World Tibet Network News Monday, June 29, 1998

NEW DELHI, Monday, June 29, 1998 (Los Angeles Times) India --Chinese President Jiang Zemin's apparent willingness to talk about Tibet is welcome, but Tibetans cannot accept his insistence that their homeland was always part of China, the Dalai Lama's spokesman said today. The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, reportedly applauded a debate on Tibet and other issues between Jiang and President Clinton that was televised live across China over the weekend. The Dalai Lama's spokesman, T.C. Tethong, also saw hope for a new openness in China. "We applaud President Bill Clinton for asking the Chinese government to enter into dialogue and negotiations with his holiness the Dalai Lama," Tethong said in a statement from the Dalai Lama's headquarters in the northern town of Dharmsala.

"We also applaud President Jiang Zemin for publicly recognizing the fact that Tibet is an important issue needing a solution and for indicating his willingness to have an exchange of views and discussions on this," he said. But Jiang also said in order for talks to begin, the Dalai Lama must acknowledge that Tibet "is an inseparable part of China." The Dalai Lama say she seeks autonomy within China rather than independence for Tibet. The sticking point is his insistence that Tibet was once free. "Nobody can change the past," Tethong said. The New York Times reported today that the Dalai Lama, visiting the far northern Indian Buddhist enclave of Leh, said Sunday that the Clinton-Jiang debate could prompt a change of attitude among local Chinese officials in Tibet.

Jiang refrained from China's usual sharp criticism of the Dalai Lama, and Clinton portrayed him as a spiritual leader and an "honest man" who Jiang could even like. The Dalai Lama was quoted as telling the Times that he saw change in China that helped justify his moderate approach -an approach some pro-independence Tibetans have begun to question. A group of younger Tibetans staged a hunger strike to protest Chinese rule earlier this year even though the Dalai Lama condemned the tactic as violent. When Indian police ended the strike, a 50-year-old former monk set himself ablaze in protest and later died. "I tell them that if you only look at events in Tibet, there is cause for frustration," the Dalai Lama was quoted as telling the Times. "But if you look wide enough there is great hope. Today's China, compared to 15, 20 years ago, is a much changed China." Chinese soldiers seized Tibet in 1950. After an abortive uprising in 1959, the Dalai Lama led more than 100,000 Tibetans into exile.