Dalai Lama/Beijing Talks: A Glimpse of Light?

Well, amazing as it may seem to some, I may have made a misjudgment: the Dalai Lama’s representatives are here in Beijing meeting with Chinese officials for the next couple of days and there are some signs that they may actually achieve something. In a earlier, rather gloomy post, I opined that there was little chance of success for what appears to be the Tibetan side’s single, scaled back demand, a face-to-face meeting between His Holiness and President Hu Jintao. But various signs seem to be indicating I may have been wrong and there could soon be an announcement of some sort of meeting. For one thing, these are formal talks (the previous round in Shezhen were informal), officially restarting negotiations that have been going on since 2002, and as such carry more weight of expectation. They are also being held in Beijing itself, which also adds a center-of-power gravitas. Then there’s the fact that the Chinese side has actually said that an invitation had been extended to the Dalai Lama, though it’s not clear for what. Meanwhile, one last little clue: French President Sarkozy said yesterday that he would only attend the Olympics opening ceremony if progress was made in the talks. Call me cynical but I think he must be getting some sort of indications that a positive result is likely or he wouldn’t have made such a concrete statement. Much could go wrong still and often does with this fraught issue (that’s when you discover that the light at the end of the tunnel is actually an oncoming train), but some a glimmer of hope is always welcome.