Letters to the Editor
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The Dalai Lama is a Chinese leader too
One point that your analysis misses is that a hell of alot of Chinese revere the Dalai Lama as their spiritual leader.
The Tibetan Buddhist meditation centre I attended as token Westerner for 10 years was entirely Chinese and the students were quite hardcore in their convictions compared to most Westerners. I remember once going to a Dalai Lama birthday dinner hosted by the local Chinese community. On pilgrimage in India one notices that besides Tibetans, the largest number of those attending are Chinese.
There is a long history of Tibetan teachers setting up temples and monasteries in China reaching back to the Tang Dynasty. During the Qing Dynasty (the most recent Imperial era) Tibetan Buddhism was close to being a State religion and I have read communications from the 18th Century with the Emperor basing the morality of his actions on the fact that he was following the Dalai Lama's advise whereas a Mongol leader was not. At one point, after Tibetans had wiped out Buddhism in Tibet it was Chinese monks that brought it back.
The repression of Tibet is very much about the repression of China. The PRC has trouble letting up on Tibet precisely because it means giving up control of China. Besides his Buddhist principles, the Dalai Lama cannot attack the Chinese precisely because it means undermining Tibet's greatest friends who are Chinese people themselves.