Dalai Lama advocates Tibetans’ return to China to capitalize on China’s prosperity

Will the Dalai Lama’s government (Central Tibet Administration) co-operate or secretly work against his plans and call an end to the Tibetan struggle?

The opinion piece below was sent to dorjeshugden.com for publication. We accept submissions from the public, please send in your articles to [email protected].

 


 

By: Shashi Kei

It has been a busy week for Tibet watchers. As the Dalai Lama tours Europe, the spiritual leader has been triggering alarms, first claiming that he cannot be held responsible for sex offenses committed by Tibetan lamas and teachers he has personally endorsed, and next by stoking Islamophobia by making a statement that “Europe belongs to Europeans” and that the migrants and refugees in Europe (who are mainly from Muslim countries) should ultimately return to their own countries.

But the biggest bombshell was dropped a few days before the Dalai Lama even left for Europe. On 12th September 2018, a video was published on YouTube showing a group of Tibetans in an audience with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India where his Central Tibetan Administration (CTA; Tibetan leadership) is based. What the Dalai Lama said in the audience essentially signals the end of the Tibetan struggle for a free Tibet. In fact, it was a confirmation that the Dalai Lama is now prepared to depend on China for the survival of the Tibetan people and this itself raises the question how the Tibetans can hope to have any meaningful independence or even autonomy if they cannot stand on their own feet. So while the Tibetan continues in its posturing, the fact is, the Dalai Lama realises that it is time to come under China’s sovereignty.

The gist of what the Dalai Lama said to the Tibetan group is as follows:

Translation

 

  1. We, as Tibetans, should stay under China and we should protect our cultures, religion, dharma, education and so on. For example, in China, there are a few autonomous zones and therefore, the three provinces (Kham, Amdo and Ü-Tsang) have the same rights and opportunity to protect our religion and culture.
  2. You Tibetans love money right? Do you want money or not? Do we prefer a free Tibet but we become beggars (poor) or do we prefer to stay in an autonomous zone under China? That way, if we ask China for money, they will give. [Dalai Lama laughs]
  3. We have some Tibetans who went to the USA, Belgium for money, isn’t it? We will become a union.
  4. In a few years from now, there will be big changes. Firstly, I wish to make a pilgrimage to China. [people crying] Then, step by step, I wish to go to my birthplace, Lhasa.
  5. Can we [Tibetan refugees and the CTA] conquer China to get a free Tibet? [Dalai Lama laughs] If you guys have miracles to show, then it is different. Now India and USA are becoming friends with China.

 

Dalai Lama: “Xi Jinping will invite me in
1 or 2 years for a pilgrimage”


Or watch on server | download video (right click & save file)

In effect what the Dalai Lama said was equivalent to his acceptance of the One China policy that the CTA and its allies have rejected all this time. And it is not difficult to surmise what drove the Tibetan spiritual leader to that conclusion and resolve.

 

60 years of abysmal failure by the CTA

When the Tibetan people first followed the Dalai Lama into exile in 1959, they did not even bother to build proper houses on the lands the India government gave them. Based on the promises the Tibetan leadership made and the proclamations of Nechung, the State Oracle that the Dalai Lama relies on and trusts, they expected to return to their homeland in no time. For years, many of the older generation lived with their bags packed, ready to return at a moment’s notice. There was no reason to doubt. Perhaps karmically, there was a good chance back then for the Tibetans to regain their homeland either by coercion or by accord with China. But the CTA failed to take advantage of 60 years of financial assistance and sponsorships, American government grants, political support of Western governments, the global media, and support from the global academic fraternity and world public. All these were squandered away when the CTA officials, first under Professor Samdhong Rinpoche and then Dr Lobsang Sangay, chose to focus on infighting, internal politicking and jockeying for power and money.

Dr Lobsang Sangay and the Department of Information and International Relations launching material that demonizes a Buddhist practice as part of the CTA’s efforts to find a scapegoat for its 60 years of failures.

Under the present Sikyong Lobsang Sangay who occupies the highest post within the Tibetan leadership, the CTA has splintered, as has the Tibetan community. The Tibetan people’s highest office has been struck by one disgrace after another, ranging from financial improprieties, to election fraud, to a wave of sex scandals, distortions of the CTA’s Constitution, religious bigotry which resulted in the trespass of inalienable human rights of the people, to picking fights with China and reopening old wounds between India and China. Under the Sikyong, the CTA has even slyly undermined the Dalai Lama’s efforts to draw China back to the negotiation table, for example, by undoing the Dalai Lama’s reconciliation efforts with China vide the Panchen Lama issue.

All these shenanigans have come at the cost of attention on the Tibetan cause and the credibility of the Tibetan leadership. At the same time, China was allowed to pull itself together after Mao’s devastating policies and go on to grow from strength to strength. As the trajectory of China’s meteoric rise intersects with the descending curve of the Dalai Lama’s global popularity, the Tibetan struggle has become intractably buried under other more pressing global issues, economic considerations and shifting interests and alliances.

 

A realistic estimation

The Dalai Lama knows this and realizes that for the Tibetan culture and identity to survive, it has a better chance under a China seeking to win over the Tibetan people in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), more so than a kakistocratic CTA whose interest in the Tibetan struggle seems to be laced with personal agendas. The CTA cannot do for the Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhism what China can, regardless of what motivates China’s beneficent actions. A tangible benefit to the Tibetans remains just that, a tangible benefit. In the last 60 years, the CTA has failed to nurture a single Tibetan figure to succeed in the global arena in any field, just like how it failed to cultivate a positive environment for Tibetans to succeed in. Today, unemployment is high amongst Tibetan youth and the monastic system seems compromised as the number of people joining the Tibetan Buddhist order drops to negligible numbers. Even the presence of the Dalai Lama in India has failed to draw aspirants to ordain into the Tibetan Buddhist monastic community. In contrast, there are three times as many Buddhists in China as there are members of the Communist Party. More and more Tibetans have chosen to emigrate to Europe, the US and Canada to seek opportunities and as a nation in exile, the people are divided, thanks to the CTA’s policy of alienating those they cannot control.

CTA has subtly encouraged Tibetan self-immolation as a means to create sympathy for its political agenda. Over 150 Tibetans perished unnecessarily.

Seeing how the CTA is, the Dalai Lama knows that even if, by some miracle, the Tibetan leadership regains control of Tibet, it would not be the end of their problems but perhaps only the beginning. In fact, the Dalai Lama even jokes with the people in the audience, gently asking if they have the ability to produce miracles. The question remains whether the CTA has the wherewithal to manage six million Tibetans in TAR when they have clearly failed to attend to the needs of 150,000 Tibetans in the diaspora, of which it is estimated that only 80,000 remain in the Indian settlements under the CTA’s purview.

 

Becoming beggars

Hence, the Dalai Lama’s speculation that the people will become “beggars”. This is a brutally honest insight on the part of the Tibetan spiritual leader. Tibet, prior to 1959, was backwards, isolated and poor. Life expectancy was a short 36 years and only 5% of the population had any sort of education. There were no proper roads, no financial institutions or monetary system, no schools or education system, no industrial infrastructure and indeed no framework or political heredity to support a modern and free society. The Dalai Lama himself acknowledged this in 2001 when he recognized that Tibet prior to 1959 was “very, very backward”.

In exile, the CTA has been entirely reliant on donations from governments and the general public. How can the Dalai Lama expect his Sikyong Lobsang Sangay and his team to suddenly improve from this state when they have failed for 60 years under much more supportive circumstances? The Dalai Lama has seen how an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 Tibetans have shed their reliance on the CTA over the years and chosen instead to venture out on their own to foreign countries such as Canada, the US, Switzerland, France, Germany, Nepal, Bhutan and even India without the Tibetan settlements.

Yes, it is indeed public knowledge that the CTA has only been doing well because of the generous grants from countries such as the US (who share a common anti-China interest with the CTA) and sponsorship from the well-meaning global public. It is estimated that the CTA receives at least $70 to 90 million a year collectively from benevolent individuals around the world and countries such as the US and India. The CTA has not bothered to develop any industry or sought to become financially independent in its history but instead has been quite happy to be a welfare ‘state’ relying on handouts. It is without doubt that this gravy train will come to an abrupt stop the moment the Dalai Lama returns to Tibet, signaling a forfeiture of his refugee status; there will no longer be a need for these external donors to continue funding their operations. The Dalai Lama knows that the Tibetans will have no choice but to receive handouts from the Chinese government, in the same way they have been from Western nations and sponsors. Ironically, the Tibetans have for decades accused their detractors of being on Chinese payroll or Chinese paid traitors. To tag a Tibetan with this label is to sentence him to a life in banishment but now it would appear that the Dalai Lama himself will be taking Chinese money.

The Chamdo Prefecture law that prohibits the politicisation of the Dorje Shugden practice. Click to enlarge. Source: https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/07/30/illegal-organizations/chinas-crackdown-tibetan-social-groups

Therefore, based on political as well as financial pragmatism, the Dalai Lama knows that the only realistic way forward is for him and Tibetans to become Chinese citizens. However, this conclusion is not without serious repercussions:

  1. The decision to come into China’s fold means that after 60 years of nursing off India’s generosity, the CTA is now going to switch sides in the Sino-Indian conflict. Although both India and China are making efforts to become friends, they still view each other with considerable suspicion. The CTA has been a willing collaborator when India played the ‘Tibet card’ in the past. Will the Tibetan leadership now become a willing accomplice when China in turn, plays the Tibet card on India? Will Dr Lobsang Sangay be hoisting the Chinese flag at the Indian-Chinese border as he did with the Tibetan one in Ladakh, which irked the Chinese greatly? 
Similar considerations apply to the CTA’s relationship with the USA from whom they have received aid in consideration of being a thorn at China’s side. With China’s rise to global dominance and prominence, the US has sought to resist this shift in the geopolitical balance of power and the CTA has been a willing pawn in this gamesmanship.
  2. How will the Dalai Lama tell the thousands of ‘rangzen warriors’, both Tibetan and Western, to effectively lay down arms? As it is, the Dalai Lama’s preference of seeking autonomy over independence is already highly unpopular. In essence, the Dalai Lama is asking all rangzen as well as umaylam efforts to cease immediately. For as long as these activists are still agitating China, each camp with its own demands, there is no incentive for China to entertain the Dalai Lama’s wishes. In addition, how will the Dalai Lama explain away the Tibetan leadership’s subtle encouragement of Tibetans to self-immolate as a method to garner world sympathy for its cause? What did over 150 Tibetans die for if not for their wish to see a free Tibet?

Dr Lobsang Sangay launching a CTA-sponsored book that glorifies Tibetan suicide by self-immolation.

  1. In order to return to Tibet as one nation, will the Dalai Lama reverse the highly divisive policies of the CTA? For example, for the past 22 years, the CTA has accused a significant segment of its population in exile to be Chinese spies purely on the basis that they are worshippers of the Dharma protector Dorje Shugden. In 1996, the CTA banned this Buddhist practice and proceeded to marginalize its practitioners by legislation, even to the point of criminalizing this religious practice, effectively sanctioning assaults on Shugden adherents. All this was part of the CTA’s strategy to distract their people’s attention by keeping their focus on a false enemy rather than their ineptitude. In effect, the CTA invented an enemy out of a benign religious practice, the result of which was to tear apart the Tibetan community in India and the TAR, and indeed anywhere there is a presence of Tibetan Buddhism.

