CHINA:China's offer of talks still has no conciliatory tone, writes Clifford Coonan, China Correspondent
THE CHINESE government may have extended the offer of talks to the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, but in Beijing's mind he remains a "splittist" whose supporters are "criminals to history".
"The Dalai clique has always been masters at games with words and the ideas that they have tossed about truly make the head spin," ran an editorial in the People's Daily, the public source of the official line of the ruling Communist Party. "Questions of sovereignty are beyond debate and splitting China is sure to fail."
Hardly the conciliatory tone you would expect to see before imminent talks with the Dalai Lama's representatives. It almost seems as if the offer of talks last week was designed to appease a growing international chorus of disapproval for China's reaction to Tibetan riots in March, but the pressure on the Dalai Lama has been kept up for domestic consumption.
For the Chinese, the talks are likely to be used as a chance to repeat their long-held view, "Tibet was, is and always will be Chinese", and to pour further scorn on any efforts by the Dalai Lama's envoys to seek greater regional autonomy. As far as Beijing is concerned, these are efforts to split from the motherland and will not be tolerated at any cost.
"Faced with Tibet independence, the Chinese government and people, and overseas Chinese, have shown unprecedented unity . . . Those who follow national unity are national heroes, and those who split the nation are criminals to history," ran the commentary.
Sunday saw the launch of a book, The History of the Liberation of Tibet, which was compiled by 100 scholars, veteran cadres and generals who participated in what the Chinese see as the "liberation of Tibet".
The views of the party are very much those of the man in the street in China, who is outraged at the way ethnic Han Chinese were attacked during the Lhasa riots and who dutifully blames the Dalai Lama's "clique" for recent unrest across Tibetan areas.
For the average Chinese, the Dalai Lama is simply trying to upstage the Olympic Games in August, which are a source of tremendous national pride in China. They are particularly angry at the subsequent pro-Tibet independence protests that have dogged the international Olympic torch relay. Chinese patriots around the globe have staged apparently spontaneous demonstrations to protest against the Tibetan movements.
The Tibetan parliament in exile in Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama fled after a failed uprising in 1959, said it was still waiting for a formal invitation to attend, while senior members of the exile government said they believed the move by the Chinese was a ruse to calm international opinion ahead of the games.
There have been six rounds of dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama's envoys since 2002, with no breakthroughs on most issues. Many websites were critical of the move to talk to the Dalai Lama, saying it was a sell-out, but holding out an olive branch has proven a shrewd way of winning back some initiative on staging the games.
Chinese officials have been trying to calm outraged popular anti-foreigner sentiment for fear it could paint a picture of an unwelcoming place.
There were fresh riots against the French supermarket chain Carrefour last weekend as demonstrators expressed their anger in the city of Changchun in the northeast, waving red flags and holding up patriotic signs which read "Oppose Carrefour supporting Tibetan independence."