The Politics of the Dalai Lama's New Initiative for Autonomy

Abstract

recent years, Dalai Lama has pursued a dialogic approach to Tibet Question. He has significantly modified his views on autonomy and has made a number of fundamental concessions. His present position should clearly be distinguished from stance he had from late 1980s until recently. Dalai Lama's views from that time are still fixed in minds of many people, but in main they no longer constitute his approach. From late 1980s until recently, for example, Dalai Lama refused to even imply that Tibet is part of China. He stated in 2000: The Beijing government often puts pressure on me and wants me to declare that Tibet is a part of Chinese territory. However, this is not a fact. I will not make such an erroneous statement.2 He also maintained until recently that and (Han) Chinese have no common bonds. In 1987, Dalai Lama said that Tibetans and Chinese are distinct peoples each with their own country, history, culture, language and way of life,3 and in 1995, he put it that the Chinese and are very fundamentally different peoples .... We speak different languages; are of different civilizations, have different customs; our religion and culture, and even our written languages are completely different.4 Dalai Lama, as we will show, now no longer excludes Tibet from Chinese state and does not reject possibility that can be part of supra-ethnic Chinese nation; at least he has