In implementing this decree in the name of the Dalai Lama, the CTA compelled all Tibetans to prove their loyalty to the Dalai Lama by forcing Dorje Shugden worshippers to abandon their faith. This created unrests within the TAR and in response, the Chinese government moved to make it a crime to use the Shugden issue to instigate differences and disharmony. By the CTA’s hand, the Dorje Shugden issue has become a major fault line in Chinese-Tibetan affairs and this must be solved before there is any hope of the Dalai Lama and Tibetans returning home. To allow the Dalai Lama to do so without first disarming the Dorje Shugden issue which the CTA weaponized, would be to invite the potential of this fault line to become a quake of seismic proportions. In this sense, the CTA has created a big hurdle for the Tibetans to return home.

On the other hand, for the CTA to suddenly reverse their stance on the Dorje Shugden practice would expose their deception to the world. Many Tibetans and Buddhists around the world believed the Tibetan leadership when it said that Shugden was a malignant spirit and its practitioners are on China’s payroll. On that basis, a large percentage of Buddhists denounced their teachers, families and friends. How the CTA backs out of this fabrication without losing even more credibility will be something to watch out for. And yet, it has no choice but to do so.

The official website of the Central Tibetan Government carries material that accuses the Dorje Shugden practice to be a demonic practice. The Dalai Lama will need to take steps to remedy this since there are millions of Shugden Buddhists in China. Click to enlarge.

 

Caught in its own lies

The Dalai Lama’s words to the group of Tibetans made public on 12th September 2018 raises a moral dilemma for the Tibetan leadership. It has demonized the practice of Dorje Shugden to such a degree and yet it must now do what it has falsely accused Shugden practitioners of doing. The Tibetan leadership must favor the Chinese government and toe the CCP line, something it falsely accused Dorje Shugden practitioners of doing. The CTA must now accept Chinese funds to survive whereas for the past 20 years, it has accused anyone who had anything to do with China to be traitors to the Tibetan cause. It must now uphold China’s law to regard as a crime any attempt to use the Shugden issue to divide the community, a charge it falsely leveled at Shugden Buddhists previously.

It must acknowledge and endorse Tibetan lamas and monasteries that practice Dorje Shugden, along with other traditional Gelug deities, when previously it took the stance that the Dorje Shugden practice is anti-Buddhism. It must now encourage loyal Tibetans to become friends with Shugden practitioners as a means to foster harmony, something that the Chinese government would expect of the Dalai Lama. Previously, the Tibetan leadership would accuse anyone who does not support its religious apartheid against Shugden Buddhists, to be anti-Dalai Lama.

Shouldn’t Tibetans help the Dalai Lama to visit and return to Tibet? If so, Tibetans abroad must cease their criticisms of China to fulfill the Dalai Lama’s dream. If Tibetans are loyal to the Dalai Lama, they will do so. After all, Tibetans shouldn’t be selective of which policies of the Dalai Lama they wish to support and don’t support. After all, Tibetans call themselves democratic but as long as the Dalai Lama is at the ‘helm’ in the background, it will never be democratic. It has been 350 years of whatever the Dalai Lama dictates, he gets. Tibet has been under feudal rule from the line of Dalai Lamas from the 5th to the current 14th. Tibetans are trained to obey without question all of the Dalai Lama’s decisions even in exile in 2018. After all, he is a God-king. Democracy is a name the Tibetan exiled regime gave themselves in exile to look progressive. Being ‘progressive’ fits the western ideal of democracy therefore making them ‘deserving’ of free donations from the west which they have grown fat off of. Donations that allow the Tibetans to continue to be a welfare state in exile for nearly 60 years. Many subsidized minorities in the west have huge social issues, continues to struggle with education and self sufficiency, alcoholism, drug issues, domestic violence and petty crimes. The subsidies were meant to help them get ahead but instead turned some of them reliant, complacent and dependent. Somewhat of a similar situation for many Tibetan youths in India as well as their ‘government’ in exile. Free aid for 60 years did not help the Tibetans nor get their country back. 

How the CTA can accomplish all that is stated above without looking either completely inept or decidedly deceptive is something it has to work out. For now, it is trapped in the web of lies it spun for over two decades. As to whether the Dalai Lama has the will and stamina to break though this CTA-created entanglement is yet to be seen but as long as the CTA is still perpetuating this lie (it recently launched a book in Taiwan demonizing Dorje Shugden) then it is unlikely that the Dalai Lama’s wish to see his homeland will ever be realized.

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  1. “The bottom line is its not about whether anyone trusts or likes China but whether China can help these countries advance their own respective national interests. And the answer is yes. Correspondingly the question is whether any country can afford not to access China’s vast consumer market moving into the future. Not doing business is bad for local economies and no one will elect or re-elect a government that presides over a failing economy.”~NY Times

    How China Has Defied Expectations, in Canada and Around the Globe
    By Ian Austen
    Nov. 23, 2018
    In Saskatchewan, farming is done on a grand scale. So when I visited the Canadian Western Agribition in Regina this week for an upcoming story, I wasn’t surprised to find that the annual gathering of Western farmers is almost overwhelmingly large, luring 127,000 visitors last year to a city of 215,000.
    Like all agricultural exhibitions, the Agribition has a wide array of activities for city dwellers like me, including a rodeo, horse shows and cattle judging. But what started as a regional exhibition 48 years ago has grown into a global event. Cattle ranchers, many from distant parts of North America, parade their livestock to buyers from around the world looking to improve their herds.
    When I asked breeders where their customers come from these days, many of them said China.
    Canada, like the rest of the world, has not escaped the effects of China’s move from isolated backwater to a global economic and political force. For the past several months, more than a dozen New York Times reporters, editors, photographers and designers have been examining China’s dramatic rise in a project called China Rules, which launched this week.
    Phil Pan, our Hong Kong-based Asia editor, has worked in China for about two decades and returned to writing to produce the must-read opening essay on how China’s rise has defied expectations.
    Political shifts in Washington and Beijing helped influence the timing of the series. “One factor was certainly a sense at the beginning of the year that America under Trump was in retreat or withdrawing from the world,” Phil said.
    Under President Xi Jinping, China saw an opportunity to step up, he said. And in recent months, he said, “We began to see this fundamental shift in the relationship between the U.S. and China from engagement to competition.”
    While President Trump has attacked China and launched a trade war against it, Canada has taken an opposing track. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said repeatedly that his government is moving toward a full-scale free trade agreement with China, though that movement’s progress has been stately, at best.
    And Mr. Trudeau’s government continues to rebuff American security warnings about allowing equipment made from Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecommunications company with research operations in Canada, into the coming upgrade of Canada’s wireless networks.
    I asked Phil if Canadians can, or should, trust China.
    “I think the debate in Canada and the United States probably will be much less about trust than about interests,” he said. “Is the fact that the Chinese political system is authoritarian a problem for our national interest?”
    Here, for your weekend reading pleasure, is more from our China Rules series:
    • The American Dream Is Alive. In China.
    • How China Made Its Own Internet
    • How China Took Over Your TV
    • How China Is Writing its Own (Hollywood) Script
    • The World, Built by China
    Among the stories still to come in the series is an examination of China’s authoritarian control of its citizens, as well as articles on how the country is challenging the global, liberal democratic order and why its economic rise left many Western economists red-faced.
    If after reading China Rules, you’d like to discuss the series, we have a new Facebook group: Examining China’s Reach With The New York Times.
    In Conversation
    Mark Thompson, president and chief executive officer of The New York Times Company, will join Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, in conversation at the University of Toronto on Tuesday, December 11. The two will discuss U.S.-Canada relations, foreign policy challenges and more. Details and ticket information are available here.
    And a final reminder that Sam Tanenhaus, a former editor of The New York Times Book Review, will moderate a panel on book reviewing on Friday, Nov. 30, also in Toronto. Use the code CANADALETTER for $5 off the ticket price.
    Trans Canada
    —The turmoil that followed the arrest of six teenagers accused of sexual assault during hazing rituals at an elite private school in Toronto is prompting some Canadians to question the value of all-boys schools.
    —Canada is pushing the United States to end steel and aluminum tariffs before the ceremonial signing of the replacement deal for Nafta. But Washington is considering another, similarly unappealing measure to replace the duties.
    —An art historian from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario is among the curators of an exhibit that uses imaging technology to peel back the layers of Bruegel’s complex masterpieces.
    —In Opinion, Amanda Siebert wrote that the legalization of recreational marijuana in Canada will allow medical research to blossom.
    —While the United States dithers, Canada has approved new regulations that will allow for the sale of cars with headlights that automatically adjust their beams, letting drivers see farther down the road without blinding oncoming traffic.
    A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 15 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/world/canada/china-defied-expectations-canada.html

  2. Everyone is expecting a communist China to fail. But in fact China is getting stronger and bigger and more powerful. China proves communism can work to the chagrin of ‘democratic’ countries such as the US who is jealous and threatened of their own status quo. China will continue to grow according to the New York Times.

