Tibetans Push Lama Toward Harder Stance on China

Tibetans still support the Dalai Lama’s “middle way” policy of negotiating for greater autonomy under Chinese rule, the Christian Science Monitor reports, but a conference of Tibetan exiles that ended today in India revealed many are growing impatient with Beijing’s endless foot-dragging. Members of the conference said there was a limit to their support for the middle way.

If talking doesn’t produce results soon, many Tibetans said they want to switch the policy to a “demand for self-determination,” said the speaker of the Tibetan government in exile, signaling popular support for the Dalai Lama to take a tougher stance. And he may be warming to the idea, saying yesterday his “trust in Chinese officials has become thinner and thinner.” (More Dalai Lama stories.)