CHINA:CHINESE CADRES and envoys of the Dalai Lama held landmark talks yesterday on resolving the Tibetan crisis, but condemnation of the exiled Buddhist leader in Chinese media begs the question of whether the negotiations are a public-relations stunt to soothe international concerns ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August.
President Hu Jintao weighed in with a message of support for the talks, a sign they may be more than window dressing to calm international anger over Beijing's crackdown on Tibetan protests in March. However, the anti-Dalai Lama stories keep coming, showing just how tough finding agreement is going to be.
According to the official news agency Xinhua, the talks ended with an agreement to hold more talks, and it was unclear whether discussions would continue today and tomorrow, as expected.
The Tibet Daily newspaper branded the Dalai Lama, who fled his mountain homeland to India after a failed uprising in 1959, as a criminal and a "splittist". Beijing accuses him of masterminding violent attacks on Han Chinese during independence protests in Lhasa and other Tibetan areas.
China bowed to international pressure to reopen channels of dialogue with the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner because the outcry threatens to undermine the Olympics in August. The Chinese want the Olympics to be their big coming-out party to mark their emergence on the world stage, but international protests about China's attitude to Tibet and its human rights record, focused on the Olympic torch relay, and threats to boycott the opening ceremony on August 8th, have rattled nerves in the central government.
The official government line on Tibet, and the view held among every Chinese person you meet, is that "Tibet is, was and always will be part of China".
Members of the crowd gathered on the southern island of Hainan to welcome the Olympic torch back to mainland China wore T-shirts bearing this message.
Against this kind of backdrop, and in a context of widespread revulsion at the attacks on ethnic Han Chinese during the Lhasa riots, it's difficult to see how much room there is for concessions by Beijing on the issue of greater autonomy for Tibet.
While the Chinese accuse the Dalai Lama and his "clique" of being "dangerous splittists" who want to wrest the Himalayan region away from the motherland, the Dalai Lama says he wants to achieve more autonomy peacefully and an end to "cultural genocide" in his homeland.
Beijing's representatives met the Dalai Lama's envoys Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen in the southern Chinese boomtown of Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong. The Chinese envoys were cautious after the meeting, which had only been arranged "at the repeated requests made by the Dalai side for resuming talks", Xinhua reported.
The riots in Lhasa had "given rise to new obstacles for resuming contacts and consultations with the Dalai side", was Beijing's line.
The most powerful indication that Beijing wants the talks to succeed came from President Hu, who hoped the talks would yield "positive results".
"Our policy toward the Dalai Lama is clear and consistent, and the door for dialogue remains open," Mr Hu said, adding that he hoped the Dalai Lama and his followers would "show through action that they have stopped separatist activities".
Meanwhile, cases of a virus that has killed 24 young children and infected more than 5,000 may continue to rise despite efforts to contain it, the World Health Organisation warned yesterday.
Enterovirus 71 (EV-71), which causes a severe strain of hand, foot and mouth disease, normally peaks in June and July.
Experts fear that infections could increase as the weather becomes warmer.
With hundreds more cases emerging every day, China's health ministry has stepped up efforts to contain its spread, closing nurseries at the centre of the outbreak in Fuyang, eastern Anhui province, where 22 of the deaths occurred. - (Additional reporting: Guardian service)