    The Land That Failed to Fail
    The West was sure the Chinese approach would not work. It just had to wait. It’s still waiting.
    By PHILIP P. PAN
    Photographs by BRYAN DENTON
    NOV. 18, 2018
    In the uncertain years after Mao’s death, long before China became an industrial juggernaut, before the Communist Party went on a winning streak that would reshape the world, a group of economics students gathered at a mountain retreat outside Shanghai. There, in the bamboo forests of Moganshan, the young scholars grappled with a pressing question: How could China catch up with the West?
    It was the autumn of 1984, and on the other side of the world, Ronald Reagan was promising “morning again in America.” China, meanwhile, was just recovering from decades of political and economic turmoil. There had been progress in the countryside, but more than three-quarters of the population still lived in extreme poverty. The state decided where everyone worked, what every factory made and how much everything cost.
    The students and researchers attending the Academic Symposium of Middle-Aged and Young Economists wanted to unleash market forces but worried about crashing the economy — and alarming the party bureaucrats and ideologues who controlled it.
    Late one night, they reached a consensus: Factories should meet state quotas but sell anything extra they made at any price they chose. It was a clever, quietly radical proposal to undercut the planned economy — and it intrigued a young party official in the room who had no background in economics. “As they were discussing the problem, I didn’t say anything at all,” recalled Xu Jing’an, now 76 and retired. “I was thinking, how do we make this work?”
    The Chinese economy has grown so fast for so long now that it is easy to forget how unlikely its metamorphosis into a global powerhouse was, how much of its ascent was improvised and born of desperation. The proposal that Mr. Xu took from the mountain retreat, soon adopted as government policy, was a pivotal early step in this astounding transformation.
    China now leads the world in the number of homeowners, internet users, college graduates and, by some counts, billionaires. Extreme poverty has fallen to less than 1 percent. An isolated, impoverished backwater has evolved into the most significant rival to the United States since the fall of the Soviet Union.
    An epochal contest is underway. With President Xi Jinping pushing a more assertive agenda overseas and tightening controls at home, the Trump administration has launched a trade war and is gearing up for what could be a new Cold War. Meanwhile, in Beijing the question these days is less how to catch up with the West than how to pull ahead — and how to do so in a new era of American hostility.
    The pattern is familiar to historians, a rising power challenging an established one, with a familiar complication: For decades, the United States encouraged and aided China’s rise, working with its leaders and its people to build the most important economic partnership in the world, one that has lifted both nations.
    During this time, eight American presidents assumed, or hoped, that China would eventually bend to what were considered the established rules of modernization: Prosperity would fuel popular demands for political freedom and bring China into the fold of democratic nations. Or the Chinese economy would falter under the weight of authoritarian rule and bureaucratic rot.
    But neither happened. Instead, China’s Communist leaders have defied expectations again and again. They embraced capitalism even as they continued to call themselves Marxists. They used repression to maintain power but without stifling entrepreneurship or innovation. Surrounded by foes and rivals, they avoided war, with one brief exception, even as they fanned nationalist sentiment at home. And they presided over 40 years of uninterrupted growth, often with unorthodox policies the textbooks said would fail.
    In late September, the People’s Republic of China marked a milestone, surpassing the Soviet Union in longevity. Days later, it celebrated a record 69 years of Communist rule. And China may be just hitting its stride — a new superpower with an economy on track to become not just the world’s largest but, quite soon, the largest by a wide margin.
    The world thought it could change China, and in many ways it has. But China’s success has been so spectacular that it has just as often changed the world — and the American understanding of how the world works.
    There is no simple explanation for how China’s leaders pulled this off. There was foresight and luck, skill and violent resolve, but perhaps most important was the fear — a sense of crisis among Mao’s successors that they never shook, and that intensified after the Tiananmen Square massacre and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
    Even as they put the disasters of Mao’s rule behind them, China’s Communists studied and obsessed over the fate of their old ideological allies in Moscow, determined to learn from their mistakes. They drew two lessons: The party needed to embrace “reform” to survive — but “reform” must never include democratization.
    China has veered between these competing impulses ever since, between opening up and clamping down, between experimenting with change and resisting it, always pulling back before going too far in either direction for fear of running aground.
    Many people said that the party would fail, that this tension between openness and repression would be too much for a nation as big as China to sustain. But it may be precisely why China soared.
    Whether it can continue to do so with the United States trying to stop it is another question entirely.
    Apparatchiks Into Capitalists
    None of the participants at the Moganshan conference could have predicted how China would take off, much less the roles they would play in the boom ahead. They had come of age in an era of tumult, almost entirely isolated from the rest of the world, with little to prepare them for the challenge they faced. To succeed, the party had to both reinvent its ideology and reprogram its best and brightest to carry it out.
    Mr. Xu, for example, had graduated with a degree in journalism on the eve of Mao’s violent Cultural Revolution, during which millions of people were purged, persecuted and killed. He spent those years at a “cadre school” doing manual labor and teaching Marxism in an army unit. After Mao’s death, he was assigned to a state research institute tasked with fixing the economy. His first job was figuring out how to give factories more power to make decisions, a subject he knew almost nothing about. Yet he went on to a distinguished career as an economic policymaker, helping launch China’s first stock market in Shenzhen.
    Among the other young participants in Moganshan were Zhou Xiaochuan, who would later lead China’s central bank for 15 years; Lou Jiwei, who ran China’s sovereign wealth fund and recently stepped down as finance minister; and an agricultural policy specialist named Wang Qishan, who rose higher than any of them.
    Mr. Wang headed China’s first investment bank and helped steer the nation through the Asian financial crisis. As Beijing’s mayor, he hosted the 2008 Olympics. Then he oversaw the party’s recent high-stakes crackdown on corruption. Now he is China’s vice president, second in authority only to Xi Jinping, the party’s leader.
    The careers of these men from Moganshan highlight an important aspect of China’s success: It turned its apparatchiks into capitalists.
    Bureaucrats who were once obstacles to growth became engines of growth. Officials devoted to class warfare and price controls began chasing investment and promoting private enterprise. Every day now, the leader of a Chinese district, city or province makes a pitch like the one Yan Chaojun made at a business forum in September.
    “Sanya,” Mr. Yan said, referring to the southern resort town he leads, “must be a good butler, nanny, driver and cleaning person for businesses, and welcome investment from foreign companies.”
    It was a remarkable act of reinvention, one that eluded the Soviets. In both China and the Soviet Union, vast Stalinist bureaucracies had smothered economic growth, with officials who wielded unchecked power resisting change that threatened their privileges.
    Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, tried to break the hold of these bureaucrats on the economy by opening up the political system. Decades later, Chinese officials still take classes on why that was a mistake. The party even produced a documentary series on the subject in 2006, distributing it on classified DVDs for officials at all levels to watch.
    Afraid to open up politically but unwilling to stand still, the party found another way. It moved gradually and followed the pattern of the compromise at Moganshan, which left the planned economy intact while allowing a market economy to flourish and outgrow it.
    Party leaders called this go-slow, experimental approach “crossing the river by feeling the stones” — allowing farmers to grow and sell their own crops, for example, while retaining state ownership of the land; lifting investment restrictions in “special economic zones,” while leaving them in place in the rest of the country; or introducing privatization by selling only minority stakes in state firms at first.
    “There was resistance,” Mr. Xu said. “Satisfying the reformers and the opposition was an art.”
    American economists were skeptical. Market forces needed to be introduced quickly, they argued; otherwise, the bureaucracy would mobilize to block necessary changes. After a visit to China in 1988, the Nobel laureate Milton Friedman called the party’s strategy “an open invitation to corruption and inefficiency.”
    But China had a strange advantage in battling bureaucratic resistance. The nation’s long economic boom followed one of the darkest chapters of its history, the Cultural Revolution, which decimated the party apparatus and left it in shambles. In effect, autocratic excess set the stage for Mao’s eventual successor, Deng Xiaoping, to lead the party in a radically more open direction.
    That included sending generations of young party officials to the United States and elsewhere to study how modern economies worked. Sometimes they enrolled in universities, sometimes they found jobs, and sometimes they went on brief “study tours.” When they returned, the party promoted their careers and arranged for others to learn from them.
    At the same time, the party invested in education, expanding access to schools and universities, and all but eliminating illiteracy. Many critics focus on the weaknesses of the Chinese system — the emphasis on tests and memorization, the political constraints, the discrimination against rural students. But mainland China now produces more graduates in science and engineering every year than the United States, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan combined.
    In cities like Shanghai, Chinese schoolchildren outperform peers around the world. For many parents, though, even that is not enough. Because of new wealth, a traditional emphasis on education as a path to social mobility and the state’s hypercompetitive college entrance exam, most students also enroll in after-school tutoring programs — a market worth $125 billion, according to one study, or as much as half the government’s annual military budget.
    Another explanation for the party’s transformation lies in bureaucratic mechanics. Analysts sometimes say that China embraced economic reform while resisting political reform. But in reality, the party made changes after Mao’s death that fell short of free elections or independent courts yet were nevertheless significant.
    The party introduced term limits and mandatory retirement ages, for example, making it easier to flush out incompetent officials. And it revamped the internal report cards it used to evaluate local leaders for promotions and bonuses, focusing them almost exclusively on concrete economic targets.
    These seemingly minor adjustments had an outsize impact, injecting a dose of accountability — and competition — into the political system, said Yuen Yuen Ang, a political scientist at the University of Michigan. “China created a unique hybrid,” she said, “an autocracy with democratic characteristics.”
    As the economy flourished, officials with a single-minded focus on growth often ignored widespread pollution, violations of labor standards, and tainted food and medical supplies. They were rewarded with soaring tax revenues and opportunities to enrich their friends, their relatives and themselves. A wave of officials abandoned the state and went into business. Over time, the party elite amassed great wealth, which cemented its support for the privatization of much of the economy it once controlled.
    The private sector now produces more than 60 percent of the nation’s economic output, employs over 80 percent of workers in cities and towns, and generates 90 percent of new jobs, a senior official said in a speech last year. As often as not, the bureaucrats stay out of the way.
    “I basically don’t see them even once a year,” said James Ni, chairman and founder of Mlily, a mattress manufacturer in eastern China. “I’m creating jobs, generating tax revenue. Why should they bother me?”
    In recent years, President Xi has sought to assert the party’s authority inside private firms. He has also bolstered state-owned enterprises with subsidies while preserving barriers to foreign competition. And he has endorsed demands that American companies surrender technology in exchange for market access.
    In doing so, he is betting that the Chinese state has changed so much that it should play a leading role in the economy — that it can build and run “national champions” capable of outcompeting the United States for control of the high-tech industries of the future. But he has also provoked a backlash in Washington.
    ‘Opening Up’
    In December, the Communist Party will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the “reform and opening up” policies that transformed China. The triumphant propaganda has already begun, with Mr. Xi putting himself front and center, as if taking a victory lap for the nation.
    He is the party’s most powerful leader since Deng and the son of a senior official who served Deng, but even as he wraps himself in Deng’s legacy, Mr. Xi has set himself apart in an important way: Deng encouraged the party to seek help and expertise overseas, but Mr. Xi preaches self-reliance and warns of the threats posed by “hostile foreign forces.”
    In other words, he appears to have less use for the “opening up” part of Deng’s slogan.
    Of the many risks that the party took in its pursuit of growth, perhaps the biggest was letting in foreign investment, trade and ideas. It was an exceptional gamble by a country once as isolated as North Korea is today, and it paid off in an exceptional way: China tapped into a wave of globalization sweeping the world and emerged as the world’s factory. China’s embrace of the internet, within limits, helped make it a leader in technology. And foreign advice helped China reshape its banks, build a legal system and create modern corporations.
    The party prefers a different narrative these days, presenting the economic boom as “grown out of the soil of China” and primarily the result of its leadership. But this obscures one of the great ironies of China’s rise — that Beijing’s former enemies helped make it possible.
    The United States and Japan, both routinely vilified by party propagandists, became major trading partners and were important sources of aid, investment and expertise. The real game changers, though, were people like Tony Lin, a factory manager who made his first trip to the mainland in 1988.
    Mr. Lin was born and raised in Taiwan, the self-governing island where those who lost the Chinese civil war fled after the Communist Revolution. As a schoolboy, he was taught that mainland China was the enemy.
    But in the late 1980s, the sneaker factory he managed in central Taiwan was having trouble finding workers, and its biggest customer, Nike, suggested moving some production to China. Mr. Lin set aside his fears and made the trip. What he found surprised him: a large and willing work force, and officials so eager for capital and know-how that they offered the use of a state factory free and a five-year break on taxes.
    Mr. Lin spent the next decade shuttling to and from southern China, spending months at a time there and returning home only for short breaks to see his wife and children. He built and ran five sneaker factories, including Nike’s largest Chinese supplier.
    “China’s policies were tremendous,” he recalled. “They were like a sponge absorbing water, money, technology, everything.”
    Mr. Lin was part of a torrent of investment from ethnic Chinese enclaves in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and beyond that washed over China — and gave it a leg up on other developing countries. Without this diaspora, some economists argue, the mainland’s transformation might have stalled at the level of a country like Indonesia or Mexico.
    The timing worked out for China, which opened up just as Taiwan was outgrowing its place in the global manufacturing chain. China benefited from Taiwan’s money, but also its managerial experience, technology and relationships with customers around the world. In effect, Taiwan jump-started capitalism in China and plugged it into the global economy.
    Before long, the government in Taiwan began to worry about relying so much on its onetime enemy and tried to shift investment elsewhere. But the mainland was too cheap, too close and, with a common language and heritage, too familiar. Mr. Lin tried opening factories in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia but always came back to China.
    Now Taiwan finds itself increasingly dependent on a much more powerful China, which is pushing ever harder for unification, and the island’s future is uncertain.
    There are echoes of Taiwan’s predicament around the world, where many are having second thoughts about how they rushed to embrace Beijing with trade and investment.
    The remorse may be strongest in the United States, which brought China into the World Trade Organization, became China’s largest customer and now accuses it of large-scale theft of technology — what one official called “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.”
    Many in Washington predicted that trade would bring political change. It did, but not in China. “Opening up” ended up strengthening the party’s hold on power rather than weakening it. The shock of China’s rise as an export colossus, however, was felt in factory towns around the world.
    In the United States, economists say at least two million jobs disappeared as a result, many in districts that ended up voting for President Trump.
    Selective Repression
    Over lunch at a luxurious private club on the 50th floor of an apartment tower in central Beijing, one of China’s most successful real estate tycoons explained why he had left his job at a government research center after the crackdown on the student-led democracy movement in Tiananmen Square.
    “It was very easy,” said Feng Lun, the chairman of Vantone Holdings, which manages a multibillion-dollar portfolio of properties around the world. “One day, I woke up and everyone had run away. So I ran, too.”
    Until the soldiers opened fire, he said, he had planned to spend his entire career in the civil service. Instead, as the party was pushing out those who had sympathized with the students, he joined the exodus of officials who started over as entrepreneurs in the 1990s.
    “At the time, if you held a meeting and told us to go into business, we wouldn’t have gone,” he recalled. “So this incident, it unintentionally planted seeds in the market economy.”
    Such has been the seesaw pattern of the party’s success.
    The pro-democracy movement in 1989 was the closest the party ever came to political liberalization after Mao’s death, and the crackdown that followed was the furthest it went in the other direction, toward repression and control. After the massacre, the economy stalled and retrenchment seemed certain. Yet three years later, Deng used a tour of southern China to wrestle the party back to “reform and opening up” once more.
    Many who had left the government, like Mr. Feng, suddenly found themselves leading the nation’s transformation from the outside, as its first generation of private entrepreneurs.
    Now Mr. Xi is steering the party toward repression again, tightening its grip on society, concentrating power in his own hands and setting himself up to rule for life by abolishing the presidential term limit. Will the party loosen up again, as it did a few years after Tiananmen, or is this a more permanent shift? If it is, what will it mean for the Chinese economic miracle?
    The fear is that Mr. Xi is attempting to rewrite the recipe behind China’s rise, replacing selective repression with something more severe.
    The party has always been vigilant about crushing potential threats — a fledgling opposition party, a popular spiritual movement, even a dissident writer awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But with some big exceptions, it has also generally retreated from people’s personal lives and given them enough freedom to keep the economy growing.
    The internet is an example of how it has benefited by striking a balance. The party let the nation go online with barely an inkling of what that might mean, then reaped the economic benefits while controlling the spread of information that could hurt it.
    In 2011, it confronted a crisis. After a high-speed train crash in eastern China, more than 30 million messages criticizing the party’s handling of the fatal accident flooded social media — faster than censors could screen them.
    Panicked officials considered shutting down the most popular service, Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, but the authorities were afraid of how the public would respond. In the end, they let Weibo stay open but invested much more in tightening controls and ordered companies to do the same.
    The compromise worked. Now, many companies assign hundreds of employees to censorship duties — and China has become a giant on the global internet landscape.
    “The cost of censorship is quite limited compared to the great value created by the internet,” said Chen Tong, an industry pioneer. “We still get the information we need for economic progress.”
    A ‘New Era’
    China is not the only country that has squared the demands of authoritarian rule with the needs of free markets. But it has done so for longer, at greater scale and with more convincing results than any other.
    The question now is whether it can sustain this model with the United States as an adversary rather than a partner.
    The trade war has only just begun. And it is not just a trade war. American warships and planes are challenging Chinese claims to disputed waters with increasing frequency even as China keeps ratcheting up military spending. And Washington is maneuvering to counter Beijing’s growing influence around the world, warning that a Chinese spending spree on global infrastructure comes with strings attached.
    The two nations may yet reach some accommodation. But both left and right in America have portrayed China as the champion of an alternative global order, one that embraces autocratic values and undermines fair competition. It is a rare consensus for the United States, which is deeply divided about so much else, including how it has wielded power abroad in recent decades — and how it should do so now.
    Mr. Xi, on the other hand, has shown no sign of abandoning what he calls “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” Some in his corner have been itching to take on the United States since the 2008 financial crisis and see the Trump administration’s policies as proof of what they have always suspected — that America is determined to keep China down.
    At the same time, there is also widespread anxiety over the new acrimony, because the United States has long inspired admiration and envy in China, and because of a gnawing sense that the party’s formula for success may be faltering.
    Prosperity has brought rising expectations in China; the public wants more than just economic growth. It wants cleaner air, safer food and medicine, better health care and schools, less corruption and greater equality. The party is struggling to deliver, and tweaks to the report cards it uses to measure the performance of officials hardly seem enough.
    “The basic problem is, who is growth for?” said Mr. Xu, the retired official who wrote the Moganshan report. “We haven’t solved this problem.”
    Growth has begun to slow, which may be better for the economy in the long term but could shake public confidence. The party is investing ever more in censorship to control discussion of the challenges the nation faces: widening inequality, dangerous debt levels, an aging population.
    Mr. Xi himself has acknowledged that the party must adapt, declaring that the nation is entering a “new era” requiring new methods. But his prescription has largely been a throwback to repression, including vast internment camps targeting Muslim ethnic minorities. “Opening up” has been replaced by an outward push, with huge loans that critics describe as predatory and other efforts to gain influence — or interfere — in the politics of other countries. At home, experimentation is out while political orthodoxy and discipline are in.
    In effect, Mr. Xi seems to believe that China has been so successful that the party can return to a more conventional authoritarian posture — and that to survive and surpass the United States it must.
    Certainly, the momentum is still with the party. Over the past four decades, economic growth in China has been 10 times faster than in the United States, and it is still more than twice as fast. The party appears to enjoy broad public support, and many around the world are convinced that Mr. Trump’s America is in retreat while China’s moment is just beginning.
    Then again, China has a way of defying expectations.
    Philip P. Pan is The Times’s Asia Editor and author of “Out of Mao’s Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China.” He has lived in and reported on China for nearly two decades.
    Jonathan Ansfield and Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Beijing. Claire Fu, Zoe Mou and Iris Zhao contributed research from Beijing, and Carolyn Zhang from Shanghai.
    Design: Matt Ruby, Rumsey Taylor, Quoctrung Bui Editing: Tess Felder, Eric Nagourney, David Schmidt Photo Editing: Craig Allen, Meghan Petersen, Mikko Takkunen Illustrations: Sergio Peçanh

