If there were a single word to describe the Dalai Lama it might be “worldly”. Tibet’s spiritual leader delivered a performance yesterday in Westminster, with unsurpassable charm and tactical judgment, that should earn him the title of the world’s most sophisticated political talent in a non-politician.

The main purpose of his 11-day visit to Britain was, he said, “the promotion of human values”, as well as to repeat his call for cultural autonomy for Tibet. The media always politicised things, he said, bursting into long chuckles. But speaking in the hardly apolitical surroundings of Parliament Hall, he delivered — with a constant beaming smile that is an inseparable part of his power as a figurehead — a series of comments that put the ball awkwardly into the court of his opponents.

Would he have gone to 10 Downing Street if Gordon Brown had invited him? “No reason not to go,” he said, laughing — giving support to those who criticised the Prime Minister for agreeing only to meet him at Lambeth Palace, an evasion which appears designed to dampen China’s outrage at any contact with the Dalai Lama.

Would he go to the Olympics in Beijing, if asked? “I am happy to go,” he said, although adding deadpan that “there is no indication [the Chinese Government] wants me to go”. The Dalai Lama was forced into exile from his native Tibet 49 years ago and China has chosen to treat him as a malign activist, accusing him of single-handedly stirring up anti-China protests in Tibet two months ago, causing trouble for the Olympic torch and aiming to secure the independence of Tibet.

But one of the reasons he is so influential an exile is that he deliberately calls only for more autonomy, not separation. Yesterday, he said neatly that by autonomy he meant “those things Tibetans can handle better”, but then delivered a speech in favour of China’s new prosperity, arguing that this was one thing that Tibet, “a very backward place”, couldn’t do for itself. “Every Tibetan wants to modernise Tibet,” he said, adding that real progress was possible only as part of China. On their own, six million Tibetans were “weak, but as part of another strong country, strong”.

But for all his paean to prosperity, he added, “the economy is important, but human values are more important”, and urged countries, “while you are making close relations in the business field, not to forget those principles”. In Tibet, China’s respect for human rights “is now worse than in 1959”, he said. “There is no improvement inside Tibet. So among Tibetans, there are signs of frustration. Originally, we [the advocates of working with China] had plenty of reasons. Now, with more suppression, it is difficult to convince these people.”

He suggested that Britain, with many Chinese students in its universities, could educate them that he is not “a devil with horns”, as many Chinese believed. The next talks between China and his representatives are in the second week of June. Asked whether these were purely tactical on China’s part, to hold criticism at bay before the Games, he said “after the Olympics, we can see”.

It is impossible to set aside his irrepressible light-heartedness in judging his appeal. Asked whether he liked Britain, he said, giggling: “I always enjoy everything”, and recalled when he was a child, he would get particularly excited when someone came from the British mission, because they always brought him toys. Asked for a positive comment by a California-based outfit called Positive TV, he roared with laughter, pushing up his yellow-tinted glasses, and told them that “in my preparation for the next life, I hope for a positive rebirth, not a negative one” — as a less fortunate or more primitive creature. But, without making light of the predicament of his countrymen, or the distress that it causes him, as a political act, you couldn’t improve on his present incarnation.

Spiritual leader

— The title Dalai Lama means “Ocean of Wisdom”

— The 14th Dalai Lama was born in 1935 in a village on Tibet’s boundaries

— He was 2 when a search party of Buddhist officials recognised him as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. He was crowned, aged 3

— He was educated at a monastery and achieved the Geshe Lharampa Degree – a doctorate of Buddhist philosophy

— Mao Zedong’s troops entered Tibet when he was 15 years old in 1950, and he fled to India on foot in 1951

Source: Times archives

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