Talks about talks about the possibility of talks

It appears the Dalai Lama's envoys have just realised something approachin' the bleedin' obvious when the twenty millionth round of talks about talks about meeting for talks between the Dalai Lama's envoys and the CCP looked like they were about to possibly arrange a meeting between the Prez and the Mr Gyatso.

ONE of the Dalai Lama's top envoys says Tibetan negotiators will present Chinese negotiators with a detailed autonomy plan at their next meeting in October. "During the eighth round (of negotiations held since 2002), it is almost about all or nothing,'' Kelsang Gyaltsen told German news magazine Der Spiegel today.
"We will present a detailed plan of how we foresee autonomy in Tibet. If the Chinese side reacts positively, one could propose specific preliminary steps, for example a pilgrimage of the Dalai Lama to China.
"Such a development could lead to a meeting between His Holiness and the Chinese
president and provide decisive momentum.'' Mr Gyaltsen said he had reason to believe Beijing was ready to resolve the dispute over Tibet in negotiations.

But just a couple of days ago:

DHARAMSHALA, India (AFP) — The Dalai Lama is considering a major policy shift towards China following a complete lack of progress in talks on Tibetan autonomy with Beijing, a senior aide said Monday. The Tibetan leader's spokesman Tenzin Taklha said all options would be on the table at a meeting scheduled next month of exiled Tibetan leaders involved in the campaign for greater autonomy for their Himalayan homeland."The only non-negotiable aspect is that the movement will still be non-violent. Everyone is agreed on that," Taklha said.

As I noted several months ago:

Now, I don’t want to sound cynical or nuffin’, but how on God’s green earth is
the CCP going to get away with making a pact with the man they have portrayed as
the devil’s spawn for almost six decades? The hate for the Dalai Lama held by
vast sections of Han Chinese is so palpable you can almost smell it. After
spending decades of whipping up a cult of Lama loathing among their citizens, an
agreement which sees the CCP invite the malodorous monk to the motherland is
going to be a miracle on a par with the second coming.I wish the DL's envoys the
best of luck. But I think the CCP have invested too much effort in creating an
imagined enemy in the form of exiled Tibetans to allow them the space to do a
U-turn now. And even if in some divine act they can come to an accommodation,
how are the fen qing (nationalist youth) and other Han Chinese going to take it?
It might just start a revolution....

But wait! Just when such definitive statements are made, according to the latest info from the ever reliable oracle of Chinese officialdom that is Xinhua, (via the BBC) comes this:

Chinese authorities are to arrange fresh talks with envoys of the Dalai Lama "in
the near future", the Chinese state news agency Xinhua has said.
The agency quoted an unnamed government official as saying the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet should "treasure this opportunity" and respond positively.

So I will leave the reader, all both of them, with this philosophical question. Is this a political saga, or Days of Our Lives?

Tibetan resistance, the CIA and the murky swamp of history

This story of the CIA's support of Tibetan resistance against the PRC is not often told in English-speaking media, but one you will often hear CCP supporters bring up, often in conjunction with allegations of the old chestnut WMB (western media bias). WMB is the Chinese version of WMD.

It's a cracking tale and an interesting look at how the US viewed mainland China in the couple of decades after the establishment of the People's Republic. It's also drives home the point of how utterly self-interested and lacking in prinicpal international geo-politics is and always has been.

I watched a documentary on this topic last year and remember one Tibetan fighter recalling how betrayed he felt when the US stopped aiding their cause. It was at that point, he said, that he and his comrades realised that the US had never intended to really help the Tibetans still pushing for independence - but just give them enough weapons and training to be a nuisance to the PRC as part of their wider strategic interests.

I must say I'm quite impressed by how well researched this WSJ article seems to be.

Revolt of the Monks
How a Secret CIA Campaign Against China 50 Years Ago Continues to Fester; A Role for Dalai Lama's Brother
By PETER WONACOTTAugust30, 2008
DARJEELING, India --
Chodak, an 83-year-old former monk, fled Tibet in the wake of a bloody Chinese invasion more than 50 years ago. Today, he spends his days trimming wool carpets at a refugee center perched above the tranquil tea plantations of this Indian hill town. The plight of Tibetan exiles like Chodak, and their Buddhist message of nonviolence, has drawn world-wide sympathy to their cause.

