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Tibet back on India's agenda

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI Sept. 20. As Beijing steps up its diplomatic offensive on Tibet and renews political

contact with the exiled Tibetan leadership, the difficult questions on Tibet's future political relationship with China are creeping back to the top of New Delhi's foreign policy agenda.

It is not that Tibet ever went off the radar screen of Sino-Indian relations. From the very moment India and China stepped on the world stage as new nations in the middle of last century, Tibet has remained the most contentious issue in bilateral relations.

As India and China sought to normalise their bilateral ties since the late 1980s, they have tried to finesse the Tibetan question. But they have not been able to shake off an issue that casts such a dark shadow over the rest of the relationship.

China now appears to be in the middle of a major political manoeuvre to address the political challenge in Tibet. India which shares a long border with Tibet, besides a long history of cultural and other interests in the region, and has hosted the exiled spiritual leader Dalai Lama for more than four decades, is taking a keen interest in the latest developments in Tibet.

The Indian envoy to Beijing and senior officials from the Ministry of External Affairs have been travelling in Tibet in recent weeks. The two sides are also exploring the prospects of expanded border trade and better facilities for Indian pilgrims travelling to Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar in Tibet.

Far more important, however, would be the shaping of a coherent Indian response to the unfolding Chinese political initiative in Tibet, particularly in the context of the long-awaited visit to China by the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, which could take place later this year.

This week two senior envoys of the Dalai Lama are in Lhasa interacting with the local Tibetan leadership. The visit to Beijing and Lhasa by Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyalsten, the Dalai Lama's representatives in the United States and Europe, is being widely seen as a precursor to a formal political dialogue between China and the Tibetan leadership abroad. There are also reports of other unpublicised high-level contacts.

In the last few years, China has been under growing pressure from the West to resume the political dialogue. Over the decades, the Dalai Lama has successfully popularised the Tibetan aspirations for autonomy on the world stage.

Having generated a modicum of social stability and significant economic growth in Tibet in the last few years, China now appears confident that it can handle the challenge of negotiating a final political settlement with the Tibetans.

In the last few weeks, China has released a number of political prisoners, allowed greater access to diplomats and foreign journalists, and invited the elder brother of the Dalai Lama, Gyalo Thondup, to visit Tibet for the first time in five decades. After his visit, Mr. Thondup raised expectations of a positive movement towards a political dialogue.

China has been unwilling to lend an official colour to the current contacts with the Tibetan leadership. It has also insisted on its three well-known preconditions for a dialogue with the Dalai Lama — ending his activities to split China, recognising Tibet and Taiwan as part of China, and accepting the present Government in Beijing as the sole representative of all of China.

The Dalai Lama has often said he is no longer seeking independence from China but only genuine autonomy within China's borders. Beijing has dismissed these statements as being insincere. Clearly there is considerable political and psychological distance between the two sides.

While sceptics dismiss the latest Chinese initiative as merely propagandistic, others believe Beijing's Tibet policy is about to turn an important corner.

Until now it was widely assumed that China believed time was on its side and all it had to do was to wait for the death of the Dalai Lama for the Tibetan question to disappear.

Some analysts argue that Beijing might be veering around to the conclusion that the Dalai Lama holds the key to a final settlement and it is prudent to engage him now rather than face the uncertainties that might arise out of a fragmented Tibetan movement that could follow the demise of the spiritual leader.

Whatever might be the Chinese intentions, New Delhi will indeed be affected by the latest turn of events in Tibet. The Tibetan leadership based in Dharamshala has already called for New Delhi's support for its negotiations with Beijing and the Chinese Government will closely watch every political signal on Tibet that will come out of New Delhi.

India's own hope must be for an early and productive dialogue between Beijing and Tibetan leaders that could lead to a final settlement, the return of the Dalai Lama and the large community of exiles based in India, and the transformation of Tibet from a political barrier in bilateral relations into a land bridge with China.

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