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TIBET AT A TURNING POINT: THE SPRING UPRISING AND CHINA’S NEW CRACKDOWN
members of the Japanese press ahead of his “fence-mending” visit to Tokyo, and that
the comment could therefore be viewed as part of a strategy of appearing conciliatory
to Japanese observers, who have been deeply concerned about the crackdown
given a shared Buddhist heritage with the Tibetan people.
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has had little visible
involvement on Tibet over the years, although in Tibet
now featuring more prominently in China’s international
relations than it has for decades, he is without doubt
closely briefed on developments in Tibet and on international
responses to those developments.
Almost all of his rare statements on Tibet tend to repeat
the formulaic Party line with no embellishment or further
explanations offered. On March 19, 2008, during the
only press conference the Chinese Prime Minister gives Prime Minister Wen Jiabao
each year at the close of the National People’s Congress,
Wen set the tone of practically all future official comments on the protests in Tibet —
and effectively blocked all public discussion and analysis of the protests — when he
declared “There is ample fact and we also have plenty of evidence proving this incident
was organized, premeditated and incited by the Dalai clique. […] Hypocritical lies
cannot cover ironclad facts.”
On the same day as the press conference, the Dalai Lama had sent a letter to Chinese
President Hu Jintao, offering to dispatch emissaries to Tibet to calm the situation. No
response has been received.
Two weeks later, Wen Jiabao appeared to be setting a new precedent and offering
some hope for progress in the dialogue process with the Tibetan side. He was the only
senior leader to say publicly that the Dalai Lama should “use his influence” to bring
an end to the protests in Tibet, thus departing from the hostile rhetoric against the
Tibetan religious leader and appearing to acknowledge his legitimacy as the preeminent
representative of the Tibetan people. However, the statement needs to be set
in context: it was made during a regional trade conference in Laos, and it was reported
in the Hong Kong media — and not carried by the state media, which indicates that
it was perhaps not intended to be given too much political weight. 6 No other comments
have been made by the Chinese leadership referring to the Dalai Lama’s possible
role in calming the situation in Tibet.
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