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/25/world/asia/china-rules.html

  3. India and China now pushing ahead with resolution of their border disputes. It looks like India is finally ready to officially drop the Tibet card.

    Excerpt:

    “India and China will have “early harvest” talks on their vexed border dispute as many agreements have been reached by both sides since their top leaders met in Wuhan, Beijing said on Monday”.

    Sino-Indian ‘early harvest’ spells scorched earth for Tibetan dreams.

    Too bad for Tibetans in India. Too bad for Tibetan leadership. Their karma coming back soon for all the harms they have done.

    India, China for ‘early harvest’ talks on border
    November 27, 2018
    BEIJING: India and China will have “early harvest” talks on their vexed border dispute as many agreements have been reached by both sides since their top leaders met in Wuhan, Beijing said on Monday.
    Days after India and China pledged to intensify their efforts to resolve a decades-long boundary feud in their border talks, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that New Delhi and Beijing have agreed to authorise the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on border affairs to start “early harvest consultations.”
    The Ministry’s spokesperson Geng Shuang said India’s National Security Advisor and Chinese State Councillor had a constructive and forward-looking meeting at the 21st round of border talks last week.
    Asked what he meant by “early harvest,” Geng did not elaborate.
    “After the Wuhan summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, the bilateral relations have made very positive progress and made new developments.
    Indo-Asian News Service
    http://gulftoday.ae/portal/f8b61f20-9429-48df-b61d-06df2e236b51.aspx

  4. After 60 years of struggle and fighting for independence, there is still no result it is very clear the Free Tibet cause is definitely a failure. Maybe this is how the Dalai Lama feels, that the Free Tibet cause is not going to succeed. Therefore he changes his approach.

    Instead of fighting for independence, the Dalai Lama now only wants autonomous recognition for Tibet. Maybe he knows Lobsang Sangay is too arrogant towards China, so he decided to do what he can to try to bring the Tibetans back to Tibet. It is simply unfair that the Tibetans in exile are still stateless and hope the Tibet Cause will succeed after 60 years of waiting.

    I think the Dalai Lama knows the CTA will not be able to provide a future for the Tibetans in exile. With the increasing anger of the local Indians towards the Tibetans in exile, the CTA is still not taking any action. They are busy going around the world to ask for donations for their cause, they are not building a better relationship with China. So for the future of the Tibetans in exile, the Dalai Lama has to change his stance.

  5. Dear Lobsang Sangye and Tibetan Govt in exile in Dharamsala,

    How come after 60 years you are still not at the G20 meetings? How come you cannot get your country back? How come the world economies and power are shifting towards the East which is China? How come you cannot get Tibetan autonomy, or freedom or any leeway with China? How come your negotiations with China is a failure and you produced nothing?

    You run around begging for FREE MONEY from Europe, Australia, Japan, Canada, Taiwan and US for 60 years now but no one in your refugee community has made it big or successful? Where did all the money go? In your pockets? How come all your Tibetans from India/Nepal are going back to Tibet or leaving to the west. How come your schools in India are empty? How come Dharamsala is emptying out?

    How come you are getting weaker and more world governments are ignoring you? How come more are paying attention to China? Less governments are willing to pay attention to you and the Tibet cause? Where is all your rangzen groups? How come they are not effective? Maybe they are disillusioned with your corruption, lies and underhanded tactics and human rights abuses using religion to divide your own people?

    What happened to you? Why are you and your community your Tibetan ‘parliament’ such losers and failures? How come you cannot achieve anything?