Tibet's history of resistance
But Chodak's story has a twist.
He's one of the last surviving guerrilla fighters who took up arms against the Chinese during a little-known chapter in Tibet's history. His life has been one of war, not peace. Starting in the late 1950s, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency trained scores of Tibetans, many of them monks, and then air dropped them back to their country with weapons and wireless radios. The linchpin of the operation was an older brother of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of 2.7 million Tibetans and today a Nobel Prize-winning symbol of peaceful resistance. "We were fighting to protect Buddhism from those who wanted to harm it," said Chodak in an interview, his eyes now clouded with cataracts. These days, armed
with little more than his message of peace and the occasional chortle at Beijing's expense, the 73-year-old Dalai Lama enjoys the upper hand in an international public-relations war. He inspires protests that embarrass the Chinese government around the world, including during the recently concluded Beijing Olympics. He also provokes over-the-top denunciations from Chinese officials. During the unrest in March, Tibet's Communist Party Secretary, Zhang Qingli, accused the Dalai Lama of sabotaging the region's stability and described the Buddhist leader as a "a wolf in monk's clothes, a devil with a human face."

The article goes on the describe how intimately involved in the resistance the Dalai Lama's immediate family was, and how the US support for the resistance waned due becoming bogged down in Vietnam, and then stopped altogether with Nixon's recognition of China.

I would like to take this opportunity to say something deep and profound, something well thought-out and insightful, something maybe even intelligent. But the best I can come up with is this:

Politics is a dirty business.

A Freudian slip

Now this is possibly the most amazing article I have ever seen in an official Chinese news publication. Found by Zhongnanhai, it was published on China Radio International's website.

The Dalai Lama's Demons

Friday 08 August 2008

The Dalai Lama is respected worldwide for his peaceful philosophy. Today, some exiled Tibetans, shunned by their peers, no longer believe in his leadership. A controversial buddhist deity lies at the heart of the dispute. (Report: C. Henry, N. Haque)
Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, is revered as a hero by his people and respected world-wide for his peaceful philosophy. Today, however, there are cracks at the heart of his community. A minority of Tibetans exiled in India, including monks, no longer believe in his leadership, and are shunned by their peers. France 24 correspondents Capucine Henry and Nicolas Haque take a closer look into the widening rift that threatens to tear apart the Tibetan people.
In a hitherto peaceful village of Tibetan refugees in southern India, certain monks can no longer enter their monastery, and are banned from stores and public places, including hospitals. Their crime? Revering a god considered a demon by the Dalai Lama.
The controversial Buddhist deity of Dorje Shugden lies at the heart of the conflict. Considered by some as an enlightened tutelary deity and by others as a malevolent force, it was labeled a demon by the Dalai Lama himelf. He made this clear last January, in a speech imbued with rare violence at a Tibetan university in Southern India.
A historic speech “I have meditated and considered (my decision to put aside the Shugden) at length in my soul and spirit before coming to the right decision”, he said. People have killed, lied, fought each other and set things alight in the name of this deity. These monks must be expelled from all monasteries. If they are not happy, you can tell them that the Dalai Lama himself asked that this be done, and it is very urgent.”
The speech was a historic moment in the history of Tibetan Buddhism, and the beginning of a schism which could exclude the four million Tibetans followers of Shugden. A few weeks after the Dalai Lama's speech, Shugden monks could no longer enter monasteries. They regroup themselves outside village walls and meditate on why the Dalai Lama has excluded him.
“Can the Dalai Lama really ban an entire religion?” asks one. “We are in the right, he’s the one who is being incoherent. On one hand, he’s always preaching freedom of religion and compassion, but on the other he’s forbidding us to worship the god we choose”, says another.
Apartheid in Buddhist land Photos of Shugden leaders are posted on city walls, branding them as traitors. Signs at the entrance of stores and hospitals forbid Shugden followers from entry. It’s apartheid, in Buddhist land.
Our reporters followed an ostracized Buddhist monk as he tried to affront the fellow villagers who have banned him. “We’re not violating Buddha’s teachings, and we’re excluded from everywhere just because of our religion” he complains.
“Aren’t you ashamed of betraying the Dalai Lama? You’re a monk! He is our only pillar, the only person we can count on,” he is asked.
In India, Shugden followers are forced to go into hiding. “I fled my house three days ago” says an old woman taken in by a family 300 kilometers away from her home. “I was the only Shugden in my village. Every day I grew more afraid of attacks.I had to block my door with stones for people not to break into my house”.
Pro-Chinese ‘traitors’ Behind this Shugden witch-hunt lies the fear of Chinese infiltration in the ranks of the Tibetan refugees. In the northern Indian city of Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetan government, Shugden followers, with their open Chinese sympathies are considered a political threat.
“The Shugden and the Chinese are obviously allies,” says the Tibetan Prime Minister, professor Samdhong Rinpoche. “Their cults all over the world are financed by the Chinese”. He adds that “people are afraid of Shugden violence. They are like terrorists, they will stop at nothing, everyone knows this.” To prove his point, he shows our reporters the photo of the murder of a leading Buddhist monk and two of his disciples in 1997. Tibetans are certain the Shugden are behind the murder.
A leading Shugden figure, Mahalama Losbang Yechi, defends his links with the Chinese community: “I approve the Chinese presence in Tibet. What we are living with the Dalai Lama today shows how authoritarian his theocratic regime must have been in the past. It was much more violent than what Tibetans are living today under Chinese rule.”
Yechi has filed a lawsuit against the Dalai Lama in an Indian high court for religious persecution. He denies acting on the orders of Chinese authorities.
Shugden followers, willingly or not, have become the symbol of a schism that threatens the struggle for Tibetan autonomy. For that, thousands of refugees have begun to pay a price.

