The Congressional-Executive Commission on China held another in its series of staff-led Issues Roundtables, entitled "The China-Dalai Lama Dialogue:  Prospects for Progress" on Monday, March 13 from 2 - 3:30 PM in Room 2200 of the Rayburn House Office Building.  

Tension between the Chinese government and Tibetans living in China persists as a feature of regional political, cultural, and religious life. The U.S. State Department's third annual "Report on Tibet Negotiations" noted the gravity of the issue, saying, "The lack of resolution of these problems leads to greater tensions inside China and will be a stumbling block to fuller political and economic engagement with the United States and other nations."  The Dalai Lama, now in his mid-70s, has said that he does not seek independence and aims instead for a solution based on Tibetan autonomy within China.  He has sent his envoys to meet with Chinese leaders five times starting in 2002.  Their most recent trip concluded on February 23.  So far, China's leaders do not seem to recognize the benefits of moving forward in the dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his envoys.

This Roundtable examined the China-Dalai Lama dialogue, and consider the prospects that Tibetan and Chinese leaders will find a way to move beyond trust-building measures, and toward more substantive steps that could achieve long-lasting benefits for the Chinese as well as Tibetans.

The panelists were:

Tashi Wangdi,Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to the Americas, Office of Tibet, New York. Tashi Wangdi, a senior official of the Tibetan government-in-exile, began service in the Tibetan government-in-exile as a junior officer in 1966, and has held several positions as a Kalon (the equivalent of a cabinet minister). He headed the departments of Religion and Culture, Home Affairs, Education, Information and International Relations, Security, and Health, and served for many years as the Dalai Lama's representative in New Delhi. In 1988, the Dalai Lama appointed Tashi Wangdi as the potential head of a delegation that could be entrusted with conducting dialogue with the Chinese leadership about the future of the Tibetan people. It proved to be a role that went unfulfilled, but today Tashi Wangdi is a member of the Task Force set up to assist the Dalai Lama's envoys, Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen, who are actively engaged in dialogue with the Chinese leadership.

Sonam Wangdu, Chairman, United States Tibet Committee (USTC).  Sonam Wangdu has been a member of the board of directors of the USTC, a New York Tibet support group, since the 1980s, and an active figure in the Tibetan advocacy movement since 1973. He was one of the  founding members of the Tibetan Association of New York and New Jersey in 1977, and served as its president from 1978 to 1982.  He is a member of the Committee of 100 for Tibet, a group that advocates self-determination for Tibetans, and is an advisory member of the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT).  Sonam Wangdu served on the board of directors of the Tibetan Resettlement Project, a 1991 undertaking to settle 1,000 Tibetan refugees in the United States, and as interim board director for the Students for a Free Tibet (SFT).  He held positions in the Tibetan government-in-exile in India and the Office of Tibet in New York from 1960 to 1973. In New York, he worked in the banking  and import-export sectors until he retired.

Tseten Wangchuk, senior broadcaster, Voice of America, Tibetan language service.  Tseten Wangchuk joined VOA as a journalist in 1993.  He co-authored the 2004East-WestCenter policy study, "Sino-Tibetan Dialogue in the Post-Mao Era: Lessons and Prospects," along with Tashi Rabgey, a Ph.D. candidate at HarvardUniversity.  Tseten Wangchuk was born in Lhasa in 1961, before the Chinese government established the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).  He was a researcher at the ChineseAcademy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing, and participated in CASS field research in both the TAR and in Tibetan autonomous areas outside the TAR.