Problems With Current U.S. Policy.

In 1943, Washington declared that "... the Government of the United States has borne in mind the fact that the Chinese Government has long claimed suzerainty over Tibet ... This Government has at no time raised a question regarding ... these claims." In line with the policy of its Nationalist Chinese allies (the defeated Guomindang army that fled to Taiwan), the U.S. later officially recognized Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. This position remains U.S. policy, and it is also the policy of both China and Taiwan.

Not until the cold war did Tibet become of interest to the U.S. government, which initiated secret talks with Tibetan dissidents in 1950 on the premise that Tibetans were fighting communism, not Chinese rule. Washington promised covert aid to the Tibetan dissidents if the Dalai Lama would leave China and publicly denounce Beijing. At that time, the Dalai Lama refused to leave Tibet, and the CIA threw its covert support to a burgeoning guerrilla movement. In 1959 the Dalai Lama fled Tibet, and he immediately began receiving an annual U.S. stipend of $180,000 for himself and another $1,550,000 for his cause. Covert CIA funding presumably ended in 1971.

After 1971 U.S. interest in Tibet waned as relations with China warmed, but mounting pressure from the Tibet Lobby complicated the policy environment. In the late 1980s the Tibet Lobby found a receptive hearing with the U.S. Congress, whose members were angry at China over nuclear proliferation, trade imbalances, prison labor, and human rights. Hearings were held, and amendments were added to bills condemning "human rights violations" and calling Tibet an "occupied country." In September 1987, when the Dalai Lama was in the U.S. promoting the Tibet Lobby, the first demonstrations in three decades broke out in Lhasa. Undoubtedly expressions of U.S. "support" helped spur on the demonstrators, as Tibetans wrongly interpreted congressional testimony and nonbinding congressional resolutions as evidence of a changing U.S. policy. But official U.S. policy remained unaltered.

Pursuant to its early alliance with the Nationalists/Taiwan and to its subsequent relations with Beijing, Washington never recognized Tibetan independence (or the Dalai Lama's "government-in-exile," despite covert CIA support). But the vociferous U.S. opposition to communist China together with the rising popularity of the Dalai Lama's cause pressured the White House to open some space in its public diplomacy for the Tibetan issue, resulting in yet another irritant in Sino-U.S relations. Washington's failure to articulate a consistent and definitive policy has displeased all sides: anti-China politicians, the Tibet Lobby, and the Chinese. Moreover, Washingtons ambivalence and equivocations have proved harmful to resident Tibetans.

During the 1980s, CCP moderates paved the way for increased usage of the Tibetan language, the reconstruction of religious buildings (with more temples in some regions now than before 1951), and the encouragement of Tibetan culture. But though CCP officials were willing to solidify these policies with the Tibetan pontiff, their inability to consummate a deal with Tibet's other religious leadership, the continuing popular protests, and the escalating China-bashing in the U.S. strengthened the hand of CCP hard-liners.

U.S. public diplomacy skirts the independence issue, focusing on criticism of human rights abuses. Yet recent concessions and overtures to the Tibet Lobby are seen as evidence by CCP hard-line factions that Washington's ultimate goal is to fracture China. Such initiatives as the establishment of Radio Free Asia (RFA), the 1998 appointment of a special coordinator for Tibet (a State Department employee who works part-time on Tibet and whom China will never allow into Tibet or to play any role in Chinese-Tibetan affairs), and invitations to the Dalai Lama to visit the White House have served to strengthen the anti-Dalai Lama, anti-U.S. positions of the hard-line CCP faction.

In recent years, this hard-line CCP faction has fostered increased repression in Tibet, outlawed pictures of the Dalai Lama, encouraged increased ethnic Chinese migration into Tibet, tightened security in monasteries, obstructed religious practices, and forced monks and Tibetan officials to undergo "patriotic" retraining. As a result, there has been rising animosity toward Chinese rule and increased expressions of Tibetan nationalism--including some terrorism, such as bombs in Lhasa. Indeed, these anti-Tibetan policies precipitated the flight of the 17th Karmapa, a 14-year-old boy, who had previously expressed loyalty to the Chinese state.

Restrictions on Tibetan culture, especially religion, were what led to the 1964 denunciation of Chinese rule by the Panchen Lama and his subsequent 14-year detention. Once more, repressive practices, which have been fueled in part by ill-considered U.S. practices, alienated a prominent cleric and precipitated his flight to India. In the offing, there remains the possibility that the CCP moderates can use this unfortunate development to illustrate the bankruptcy of the hard-line approach.

Key Problems

* Internationalization of the Tibet issue has worsened the situation inside Tibet by strengthening hard-line elements.

* The freedom to travel inside China has led to a huge influx of ethnic Chinese to urban centers in Tibet, and they now probably outnumber urban Tibetans.

* China, unclear perhaps of how to deal with the Dalai Lama, has continued to erect roadblocks to serious negotiations.