World Tibet Network News Saturday, June 27, 1998

BEIJING, June 27, 1998 (Reuters) Chinese President Jiang Zemin and exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama could be friends if only the communist chief and the ochre-robed monk would meet, U.S. President Bill Clinton said Saturday. After a landmark summit in Beijing's cavernous Great Hall of the People, Clinton said he urged Jiang to resume talks with the Dalai Lama, a Buddhist leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate long accused by Chinese leaders of trying to split their motherland. "I have spent time with the Dalai Lama, I believe him to be an honest man, and I believe that if he had a conversation with President Jiang, they would like each other very much,'' Clinton told a news conference held jointly with his Chinese counterpart. The remark prompted a smile from Jiang, who had earlier taken what appeared to be a relatively conciliatory stance on contacts with the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet after an abortive uprising against Beijing rule in 1959.

China's harsh suppression of Tibetan nationalist yearnings has made the Himalayan region's fate a deeply emotive issue in the United States, where the Dalai Lama enjoys a spiritual star status enhanced by vocal support from Hollywood personalities. Western human rights groups have condemned Beijing for imprisoningpro-independence activists, many of them monks and nuns, and for imposing tight controls on religion on the deeply Buddhist "roof of the world. ''At their extraordinary news conference, which ranged far and wide across the issues uniting and dividing the world's most powerful nation and its most populous, both Jiang and Clinton made efforts to address the concerns of the other on Tibet. Clinton said he believed Tibet was a part of China and that he could understand why Beijing would make the Dalai Lama's acknowledgment of this a precondition of talks.

"But I also believe that there are many, many Tibetans who still revere the Dalai Lama and view him as their spiritual leader,'' he said, adding that the United States considered freedom of religion a political issue. "I urged President Jiang to resume a dialogue with the Dalai Lama in return for the recognition of Tibet as part of China, and in recognition of the unique cultural and religious heritage of that region,'' he said. Jiang, whose confident performance on live television belied an old reputation as a stolid technocrat, said Beijing already had several channels of communication open to the Dalai Lama. "As long as the Dalai Lama recognizes Tibet is an inalienable part of China and that Taiwan is a province of China, then the door is open for dialogue and negotiations,'' Jiang said."I hope the Dalai Lama will make a positive response. ''The Dalai Lama has for years said he seeks only greater autonomy for Tibet. The globe-trotting cleric said in France this month he was optimistic about the region's l

ong-term future and was maintaining informal contact with Beijing.

Jiang painted a rosy picture of Tibet, crediting Beijing rule with freeing a million serfs from the Dalai Lama's rule and pouring investment into the backward region. He admitted to being baffled by the faith in Tibetan Lama Buddhism shown by some highly educated people in the West, but stressed China's constitution guaranteed freedom of religion. "As the President of the People's Republic of China and a member of the Communist Party, I myself am an atheist but this will by no means affect my respect for religious freedom in Tibet,'' he said.