(TibetanReview.net, Dec 20, 2014) – Gloating over the fact that the Dalai Lama draws less and less attention in the West these days, apparently thanks to pressure from his government, Zhu Weiqun, chairman of the ethnic and religious affairs committee of the top advisory body to China’s parliament, has said Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader now manages to win eyeballs only when he talks about the end of his religious lineage.
Zhu is obviously the kind of hardliners the Dalai Lama sees as the main obstacle to the resolution of the Tibet issue. In Feb 2014, he wrote that China had time on its side in winning the West over to its point of view on Tibet and Xinjiang. He was also against any kind of constitutional recognition for ethnic minority groups and has severely criticized party members holding religious belief.
Referring to the Dalai Lama’s recent media comments that he may be the last Dalai Lama, that he would prefer it that way rather than being succeeded by a stupid one, Zhu has branded the Tibetan leader’s suggestions as pointless.
“Only the central government can decide on keeping, or getting rid of, the Dalai Lama’s lineage, and the 14th Dalai Lama does not have the final say,” the state-run Global Times newspaper Dec 19 quoted Zhu as saying.
The Dalai Lama has suffered numerous setbacks in recent years while Tibetan regions have maintained their stability, Zhu has said. Of course, stability in Tibet, like in the rest of the PRC, comes only from the fear of force wielded by an authoritarian government.
Zhu was China’s main contact person in the failed series of meetings with envoys of the Dalai Lama from 2002 to 2010. He has said, “the attention of public opinion in the West to the Dalai Lama is going down by the day.”
And obviously referring to the Dalai Lama’s middle way proposal of seeking autonomy for an ethnographic Tibet under Chinese sovereignty, Zhu has said, “The Dalai Lama also has no good ideas. All he can do is use his religious title to write about the continuation or not of the Dalai Lama to get eyeballs overseas.”