China secret conclave recommends fresh offensive against the Dalai Lama


DHARAMSALA, DIIR, 18 March 1999 - Reports from China say that a committee of Chinese think tanks on Tibet, consisting of Yin Fatang (former Political Commissar of the 18th Army), secret service members and aging cadres with experience of having worked in Tibet, held a secret meeting in Chengdu late last year and came up with a list of strategies to undermine the influence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

The Chengdu-based committee pointed out that the international community pays no attention when the Chinese government or Chinese leaders oppose the Dalai Lama. "Therefore, we should use both coercive and peaceful means to get the Tibetan cadres, officials and particularly the masses to openly oppose the Dalai Lama," the committee recommended.

"Faith in Buddhism is on the rise in China. More particularly, the Tibetan people have blind faith in the Dalai Lama. Therefore, we must formulate a policy to forbid people from displaying faith in a single individual. This will create a situation where the younger generation does not even know who the Dalai Lama is. Through this, we can wipe out people╒s faith in the Dalai Lama."

In order to destroy the "Dalai government╒, the committee recommended that important officials of the Tibetan exile government should be discredited and exposed to constant criticism from the people. "This will force the heart-broken officials to resign while at the same time causing people to lose faith in the Dalai government. Thus, a rift will develop between the exile government and the Tibetan people, which will ultimately bring about the fall of the Dalai government."

Reacting to this report, Tempa Tsering, Secretary of the Department of Information and International Relations in Dharamsala, said, "As part of this campaign, toward the end of 1998 the Chinese government further intensified its smear campaign against His Holiness the Dalai Lama and set in motion a policy to promote atheism in Tibet."

"This policy stems from the Chinese government╒s realization that forty years of its brutal repression has failed to smother the Tibetan people╒s faith in the leadership of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and their spirit of resistance against Chinese rule," Tempa Tsering said.

The secret meeting╒s recommendations included holding a major opinion poll in Tibet in the early part of the next century to determine whether the people owe their loyalty to Tibet or to the People╒s Republic of China. In preparation for this, the meeting said, "a foundation work should be done and all the material and human resources mobilised to secure the loyalty of the Tibetan people."

Department of Information and International Relations
Central Tibetan Administration
Gangchen Kyishong
Dharamsala 176215
INDIA

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Last updated: 22-Mar-99