tibet � since protests swept across the plateau from March 10, the Chinese government has imposed a wide-ranging crackdown, leading to thousands of disappearances and detentions, and has virtually sealed off the region to outsiders.
ICT's Vice President of Advocacy, Mary Beth Markey, said: "This round of talks clearly has not met the expectations of the international community, which has repeatedly called upon Beijing for results-based dialogue with the Dalai Lama's representatives. These leaders are now compelled to press Chinese President Hu to wrest the dialogue from the grip of hardliners who are holding onto a failed policy in Tibet and blocking an achievable solution."
The Dalai Lama's Special Envoy Lodi Gyari said that during the meetings in Beijing with United Front Work Department Director Du Qinglin and colleagues he countered China's accusations that the Dalai Lama planned to sabotage next month's Olympics and was behind the protests against Chinese rule that swept the Tibetan plateau from March onwards. He called the discussions "one of the most difficult sessions" the two sides have had in the latest round of talks, that have been ongoing since 2002 after a decade of diplomatic stalemate, saying in a statement today: "In the course of our discussions we were compelled to candidly convey to our counterparts that in the absence of serious and sincere commitment on their part the continuation of the present dialogue process would serve no purpose." (www.tibet.net)
Lodi Gyari, who briefed the Dalai Lama today in India on the talks, said today in Dharamsala, India: "This meeting took place at a crucial time in our relationship. The recent events in Tibet clearly demonstrated the Tibetan people's genuine and deep-rooted discontentment with the People's Republic of China's policies. The urgent need for serious and sincere efforts to address this issue with courage and vision in the interest of stability, unity and harmony of all nationalities of the PRC is obvious. In addition even though His Holiness the Dalai Lama is seeking a solution to the issue of Tibet within the PRC, it is a fact that it has become an issue of great international concern. In this context, we had hoped that the Chinese leadership would reciprocate our efforts by taking tangible steps during this round. On the contrary, due to their excessive concern about legitimacy the Chinese side even failed to agree to our proposal of issuing a joint statement with the aim of committing both parties to the dialogue process."
The G8 brings together several of the governments that have been most engaged with both the Tibetan and Chinese sides in urging progress to resolve challenges to peace and stability in Tibet, including the US, Germany, Japan, Australia and France.
French President Sarkozy has pinned his attendance at the Olympics opening ceremony to progress in the dialogue and specifically to addressing the unrest in Tibet that began this spring, with a wave of at least 125 mainly peaceful protests against Chinese rule across the plateau.
Mary Beth Markey of ICT said: "With the failure of the dialogue to move forward, the French President is in a difficult situation, as is the Dalai Lama who, as a supporter of the Beijing Olympics, would not wish to be an obstacle to Sarkozy's full participation. Of course, China's leaders have made this calculation and deliberately forsaken an opportunity to build international goodwill directly tied to the Olympics."
http://www.savetibet.org/news/newsitem.php?id=1334
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July 03, 2008
China Faults Dalai Lama
2008/07/03
THE TOP COMMUNIST Party official in Tibet launched a fresh verbal salvo against the Dalai Lama amid talks in Beijing between the Chinese government and envoys representing the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists.
In a speech delivered Tuesday in Lhasa as negotiators met in the Chinese capital, Zhang Qingli, the party secretary of Tibet, said that riots in Lhasa in March were a 'seriously violent criminal incident by the Dalai clique.'
China's government has repeatedly blamed the Dalai Lama, who now lives in India, for the March 14 riots, which followed days of peaceful protest by monks and lay people, and unrest that swept Tibetan areas of western China in their aftermath.
The timing of Mr. Zhang's remarks -- delivered to visiting officials from the China Disabled Persons Federation and quoted by Lhasa's state-run newspaper -- could indicate China's position isn't softening despite its agreement to hold talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama.
Mr. Zhang, known for taking a hard line against political dissent in Tibet, said the Lhasa riots were 'created by Tibetan separatists after long-term preparation, with the support and instigation of Western hostile forces.'
According to Tibet Daily, he continued: 'At a sensitive moment, they harbored the evil intention of turning the incident into a bloodbath, of disrupting the Beijing Olympics and destroying Tibet's stability and political harmony.'
The International Olympic Committee chastised China for comments made by Mr. Zhang when the Olympic torch passed through Lhasa last month, which the IOC said were improperly politicizing the Games that are to start in Beijing on Aug. 8.
Representatives of the Dalai Lama arrived in Beijing Monday for what the self-proclaimed Tibet government-in-exile said would be two days of talks. China, which confirmed talks were taking place, would say nothing about their duration or agenda.
Neither side commented Wednesday on the substance of the talks. A statement issued by the Dalai Lama's office before the start of the discussions called for 'tangible progress to alleviate the difficult situation for Tibetans in their homeland.'
Some world leaders have said they are considering boycotting the Olympic opening ceremonies to protest China's crackdown on Tibetan demonstrators. French President Nicholas Sarkozy said this week he would attend if the current talks make progress.
China's foreign-ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao responded on Tuesday by saying 'the Tibet issue is China's internal affair' and that China opposes 'connecting Tibet-related issues with the Beijing Olympics.'
China's president, Hu Jintao, has made building a 'harmonious society' the guiding philosophy of his administration. And the government's focus on blaming the Dalai Lama for Tibetan unrest is coupled with an extreme reluctance to acknowledge the underlying economic, ethnic and other tensions in Tibetan areas and elsewhere.
Party officials, for example, blamed large-scale violent protests -- during which about 30,000 people took to the streets in a southwestern Chinese city in Guizhou province last weekend -- on 'very few people with ulterior motives,' according to a report by China's state-run Xinhua news agency.
The demonstrations began as a call for a new investigation into the death of a teenager who some believe was raped and murdered by people with official connections. Twenty police officers and 30 protesters were injured in the rioting and the county Communist Party Committee building was set on fire, as were 20 police vehicles.
Many Tibetans say they face limits on their religious practices and freedom of expression and feel they are being left out of the economic boom that has been enriching the eastern China heartland of the country's Han Chinese majority.
Tibet remains one of the poorest parts of China, and some government economic-development plans -- such as efforts to shift nomadic herders into more settled livelihoods -- also have caused resentment among Tibetans.
Even before the mid-March riots in Lhasa -- in which crowds of Tibetans attacked Han Chinese and Muslim Hui -- communal tensions were running high in parts of western China with large Tibetan populations.
In the town of Tongren on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau in Qinghai province, for example, Tibetan, Han and Hui residents clashed in late February during Tibetan and Han Chinese festivals after the Lunar New Year. Local residents say a dispute between a Hui balloon vendor and some Tibetans turned into a riot.
'That day was like a volcanic explosion,' says one Tibetan man. 'The violence got more and more serious as more and more people got involved.' The Tibetan anger was fueled by 'resentment,' the man said -- of Tibetans' treatment by the government and what was viewed as Han infringement on a Tibetan celebration.
After the demonstrations in Lhasa, Buddhist monks from the local monastery joined by lay people participated in more marches and protests. Police moved in reinforcements, and the unrest lately has been halted by arrests and surveillance, local residents say.
Gordon Fairclough
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