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Tibet talks resume after a year Dalai Lama envoys in China talks
(about 3 hours later)
Talks are to resume between envoys of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and the Chinese government after a break of more than a year. Envoys of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, are in Beijing to resume talks with China's government after a break of 15 months.
The relationship has been tense since the last round of discussions about Tibetan demands for more autonomy. Discussions broke down in acrimony in 2008, with Beijing saying that no progress had been made.
One of the Dalai Lama's representative in Europe, Mr Thubten Samdup, told the BBC that Beijing might have done some rethinking about the Tibetan position. One of the Dalai Lama's representatives told the BBC he thought the resumption of talks may signal a change in approach from China.
The Dalai Lama said last year that his people had suffered "hell on earth". But concrete evidence for this is so far unclear.
It is more than 14 months since the two sides sat down for talks to solve the Tibetan issue. Relations between the two sides, which were never good, were strained further due to unrest in Tibetan areas in 2008.
Best chance Real autonomy?
In the last round of discussions, Beijing completely rejected the Tibetan demand for more autonomy, accusing the Tibetan spiritual leader of being bent on splitting Tibet from China. This will be the ninth round of discussions between China and the Tibetan government-in-exile since 2002.
We have some hope in the past three, four years there has been some more awareness within the Chinese citizens that perhaps the Dalai Lama is the best chance that Beijing has Thubten Samdup, Tibetan Representative for Northern Europe News of the resumption of talks was released by the exiled Tibetan leadership, based in Dharamsala in India.
Now two special envoys of the Dalai Lama, Lodi G. Gyari and Envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen, together with three senior aides from the Tibetan Task Force on Negotiations, are in Beijing to try and move closer to a solution. A statement on the website of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism, said the five-person group would return to India at the beginning of February.
"We feel that the only way we could really solve this between the Tibetans and the Chinese is through open and sincere dialogue," said Thubten Samdup is the Tibetan Representative for Northern Europe. Speaking to the BBC's China Editor Shirong Chen, the Dalai Lama's representative for northern Europe, Thubten Samdup, suggested China could now be more willing to negotiate than it had been in the past.
"We have some hope in the past three, four years there has been some more awareness within the Chinese citizens that perhaps the Dalai Lama is the best chance that Beijing has. "Within the Chinese citizens there's a re-awakening, so to speak, that perhaps the Dalai Lama is the best chance that Beijing has," he said.
"While he's alive, this is the time to talk and resolve the situation, because post-Dalai Lama is a big question mark," said Mr Samdup. But there is little evidence to suggest that China is willing to make definite concessions to the Tibetan government-in-exile.
The resumption of talks follows a rare high level conference on Tibet last week attended by all the nine standing members of the politburo in Beijing and officials from the Tibetan communities. Last week senior Chinese leaders held a major meeting about Tibet - the first in nine years - in which they indicated they would continue their hard-line approach.
Beijing takes the Tibetan problem as a matter of national security. Chinese President Hu Jintao told those at the meeting that China would maintain efforts to prevent "penetration and sabotage" by supporters of Tibetan independence.
It is increasing economic development in the region to raise the living standards of Tibetans close to the national average by 2020. He added that Beijing would ensure the "normal order of Tibetan Buddhism".
But in the battle for the hearts and minds of the Tibetans, Chinese leaders seem to have realised they must also engage with the Dalai Lama. A report on the three-day meeting was carried by the state-run news agency Xinhua, which said: "The Communist Party of China's policies towards Tibet in the new era were totally correct."
Tibetan monks have previously been forced to attend classes in which they have had to pledge their allegiance to Beijing.
Following the last round of talks between the Chinese and Tibetans, Zhu Weiqun, of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department, blamed the Tibetans for lack of progress.
He said they had not given up their dream of an independent Tibet.
The Tibetans say they do not want independence, only real autonomy to help protect Tibet's unique culture.