Dalai Lama's Envoy Says Fourth Trip to China Will Be "Soon"

May 31, 2005

Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, the Special Envoy of the Dalai Lama, told the Voice of America (VOA) in a May 4 interview that he and fellow Envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen would make their fourth trip to China "soon." In the VOA interview, Gyari said, "Everything is decided except the timing of the visit, and we are in touch with concerned Chinese leadership." He noted that the Tibet issue is "extremely complex" and would not be resolved quickly.

Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, the Special Envoy of the Dalai Lama, told the Voice of America (VOA) in a May 4 interview that he and fellow Envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen would make their fourth trip to China "soon." In the VOA interview, Gyari said, "Everything is decided except the timing of the visit, and we are in touch with concerned Chinese leadership." He noted that the Tibet issue is "extremely complex" and would not be resolved quickly.

Gyari said that the Tibetan government-in-exile, based in the Indian city of Dharamsala, had called for Tibetans living in India to refrain from staging anti-Chinese demonstrations during Premier Wen Jiabao's state visit to India from April 9-12, 2005. The gesture should not be construed as appeasement, Gyari said, since it is in the best interests of Tibetans to create an atmosphere conducive to Sino-Tibetan dialogue.

The envoys previously visited China in September 2002, May 2003, and September 2004. In addition to Beijing and other major cities, they traveled to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), including Lhasa, Dechen (Diqing) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP) in Yunnan province, and Kardze (Ganzi) TAP in Sichuan province. Each time they met with senior government and Party officials at the national and local levels, including the head of the United Front Work Department. The UFWD is part of the Chinese Communist Party and is responsible for maintaining relationships with groups outside the Party mainstream, including ethnic and religious groups, non-communist political organizations, and non-Party leaders and intellectuals.

The U.S. State Department submitted the third annual "Report on Tibet Negotiations" to Congress in April 2005. The report says that the Bush Administration was encouraged that the Chinese government invited the envoys to China in 2004, and hopes that a fourth visit will occur in 2005. The report describes the Dalai Lama as someone who "can be a constructive partner as China deals with the difficult challenges of regional and national stability." Additional information about contacts between China and the Dalai Lama is available in the CECC 2004 Annual Report.