By Mayank Chhaya, IANS
As he turned 72 Friday, perhaps the Dalai Lama's most immediate goal is to go to China on a "pilgrimage". It is a wish he has expressed frequently in recent times and it could well have been one of the important features of the sixth round of talks between Beijing and his two plenipotentiaries.
Although China has lost none of its vituperation when it comes to the Dalai Lama, as it was evident during his latest visit to Australia to whose Prime Minister John Howard Beijing virtually talked down, it is not altogether inconceivable that the Buddhist master could visit China and even Tibet.
While there are no official comments on the subject, there are indications that the Dalai Lama's visit to China was on the agenda of the talks between Beijing and his two envoys, Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen.
Mary Beth Markey, vice president for International Advocacy of the International Campaign for Tibet, a group that in some ways represents the mood in the Tibetan government-in-exile, said before the visit: "We hope that the importance of the 2008 Olympic Games to China may add an extra impetus to the Chinese leadership to respond positively to the willingness of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to make a pilgrimage to China."
It is a wholly different debate whether it is a strategically good idea for him to visit China without any tangible assurances from Beijing about the future of Tibet and the Dalai Lama's role in it.
The talks have been going on between the two parties since 2002. Gyari has been cautiously optimistic about the talks notwithstanding the fact that in the last five years they have not seemingly produced anything of consequence.
In a rare insight into the nature of the talks, Gyari had told an audience at the Brookings Institution in November 2006: "The five rounds of discussions that we have had with the Chinese leadership have brought our dialogue to a new level. Today, there is a deeper understanding of each other's positions and the recognition of where the fundamental differences lie.
"On the surface it may appear that there have been no breakthroughs and that a wide gap persists in our positions. But the very fact that the two sides have been able to explicitly state our positions after so many decades represents a significant development. How can we even attempt to make real progress unless we fully understand our differences?"
While sceptics might wonder about the usefulness of a dialogue, which has nothing much to show for itself after five years, in the Sino-Tibetan context it is important that Beijing has continued to engage the Dalai Lama at all. All this even while repeatedly asserting its well known charge that the Dalai Lama has been carrying out "splittist" activities against China.
During his visit to Australia last month, the Chinese government practically harangued Prime Minister Howard on why he should not meet the Dalai Lama. After much choreography, during which it was said that the prime minister's diary was full, the meeting did indeed take place. However, the reaction from China, while predictable, was also symptomatic of how it continues to view the Dalai Lama.
In a sense nothing appears to have changed since 1959 when the Dalai Lama came into exile in India as a 24-year-old man, not completely familiar with the ways of the world. Although in the past nearly five decades, and certainly since he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, the Dalai Lama has grown into a figure of enormous global consequence, Tibet has become an ever more part of China. China's breathtaking economic progress, coupled with a complete lack of apology about the way it keeps its many nationalities under control, has turned into a peculiar entity to deal with.
It is a measure of how cavalierly it views Tibet that Beijing played down the Gyari-Gyaltsen visit. "First of all, I would like to clarify that Lodi Gyari and company are not so-called envoys of the Dalai," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang was quoted as saying in Beijing.
"Every year, many Tibetan compatriots return for visits and to see relatives. Since 2002, Lodi Gyari and others came back many times and went to Tibet and many provinces on the mainland to see friends and relatives and for tours," Qin said.
In a formulation smacking of a deeply patronizing tone Qin reportedly said the envoys were "relatively close to the Dalai. We hope they will treasure every opportunity to come back, seriously look around and give a factual account to the Dalai after they return (to India) to help the Dalai correctly understand the situation, understand the country's policies and thus make correct choices".
This is classic Chinesespeak when it comes to the question of Tibet in general and the Dalai Lama in particular.
Nonetheless the 2008 Olympic Games do offer Beijing a remarkable opportunity to dilute its intransigence and make a dramatic gesture by letting the Dalai Lama visit on a pilgrimage. Of course, it will be fascinating to see whether the first visit of the Dalai Lama to China in some five decades will do anything to speed up the resolution of a great dispute that the world has all but forgotten.
(Mayank Chhaya is the author of the Dalai Lama's authorised biography "Dalai Lama: Man, Monk, Mystic". He can contacted at [email protected])