DURING THE Dalai Lama’s recent visit here, an encounter took place that could open the way to a mutual resolution of the tragedy Tibetans have suffered under Chinese rule. In an icebreaking dialogue at Harvard University Monday morning, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate talked for more than two hours with 35 Chinese scholars studying in this country, assuring them that Tibetans are not seeking independence from Beijing but rather a meaningful form of self-rule within China.
The Dalai Lama and the Chinese scholars broke a taboo. They demonstrated that Chinese can meet with him to discuss Tibet’s future. And his readiness for dialogue was on display in his response to their courage and intellectual curiosity.
The very fact that the Chinese professors, researchers, and graduate students were not discouraged from participating by the Chinese Embassy in Washington may be taken as a heartening sign that Beijing might not be as inflexible on Tibet as it has been in the past.
In June and last September, the Dalai Lama’s special envoy, Lodi Gyari, led Tibetan delegations to China for talks with Chinese officials. At the June discussions, Gyari told the Globe, the Chinese did listen to the Tibetans, but there was no give-and-take.
The Harvard meeting between the Dalai Lama and his scholarly Chinese interlocutors was of a different order. For those 35 members of a crucial Chinese elite, dialogue with the Dalai Lama was an event suffused with historical and political significance. As recounted by the coordinater of the Dalai Lama’s visit to Harvard, Lobsang Sangay, a doctoral student at Harvard Law School, the Chinese professors and students heard the Dalai Lama describe his vision of a future in which Tibetans could govern themselves and preserve Tibet’s unique culture within China. They were also enthralled to hear the Dalai Lama recollect his own encounters a half-century ago with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and other founders of the communist state.
The Dalai Lama seemed to strike a chord when he said he had once been attracted to the ideals of communism but had lost faith in Mao because of the millions who died in the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the repression in Tibet. Since he still believes in helping the poor and the peasants, the Dalai Lama said, he is more Marxist than the current Chinese leadership. He also told the scholars from China that he would prefer that an autonomous Tibet be democratic, like the current Tibetan government in exile.
China’s leaders can enhance their standing in the world by inviting a third visit from the Dalai Lama’s representatives to conduct a substantive dialogue about core issues concerning autonomy for Tibet. The taboos against dialogue have been broken. All that is lacking to heal a historic injustice is the political will of China’s leaders.
