The visit of the Dalai Lama to the United States this month has raised much controversy, sparking protests both in support and against his efforts to push for "Tibetan independence." In the latest turn of events, the Dalai Lama announced this week that he had sent a letter to President Hu Jintao, offering to send emissaries to Tibet to calm down tensions following the "crackdown." In turn, the Chinese consulate in New York City held a press conference on April 23, saying that the Chinese Central Government has not placed any obstacles to holding dialogues, while emphasizing that the Dalai Lama is guilty of religious intolerance himself.

The 72-year-old Dalai Lama, who has lived in northern India since fleeing Tibet after a failed uprising in 1959, has been summoned by the High Court of Delhi, India for a hearing on May 21 to answer charges of religious intolerance, said Renzhen Luose, Consul of the Chinese Consulate General in New York.

According to groups critical of the Dalai Lama, the lawsuit was initiated by the 13th Kundeling Rimpoche in the High Court of Delhi. The Kundeling Rimpoche, a spiritual leader in India, charges the Dalai Lama with discriminating against followers of Dorje Shugden, a controversial deity in Tibetan Buddhism.

Renzhen is the first ethnic Tibetan to serve as a Chinese diplomat to the United States, and has been at his post for six years. He said that he does not view the Dalai Lama as a spiritual leader.

Renzhen Luose and his mother in the U.S. 

"I would rather say he is a political leader--a political leader of the Dalai clique which is bent on separatist activities," Renzhen said.

"I used to believe he is a religious figure, as he is in the eyes of many Western people," Renzhen told Beijing Review. "But my long years of research into Tibetan history and culture and especially my six years of stay here in the United States have changed my views."

Obstacles to dialogue

With regard to the proposed dialogue between the Central Government of China and the Dalai Lama, Renzhen said the obstacles are not on the Chinese side. Special offices for overseas Tibetan affairs were established in 1980 in various Tibetan-inhabited areas nationwide, he said, showing the government's openness to overseas Tibetans who wished to return to their homeland. Renzhen also claimed to have personally received some groups of returning overseas Tibetans with relatives of the Dalai Lama and his envoys through the office. He also pointed to six rounds of dialogues from 2002 to 2006 between the Central Government and representatives of the Dalai Lama. In further showing its goodwill, the Central Government allowed, for the first time, more than 10,000 Tibetan people from various Tibetan-inhabited areas across China to go to India in 2006 when a grand prayer meeting was held by the Dalai Lama in the southern part of India, he said, though the prayer meeting turned into a "political event."

Renzhen Luose with wife in the United States

Renzhen also charged the Dalai Lama with teaching politics at his many religious schools across the world.

"In my own view, he is not teaching compassion, peace or nonviolence in these schools to those Tibetans who were born overseas," he said. As a result, there are increasing barriers or difficulty in communication between the Tibetan people in China and overseas Tibetans. "That's what I'm really concerned about," he said.

U.S. leaders pushed China to hold talks with the Dalai Lama's representatives in order to end the unrest. "If Beijing does not engage with the Dalai Lama now, it will only serve to strengthen those who advocate extreme views," Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said in a recent Senate hearing.

Discontent in Tibet

Renzhen said he personally thinks that Tibet is in its best period in terms of economic development. When then asked: "Why was there widespread unrest in Tibetan-inhabited areas last month and what were they discontented with?" he said Tibet admittedly lags behind many other areas in China in terms of economic development. The regional disparity has led to social conflicts, he said, adding that the problems have been exaggerated for political purposes.

(Wang Yanjuan, Beijing Review, Reporting in New York)