The year 2008, for many reasons, is likely to go down in the annals of recent Tibetan history as a watershed year. This was the year when Tibetans in Tibet, 49 years after the takeover of their country, demonstrated clearly and loudly that they were still unhappy under Chinese rule; when a new generation of Tibetans in Tibet, spanning the entire society from monks and nomads to farmers and students, became politicised; and when the Tibetan movement assumed a pan-national character, involving people from all three traditional provinces of Tibet in a united and hitherto unprecedented manner. Finally, this was also the year when the Dalai Lama's Middle Way approach, which gives up the demand for independence in return for genuine autonomy, and which he has pursued patiently and unwaveringly since the late 1980s, finally crashed in the face of Beijing's unequivocal rejection. Now, a year on from the widespread anti-Chinese demonstrations of spring 2008, and six months since the 'special meeting' convened by the Dalai Lama to discuss future options for the Tibet movement, it is time to face up to some harsh realities.
After years of leading Dharamsala up the garden path of promised negotiations, Beijing unceremoniously and unambiguously pulled the rug out from under the Dalai Lama's envoys in November 2008. At that time, it categorically rejected his Middle Way approach and the formal proposal that emerged from it, the Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People. Not only this, Chinese officials even dismissed the right of the Dalai Lama to represent the Tibetan people. In a news conference in Beijing on 12 November, Zhu Weiqun, the Executive Vice-Minister of the United Front Work Department, accused the Memorandum of seeking "half-independence" and "covert independence". Furthermore, he stated: "We talked with Mr Lodi Gyari" – the Dalai Lama's special envoy – "and his party only because they were the Dalai Lama's private representatives. And we merely talked about how the Dalai Lama should completely give up his splitting opinions and actions, and strive for the understanding of the central authorities and all Chinese people so as to solve the issue concerning his own prospect. We never discussed the so-called 'Tibet issue'."
It was a major turnaround. Whatever the nature of their discussions in private – and observers have always been led by the Dalai Lama's envoys to believe that these were substantial and building up to real negotiations – the Chinese clearly had no qualms about publicly quashing the entire exercise in one humiliating move. Those who had always warned that Beijing was not serious about the talks, and was simply playing for time, were vindicated. But even to the most ardent critics of the Middle Way approach, China's decision to abandon any pretence of discussion with the Dalai Lama so soon after the Beijing Olympics, held just three months before, undoubtedly came as a surprise.
It is clear that China is now ready to embark on a new strategy in its efforts to resolve the Tibet question – one that has no place for the Dalai Lama. In the short term, this seems to mean continuing its campaign to discredit and sideline the Dalai Lama internationally, while using brute force and draconian measures to stamp out any sign of protest or dissent on the plateau. China is engaging in this with impunity, simply because there is no one to tell it not to do so. The international economic crisis has made China an even stronger world player, one that is able to dictate terms to the West in a way that would have been unthinkable even a year ago. Beijing is in no mood to listen to Western admonitions about its human-rights record or conduct, and Western governments are in no position to push the point.