    Are you going to continue to beg for more FREE MONEY to fund your trips, houses, children’s education, vacations, five star hotels, nice brocade chubas, expensive accessories, and properties. You know the ordinary Tibetan in India has gotten nothing in financial help of the hundreds of millions in aid for that last 60 years you Tibetan exiled government pocketed. Is that why your Tibetan people in India and Nepal are all leaving to back to Tibet and the west? You failed?

    Your policies and work are not effective.

    Too bad.

    China rises at the G20
    The global balance of power is shifting from West to East
    Tensions loom over Argentina, which plays host to the 2018 summit of the G20 which started on November 30. The G20 is an international forum of the EU and the heads of state of 19 major economies, which discusses global economic challenges. And the challenges are mounting.
    Globalization is in reverse, as the US threatens to escalate its trade war with China and other trading partners; and xenophobia is rife in many Western countries. These challenges are a threat to global prosperity, but what will shape much of the long-term evolution of the global economy is the rise of China and other emerging economies.
    Much of the focus at the G20 has been on Donald Trump and his series of sidebar meetings with other leaders, especially Xi Jinping. Trump has said that it is “highly unlikely” that he would postpone the planned increase in tariff levels from 10% to 25% on $200 billion of Chinese goods in January 2019.
    Of course, this may be bluster and a frequent refrain from apologists for Trump is: “Take note of what the president does, not what he says.” But we may be on the cusp of a full-blown trade war, which will not be confined to the US and China and which will reverse and reconfigure globalization. Entering foreign markets will be more costly and global supply chains will be disrupted.
    Globalization is not inevitable
    The notion that globalization is a natural phenomenon, akin to the change in the seasons or the weather or gravity, is a frequent refrain. During his tenure as prime minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair opined: “I hear people say we have to stop and debate globalization. You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer.” A pithy turn of phrase, but patently not true.
    The configuration and extent of globalization are shaped by public policy and technological change. When this changes, it can, in turn, accelerate, slow, or reverse globalization. In periods of severe economic crisis, it has been common for countries to become inward looking — blaming “others” for economic problems and resorting to protectionism and controls on immigration.
    In the interwar period, for example, the response to the Great Depression was a trade war and competitive devaluations as the Gold Standard unraveled. Similarly, since the 2008-09 financial crisis and the Great Recession that followed, there has been a worldwide rise in protectionist measures and Trump’s interventions may lead to a new phase of “delocalization.”
    An evolving global economic order
    Major economic crises often reflect endemic flaws within the structure of the global economy and lead to major changes in global economic leadership. The crises and lessons of the interwar period led to the establishment of the Bretton Woods system, which managed the world economy during the post-war golden age of capitalism until the early 1970s. It was the system that created new international institutions (the IMF, World Bank, and GATT, which was the forerunner of the WTO) and this was underpinned by the dominance of the US economy.
    But the relative strength of the US (and the dollar) declined and the system unraveled in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This collapse, and a series of oil crises, led to another major economic crisis which temporarily stalled globalization and led to shifting reliance on the power of unfettered market forces.
    Liberal market capitalism may have been unleashed, but is still not ubiquitous in the world economy. The picture of a fully globalized world and the dominance of free markets is a partial distortion of a complex picture. The extent to which countries have embraced the global market agenda is highly variable.
    Although many developed countries have deregulated financial markets, capital controls and managed currencies are still highly prevalent in developing countries. In terms of trade, tariffs have been reduced since World War II but they have not been eradicated.
    Meanwhile, the use of non-tariff barriers has increased, with roughly 80% of all traded goods affected by these restrictive rules and regulations — and these are prevalent in developed countries. The ongoing chaos of Brexit illustrates that “free trade” is not a natural state but is negotiated, complex, and dependent on a litany of regulations and agreements.
    Deregulation, the hollowing out of the welfare state, and intensified global competition have led to rising income and wealth inequality in many Western countries. And many of those who have not benefited from globalization have also borne the brunt of the austerity policies that followed the financial crisis and the Great Recession. The resulting backlash against globalization helps explain the election of Trump and the vote for Brexit.
    The rise of China
    The G20 will focus on current instability but there are long-term structural shifts which are leading to a rebalancing of the global economy. The balance of power is shifting from West to East and we are in the early stages of transition to China as the dominant world economy.
    China is already the largest economy in the world (measured in purchasing power parity) and PwC (using World Bank data) estimates that by 2050, the Chinese economy will be 72% larger than the US. Further, by 2050, six of the largest eight economies will be countries that are still emerging markets.
    China is home to many of the world’s largest companies, including major tech companies like Alibaba and Tencent. It is investing rapidly in research and innovation and although the dollar remains the dominant world currency, the IMF has added the renminbi to its basket of global reserve currencies. It will only become more important as Trump’s policy of American isolationism continues.
    This year’s G20 summit will focus on maintaining some semblance of international cooperation and preventing a global trade war. The short-term noise will probably come from Trump. But China can play a long-term game as its position in the global economy is on the rise. In the face of the gales of the long-term shifts in the global economy, Trump can blow hard now — but as far as the future is concerned, he will be blowing in the wind.
    Michael Kitson is University Senior Lecturer in International Macroeconomics, Cambridge Judge Business School. This article previously appeared in Reuters.
    https://www.dhakatribune.com/opinion/op-ed/2018/12/01/china-rises-at-the-g20

  6. TIBETANS SHOULD NOT HAVE MONKS AS LEADERS, THAT IS A BIG MISTAKE

    Note what Namdol Lhagyari said is progressive and unlike the usual Tibetan rhetoric:

    “The problem I see right now is how reliant we are on one individual,” Namdol Lhagyari, 32, the youngest member of Tibet’s exile parliament, said. “I understand that every freedom movement requires one role model, one leader, who would push everyone in the right direction, bring everyone to one goal. But he has reached an age where we will have to prepare ourselves for a post-Dalai Lama.”

    Source: https://themediaproject.org/news/2018/12/3/as-the-dalai-lama-ages-tibetan-exiles-turn-to-secular-unity-over-sacred

    👎

    These are important points to remember:

    1. Tibetan lamas and monks SHOULD not enter politics. They should not hold positions of power, leadership and political roles. It will demean the Dharma. They are not trained, nor qualified nor have the credentials to be in government. They also do much damage to religion as people start to respect them less. The lines between respecting them as spiritual beings (sangha) and speaking against them when they are in government and make wrong decisions become blurred.

    2. Monks and nuns should not get involved with the running of the country but should stick to education. Giving good education to the public about ethics, morality and in some cases Buddhism. No one wants to see a political monk or nun. Because it contradicts the very reason they renounced the worldly life in order to enter a life of contemplation, learning, meditation and gaining enlightenment.

    3. Look at other countries where Buddhism is strong where sangha is sangha and never get involved with government or being public officials. In Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Sri Lanka etc where there are tens of thousands of sangha, you don’t see them in the government at all. Local or national governments both do not have sangha. Even in Christian countries you don’t see priests in government. That is Tibet’s big mistake to place monks/high lamas in so many government positions and as public officials. Very dangerous for the country as it has proven with Tibet and Tibetans.

    4. Monks, nuns and high lamas should do dharma practice, produce books, videos, give teachings, guide the public, do funerals, blessings, be a nurturer, study dharma, build real temples, keep existing temples spiritual, animal shelters, environmentalists, be mediators, help with orphanages, shelters, the poor, half way houses, poor houses, and basically all sorts of charities that benefit the mind and body of sentient beings that is NOT GOVERNMENT BASED. If sangha gives good education, they can produce kind and good leaders to run the country.

    Tibetans should never never never allow Sangha (monks, nuns and spiritual personages) to be involved with government, politics and rule of law because it ends up in disaster. That is how Tibet lost it’s country and will never get it back. There are too many monks in the Tibetan Parliament and as leaders remember Samdhong Rinpoche as the prime minister of exiles. That was very bad. The King of Tibet currently is a monk. How does that look? Very political.
    Tibet made that huge mistake and Tibet will never recover from it.

    Forum: http://www.dorjeshugden.com/forum/index.php?topic=6226.0

  7. Differences between Dalai Lama and CTA president put Tibetan politics in a tailspin
    By Rajeev Sharma, November 27, 2018 SouthasianMonitor.com

    Tibetan politics is in a tailspin as there are signs of serious differences between the 14th Dalai Lama, unquestionably the supreme and undisputed leader of the Tibetans, and Lobsang Sangay, president of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA).

    The immediate provocation is the unceremonious cancellation of the 13th Religious Conference of the Schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon Tradition, which was scheduled between November 29 and December 1 year in Dharamshala. Insiders have revealed that the conference was cancelled by Lobsang without consulting the Dalai Lama.

    Even more intriguing is the timing of the move. Knowledgeable sources in the Tibetan establishment in India disclosed that Lobsang made the move while the Dalai Lama was travelling back from Japan, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop it.

    Tibetan politics is turning out to be a cloak-and-dagger mystery. According to sources, Lobsang waited until the Dalai Lama was on his way to the airport before ordering the Department of Religion and Culture to cancel the event. Interestingly, the cancellation of the conference is available by way of an announcement in English on the CTA website.

    The CTA’s Department of Religion and Culture announced that owing to the sudden demise of the supreme head of the Nyingma tradition, Kathok Getse Rinpoche, who passed away this week in Nepal and in respecting the sentiments of the followers of Nyingma tradition, the 13th Religious Conference of the Schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon Tradition was being indefinitely postponed.

    The department cited that many lamas and representatives of the Nyingma tradition were unable to participate because of Rinpoche’s passing away.

    On November 22, the CTA organised a prayer service to mourn the demise of Rinpoche, the 7th supreme head of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. Rinpoche passed away following an accident on November 19 in Pharping, Nepal. He was 64.

    Sources say the Dalai Lama is furious with Lobsang Sangay for trying to take credit for his negotiations with China about returning to Tibet.

    Sangay claimed that the Dalai Lama has failed for 60 years in negotiations with China, but he has the power and ability to succeed. This is also an indication of how weak the Dalai Lama’s current position is. Sangay knows that the Dalai Lama has been negotiating with China about returning and he’s trying to position himself to take credit for it. Had this happened a few years ago the Dalai Lama would have had him removed, but since his cancer has become terminal, Sangay has been consolidating his position among the exiled community. He controls the press department of the Tibetan government-in-exile and has done so since he ousted Dicki Chhoyang.

    For the record, the head of the department, which cancelled the conference, was appointed by Sangay.

    By the time the Dalai Lama returned to India the event was cancelled and announcements were issued to the media while he was still in the flight, which would have prevented a confirmation with the Tibetan leader and nothing could have been done to stop it. The reason given for the cancellation was the death of a senior monk.

    Sources said that the real reason for the CTA president to keep the Dalai Lama in the dark was because the latter would decide again whether to back the Karmapa as his successor. The Karmapa issue has been a major reason of discord between the Dalai Lama and the CTA president. Sources spoke about a telephonic conversation between the Dalai Lama and Sangay in this regard on November 22 when the former was in Japan.

