As the Tibetan clans gather to discuss tactics, the pressure is mounting on the Dalai Lama to take a more unyielding line in his conversations with the Chinese Government. The talks that began in May of this year have, so far, produced little of note. Nor are they likely to, in the view of the more radical clans. It has to be said that the Tibetan case for suspicion of the Chinese has ample historical grounds. In 1959 the Tibetan uprising was brutally suppressed by Mao Zedong who, in the process, annexed nearly half of Tibet outright. That was followed by the depredations of the Cultural Revolution in which hundreds of Buddhist monasteries were desecrated.

There were voices at the time, as there are now, that said no dialogue was possible with such a regime. And, indeed, in the 49 years since the Dalai Lama went into exile, his negotiations appear to have availed the Tibetans of little more than international sympathy. The demonstrations that began in 1987 culminated in mass jailings, the imposition of martial law and the forced “re-education” of the monks. In March the Chinese authorities brooked no violence in the prelude to the Beijing Olympics.

It is easy to draw a straight line from this history and offer up a counsel of despair. Tibet appears to present a series of hopeless dilemmas. The Dalai Lama claims Tibet was independent and has been colonised. China makes a historic claim to sovereignty over Tibet. China considers Tibet to be the Tibetan Autonomous Region. The Dalai Lama says it should include neighbouring provinces with Tibetan populations. China says it has brought improvements to the Tibetan economy. The Dalai Lama says the development has favoured Han Chinese immigrants and that Tibetan culture has been impaired into the bargain. To these seemingly unresolvable pairs both the Buddhist and the democrat has the answer: the middle way, the practice of non-extremism, the path of moderation.

There is a viable future within China for Tibet. The example of Hong Kong shows that there are intermediate points between complete independence and repression. The Tibetans need to consider the fact that an autonomous economic future would be a precarious future. Tibet's economy is a mixture of subsistence agriculture and woolly hats sold to backpackers. Tibet is ranked the lowest among China's 31 provinces on the Human Development Index, according to UN Development Programme data. In January 2007 the Dalai Lama told the Tibetan people to accept a future as part of China conditional on the autonomy to protect their culture. He is surely right to envisage a future in which Tibet is folded peacefully into a China that respects its culture.

It is not a naive hope. This is, at root, a question of human rights and freedom, not a question of land. And that the eyes of the world are trained on China is a source of hope for Tibet. The technological revolution has opened China up to foreign media and its attempts to ward off scrutiny are forlorn. The lesson of the Olympics was that the Chinese Government cannot shut its doors to the world. Victor Hugo once said that the invasion of armies can be resisted but not the invasion of ideas. It was probably true when he said it but it is definitely true now that every citizen can carry a camera and send the images around the world.