A senior exiled Tibetan professor has urged the Chinese president Xi Jinping to resume talks stalled in 2010, with the representative of the spiritual leader Dalai Lama to resolve the Tibet issues peacefully.
He called upon Mr Xi to follow the way of Deng’s ”collective leadership” instead of Mao’s ”cult dictatorship.”
He, however, has praised the Chinese president for being tough against the corruption in the all-powerful communist party and the government.
Professor Pema Gyalpo, a former representative of Dalai Lama in Japan from 1975 to 1990, talked to the Prothom Alo at its office on Sunday (6 March) and expressed his views on regional and international issues.
Gyalpo said president Xi has the power to do good and bad.
“So it is the high time for him to start doing good. Firstly, almost all the senior people who could have brought change have died and so on that count Xi is lucky. Secondly, the president has consolidated his power both in military and party politics and now it all depends on his goodwill,” said the professor.
Selected as boss of the Communist Party and military chief at the 18th Congress in November 2012, Xi Jinping was elected president on 14 March the following year.
US-based Forbes magazine rates Mr Xi as the third most powerful person in the world, after the Russian president Vladimir Putin and US president Barack Obama.
”We have much hope that he [Mr Xi] can bring about political changes because he has established control over almost everything in the state affairs,” said Gyalpo, who is presently professor of international law at Toin University in Yokohama, Japan.
Gyalpo came to Dhaka for the first time on a personal visit with a view to building people-to-people contact and to understanding the difficulties of using the SAARC fund aided by Japan. Tokyo established the Japan-SAARC Special Fund in 1993 to ”reinforce the Association’s activities and foundation.”
Gyalpo went on to say, “Though he is not a demigod like Mao, we are waiting to see how he uses his power, whether he will use it to suppress his political opponents or he is willing to transform into Mikhail Gorbachov to bring about lasting change.”
Gyalpo then went critical about the ”China dream” of the Chinese president saying, “Visions are needed to make meaningful changes. But his vision is not conducive for the world.
His China dream means a plan to revive the past glory of China and it will squeeze the interests of other nations.”
The phrase “Chinese nation” coined by Mr Xi has become a part of the party lexicon. In September last year during his US visit Mr Xi claimed that his “Chinese dream” paralleled the American Dream.
Gyalpo opposes the concept of the $1.4 trillion “one-belt-one-road” (a Peking university professor termed it as “Marching Westwards”), saying, “It will sandwich the whole of Asia. It is the new form of colonization.”
Professor Pema Gyalpo while praising the president Xi said, “In a way I am also confused about him.”
“Objectively, we see that the president was obsessed with the ‘consolidation of power’ and fondness in his China dream, both of which are not good at all. With him in power, China has become more aggressive. If there is another regional war, I think it is going to be in Asia because the environment has been created.
And to some extent I think the US gave him an opportunity by withdrawing from Philippines because they are now concentrating on Arab countries.”
Why would you expect Mr. Xi to be better? Gyalpo, who regards himself 60 percent realist and 40 percent idealist, replied, “He is very harsh in dealing with the corruption of the people in power but he values friendship. I heard from some of his close associates who worked with him in rural areas that he receives old friends very warmly. He is warm-hearted.”
Gyalpo said the president had been through hardship. He spent 10 years in villages. His father, who fought alongside Mao Zedong in the Chinese civil war, was thrown out of power and was also hard working man.
Professor Gyalpo fled Tibet through NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh) as child in 1959 and is now aged 63.
He smilingly compares himself with the Chinese president saying, “He was born in June 1953 and I was born in June 1953 too.”
About the dialogue on Tibet, professor Pema who took part in talks in the 1980s as an envoy of Dalai Lama, observed that, “His holiness Dalai Lama is very much for a peaceful solution and for a dialogue and only his holiness has the capacity to have serious dialogue with the Chinese and the Chinese should not think that his holiness is the issue, otherwise China will lose an opportunity and Tibetans may engage in the violence. His holiness is in favour of non-violence.”
On regional leaders, professor Pema Gyalpo said ”In the past as a secretary of state, Hillary Clinton had a good record for being helpful regarding Tibetan issues. Her husband president Clinton met Dalai Lama a few times at the Whitehouse. But this time I do not see any such global issues in the US election campaign,” he said.
On the Indian position after the assumption of Narendra Modi as prime minister, he said ‘basically’ there is no big change regarding its long standing Tibet policy. Indira Gandhi was very supportive; they (India) have always maintained humanitarian support by allowing refugees and other issues.
Gyalpo is now associated with the Japan-India/Japan-Mongolia cultural and economic exchange committee. He was very close to Indira Gandhi and visited her frequently and even met Rajiv Gandhi two weeks before his assassination but he had never discussed the Tibet issue with them.
Dwelling on Nepal, he observed, “Unfortunately in recent years they have sent back some of the Tibetan refugees who took refuge in Nepal at the risk of their lives. We could understand its problem being a small country with which we have been maintaining century-old relationship having common borders. There are relationships by marriage between our kings in the past, they gave refugee status and provided help but in last ten years we did see a lack of affability. We expect a humanitarian approach from them, keeping in mind the practical difficulties.”
Professor Gyalpo was critical of Myanmar’s Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi saying, “Though her late husband was an expert on Tibetan culture, I found some of her post-election statements ‘disturbing’.”
He said, “It was not about Tibet but democracy.”
In 1972, Aung San Suu Kyi married Michael Aris (1946-1999), a professor of Tibetan culture who lived in Bhutan which has a border with China.
“Let’s wait and see how she does. I wish her the best and hope that their democracy stabilises and they develop an institution that could generate a democratic government. She could serve democracy well by institutionalising it.”
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