Washington Post

September 12, 1995

THE DALAI LAMA of Tibet, to his people their temporal as well as spiritual leader, is in Washington on a difficult mission. This shrewd and pious Buddhist monk is trying to crank up the American government to put China's treatment of Tibet higher on the list of American priorities. His contention is that this time of leadership succession in Beijing, and of tension between Washington and Beijing, is a good time for the United States to take a "firm and principled" position on Tibet.

It is a good time. It always is. But it is a tricky time. Since the United States "normalized" its relations with China two decades ago, it has accepted Tibet as a part of China and treated the Dalai Lama mainly as a religious and cultural figure. On occasion, Congress has described Tibet as an occupied country whose legitimate representatives are the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. Officially, however, successive presidents ask for Tibet cultural and religious autonomy and respect for human rights and free speech. It is a demanding agenda, and China is far from fulfilling it, but it does not include the self-determination -- which is short of independence -- that Tibetans ask for themselves.

From China's crushing of the Tibetan rebellion of 1959, its policy has been regarded as a world-class political crime. The Dalai Lama, now 60, has lived in exile in India since that day. Tibet's geographical and cultural isolation, however, has tended to keep it in the second tier of international concern. This is what makes it hard for the United States, especially at this moment of major collision with China on other issues, to break with diplomatic practice and, directly, to take up Tibet's political cause.

The Dalai Lama believes that in the short run things don't look good for Tibet but in the long run they look better. He finds hope in the tenacity and spirituality of his long-suffering people and in the example of communism's collapse in the former Soviet empire. He is certainly right in thinking the process will move more quickly and -- something of great import to one who does not believe in violence -- more peacefully if other countries use their influence to help it along. There is much that public officials in the United States can do -- President Clinton could receive the Dalai Lama, for instance -- to keep Tibet's ordeal and China's responsibility for it before the world.