    During this conversation, furious arguments broke out between the two. The Dalai Lama is said to have “shouted” at Sangay, saying that the Karmapa wouldn’t be chosen and that he wouldn’t be dictated terms by anyone. In this conversation, the Dalai Lama used some expletives in Tibetan language which he did not expect Sangay to understand as the CTA president doesn’t know the language. However, a Lobsang aide is said to have translated what the Dalai Lama said.

    This marks the most significant power play ever between the different factions within the Tibetan exile leadership. In other words, it’s now an all-out battle between the Dalai Lama and Lobsang Sangay over the future of the exile community, which may worsen in the days to come.

    (The writer is a columnist and strategic analyst who tweets @Kishkindha)

    Source: http://southasianmonitor.com/2018/11/27/differences-between-dalai-lama-and-cta-president-put-tibetan-politics-in-a-tailspin/

    ===================================

    This interesting article has much food for thought:

    1. Dalai Lama is angry and shouting expletives as Lobsang Sangay. Everyone knows the Dalai Lama is in full control. He claims he’s retired from politics but this is just to say what the west wants to hear so he can continue getting funding. It looks good to the west that he voluntarily gave up power and this makes him look progressive. But the Dalai Lama controls everything from behind and if you don’t agree with his decisions, he will be furious. Every Tibetan knows this well.

    2. Interesting the article mentions Dalai Lama’s cancer is terminal. Everyone knew this but the Dalai Lama tries to cover this point up. Why? Who knows? What is the problem if people knows he has cancer. Tibetan govt tries to play it down.

    3. Dalai Lama is angry as his successor will only be on his terms and no one else may dictate to him the terms as Lobsang Sangay tried to do so since it is not a democracy in practice. As all Tibetans know, the Dalai Lama is the Lama-King and he has full power and no one may contradict him. The face he shows the west (soft, friendly, diplomatic, easy-going, democratic) is all just for the west. The face Dalai Lama shows his Tibetan people (fierce, King, angersome, in charge and must be obeyed) is how it really is. Tibetans know the Dalai Lama controls everything and fully manages all politics. People are not happy with this but dare not speak up as there is no democracy.

    Writer Rajeev Sharma is telling the situation like it really is. Finally the truth is coming out. Tibetan government in exile is a regime in every sense of the world that depends on all the hundreds of millions of free dollars it has been taking from the west, Japan, Australia and so on. It exists on free money. It is not a good government and has failed all negotiations with China due to the Tibetan leaders’ arrogance. Why arrogance? They think the world will force China to do what Tibetans leaders want and that they are so important on everyone’s agenda. Tibetans are on no one’s top agenda and China is an economic and military super power. China will not and will never kowtow to the Tibetan demands. It is the Tibetans who must beg China to be friends and get some concessions if at all possible. No country has ever dared stand up to USA, but China has and China is growing in power yearly. Everyone is scrambling to be China’s friend and saying goodbye to the Tibetan cause. Tibetan cause is the thing of the past and no economic benefits to support Tibetan cause.

    These days every country votes in leaders that can better their country’s economy due to world recession. So every country has to do business and trade and aid with China to improve their economy. If you side with the Dalai Lama and Tibetan govt in exile in India, what do you get? Nothing! So leaders of every nation realize this now and will continue to make friends with China and say goodbye to the Dalai Lama. Dalai Lama on a personal level may be rich, famous and sells a lot of books, but that won’t get Tibet back. That won’t win the support of leaders of the free world and other nations.

  8. “What does Empress Cixi and the 14th Dalai Lama have in common?”

    His Holiness the Dalai Lama has a ‘method’ in his very powerful rule.

    The Dalai Lama will always say it is not up to him and it’s up to his people. He gave up his power to the people. But it is not really up to his people. His people and his parliament must seek his approval for all decisions or carry out his will. If you ask his people do they want a 15th Dalai Lama after him, they have to say yes as the current one (14th) is watching them and you have to be politically correct to say yes. Who dares to say no? You don’t want to displease him. Who dares to say we want genuine democratically elected leaders. Remember, none of the Dalai Lamas were ever democratically elected (the penny drops). All the Dalai Lamas sit in power on the throne till the end of their lives.

    Also how the next Dalai Lama will be found, the current Dalai Lama will definitely set the mechanics during his lifetime and then sit back and say, it’s the people who wanted it this way. It’s the people who wanted another Dalai Lama. Of course they have to say that. If they say they don’t want another Dalai Lama after this one, it is tantamount to treason. It will offend the current Dalai Lama and make him upset. In order for a stateless leader like himself to continue to get millions in aid for free as he has been for 60 years, he must appear democratic. How will he get money to support his vast expenditure of his lama court, if no free donations in the millions are given? So behind the scenes, Dalai Lama pulls all the strings but in front, he acts like he is doesn’t know anything and not involved and his elected leaders are running the show. Nothing can be further from the truth. Just like the last empress Cixi of China. She always enthrones little emperors handpicked by her from her royal family and extended families and controlled their power and ruled China from behind them as their regent during their adolescence. As a woman she could not be the emperor or ruler of all China, so she was clever and put young kids she chose from her royal families on the throne to be their regent and controlled them from behind the gauze curtain. She was suppose to hand power back to them when they reach the age of maturity to rule China, but she never did. She would place the young emperors on the throne during audiences and sit behind a curtain and dictate orders to the ministers in the name of the emperor as their regent. So in this way, she was acting in the name of the emperor (regent), but actually she was in full control. When time came to hand power over to the emperor, she would have them poisoned. Then place another new very young emperor on the throne. She did this for decades.

    She was literally the power behind the throne. She could not be dethroned in this way yet she held all power. Like this, she ruled China till her death which was near impossible for any woman to do so. The last emperor Puyi she placed on the throne before the kingdom fell to civil war. (This spawned the movie by director Bernardo Bertolucci “The Last Emperor” and the emperor was played by John Lone.) When time came for the maturing emperors to take actual power from Dowager Cixi during her regencies, she would have them poisoned and install another young emperor and continue to be the regent. In this way, she stayed in power. She didn’t get a chance to poison Puyi because she passed away (rode the dragon to heaven) during his adolescence.

    The other only female ‘emperor’ in Chinese history is We Xetian (Empress Wu). Another very incredibly intelligent woman who beat the men around her at their own game and ruled China as a woman.

    The Dalai Lama started the Dorje Shugden ban. It came from him and only he can start it. But now he says, it is not him. Because it would make him look bad if he admits the ban came from him which it did. He claims everyone in the monasteries took a vote and they voted Dorje Shugden out. Ignorant western audiences wouldn’t know any better. They had no choice but to vote Dorje Shugden out or the abbots of the monasteries would be dishonorably discharged by the Dalai Lama himself. He places them in power and he can remove them. All Abbots of the great Gelug Monasteries are chosen by the Dalai Lama himself. He can remove them from power anytime, therefore the abbots are frightened of the Dalai Lama. Dalai Lama says he just advised to not practice Shugden, but his people, the abbots in charge, the monasteries took it to another step and outlawed Dorje Shugden and it’s the will of the people. So his ban on Shugden appears democratic. It was up to them. But it is not. He rules behind a ‘gauze’ curtain that he handed his power over to his personal ‘Puyi’ (Lobsang Sangay).

    The Dalai Lama cannot show the world he is in full charge, because he would be seen as a dictator and therefore lose all free aid money which he and his government subsist on. Dalai Lama is behind the gauze and holds all power and Lobsang Sangay ‘Puyi’ is on the throne. Strangely similar to Empress Cixi. If Lobsang Sangay does things that does not please the Dalai Lama, you can bet your bottom dollar, he will be dethroned. Again, no Dalai Lama was ever democratically voted into a lifetime of power.

    Photos-Empress Cixi of China.

    CiXi

    56

  9. ‘Karmapa’ Ogyen Trinley no longer recognised by Indian govt as 17th Karmapa. Indian government is not happy he did not show respect to India for all the years he took refuge in India. He simply renounced his Indian protectorate papers and took a Dominican republic passport. He could have had the courtesy to let Indian government know beforehand and thank them.

    Read more at:
    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/67279793.cms?&utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

    ‘Dorje no longer recognised by Indian govt as 17th Karmapa’
    Indrani Bagchi | TNN | Dec 28, 2018, 04:00 IST
    HIGHLIGHTS
    Given its apparent disenchantment with the Karmapa, the government is no longer seeing his decision to acquire a Dominican passport as a problem and is willing to give him a visa.
    This could mean that India will no accord much importance to the status of his identity certificate, the document commonly issued to Tibetan refugees, which also facilitates travel abroad.
    NEW DELHI: The already strained ties between Karmapa Ugyen Trinley Dorje and the Indian government seems to have further deteriorated with the government making it clear that it does not recognise him as the legitimate Buddhist religious leader of the influential karma kagyu sect.
    The sharp put down, articulated by well-placed sources, makes the status and future of the Karmapa uncertain in India and seems to indicate that India’s impatience with his long absence from India has turned into a colder indifference to the leader’s claim to his “traditional” seat of the Rumtek monastery.
    Given its apparent disenchantment with the Karmapa, the government is no longer seeing his decision to acquire a Dominican passport as a problem and is willing to give him a visa. This could mean that India will not accord much importance to the status of his identity certificate, the document commonly issued to Tibetan refugees, which also facilitates travel abroad.
    There are legal and political aspects to the development. Since there are competing claims to the Rumtek monastery that are sub judice, India cannot pronounce on the Karmapa’s claim. However, politically, keeping the Karmapa in its zone of influence and supporting his presence here makes India a “guardian” of a religious leader seen to rank next to the Dalai Lama in importance.
    The government’s stand is at odds with the Dalai Lama, who has recognised Dorje as the legitimate Karmapa. In recent years, the Indian government had also shed its suspicions about Karmapa’s escape from China along with his older sister and a few followers. But for more than a year after Karmapa went to the US, he has avoided returning and has in fact complained that he finds restrictions on his travel irksome.
    The rival claimant to the post, Thaye Dorje, who had been placed as a Karmapa claimant by Shamar Rimpoche, recently renounced monkhood and got married, diluting his claim since the title calls for celibacy.
    The two claimants had riven the Karma Kagyu sect, though according to reports, an attempt was made to bridge the divide with Ugyed Trinley Dorje and Trinley Thaye Dorje meeting at a place on the France-Switzerland border in October.
    Ugyen Trinley Dorje’s situation became tenuous after he took a passport from the commonwealth of Dominica in the Caribbean. Sources said Dorje’s acquiring of a foreign passport automatically makes the Tibetan identity certificate (IC) invalid. This means, he would need a visa to enter India.
    The Indian government, according to sources, have conveyed to the Karmapa willingness to issue him a visa. “But he has not approached any Indian mission for a visa,” they said.
    Indian security agencies have been suspicious of him for years, branding him a Chinese spy, particularly as China so readily recognised him. In 2016, the Modi government however, eased travel restrictions for him and he was allowed to travel overseas.
    This throws into confusion not only the future of the Karma Kagyu sect of which Dorje is believed to be the head, but would have implications for India-China and India-Tibet relations in the longer term.
    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/67279793.cms?&utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

    Dorje no longer recognised by Indian govt as 17th Karmapa

  10. As the so-called spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhists, the Dalai Lama strictly abstains from drinking alcohol in accordance to traditional monastic codes. However, it has recently been reported that the religious leader owns his own vineyard in Switzerland! Apparently, various celebrities, including the likes of Roger Moore, Sepp Blatter and Zinedine Zidane have all made trips to the vineyard. What will people say when they find out that a Buddhist monk, who promotes abstinence from alcohol, owns a vineyard that produces wine for sale? This is certainly not going to sit well with his image of a religious leader and member of the Buddhist monastic order.

    http://video.dorjeshugden.com/comment-videos/comment-1546557813.mp4


  11. Dear Tibetan government-in-exile (Dharamsala),

    Sharmapa Rinpoche is the highest authority in the Karma Kagyu after Karmapa. By age-old tradition, Sharmapa is the one that confirms the real incarnation of Karmapa. He recognized Thaye Dorje as the genuine Karmapa. But Dalai Lama endorsed Orgyen Trinley as the real Karmapa. Dalai Lama is a great lama but there has never been a tradition of him recognizing a Karmapa.

