The New York Times

Thursday, December 9, 1999

Dalai Lama Predicts Changes for China

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Tibet's exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, predicted the end of totalitarian rule in China, and said Wednesday that he could accept countries' trading with China as long as they went on raising human rights issues.

The Dalai Lama, responding in an interview to the American proposal for China to enter into the World Trade Organization, applauded Washington for raising human rights issues with Beijing. He is in Cape Town to attend a conference of the World Parliament of Religions.

He noted that many countries with good relations with China bring up human rights questions with Beijing occasionally, adding. "I think that's the correct way," he said. "Appeasement (of human rights violations) is actually immoral."

China occupied Tibet in 1950, claiming it needed to be liberated from feudalism. After a violent Tibetan uprising in 1959, the Dalai Lama fled into exile in India.