The Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, held his first Internet chat with Chinese web users today, in a wide-ranging dialogue touching on politics and his eventual successor.
The webcast was seen on Twitter and on Internet sites inside China despite Beijing's long-standing efforts to police the web and silence the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
During the 90-minute chat, the Dalai Lama said a decade of negotiations with Beijing on autonomy for Tibet and his eventual return home had failed to move forward because the government refused to acknowledge the problems Tibet faces.
The lack of progress ‘is because the central government has all along maintained that there is no problems in Tibet - there are only problems with the Dalai Lama,’ he said from New York.
China has called the Dalai Lama a ‘wolf in monk's clothing’ and accused him of seeking to split the country, but he has repeatedly said he accepts Beijing's rule and is only seeking ‘meaningful autonomy’ for Tibet.
‘I personally have no demands - my main concerns are the problems with Tibetan culture and the religion and environment of the Tibetan people,’ he told web users.
‘In some Tibetan areas, because the population of Han Chinese has increased, the Tibetan language and culture are facing a crisis.’
The Dalai Lama said Beijing's present course of action in his homeland was ‘coercive’, adding: ‘They are always laying importance on Tibet's stability - I think stability comes from the faith within one's own heart’.
Over 12,500 people selected 289 questions for the monk by online voting, which was blocked in China on Thursday.