    Both ‘Karmapas’ have big followings in and out of Tibet. So which one should we follow? We have to follow the genuine Karmapa. If we follow the fake one, we will get fake teachings, fake lineage and no results. We can even take rebirth in the lower realms.

    Only the Tibetan leaders can tell us which is the real Karmapa. You have told us which one is the real Panchen Lama. We follow the Panchen of your choosing. Since then we have condemned China and condemned the fake Panchen Lama. Now it is the same situation with Karmapa. We have denounced the fake Karmapa and ask him to step down. He is destroying the Karma Kagyu Lineage.

    This issue has torn the Karma Kagyu sect in half. There are many who are so confused and some gave up Tibetan Buddhism altogether because of this. We must solve the confusion. This does not look good for the Tibetan government in exile because the confusion was started by Tibetan government. I support Dalai Lama and Tibetan government. But so many of us need to know the real Karmapa already. Don’t remain silent. Which one is the real Karmapa.

    Tibetan government in exile, you have created two Gelugs (Pro-Dorje Shugden and against), you have created two Panchen Rinpoches, two Karmapas, two Dromo Geshe Rinpoches, two Kundeling Rinpoches and so on. When are you going to solve all the confusion. You are destroying Tibetan Buddhism.

  12. In a way, China gives more religious freedom than the CTA. They allow their people to practice the religion that they want as long as they follow the rules. The most important thing is that they don’t create disharmony.

    The CTA, on the other hand, imposed a ban on a belief. They encourage their own people to segregate, discriminate and express their hatred verbally and physically to those who choose to remain their faith. What kind of government does that?

    To say China suppress the Tibetans from practicing their faith, this is not true. They don’t allow people to have anything to do with the Dalai Lama because he has created a lot of problems for China with his Free Tibet movement. It causes instability in the Tibetan area in China. It is the negative influence from the Dalai Lama which will cause disharmony and instability in the country that the Chinese government is suppressing, not really the religion.

  13. Between China and the CTA, I will choose China. Under the ruling of China, Tibet has progressed so fast. They have upgraded the infrastructure in the major cities such as Lhasa and Shigatse. There are highways, railways connecting mainland China with Tibet. Basic amenity such as school, university, hospital are all provided by the Chinese government.

    The Chinese government is fair to everyone, you just have to be hard working then you will get what you want. On the other hand, the CTA does not work in this way. They work on nepotism. If you are close to someone in the CTA or you have a relative working in the CTA, you can also get a job and be protected even though you might have made a big mistake.

    For the Tibetans who are willing to work hard to change their lives, China definitely is the right choice. China rewards people based on merit, not based on the relationship. Relying on the CTA is a waste of time and it is not worthy. The CTA does not care about the Tibetans and they never will!

  14. It is about that for Tibetans to go back to Tibet under China. There is no use for them to resists and there will only be a better life waiting for them in Tibet. After 60 years of being in Tibetan settlement in India, there is obviously no chance or whatever in the for them to get back Tibet’s independence. They will have to live with the fact that Tibet is under China now.

    However, it is also His Holiness’s wish to have Umaylam. Since Rangzen is not possible anymore, Umaylam is the best next thing that they can achieve. It is very important for Tibetans to return to Tibet because it is their home and only there that their identity of being a Tibetan can be preserved.

    They integrate into India or a foreign country, it will be very hard for them to maintain their identity being a Tibetan. Other than that, being with China will prevent the Tibetans from being further exploited by the Tibetan government when His Holiness is not around to protect anymore.

  15. Contemplate this:

    Indian journalists sound desperate when they talk about terrorist attacks on India. As this article correctly states, there is little that India can do to address terrorism as they seem to operate from Pakistan. To deal with the terrorists, Indians will have to literally attack Pakistan which it cannot do.

    Well, there is something India can do which is to stop Dharamsala’s terrorist activities against China being executed from Indian soil. The Tibetans have been attacking China for decades, yet they say they wish to return to Tibet. How do you return to a place you constantly criticize? The Dalai Lama is literally begging China to allow him to visit the Five Peaks of Manjushri pilgrimage site in China and also his birthplace in Amdo, Tibet. But if the Dalai Lama keeps criticizing China, why would they sit at the bargaining table with him? India allows for all of this to happen on Indian soil, so that would irritate China.

    Yet India wants concessions from China on the terrorist issue. Meanwhile, Beijing equates Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) leader Hafiz Saeed to India supporting the Dalai Lama against China for five decades now. Furthermore, India wants China to speak up against Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) Masood Azhar. But India does not speak up against Dalai Lama. Whether the world thinks the Dalai Lama is the good guy or not, he is a thorn in China’s side so anyone that supports him is not supporting China. Similar to the situation, LeT’s Hafiz Saeed and JeM’s Masood Azhar are a thorn in India’s side but they do not bother China and her allies, so why should China do anything about them? If India does something on the Dalai Lama, then it would be fair to ask China to do something about their support of Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Saeed and Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Masood Azhar. Simple equation.

    These reports are really bare-faced hypocrisy. It implies one nation is helpless against terrorists because the terrorists camp out in another country. But that did not stop the US from heavily bombing Iraq on the basis that it was harboring terrorists. The US did not hesitate to overthrow the government and murder its leader Saddam Hussein.

    It is also very hypocritical that the same journalists who are outraged at China’s annexation of Tibet are quiet about Israel’s annexation of Palestine.

    It is interesting to note that most terrorist attacks are aimed at the US and her allies. Everyone conveniently forgets that the US has been throwing their weight around for decades and can even determine which leader they want in other countries.
    Back to India – if China can convince North Korea to have détente with the US, China can similarly help India with the JeM. India simply has to give up the Tibet card. The article is also a one-sided opinion piece because India faces as many terrorist threats from Bangladesh, with just as many terrorist camps, but because Bangladesh is not China, their involvement is not mentioned.

    India is a great country. China and India as friends will be able to influence the globe literally economically and, eventually, militarily. But India has to play fair. By supporting the Dalai Lama, India will get nothing and furthermore, it will be a stumbling block to China’s 1.4 billion people becoming friends with India’s 1.3 billion people.

    The Dalai Lama has to be compassionate and stop speaking against China because he has to consider the difficulty he places India in as his host. Each time he criticizes and allows his refugees to protest against China and ask for western support, it makes China look bad. So if the Dalai Lama wants China and India to become closer and benefit each other economically then he has to be silent on this already.

    The Diplomat’s Prarthana Basu sums it up very well by saying in the article below that “Now with another terrorist attack infuriating India’s populace, the mystery behind this Chinese silence remains unsolved. While most attribute China’s apparent silence as a favor to Pakistan, as both continue to maintain their “all-weather friendship,” others argue that China holds India responsible for granting political asylum to the Tibetan leader Dalai Lama, whom Beijing equates to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) leader Hafiz Saeed.”


  16. It is definitely better for the Tibetans to go back to China than to stay in India under the ruling of the CTA. Under the ruling of the CTA, the lives of the Tibetans have not improved or progress, they are still living in poverty. But the Chinese government gives the Tibetans so much opportunity and help to improve their lives.

    Dakpa Kelden was born in India but he chose to go back to China when he was 16 in the 80s. He went back to his father’s hometown in Shangrila. It was hard in the beginning because he had to learn the Chinese language but he managed it. Later, he found a job in the public sector and he was given the time to further his study in administration and economics at a vocational school. In 1995, he decided to venture into the private sector.

    Dakpa Kelden was very fortunate to meet some kind people who sponsored his studies in Austria and the US. After his studies, he went back to China to start his own business. Now, he is a very successful businessman, he owns 2 boutique hotels and a tour company. Apart from that, he also established a non-profit organisation to preserve Tibetan culture. Clearly, China offers more opportunities to the Tibetans than the CTA. China wants the Tibetans to be successful but the CTA wants the Tibetans to continue to live as a refugee in poverty so they can continue to use the plight of the Tibetans to make money for themselves.

    https://www.tibetsun.com/features/2019/01/20/how-a-tibetan-hotelier-born-in-exile-helped-put-shangri-la-on-the-map

  17. The Tibetan culture and religion is very well preserved in Tibet by the Chinese government. China is prepared to invest a total of $97 billion in Tibet for the infrastructure project including new airports and highways. In terms of preserving Buddhism in Tibet, China has already spent over $450 million renovating Tibet’s major monasteries and other religious sites since the 1980s. An additional $290 million has been budgeted for the next five years. If the Chinese government is destroying the culture and religion in Tibet, would they invest so much money in doing this?

    China is a country that is rich in culture; Tibet, on the other hand, has a long history in the development of Buddhism culture, it is spiritually rich. China will definitely preserve this heritage as they value the culture very much. For example, China has invested $48 million to restore Labrang Monastery, a prominent Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the northwestern province of Gansu in 2012. Will the CTA be able to do that? Is the Chinese government really suppressing the practice of Buddhism?

    While the CTA keep saying the Chinese government has invaded their country, suppressed their people, they failed to see how the Chinese government has improved the standard of living of the Tibetans. They failed to see how much restoration and preservation works has the Chinese government done for Tibetan Buddhism. For the past 60 years in exile, what has the Tibetan leadership done for the Tibetans in exile?

  18. It is a no brainer to know that going back to China is a better option for the Tibetans in exile. Just look at what had the Tibetan government achieved for the Tibetans in India for the past 60 years? The settlements looked the same and Tibetans are still living as if they are returning to Tibet the next year. It is just stagnant and nothing is happening.

    Many Tibetans knows that their future in India will be the same if they do not escape from the clutches of their governemnt. That is why, many Tibetans have migrated overseas to fight for a better future. Those who are staying back in India are starting to convert to be Indian citizens and move out of Tibetan settlements. Some of them even choose to go back to Tibet to be under the Chinese.

    If His Holiness the Dalai Lama said that going back to Tibet is the best for Tibetans then all Tibetans should go back to Tibet and join China. What His Holiness said is true because look at how China developed Tibet. Tibet is so good right now and almost no poverty. Tibetans should listen to what their god-king says and leave their bad government in India.