Wow. That was a trip. I would be interested in knowing would run through the head of Joe 爱国 when he reads sentences like "The Dalai Lama is respected worldwide for his peaceful philosophy." This is the most "anti-Chinese" article I have ever seen in a Chinese publication. Zhongnanhai speculates that this was put up by accident, and I have to say I tend to agree with that sentiment.

The Information Games begin

The Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games will not begin for a few days, but ESPN has already picked up a story about a somewhat daring "Free Tibet" protest carried out by a foreigner.

"There was a man about 100 feet up a highway post, wearing climbing gear and a climbing helmet, holding a banner that read "Tibet Will Be Free." He also had a Tibetan flag hanging out of his backpack."

I am all for freedom of speech and the right to protest, but all this act is going to win is a lot of bad feeling. If the story makes it into any Chinese media (I doubt it will because it is too small a deal) it will be interesting to see whether ugly nationalism rears its head, or the general goodwill of the Games takes over. I'm hoping for the latter.

A mission to nowhere

This article just caught my eye in the Oz:

ONE of the Dalai Lama's top envoys says Tibetan negotiators will present Chinese negotiators with a detailed autonomy plan at their next meeting in October.

"During the eighth round (of negotiations held since 2002), it is almost about all or nothing,'' Kelsang Gyaltsen told German news magazine Der Spiegel today.

"We will present a detailed plan of how we foresee autonomy in Tibet. If the Chinese side reacts positively, one could propose specific preliminary steps, for example a pilgrimage of the Dalai Lama to China.

"Such a development could lead to a meeting between His Holiness and the Chinese president and provide decisive momentum.''

Mr Gyaltsen said he had reason to believe Beijing was ready to resolve the dispute over Tibet in negotiations.

Now, I don’t want to sound cynical or nuffin’, but how on God’s green earth is the CCP going to get away with making a pact with the man they have portrayed as the devil’s spawn for almost six decades? The hate for the Dalai Lama held by vast sections of Han Chinese is so palpable you can almost smell it. After spending decades of whipping up a cult of Lama loathing among their citizens, an agreement which sees the CCP invite the malodorous monk to the motherland is going to be a miracle on a par with the second coming.

I wish the DL's envoys the best of luck. But I think the CCP have invested too much effort in creating an imagined enemy in the form of exiled Tibetans to allow them the space to do a U-turn now. And even if in some divine act they can come to an accommodation, how are the fen qing (nationalist youth) and other Han Chinese going to take it? It might just start a revolution....

Chinese Government announces tough new anti-terrified crackdown in Tibet

This just in from the Guardian:

China seeks "absolute monotony" for Olympics

In the wake of a few hundred Tibetans terrifying 1 billion Han Chinese in March, the Chinese Government has called for stronger international support in the face of these superhuman fiends of terror.

"We're absolutely terrified," said a government spokesman. "So our solution is to terrorize the terrorists. Then we'll be less terrified, and the terrorists will be too terrified to terrorize, and we'll be able to ensure a terrific terror-free Olympics. Pretty clever, eh?"

"But to do this, we need the help of the rest of the world."

When it was suggested to him that the Dalai Lama actually does not seek independence for Tibet, the spokesman was unmoved.

"It is a well known fact that the Dalai Lama has the sole of a god," he said. "We can barely control Tibet as it is. If the Dalai Lama, with his god-sole comes back to China, the s%*& is really going to hit the fan."

The Monk meets McCain

From the WSJ

With the Beijing Olympics just two weeks away, Sen. John McCain brought China to the forefront of the foreign-policy debate Friday by meeting with the Dalai Lama.

I would dearly like to know why John McCain decided to meet with Dalai Lama at this point. Presumably, the McCain strategists crunched the data and came to the conclusion it would look good to American voters. Is he trying to project a more compassionate image? Is he trying to demonstrate his political will to be firm with China? Is it a bit of both? Is he really trying to drag America's relationship with China to the forefront of the presidential contest? I guess we'll never know for sure.

However, one thing is certain. This is a political stunt. With all the problems the US is grappling with at the moment, a Tibetan monk with negligent political power is not even close to being a big concern of the next US president, even if he does attract a lot of respect worldwide.