Tibetan sympathizers have applauded President Obama’s recent meeting with the Dalai Lama, held in open defiance of Chinese protests, as a small but welcome victory. As an open gesture of continuing moral support for the Tibetan cause, the meeting was certainly heartening, especially after Obama cancelled a scheduled meeting last November to placate Beijing prior to his first state visit to China. Beyond the symbolic, though, the meeting’s political and practical consequences for the pro-Tibet movement are nil. Most importantly, the meeting demonstrates the Dalai Lama’s relegation to an apolitical role on the global diplomatic stage, leaving him unable to promote the political interests of the pro-Tibet movement, which now finds itself facing a crisis of leadership.
Despite Beijing’s furious claims that the visit would “seriously undermine the political foundation of Sino-US relations,” the meeting is of little consequence vis-à-vis US relations with China or Tibet. The Dalai Lama, who has met every sitting US president since the first Bush, is accustomed to causing these flare-ups, which in the past have only temporarily further strained US-China ties. Beijing’s especially stern protests at this latest meeting reflect strained Sino-American relations resulting from far more volatile recent crises. With Beijing fuming at an agreement to sell $6 billion in American arms to Taiwan, ongoing internet censorship and hacking scandals, American accusations of an artificially undervalued Yuan, and impending disagreements over China’s participation in sanctions against Iran, this latest visit by the Dalai Lama promises to be nothing more than a small blip on the radar. From the viewpoint of the Tibetan government-in-exile, the visit has been equally inconsequential, since the US stance on Tibet has not changed: the US continues to consider Tibet a part of China, only verbally supporting greater Tibetan autonomy and protection of Tibetan human rights.
Careful nonetheless to minimize Chinese indignation, the White House took pains to receive the Dalai Lama as a purely religious leader, entirely disregarding his political agenda. The meeting occurred in the Map Room of the White House and not in the Oval Office where protocol dictates a political leader or head-of-state must be received. All subsequent statements from the White House made absolutely no mention of Tibet’s political status, avoiding even the usual calls for greater autonomy.
As the political head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, however, the Dalai Lama is not just a religious leader, yet he now seems unable to represent the political interests of his people. Tibetans, as well as serious supporters of their cause, whether advocates of overt independence overt or only of greater autonomy (of whom, contrary to brusque Chinese propaganda, there are many) cannot divorce their defense of Tibetan rights from these political goals. Improvement in the lives of Tibetans will not come unless they are allowed greater political power within their territory, and without this political objective, the pro-Tibet movement loses all purpose. Yet, obliging his American hosts, the Dalai Lama made no mention of Tibetan autonomy on the most visible diplomatic stage he is likely to enjoy this year. The Dalai Lama maintained his silence under tremendous pressure (if not overt then implicit) from the White House, whose hands are tied by a Chinese government that brooks no argument on the Tibet question and which Washington can ill afford to aggravate further. Washington’s motives are understandable, but the resulting reality is bleak: if the Dalai Lama is to maintain his high international profile and have access to politicians with the leverage to promote improvements in the lives of the Tibetan people, he must remain silent on Tibet’s most vital political goals. The Dalai Lama faces a painful choice: political impotence or complete exclusion.
Evidently, the Dalai Lama has opted for depoliticization, a choice not made entirely of his own accord and for which he and the international powers sympathetic to his cause share responsibility. Especially in the last decade, diplomats and politicians unwilling to jeopardize crucial economic ties and increasingly wary of China’s military clout have been cowed by Chinese demands for silence on the Tibetan question. Unwilling to sacrifice his diplomatic influence, the Dalai Lama has also progressively softened his political stance. Contradicting Beijing’s view of him as a separatist leader, he has renounced claims to independence and actively discouraged violence and radicalism among his people and supporters, instead advocating effective autonomy and preservation of Tibetan religion and culture. Now that even these tempered political goals have become unpalatable to his allies, the Dalai Lama has further retreated into silence.
This silence has depoliticized and undermined the pro-Tibet movement, and raises uncomfortable questions about the efficacy of the Dalai Lama’s leadership. If stated support for the Tibetan cause is to be turned into concrete diplomatic pressure on the Chinese, the Dalai Lama must find the courage to speak up, and urge his allies to do the same. In the case of the White House meeting, it is clear that before Obama can advocate Tibetan autonomy before China’s leaders, he must first resolve to do so on the White House lawn. With the Dalai Lama and global diplomatic leaders locked together in silence, Tibet stands to gain nothing.
The search for Tibet’s new political voice will have to look beyond the Dalai Lama. A mix of choice and circumstance has left the monk unable to effectively promote Tibet’s political interests and, in the absence of any alternative political voice, weakened the pro-Tibet movement. With his unmatched past contributions to the movement and unflagging popularity, the aging lama will continue to serve as the movement’s figurehead, but this should not prevent the emergence of new political leaders willing to openly and vocally defend Tibetan political aims. A more vocal movement might well reduce the number of Tibet’s avowed allies, but having fewer allies would be little worse than having many silent and passive ones. It is vital that the pro-Tibet movement’s political foundations be reinforced and maintained in resistance to Chinese efforts to undermine them. This task will fall to the Dalai Lama’s successors. Tibetans and their sympathizers must urgently begin searching for new political leadership.
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