Rapid modernisation, economic development and social change in China rightly awe foreign commentators, including critics. China is a rising global power, and the clearest evidence of a shift away from a West-dominated geopolitics. Given the scenario, why does China bother with few thousand exiled Tibetans and their supporters? All the countries in the world, including Britain since October 2008, have recognised Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. Why then does a meeting between the Dalai Lama and a Western leader elicit harsh protests from China with hints of payback, even when the leader may labour that she is meeting the religious head of Tibetans in a personal capacity? Why is every proposal made by the Dalai Lama rejected as “independence in disguise”?

China spends so much energy and resource to put forward its version of the story because a pacified Tibet is inseparable from the idea of harmonious, rising China. Because Tibet has already undergone ‘peaceful liberation’ followed by ‘democratic reform’ for more than fifty years now, the government finds it difficult to accept any criticism of its policies. Tibet has become a battleground over which the Chinese government is waging a war of public diplomacy against the Dalai Lama-led exiled Tibetans. China’s sensitivities spring from a mix of various factors — strategic, military, political, historical, and nationalist.

The sole source of legitimacy for the Communist Party today in an authoritarian capitalist setup is the promise of political stability for economic development. Tibet and the Dalai Lama become an important life and death matter for the Chinese government precisely because of this narrow notion of stability. Any criticism of the government, especially by its minorities living in peripheral parts of China is interpreted as splittist. Of course, the world rarely gets to hear the views of Tibetans living inside China except through occasional protests or loyalist officials paraded by Beijing. It is the Dalai Lama and exiled Tibetans who then claim to be the voice of Tibetans.

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