The Dalai Lama's calls for "high-level autonomy" for Tibet will never be accepted by Beijing, a Chinese official said, taking an unbending line before talks by exiled Tibetans about the future of their cause.
Zhu Weiqun, a vice minister of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department, said today that envoys of the Dalai had pressed his long-standing demand for "genuine autonomy" for the mountain region during talks in Beijing last week.
Ahead of an agenda-setting meeting of exiled Tibetan activists, the Dalai's representatives gave their Chinese hosts a "Memorandum for all Tibetans to enjoy genuine autonomy". But Mr Zhu's public response was unyielding.
China would "never allow ethnic splitting in the name of genuine autonomy," he told a news conference.
"In fact, this is seeking a legal basis for so-called Tibetan independence, or semi-independence or covert independence," said Mr Zhu, whose department oversees the ruling Party's dealings with religious organisations.
His remarks were Beijing's first detailed comment on the talks with envoys from October 31st to November 5th, the ninth such discussions since 2002 and the first since the Beijing Olympic Games.
They also laid out China's stance ahead of the meeting of exiled Tibetans, some of whom embrace more radical demands going beyond their 73-year-old leader's ideas for autonomy.
"Contacts and talks failed to make progress, and they should assume full responsibility for it," Mr Zhu added, referring to last week's meetings.
But the Chinese officials said the only point of the talks was to impress on the Dalai Lama that their government will not relax its hold on the region that saw deadly riots and protests in March.
"The doorway to contacts and consultations is always open," said Sita, an ethnic Tibetan official in China's United Front Work Department who has long been involved in contacts with exiled Tibetans. Like many Tibetans, he uses only one name.
"But the doorway to Tibetan independence, semi-independence or covert independence will never be open."
The Dalai's demands for high-level autonomy for the region include ethnic Tibetan areas beyond the official Tibetan Autonomous Region. Mr Zhu accused the Nobel Peace Prize winner of seeking "ethnic cleansing" across the whole area.
"If one day, he really seizes power," he said of the Dalai, "he will without any compunction or sympathy carry out ethnic discrimination, apartheid and ethnic cleansing."
Reuters