Cadre gulps. "The relevant department of the central government will have contact..." The cadre is strangled by poor reading habits. It speaks in rubbishy memo think. Torch onto Japan.
China to Meet
With Representative
Of Dalai Lama
By SHAI OSTER
April 25, 2008 12:30 p.m.
BEIJING -- China, in an abrupt shift, announced that it will meet with representatives of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader Beijing had accused of masterminding deadly antigovernment protests in Tibet.
Associated Press
l.
"In view of the requests repeatedly made by the Dalai side for resuming talks, the relevant department of the central government will have contact and consultation with Dalai's private representative in the coming days," an unnamed official was quoted as saying by China's state-run Xinhua news agency Friday afternoon.
The official went on to say "the policy of the central government towards Dalai has been consistent and the door of dialogue has remained open."
An official at Xinhua confirmed the report, but declined to say which government agencies would be holding the talks.
China has been under intense international pressure to resume dialogue with the exiled religious leader, who has been based in northern India since fleeing Tibet after a failed uprising in 1959.
In a statement issued Thursday from Hamilton, N.Y., the Dalai Lama said he supported talks. "The best way forward is to resolve the issues between the Tibetans and the Chinese leadership through dialogue, as I have been advocating for a long time," he said. "I have repeatedly assured the leadership of the People's Republic of China that I am not seeking independence. What I am seeking is a meaningful autonomy for the Tibetan people that would ensure the long-term survival of our Buddhist culture, our language and our distinct identity as a people."
The unrest spread to other large areas of Tibetan settlements in neighboring provinces and has posed one of the greatest challenges to Beijing's rule in decades. The Chinese government has struggled to regain control in those areas, which have remained closed off to independent observers and Western media.
Chinese authorities say about two dozen people, mostly Han, were killed in the Lhasa riots. Tibetan exile groups allege more than 100 Tibetans were killed in the following crackdown. Neither figure has been independently confirmed because the regions have been sealed off to outsiders by the government.
Over the past few weeks, China's government has vilified the "Dalai Clique," its term for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile, accusing them the group of plotting the violent protests to seek independence and trying to disrupt the Beijing Summer Olympics. The Dalai Lama has repeatedly denied those claims and called for a peaceful resolution.
The standoff has turned the Olympic Torch relay into a battle between supporters of Tibet and China as it traveled around the world. In China, homegrown nationalists have launched protests against alleged Western media-bias and foreign retailers accused of sympathizing with the Tibetans.
Associated Press
China has been under intense international pressure to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama, who met with U.S. Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky in Ann Arbor, Mich., earlier this week.
Shortly before the Xinhua statement, the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he was hopeful of "positive developments soon" after meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
In its short statement about resuming the talks, the Chinese official said: "It is hoped that through contact and consultation, the Dalai side will take credible moves to stop activities aimed at splitting China, stop plotting and inciting violence and stop disrupting and sabotaging the Beijing Olympic Games so as to create conditions for talks," according to Xinhua.
Word of the talks was apparently news to the Dalai Lama Friday afternoon. "We have no information about any meeting with the Chinese," said Tempa Tsering, the Dalai Lama's representative in New Delhi. Asked whether he would be told about such a meeting, Mr. Tsering said: "I should be informed, yes." He said the Dalai Lama was on his way back to India from a trip overseas.
Beijing and the representatives of the Tibetan government in exile held six rounds of talks between 2002 and mid-2007. A major stumbling block of talks has been the definition of Tibet, which Beijing sees as the region it calls the Tibetan Autonomous Region. The government-in-exile considers Tibet a larger area where Tibetans have traditionally lived and which includes parts of other Chinese provinces.
Write to Shai Oster at shai.oster@wsj.com
No comments:
Post a Comment