Silence, price of return to China, says Dalai Lama

TOKYO, APRIL 20. The Dalai Lama says he could return any time to China but is unwilling to pay the price - a vow of silence. The Lama has lived in exile for more than 40 years but remains the target of China's Communist leaders, who fear him as a rallying point for the devoutly Buddhist inhabitants of his restive Himalayan homeland.

``I have already made the maximum concessions in spite of a lot of criticisms from among our own people,'' he told Reuters shortly before winding up a week-long visit to Japan today.

``My approach is very realistic.'' China says it can return only if he recognises that both Tibet and Taiwan are parts of China, and ceases to engage in Separatist activities. ``But what concessions are there left to make? I don't know,'' he said.

The Lama stressed that he had long ago abandoned any pretensions to independence for the poor and landlocked region but did want real autonomy.

He dismissed the Taiwan independence issue as irrelevant, saying Taipei should take a similar realistic approach to China. ``I can return if I make one beautiful statement which the Chinese Government wants.

I can return next week,'' said the Dalai Lama. However, he stressed that his return alone would be insufficient to end Tibet's problems and urged Beijing to give up its policy of suppression. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet for India after an abortive and bloody uprising against the Chinese rule in 1959 and has since been locked in complicated on-and-off negotiations with Beijing on how to effect his return.

Informal channels of communication with Beijing were abruptly shut down in late 1998, soon after the U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton's visit to China, he said.

He held out little hope of a return to Tibet, emphasising that he best serves his people's cause - without compromising his principles - by living outside the region, which has been racked by sporadic and violent anti-Chinese demonstrations since 1987.

The protests have almost all been led by monks, or Lamas, from Tibet's once powerful monasteries, which he described as the focus of Beijing's latest crackdown on dissenting voices.

He cited restrictions on the study of the Tibetan language, arrests, torture - and even deaths - and said tighter suppression in recent years made it more difficult for him to cool the emotions of Tibetans opposed to Chinese rule.

``Actually the Government is stepping up suppression and using force. It is very difficult to tell them.'' Some of his younger followers in India opposed his non-violent stand towards China, he said.

China insists Tibet enjoys religious freedom but has launched a series of crackdowns, sending work teams into monasteries, limiting the number of Lamas and arresting and jailing hundreds of monks and nuns opposed to Chinese rule.

`Policy may backfire'

The Lama said independence was not in the interests of Tibetans, who live in a landlocked and materially backward mountainous region. They are among China's poorest people.

``If we remain with the people of China we might get greater benefits,'' he said. ``Not a single Tibetan wants to restore our old lifestyle,'' he said in an apparent reference to the feudal theocracy that had prevailed for centuries until soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army annexed Tibet in 1950. But he warned China that its policies could backfire, resulting in more unrest - and after his death Beijing could find itself with no influential individual with whom to negotiate. The situation on the strategic Himalayan plateau could then get out of control.

``I think the Chinese leadership may eventually realise the current policy is not wise,'' the Dalai Lama said. ``Their top concern is stability and unity, but in Tibet they use more force, more repression,'' he said. ``Result - more resentment.''

He evaded questions as to whether he expected to be reincarnated - thus continuing to provide Beijing with an interlocutor on Tibet. ``I have no full control over my own rebirth,'' he said.

Asked if he was holding back from returning to Tibet to keep one last card in his talks with China, the Dalai Lama said, ``Yes''.

Sees Indian refuge for Karmapa

The 14-year-old `living Buddha' who escaped to India as he could not endure to see the suppression of his people, the Dalai Lama said.

The 17th Karmapa Lama had now won unofficial permission to remain in India, the Dalai Lama added.

However, he feared that another boy, whom he had recognised as the reincarnation of the second highest Tibetan figure, may be being taught in China to doubt the Buddhist faith.

Speaking for the first time about why the 14-year-old Karmapa Lama had decided to flee China, he said: ``I heard he had left his own monastery and I was very much worried. Then in one or two days another report said he had already reached Dharamsala.'' The Karmapa Lama's escape dealt a severe blow to the attempts of China's Communist Government to control organised religion through ``patriotic'' religious figures and institutions, he said.

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