  19. It looks like the Dalai Lama is desperate to go back to Tibet and he puts no hope in Lobsang Sangay to bring him back to Tibet. It is actually shocking to hear what he says to the Tibetans. He is now saying the Chinese government is very good, they will give money so better to go back to China.

    The way he says it makes himself and the Tibetans look so bad. It makes people feel Tibetans are all gold digger. But what he said is also quite true, the Tibetans in exile are like beggars, they are begging money from the west to survive, they don’t have anything to generate income for themselves. They have lived a life like that for the past 60 years.

    Going back to China in long run will be better for the Tibetans regardless if their motivation is for the money. China is providing the Tibetans with many opportunities in life, the education, career, etc. Everyone is well-taken care of unlike the CTA who constantly create conflicts within the Tibetan community and doesn’t care about the welfare of the Tibetans.

  20. His Holiness is not getting any younger, and he starts to manifest more old age health problems now. He is reducing his travelling and events around the world to recuperate and not straining his frail body. It is getting worrisome as the Tibetans in Exile are still depending on His Holiness to bring them back to Tibet.

    After 60 years of being a refugee in India, they still have not progressed much in their fight for independence. Everything is still status quo since 1959 when His Holiness escaped Tibet. The opportunity for Tibetans to fight for freedom is now gone. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is clear on this, and that is why he suggested Umaylam instead of continuing with Rangzen.

    Umaylam is more possible compared to Rangzen, and everyone should be fighting for it. However, His Holiness still requires cooperation from the Tibetan government who is attending Rangzen meeting and functions. They should be on the same page with His Holiness and not ignore his suggestions. I hope the Tibetan government will realise this fast enough to treasure the remaining time that His Holiness has for them on earth.

  21. If the Tibetans want to capitalise on China’s prosperity, they better be fast because China’s door has already closed when they release their latest white paper on Tibet with a significant shift from the last version. They no longer include the willingness to engage with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It means China is now no longer interested or feel compelled to engage in His Holiness in any matter relating to Tibet.

    It has been 60 years since China invaded Tibet and they have been investing tons of funds into Tibet ranging from secular to religious matter. They are working their best to preserve Tibet’s rich culture develop that country. Since then, many infrastructures have been built such as highways and airports. On top of that, China did not neglect the people as well. Self-help workshops are held for free to educate the public and give them the skill to increase their chances of surviving independently in society.

    Contrary to what the Tibetan government has been telling everyone, Tibet is getting prosperous now. The poverty rate now in Tibet is around 7%, and soon it will be 0% in a few years, promised by the Chinese government. It is better than the time when the Tibetan government in charge and the serfdom system in place.

  22. President Deng Xiaoping was the one who opened the door of China to the outside world. President Xi brings China to another level in the international arena. Both presidents are ambitious but not for their own benefit, they are doing this for the benefit of the people. When people of a country become competitive and wealthy, so is the country.

    President Xi doesn’t believe in dominance. He could have kept the wealth of the world to China but he didn’t. He believes in the win-win approach. He also understands all of us are interdependent and thus we have to work with each other in harmony. War starts when there is extreme unfairness, win-win approach ensure this is not happening.

    For CTA, it is a completely different story. They don’t believe in the Middle Way or the win-win approach. That is why until today they still have not started to negotiate with China. They should know by now to free Tibet is impossible, the next best thing is to get the autonomous status for Tibet. Being greedy means losing everything. I wonder when will CTA learn this.

  23. The CTA is too arrogant to do what they should be doing, to have a dialogue with China to talk about the Middle Way approach. If the CTA is really worried or concerned about the welfare of the Tibetans, they will not be so arrogant.

    If we look at the past, we will know that the Tibetan government has a history of exploiting the normal Tibetans so they can become and rich without doing much work. Now that they are in India, the CTA has not changed, they still rule the Tibetans using the old mentality. The CTA wants the Tibetans to remain as refugees in India so they can continue to ask for free money.

    If CTA really strikes a deal with China, they will lose their power and the opportunity to make money for themselves. They are not that stupid to do that. That is why until today they are still not making an effort to talk to China.

  24. Many Tibetans don’t trust CTA anymore because they don’t keep their promises and they always blame others for their failure. They cannot even give Tibetans a clear timeline how much longer they have to fight to free Tibet. Lobsang Sangay is busy flying here and there to garner supports but what did he deliver at the end of the day? Nothing really.

    China is different, China has progressed so much for the past 30 years. From a backward country, China has become one of the super power of the world, commanding world’s economy. There are so much more opportunities and possibilities in Tibet than in India or else where. Tibetans should know by now to free Tibet is not really possible. To go back to Tibet (China) will be the best choice they can make.

  25. Over the past few decades, China has successfully reduced the level of poverty in Tibet. Many Tibetans have their own property, their own business and they are living comfortably. The Tibetans in India are still refugees after 60 years, they cannot own any property and they cannot travel overseas easily.

    That is why there is no more Tibetan from China arriving in India, life in India is not any better than in China. In fact, many Tibetans in India want to return to Tibet because there are more possibilities in China. CTA is not reliable and they are not trustworthy.

    China has also invested a lot of money in restoring Buddhist monasteries and holy sites in Tibet. Many precious items are preserved due to the effort from the Chinese government. What has CTA done for Tibetans so far? Nothing tangible.

  26. To China, the Dalai Lama is a separatist, he will cause chaos in Tibet. National security is the biggest concern for China, they will not let anyone who they think can cause a problem to be in China. Since the Dalai Lama is very influential, he can potentially cause problems in China if he wants to.

    However, the Dalai Lama has also been saying good things about China and he only wants autonomous status for Tibet. It looks like the Dalai Lama really wants to go back to Tibet and he does not mind to be controlled by the Chinese government.

    CTA should follow what the Dalai Lama wants. In long term, it will be very beneficial for the Tibetans. The CTA has no experience in managing a country, but China has. The future of the Tibetans is brighter and better under the Chinese ruling, this is a fact.

  27. It is better for the Tibetans to go back to Tibet. However, Lobsang Sangay and CTA has not intention to have a peaceful dialogue with China. It has been 60 years, none of the strategy used by the CTA in order to free Tibet is working, don’t the CTA think it is time to give in and have a discussion with China?

    It is impossible for China to give independence to Tibet, this is for sure. Compared to when Tibet was ruled by the Tibetans, China provides better prospect to the Tibetans. Tibetans in Tibet live very comfortably and they are given many opportunities in life.

    Unlike in India, Tibetans are stateless and they are not allowed to leave India whenever they like. They don’t have the same opportunities as the Tibetans in Tibet. Even though they might be ambitious but they have no avenue to realise their dreams because CTA is not keen in grooming talents.

    As long as the CTA is still leading the Tibetans in exile, nothing good will happen to the Tibetans.

  28. Dalai Lama realizes that CTA unable to lead Tibetan and if to continue to rely on CTA, Tibetan will really end up become beggars. That ‘s why Dalai Lama says that is better to live under China and let China do all the things.

    CTA failed and that’s why Dalai Lama has agreed to live under China. CTA is full of corruption and will not survive even were to give full independent. I believe Dalai Lama sees this and changes his mind now. I hope China will accept Dalai Lama and Tibetan in India to return to their homeland.

  29. As a growing economy, China will only become stronger everyday. The best thing to do is to become an alliance to China, not to go against them. However, CTA and Lobsang Sangay don’t seem to understand this.

    What CTA wants are money and power, they are very narrow-minded and short-sighted. The US gives them money, therefore they are willing to do what the US wants, which is to sabotage China. The CTA is not interested to bring Tibetans a better life or preserve the precious Tibetan Buddhism.

    If the CTA is interested to preserve Tibetan Buddhism, they will not get involved in the Karmapa issue, they will resolve the issue. Don’t forget, they also created Dorje Shugden ban to split the Tibetans into different groups. The ban also created conflict among the Buddhists. Many things the CTA does don’t bring benefits but harm.

  30. The Dalai Lama is getting older now. After he passes, who will look for his reincarnation? Actually, if you look at the history, China government has the final say on who will be the reincarnation of a high lama such as the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. The selection procedure of the reincarnation of the high lamas was already formulated and decided on since the Qing dynasty. This procedure was also agreed by the Tibetans.

    Since Qing dynasty, the selection of the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama or the Panchen Lama has to be supervised and approved by the Chinese government. How the Chinese government finds the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama or the Panchen Lama is according to the tradition, it is not what they have created.

    If the CTA insists on finding their own Dalai Lama, they are going against the procedure. Their selection of the Dalai Lama will not be according to the tradition. If there are two Dalai Lama, the one picked by the Chinese government will be the legitimate one.

  31. Dalai Lama is being very honest that he foresees that under China will bring better living for the Tibetan. Whatever money CTA collected will just be under the CTA and nothing much-being use for the Tibetan to improve their welfare. We can see this very obvious for the past 60 years where CTA collected so much money but nothing for the Tibetans. Dalai Lama indeed giving a hint to not rely on CTA but under the Chinese is the direction.

  32. The Dalai Lama says the Tibetans can teach China how to practise democracy, is this a joke? If the Tibetans are practising democracy, they have to first lift the Dorje Shugden ban. They have to remove the Dorje Shugden follower name list from the CTA website, the degrading statement on Dorje Shugden, etc.

    A real democratic country will not discriminate its own people because of their faith. As long as their faith does not cause instability or unrest in the society, it should be allowed and respected.

    China has no interest in practising democracy. I think the Dalai Lama has to learn how to follow a communist system if he wants to go back to Tibet. He has to do more to show his sincerity in reconciling with China.

  33. The Dalai Lama may want the Tibetans to go back to Tibet but the CTA is not. All I can say is the CTA is stupid to go against China. Most of the countries in the world is having a bad time now, their economy is getting from bad to worse while the economy of China continues to boost. China does not want to invade another countries. In terms of land, they only want to get what belong to them. They invade others using economy.

    Many African countries that have a strong foreign relationship with China develop faster than those that don’t. China helps other countries not only financially but technologically as well. If the CTA wants the best for the Tibetans, they should start making friends with the Chinese.

  34. Tibetans have not lost their culture and religion under the ruling of the Chinese government. It is true that they have to learn Mandarin but they also are allowed to learn and speak Tibetans. The effort the Chinese government put in preserving Tibetan Buddhism and improve the standard of living of the Tibetans are more than what the CTA has done to the Tibetans. Billions have been spent in restoring Buddhist monasteries and sites in Tibet by the Chinese government since the 80′s. The Dalai Lama wants to be part of China because the Chinese government can give a better future to the Tibetans.

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.…Instead of turning away people who practise Dorje Shugden, we should be kind to them. Give them logic and wisdom without fear, then in time they give up the ‘wrong’ practice. Actually Shugden practitioners are not doing anything wrong. But hypothetically, if they are, wouldn’t it be more Buddhistic to be accepting? So those who have views against Dorje Shugden should contemplate this. Those practicing Dorje Shugden should forbear with extreme patience, fortitude and keep your commitments. The time will come as predicted that Dorje Shugden’s practice and it’s terrific quick benefits will be embraced by the world and it will be a practice of many beings.

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