There was a time not too long ago when Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, was optimistic about returning to his homeland. Now, 66 years after his dramatic escape from Lhasa, Tibet, his recently published book, unambiguously critical of Chinese President Xi Jinping, only decreases any prospects of his return home.

He was barely 24-years old when he was forced to flee the 330-year-old Potala Palace, the traditional abode of the Dalai Lamas, amid threats to his life from the Chinese army.

Today, as he approaches his 90th birthday, just four months away on July 6, his ancestral home remains but a hazy memory for the leader of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of incarnate Lamas.

“On March 17, 1959, in the darkness and frozen air of the night, I slipped out of the main gate of the Norbulingka Palace disguised and wearing a chuba, an everyday layman’s form of clothing,” he writes in his new book Voice for the Voiceless: Over Seven Decades of Struggle with China for My Land and My People, published by William Morrow.

Unapologetically candid

The 256-page book was released on March 11, six days before the 66th anniversary of his escape from Lhasa.

Over his years of forced exile, the Dalai Lama has remained remarkably free of rancour against the Chinese. However, his observations in the book about the Chinese leadership generally and Xi particularly are unapologetically candid.

“Judging by Xi’s last decade in office, when it comes to individual freedom and everyday life, China seems to be reverting to the oppressive policies of Mao’s time, but now enforced through state-of-the-art digital technologies of surveillance and control,” he writes.

This view reduces the possibility of a thaw in the permafrost-like relationship between the two sides.

The last talks between the Dalai Lama’s representatives and the Chinese government took place in January, 2010 in Beijing. At the time, Lodi Gyari, the lead Tibetan negotiator, had said, “We do not see any reason why we cannot find a common ground…if the Chinese leadership has the sincerity and the political will to move forward.”

In the 15 years since then, Beijing has increasingly appeared to wage a battle of attrition counting on the Dalai Lama’s mortality.

During the 12 years of Xi Jinping’s presidency, the Tibetan issue and within that the Dalai Lama’s standing, have receded in the memory of the international community.

Looming equally large is the question of the Dalai Lama’s succession, something Beijing is determined to control and which the Dalai Lama is determined not to allow. In the book, he writes that his successor will be born in the “free world” – clearly not China.

He addresses the succession question thus: “Since the purpose of a reincarnation is to carry on the work of the predecessor, the new Dalai Lama will be born in the free world so that the traditional mission of the Dalai Lama – that is, to be the voice for universal compassion, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, and the symbol of Tibet embodying the aspirations of the Tibetan people – will continue.”

Beijing has long held that it is for the Chinese state to pick a successor. This prospect is profoundly troubling for some six million Tibetans in Tibet and over 100,000 in exile elsewhere, mainly in India.

Beijing’s approach on the question of succession and reincarnation is essentially a standoff between an individual’s mortality and a state’s often misguided sense of permanence. In Beijing’s logic a new Dalai Lama handpicked by the Chinese state would be a powerful tool to strengthen its control over not just Tibet but Tibetan Buddhism as well.

Distinct identity

In his book, the Dalai Lama reiterates his position on a negotiated settlement with China over the future of Tibet. But he also steadfastly sticks to his decades-long insistence that Tibet and Tibetans are a distinct identity separate from the Han Chinese. And thus, throughout his exile in India, he has focused on preserving Tibet’s culture, language, ecology and religion, which he specifically refers to in his book.

“We Tibetans are the people who have traditionally inhabited the Tibetan plateau for millennia and have every right to continue to be the custodians in our own homeland,” he writes.

He also counters China’s oft-repeated argument that Tibet’s overall economic development is the ultimate repudiation of the Dalai Lama assertions about Tibet’s autonomous ambitions.

“The issue of Tibet is not about the matter of economic development, which we acknowledge as having improved significantly since the economic liberalization of the People’s Republic of China,” he writes. “The issue is about a people’s need and right to exist in their distinct language, culture, and religious heritage. Since the people inside Tibet have no freedom to speak out, it has fallen to me especially, since I came into exile in 1959, to be the voice of the voiceless.”

He has long apprehended that Tibet’s identity as a unique civilisation faces erasure, a prospect that has worsened with Beijing tightening its stranglehold on Tibet.

The book’s timing in the runup to the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday and the 66th anniversary of his escape is unlikely to be lost on President Xi. The Dalai Lama’s observation that China has returned to the oppressive policies of the Mao era will also hit home, considering Mao’s exalted status in certain quarters in China, particularly among Xi’s supporters, who may treat the comparison, even a left-handed one, as a badge of honour.

The book notes that for Mao the 1950 invasion of Tibet by the Red Army was a case of “blatant land grab of an independent nation by force”. Since then, of course, China has cast the invasion as reclaiming what belonged to it historically.

The Dalai Lama met Mao in September 1954 in Beijing, when the latter was 61-years old to his 19. The 16-year-old Panchen Lama, considered second in importance to the Dalai Lama, who also joined the meeting, described Mao as “warm and welcoming”.

After their hour-long interaction as the teenage Dalai Lama prepared to leave, Mao told him, “Your coming to Beijing is coming to your own home. Whenever you come to Beijing, you can call on me… Don’t be shy; if you need anything, just tell me directly.”

When the Dalai Lama went on an arranged tour of Chinese cities, he saw firsthand how Marxist economic theory worked in real terms. “The idea of taking care of the less privileged people, of the working class, is wonderful. To oppose all exploitation, and strive for a society without national boundaries – these are excellent ideas,” he writes.

In fact, he says he used to describe himself as “half-Buddhist” and “half-Marxist”. This view changed over the years on discovering that Marxism lacks in compassion. In the case of China, in the Dalai Lama’s judgment, Marxism has morphed into Leninism, “with state control of the people by the (Communist) Party as the primary objective.”

Overall, the Dalai Lama’s optimism as a monk and its implication for the future of the Tibetan cause run counter to his strong views expressed in the book about the Chinese leadership.

A journalist since 1981, Mayank Chhaya has reported out of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the United States. His authorised biography, Dalai Lama: Man, Monk, Mystic (Doubleday/Random House, 2007), has been published worldwide in nearly 25 languages. He lives in Chicago.

This is a Sapan News syndicated feature.