China on Tuesday demanded that the Dalai Lama give up on Tibetan independence, one day after the exiled spiritual leader said in a newspaper interview that he wanted the region to remain a part of the mainland.
“Tibet is an inseparable part of China,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said. “If the Dalai Lama has the intention to change his relations with the central government, he should … genuinely abandon the independence of Tibet and other splittist activities.”
Beijing’s communist troops occupied Tibet in 1951 and the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 following an abortive uprising against Chinese rule. He heads a government-in-exile in the mountain town of Dharmsala in India.
In the past decade, the Dalai Lama has said that Tibet can remain part of China although he has been pushing for cultural autonomy so that Tibetans can preserve their unique Buddhist society.
“I am not in favor of separation,” he told the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper.
He said he wants the region to benefit from that country’s economic boom.
“As the material development of China moves forward, we gain materially,” he was quoted as saying.
“Tibet is underdeveloped and materially backwards. We want modernization. So for our own interest, we are willing to be part of the People’s Republic of China, to have it govern and guarantee to preserve our Tibetan culture, spirituality and our environment,” the Dalai Lama was quoted as saying.
The newspaper quoted an unnamed official with the Dharmsala leadership as saying the Dalai Lama wants Tibetan autonomy on religious and cultural policy, but not political, economic or diplomatic matters.
China has said that the Dalai Lama may return to Tibet only as a Chinese citizen and only if he renounces all notions of Tibetan independence.
Liu refused to say what China needed to hear from the Dalai Lama before they allow him back.
