Dharamsala, October 13: Criticising China’s irate response to awarding of Nobel Peace Prize to jailed dissident Liu Xiabao, exiled Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama Monday said Beijing must transform itself into a transparent society.
The Chinese government does “not appreciate different opinions at all”, the Tibetan leader told Kyodo news agency at Narita International Airport while on his way from Mumbai to US.
Liu is one of three people to have been awarded the prize while being jailed by their own government. The other two are Myanmar’s Aung Sang Suu Kyi in 1991 and German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky in 1935.
The selection of Liu as this year’s laureate enraged the Chinese government, which has called the dissident a “criminal” and slammed the award as a violation of Nobel ideals and a discredit to the Peace Prize.
Leaders around the world including the Dalai Lama and US President Barack Obama lauded the 2010 winner and called on the Chinese government to release him immediately.
Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, said building an open, transparent society is “the only way to save all people of China” but that some “hardliners” inside the leadership were stuck in an “old way of thinking.”
Dalai Lama’s remarks also resound the Chinese Prime Minister Mr Wen Jiabao’s recent calls for political reforms in China.
In a rare interview, aired on CNN earlier this month, Mr Wen said he had faced “resistance” from sections of the Chinese leadership in taking forward political reforms in China, for the first time indicating that there was a split between leaders of the Communist Party over the sensitive question.
Mr Wen, however, promised that that China will carry out political reform and acknowledged that the need for democracy and freedom in China is “irresistible”.
He also said freedom of speech was “indispensable” for any country, and warned the next generation of leadership, which takes over from him and President Hu Jintao in 2012, that those who went against “the will of the people” would “fail.”
