My Spiritual Journey by Dalai Lama (good books for 8th graders txt) 📕

call to fight by every means possible “the international campaign of the Dalai clique.” During a visit to the United States six months later, in October 1997, the Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, declared at Harvard: “The Dalai Lama should publicly admit that Tibet is an inalienable part of the People’s Republic of China, and he should renounce the independence of Tibet and stop all activities aimed at separating it from the motherland.”

Two years later, in 1999, during a state visit to France, the Chinese president repeated these statements, adding that the Dalai Lama should also admit that Taiwan was “a Chinese province.” And during his yearly message on March 10 of that same year, the spiritual leader of the Tibetans declared that China had hardened its position on entering into discussions with him.

If, in order to go forward in dialogue, the Dalai Lama has many times since 1987 expressed his willingness to renounce the independence of Tibet in favor of a status of real autonomy within contemporary China, this does not mean that he is willing to rewrite his country’s history and endorse the lie that Tibet is an ancient Chinese province.

International public opinion—expressed at the highest level by the moral authority of the Nobel Peace Prize—has continuously urged China to accept the hand held out by the Dalai Lama, but this pressure has only provoked Chinese officials, who express their increasing exasperation by an ever more severe repression in Tibet. The Sino-Tibetan dialogue was interrupted in 1993 and did not resume until 2002, when a delegation of the Dalai Lama’s went to China and Tibet with the goal of reestablishing direct contact. Thereafter, a more profound exchange between the two parties did not happen until 2004.

In his official speech on March 10, 2005, the Dalai Lama declared, “I would once again like to reassure the Chinese authorities: as long as I am responsible for Tibetan affairs, we will remain fully committed to the Middle Way, which does not claim independence for Tibet.” The Dalai Lama expressed his optimism for the gradual improvement of exchanges between his emissaries and their Chinese counterparts.

In July 2005, a meeting at the Chinese embassy in Berne, Switzerland, aroused much hope when Chinese delegates assured Tibetans that the Communist Party would accord “very great importance to relations with the Dalai Lama.” Then, in February 2006 and again in July 2007, during new meetings in Beijing, both parties declared that they had reviewed the conditions necessary to resolve their differences. The Tibetan emissaries insisted on the urgency of dealing with fundamental questions, while expressing the Dalai Lama’s wish to make a pilgrimage to China.

These negotiations were the longest and most promising ever undertaken. That is why, in his speech on March 10, 2008, while he regretted that the discussions had not yet resulted in concrete actions and that Beijing was persisting in its demographic aggression and its violation of human rights in Tibet, the Dalai Lama was pleased with President Hu Jintao’s declaration affirming that the Chinese government would ensure “the well-being of Tibetans and improve its actions toward religious and ethnic groups, while maintaining social harmony and stability.”

But in the days that followed, Lhasa rose up in revolt.

In China, I see that change is on the way

SEVERAL DISTINGUISHED members of the European Parliament are well aware of my continued efforts to find a mutually agreeable solution to the Tibetan problem through dialogue and negotiation. It was in this spirit that, in 1988, at the European Parliament of Strasbourg, I presented a proposal in due form for negotiations that did not call for the separation or independence of Tibet. Since then, our relations with the Chinese government have experienced many highs and lows. After an interruption of almost ten years, in 2002 we reestablished direct contacts with the Chinese government.

Exhaustive discussion has taken place between my emissaries and representatives of the Chinese regime. In these negotiations, we clearly presented the aspirations of the Tibetan people. The essence of my Middle Way policy is to guarantee an authentic autonomy for our people within the constitution of the People’s Republic of China.

During the seventh cycle of meetings in Beijing, on July 1 and 2, 2008, the Chinese party invited us to present our point of view on the form that an authentic autonomy should take. Consequently, on October 31, 2008, we presented to the Chinese government the “memorandum on the true autonomy of the Tibetan people.” This text set forth our position on what an authentic autonomy would be and explained how to satisfy the basic needs of the Tibetan nation to arrive at autonomy and self-determination. We listed these suggestions with the sole aim of making a sincere effort to solve the real problems in Tibet. We were confident that, with goodwill, the questions raised in our memorandum could be resolved.

Unfortunately, the Chinese party rejected it in its totality, declaring that our suggestions were an attempt to regain a “semi-independence” and that it was a matter of a “disguised independence,” which, for that reason, was unacceptable. What’s more, the Chinese party accused us of “ethnic cleansing” under the pretext that our memorandum called for a recognition of the right of autonomous regions “to regulate the residence, settlement and employment or economic activities of persons coming from other parts of the People’s Republic of China wanting to settle in Tibet.”

We clearly expressed that our intention was not to expel non-Tibetans. Our concern was the increasing transfer of settlements, mainly Hans, to many Tibetan regions, which marginalizes the native Tibetan population and threatens the fragile ecosystem of Tibet. Major demographic changes, resulting from massive immigration, will lead to the assimilation rather than to the integration of Tibetan identity in the People’s Republic of China and will gradually lead to the extinction of the distinct culture and identity of the Tibetan people.

While firmly rejecting the use of violence to lead our struggle, I affirm that we certainly have the right to explore all other possible political