Robert Thurman responds to Nicholas Kristof

In the New York Times article entitled An Olive Branch From the Dalai Lama (August 6, 2008), Nicholas Kristof states, “One signal is this: For the first time, the Dalai Lama is willing to state that he can accept the socialist system in Tibet under Communist Party rule. This is something that Beijing has always demanded, and, after long discussion, the Dalai Lama has agreed to do so.” He quotes the Dalai Lama, “The main thing is to preserve our culture, to preserve the character of Tibet,” the Dalai Lama told me. “That is what is most important, not politics.”

This report is highly distorted. I am shocked by the sloppy and confused nature of the reporting and the interpretation from a journalist whose work I often admire. As some have observed, when China is involved, good people become unaware of the influence of the “anaconda in the chandelier.”

In response, Mr. Jin Canrong (China Daily (People’s Republic of China) August 21, 2008) in an article entitled “An Illusive Olive Branch from the Dalai Lama,” blasted the article from China’s side anyway. The state propaganda publication professed outrage that the Dalai Lama was “trying to negotiate through a journalist.” I am certainly disappointed by Mr. Kristof’s “illusive” article, and would like to clarify the underlying confusions.

First, the Chinese invaded Tibet in stages, 1949-1951, dividing it as they went into 12 parts, one Tibet Autonomous Region (which they now call “Tibet,” in the telling phrase “China’s Tibet”), and eleven “Tibet Autonomous Prefectures,” which they annexed during the 50′s and incorporated in other Chinese provinces. Actual Tibet (which the Dalai Lama calls “Tibet” as do all historical scholars) is defined by the 13,500 foot altitude line, which includes all six million Tibetans, living on the roof of the world. The Chinese annexed the Tibet Autonomous Region when the Dalai Lama fled in 1959, during an uprising occasioned by the Chinese intention to take him forcibly to Beijing and the Tibetan people’s fear of harm being done to him. Since then, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has totally controlled all Tibetans: the two thirds who live in the “Prefectures” and the one third who lives in the “Region.” It has destroyed over a million Tibetan lives, over six thousand Buddhist monasteries, taken billions of dollars of trees, desertified 35% of the high altitude grassland, raised the temperature of the glaciers several times faster than global warming has done and so damaged the headwaters of all of Asia’s major rivers, oppressed the Tibetan people by a highly armed military occupation and intensive colonization, and viciously attacked the Tibetan Buddhist language and culture to the point of committing cultural genocide. This is why the Tibetan people stood up in protest in March. In turn, this gave the CCP the excuse to intensify their brutal suppression, which persists and has now increased in Tibet. The CCP also persistently insults the Dalai Lama personally with extremist, cultural-revolution-style rhetoric.

In the midst of this deplorable situation, the Dalai Lama consistently calls for dialogue and reconciliation with the CCP. For over twenty years he has offered his “Middle Way Approach.” This plan insists on a nonviolent solution that gives the Tibetan people freedom under the genuine autonomy promised to ethnic minorities in the Chinese constitution. It gives the Chinese government legitimate sovereignty over the entirety of Tibet, something more secure than the de facto sovereignty they currently maintain through military occupation.

In light of the present situation, let us look again at Mr. Kristof’s interview with the Dalai Lama.

“For the first time, the Dalai Lama is willing to state that he can accept the socialist system in Tibet under Communist Party rule.” This statement is factually erroneous. The Communist Party has ruled for just short of 60 years. The Dalai Lama cannot accept their aim for cultural genocide, if not actual genocide. Through his “Middle Way Approach,” he could persuade his people to accept genuine autonomy under Chinese rule, rather than seek independence. The Dalai Lama is accepting that ultimate authority would rest with the government of China, the current Chinese Communist Party. His acceptance of “Communist Party Rule” is nothing new.

“This is something that Beijing has always demanded, and, after long discussion, the Dalai Lama has agreed to do so.” Beijing has not demanded any such acceptance of the Dalai Lama. The misleading implication here is that the Dalai Lama’s statement makes any difference to the CCP leadership. They have repeatedly stated that they do not recognize the Dalai Lama as representative of Tibet or the Tibetan people. They are not negotiating the future of Tibet with him. They have no problem about Tibet. They only want to discuss the Dalai Lama’s own personal future – Will be he repentant for all his crimes of separatism against the Motherland? Will he admit that Tibet has always and forever been an inalienable part of China? Will he stop “inciting” the Tibetans, so “happy” under Chinese rule, who protest Chinese occupation and resist “patriotic re-education?”

I would like to have the transcript of the “long discussion” Kristof mentions. He must have pressed the Dalai Lama very hard for the Dalai Lama to give up his reasonable position that Tibetans will not be happy until they are ruled locally by themselves and not by communist party bosses stationed in Tibet. Under the “one country two systems” in Hong Kong, local government is conducted by Hong Kong’s own people, in a partially democratic manner. However, all their decisions are controlled by Beijing, so they are ultimately under “Communist Party Rule.” Even with a democratic local government in Tibet, Tibet would be under ultimate “Communist Party rule.” The Dalai Lama has accepted this as realistic for over twenty years. Immediate communist party rule is too destructive to Tibetan culture, as proven by sixty years of experience. What Kristof is trumpeting as a “major new concession” is probably only that finally, the Dalai Lama agreed under pressure, to “consider” such a possibility. After all, the Dalai Lama has long called for dialogue without preconditions, so anything can be “considered.”

The Dalai Lama has always said that he personally cannot decide the fate of Tibet, anyway. Anything negotiated between his Government in Exile representatives and the Chinese, would have to be approved in a plebiscite by the Tibetan people themselves. So Kristof’s proclamation of a breakthrough is confused.

Finally, if Jin Carong responds to Kristof’s article by saying, “Talking through an American journalist’s mouth reduces the creditability of his message, and makes people wonder if the Dalai really desired to solve the problems or is it another PR smoking campaign on behalf of the West,” Kristof has only succeeded in continuing the Communist party’s fervor in maligning the Dalai Lama even when they say they are open to dialogue with him.