China to mark Tibet takeover on Indian soil

[Guest guest]

China to mark Tibet takeover on Indian soil

>From our correspondent

 

27 August 2005

 

 

 

KOLKATA — The Chinese government has unveiled grand plans to

celebrate the takeover of Tibet for the first time on Indian soil.

 

 

Chinese embassy spokesman Lee Hubing said that a week-long Tibet

festival is being organised from 6 September to mark the 40th

anniversary of the founding of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

 

But the big public display is particularly significant because India

still hosts the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, Himachal

Pradesh, headed by Dalai Lama. There are over 80,000 Tibetans in

India.

 

Lee said the festival will be inaugurated by China's ambassador Sun

Yuxi on his return from Lhasa where he will participate in the

landmark anniversary celebrations of TAR's birth from September 1.

 

He added that documentaries will be screened and photo exhibitions

held in India to showcase the rapid social and economic

transformation of TAR in four decades.

 

Besides the media, key politicians belonging to various parties and

diplomats of several foreign missions in New Delhi have been invited

to the festival opening in the auditorium of the cultural wing of the

Chinese embassy in New Delhi's Chanakyapuri.

 

In 2003, New Delhi formally accepted Chinese control over Tibet

during the then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's visit to the

mainland, while Beijing acknowledged Indian rule in Sikkim.

 

Analysts say the clear signal from next month's celebrations is that

while India won't necessarily give up on Tibetans, the relationship

with China is paramount.

 

Trade between China and India, the world's two most populous nations,

soared to more than $13 billion in 2004 from $100 million a decade

ago. This was despite China's close relationship with India's rival

Pakistan, to whom it supplies weapons and hundreds of millions of

dollars in development financing.

 

In 2003, the two countries held their first joint naval exercises

with a handful of ships off China's eastern seaboard. Last year,

India's army chief made a first trip to China in a decade. On a visit

to India in April, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called the two

countries, who fought a border war in 1962, 'brothers'.

 

"This would be very worrying to the Tibetans — what happens to them

in a period of burgeoning India-China relations?" said Rahul Roy-

Chaudhury, a research fellow at the London-based International

Institute for Strategic Studies.

 

Tibet's government-in-exile says it is confident of its security in

India and that of the approximately 80,000 Tibetan refugees who live

there, but spokesman Thubten Samphel acknowledges the Tibetans'

dependence on India's benevolence.

 

"His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan refugees' stay in India

is granted on a humanitarian basis. Because of the respect His

Holiness enjoys from the Indian public, we are not at all worried

about our status in India," he said.

 

Tibetans, he said, could benefit from the improvement in relations

between the Asian giants which might help convince the Chinese

leadership that resolving the question of Tibet's sovereignty could

be in its interest.

 

The Dalai Lama has said he is seeking greater autonomy for Tibet, not

independence. His representatives and Chinese government envoys have

held four rounds of dialogue, but analysts say an agreement on

Tibet's status is still a long way off.

 

"We feel that improved relations between India and China will in a

way be the basis for a proper solution to the Tibet issue," Thubten

Samphel said.

 

"My sense is that India ... does not want Tibet to become a spoiler

in any sense in relations between the two countries," Roy-Chaudhury

said.

 

"Delhi won't necessarily give up on Tibetans, but the signal is clear

that the relationship with China is paramount."

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