11/17 News

Since this week is the Tibetan in Exile special meeting week, I decide to search around and post something every day. Here goes the news I found today that is worthy posting.

1. Excerpt from <Crunch time for Tibetan cause>, BBC
By Penny Spiller
Monday, November 17, 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7727791.stm

As many as 500 exiled Tibetan leaders are meeting in the Indian hill town of Dharmsala this week to discuss the future of their fight for their homeland.

The "brain-storming session" could lead to a more hard-line strategy, Tsering Tashi, the Dalai Lama's representative in London, admits.

"It's possible they will push for outright independence," he told the BBC. "Tibetans have a right to independence. Our history is evidence of that."

But one aspect will not change, he stressed. "The Tibetan struggle will not want to take a violent stance."

The meeting comes at a time of crisis for the exiled Tibetans and their leadership, says Tibetan analyst Robert Barnett, of Columbia University in New York.

China's aggressive response to any moves by the Tibetan cause has led to divisions and dissension among the exiles, he says.

"China realises it's on a winning streak. The longer it can go on being aggressive, the more the exiles split, the more it produces dissenters and the more the Dalai Lama is pressured to make compromises.

"The best outcome of this meeting, in the short term, is that they overcome the divisions. It will be quite impressive if they produce some unity."

Many Tibetans believe any criticism of the Dalai Lama's strategy is criticism of His Holiness himself.

This has made it difficult for a younger, more activist generation to have their calls for full independence taken seriously.

Tsering Palden, head of the New York branch of the Tibetan Youth Congress, which is pushing for full independence, believes there will be a "hot debate" next week.

"There are some people who blindly believe everything the Dalai Lama says. It's very important during this special meeting to make them aware that the 'middle way' is not working. Then, I think they will agree with us," he said.

"Our strategy is to educate Tibetans around the world, to make them more politically aware and to make sure that our voice continues to be heard on the global stage," he said.

"We know this will take many years, possibly generations, but nothing lasts forever. We believe times will change; China will change. Already we see people in China who are sympathetic to our cause."

Another, perhaps unspoken, issue at the heart of this meeting is the question of a successor to the Dalai Lama.

The Tibetan leader is now 73 and has suffered bouts of ill health. In September, he was hospitalised for four days with stomach pain.

Last year he said he was considering breaking with centuries of tradition by choosing a successor, rather than awaiting rebirth which can take many years.

There is reason for his caution. When he picked a six-year-old boy in 1995 to be the Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhist, Beijing rejected the choice and selected a pro-Chinese replacement.

And, he says, there is a fear his death will lead to a disintegration of Tibetan society - with major unrest inside the region, and radical groups freed from the constraints of non-violence.

Tsering Palden hopes that a possible successor will emerge from next week's meeting.

"The Dalai Lama has a special place in the hearts of every Tibetan. If we can find someone who is endorsed by the Dalai Lama himself, then it will make the transition of leadership, when it happens, easier," he says.

2. Excerpt from <Meeting of Tibetan exiles to discuss future opens>, Washington Post

By ASHOK SHARMA

The Associated Press
Monday, November 17, 2008; 2:46 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/16/AR2008111600463.html

On Sunday, the Dalai Lama's envoys to the last round of talks with Beijing said in a statement that they had presented China with a detailed plan on how Tibetans could meet their autonomy needs within the framework of the Chinese Constitution.

Their plan says the constitution "contains fundamental principles on autonomy and self-government" that would allow Beijing to "respond to the uniqueness of the Tibet situation."

It calls for the protection for the Tibetan language and culture, restrictions on non-Tibetans moving into Tibet and the rights of Tibetans to create their own government that would "have the power to execute and administer decisions autonomously."

But China apparently rejected the plan and recent "Chinese statements distort the position and proposal we have outlined in our paper," the statement said.

The Dalai Lama has declined to offer his views on the future of the movement because he said he did not want to tilt the debate in any particular direction.

Karma Chophel, speaker of parliament in the government-in-exile, said more than 8,000 of 17,000 Tibetans recently surveyed in Tibet about their view said they would follow any decision by the Dalai Lama. More than 5,000 said they wanted Tibetan independence, more than twice the number who wanted to continue with the current approach, he said.

Chophel declined to offer any details about how or when the survey was conducted, but it almost certainly would have had to be completed in secrecy.

3. Nothing new I could find from NYT or general Google search.

4. In the aspect of Chinese media, by searching 'People's Daily' and 'China Daily', no mater English or Chinese, I couldn't find anything about this event...
FTchinese doesn't have updates, found a old article, well-organized with middle way approach, questioning Chinese media attitude toward the riot in Tibet this March, and no surprise, found some stupid and disturbing comments about it, as Luo Yonghao would put as people with 'disabled brain'.
Found something in Chinese from BBCchinese, looks like similar to the translation of the article I put in point1. The attitude from Chinese government in this article is 'The Tibetan in Exile meeting is useless because they are a small group of Tibetan people and can not represent the interests of the overall Tibetan people'---The same saying for hundreds of years. And the Central government show the economic, Medicare, cultural conservation development and some Tibetan people talking about how the life is changing upwards, to prove that the overall Tibetan people like the current situation there, which could not persuade me. But where could I find how the most of Tibetan people think? Read more is probably the only way, before I could go there.

Today is the second day of the meeting and I assumed I would see some news about the content of the meeting, but maybe it is a close door meeting and we would only know something concrete when they decide to. So tomorrow I will post some history of Tibet and some thoughts about reading the memo, the detailed plan mentioned in the two news excerpt in this entry.