The Chinese government says it will only talk with the representatives of the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, while ruling out any scope for “contact” with the India-based Tibetan government in exile.
Beijing called the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), as the government is known, a “separatist” bloc demanding autonomy for Tibet – a line that experts say it has long upheld and signals no change in Beijing’s stance towards engaging meaningfully with the Tibetan side since previous talks fell through in 2010.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, who made the comment on April 27, was reacting to a statement by Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the democratically elected leader of the Central Tibetan Administration, or CTA, about his government engaging in back-channel talks with the Chinese government.
Wang told a press conference there were two main conditions for any "contact or negotiations" on Tibet.
“First, we would only have contact and talks with the personal representative of the 14th Dalai Lama, not the so-called ‘Tibetan government-in-exile’ or ‘Central Tibetan Administration,’ he said.” The Chinese government will not be dealing with it.”
“Second, any contact or talks will only be about the personal future of the 14th Dalai Lama himself, or at most, a handful of people close to him, not the so-called ‘high degree of autonomy for Tibet,’” he added.
Following the Chinese government’s statement, Tsering said negotiation was the only way forward to resolve the Tibet-China conflict and the CTA would continue appealing to the government and international community to urge the Chinese government to resume dialogue.
Sino-Tibetan dialogue began in 2002 in an effort to consider prospects of "genuine" autonomy for Tibet, as called for by the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, as part of his Middle Way policy.
The approach accepts the formerly independent Himalayan nation’s status as a part of China but urges greater cultural and religious freedoms, including strengthened language rights, guaranteed for ethnic minorities under provisions of China’s constitution.
“His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said time and again that the Tibet issue is the issue of six million Tibetans and not his personal matter,” CTA spokesman Tenzin Lekshay told Radio Free Asia.
“The Central Tibetan Administration’s Middle Way Policy seeks genuine, meaningful autonomy for the Tibetan people within the framework of the Chinese constitution and the Regional National Autonomy Law of China,” he said.
“Resolving the Sino-Tibet conflict through the Middle Way Approach is mutually beneficial,” he added.
False sense of hope
The Sino-Tibetan talks ground to a halt in 2010 without any breakthrough following nine formal rounds of discussion and one informal meeting.
Chinese officials rejected proposals by the Tibetan delegation — which included the Dalai Lama's special envoy Lodi Gyari and senior envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen — in which they called for greater autonomy for Tibet within China.
Both Gyari and Gyaltsen resigned from their posts two years after the talks stalled, citing frustration over the lack of a positive response from the Chinese side.
Reacting to the Chinese government’s latest statement on conditions for talks to resolve the conflict, Gyaltsen told RFA that Wang’s statement reflected the Chinese government line as usual.
“In fact, I can see that the Chinese government has intensified its tough stance on Tibet and, the statement signals a negative turn as now there is no scope even for a discussion on autonomy,” he said.
Wang’s statement also appeared to be “an attempt by the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, to create a false sense of hope among Tibetans and create further differences within the Tibetan communities,” he added.
London-based Tibetologist Robert Barnett of London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, echoed Gyaltsen’s assessment, noting that the Chinese ministry spokesperson “does not deny that there are back-channel talks.”
“Basically, he confirms it. ... That might also explain why it is so aggressive. They want to distract Chinese listeners at least from realizing that they are talking with the Tibetans, perhaps,” Barnett told RFA, referring to the two conditions China laid out for talks.
What China was saying in public differed from what Chinese officials were saying behind the scenes, Barnett said.
“It is not credible that the Chinese will only talk about the Dalai Lama's personal situation, as they claim,” he said. “They may well refuse to discuss autonomy, but we can be fairly sure that they will be talking about other issues besides the Dalai Lama's personal positionand that of his retinue,” he said.
Push for ‘meaningful’ dialogue
Some governments, including those of the United States and European countries, have made repeated calls for the Chinese government to resume talks with the Dalai Lama or Tibetan leaders.
On Tuesday, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told RFA that the U.S. government would work with its allies and partners to encourage China to return, without preconditions, to direct dialogue with the Dalai Lama, his representatives or the democratically elected Tibetan leaders to achieve meaningful autonomy for Tibetans and ensure they can preserve their religion, culture and language.
In April, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved a bipartisan bill urging China to resume negotiations with the Dalai Lama or his representatives, without preconditions, and address the aspirations of Tibetans regarding their historical, cultural, religious and linguistic identity.
"The CCP has oppressed the Tibetan people for 70 years and will not stop until their culture is eliminated," U.S. Rep. Young Kim, a California Republican, told RFA."The only way that there will be a peaceful resolution is if the voice of the Tibetan people is included in any conversations with the CCP."
The Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act, also known as the Resolve Tibet Act, was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in February, and now needs to pass the Senate for it to become law.
The bill notes that an obstacle to further dialogue is that the Chinese government continues to impose conditions on substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama, including “a demand that he say that Tibet has been part of China since ancient times, which the Dalai Lama has refused to do because it is inaccurate.”
The European Parliament in December 2023 adopted a resolution in which it repeated its call for the Chinese government to re-engage with the Dalai Lama's representatives to establish genuine autonomy for Tibetans within China.
The resolution also urged Chinese authorities to release the Panchen Lama, Tibet’s second most senior Buddhist monk abducted by Chinese authorities in 1995, and refrain from interfering in the designation of the next Dalai Lama.
Additional reporting by Tenzin Dickyi and Dolma Lhamo for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.