The Dalai Lama in Taiwan

Splittists' reunion

Much was at stake for all sides during the Dalai Lama’s visit to Taiwan

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Readers' comments



My opinion may not count but at least I feel free to express it here without being afaid of getting revanged by CCP.

DL is not welcomed by CCP in China. Why does CCP get angry at DL's visit anywhere else in the world? Afterall, he is a Nobel laureate. When was the last China-born-under-CCP-rule won a non-technically-related Nobel prize? Perhaps Gao Xingjian counts (, but how come CCP did not proudly taught people in textbooks or published his books? What is wrong with him or different in idealogy here?

If CCP feels secure and treats her own people with dignity why doesn't she consider letting DL go back to Tibet to be appointed as a decent level administrator of some sort to show his ability of preventing riots in Tibet. Doing this will be like letting Kim Dae-Jung and DPP party members become elected leaders in South Korea and Taiwan, respectively for the sake of progressing prosperity due to democracy. Younger people in both SK and Taiwan, through live education like this, have shown they can think logically to choose right party for their own good. It took both countries only about 20-30 years in SK and Taiwan.

Also, is that true that Canada government recently rejected CCP government's bullying to accept CCP's threat of acknowledging Taiwan is part of China? If not, maturity of CCP starts to show. If yes, why? As of now and in the forseeable future, Canadian citizens do not get visa from China to visit Taiwan and Taiwan people without holding a China passport are welcome to visit Canada!! Isn't it true that the threat appears like intrusion of Canada's internal affairs?

Correct me if I am wrong but I cannot think of any democratic country in the world, including Taiwan, ever changed democracy back to one-party dictatorship or one-party anthoritarian system.

Can you?


Chinese can now better afford to let DL run loose now. No nation who is any nation is taking DL seriously anymore (as a tool, side kick or something). He may continue to be a nuisance for some time, but DL’s separatist acts are fading fast and doomed.

That’s way he allowed himself to be summoned on short notice of whimsy to Taiwan by the separatists there. A reunion or rehash?


The content of the whole visit was never much, nor were people expecting any adversity. The political outcome was mostly predictable. However, it is not completely right to contextualize and judge the Dalai Lama solely by the political factors. After all, he is a religious leader as well, and maybe DL represents what is lacking in Chinese society today, moral certitude.
But of course, I understand for China to cope with the 'modern' world, it needs to 'modernize', so yeah, nihilism and corrosion against moral value is inevitable.


With better education and living standard, young Tibetans will start to look beyond DL to improve themselves spiritually and economically. It is the same evolution that every country went through. Look at how European countries more and more independent from the churches.


I would really like to see a solid policy from DL and his government to govern Tibet if they ever succeed. Using what they are achieving in India, I am very pessimistic what Tibet would look like with him in charge.,8599,1884187-1,00.html
Read this link and you will understand how bad it is. No matter how hard DL tries, the culture of Tibet will have to merge with the rest of the world and they have better chance of preserving their heritage under China than going it alone. It is so sad to see a misguided old man unknowingly leading his community to oblivion.


Yep, I agree with most posts here that this article is a piece of junk, news without facts, analysis without intelligence. It did elicit a chuckle from me with its characterization of mainland’s collected, if not disciplined, reaction towards this event as ‘desultory’, haha, use it on your own, mister.

Onkell Wang

Dalai Lama is welcome to Taiwan! Otherwise Mr. Ma would have refused his visit. You cannot even trust Taiwan-based TV, let alone Hongkong-based.


"In the village of Hsiao Lin...........the Dalai Lama embraced weeping relatives of the villagers"

What I saw on Hongkong-based Phoenix TV was a group of aborigine protesters carrying banners critical of the Dalai Lama and telling him to go home.


Propaganda is inevitable, what matters is everyone has a say, and could have their point of view, reasonable or not. That is one of the least requirements for democracy, right?
My opinion on the Dalai Lama's Taiwan visit is this. Pan-green mayors, including Mrs. Chen Chu, are undoubtedly behind this tour. Whether it was they that invited the Dalai Lama or His Holiness is beyond my knowledge, but one thing is for sure, Dalai wanted to come and the Green wanted him too.
To a certain degree, his visit could be understood as a conspiracy against Mr. Ma, whose popularity has dropped to lowest because of his mishandles of the Typhoon and against the PRC government, who would never tolerate the accused leader of Tibetan splittist, Dalai Lama going anywhere, especially not Taiwan, the alleged territory by PRC that enjoys de facto independence. Perhaps the visit has a third benefit as to promote Mrs. Chen’s status not only within the DDP, but within Taiwan on the whole.
Such a tactic was sort of seen through by the KMT government, but it was something that Ma could not afford to deny. What he could do though, and in fact have done, is to shrink the visit and depoliticize it, and ban all KMT high officials from meeting Dalai under any circumstances. He might change the focus to Mr. Chen as well, whose relatives were declared guilty this week. By these means, Mr. Ma could hope that the visit would do the least damage to the thawing relationship across the strait.
Perhaps the CCP got Ma’s message. From the day Mr. Ma announced this visit, CCP has targeted and attacked the DDP for trying to hurt the relationship, and on the other hand keep restraint on the KMT side. But this visit definitely damaged the mutual trust between CCP and KMT. Maybe next time when the KMT delegation comes to Beijing and asks for more, Beijing would ask for what they want, steps toward the gradual and hopefully peaceful political unification.
However, though it was carefully planned, Dalai’s 3rd visit seemed inappropriate. First, the victims are mostly Protestants or Catholics who do not understand Tibetan or English. Secondly, within Taiwan there are some prominent religious leaders, including Buddhism. So it seems a little wasteful to have a monk from India flying here, if his spending is paid by Taiwan people. Thirdly, a visit by His Holiness is highly likely, if not necessarily, to irritate the PRC, whose economic sanction is what Taiwan cannot wish to have.
In all, hope the friendly cross-strait relations and atmosphere would be carried on.

long march


You did what a sophisticated reader should have done, unfortunately most readers are not like you I would say.

If someone merely following The Economist, or CNN, or BBC's report on Taiwan from 2000-2008, he would have a very difficult time in understanding why DPP could become so corrupted so quickly, and why DPP could lose with a such wide margin in last year's election.

All would become so obvious, if one knows the local language, and know what has been really going on.

Western journalists can report on China topic in whatever color they chose, but most likely things in China take their own course. In the end, everyone has to face the reality.


This article is very superfacial, as pointed out by "long march", "did a great job in hiding what has been going on...".

Dalai Lama turns out to be the biggest loser of the visit. He got himself exposed by putting himself in the focus of the media. All at sudden, people in taiwan began to realize that he is not a "monk of mojo and wisdom", but a useless fake heavily promoted by the west. He has become such a political liability that few politicians want to be seen close to him.

He should have wisely turned down the invitation in public in this inconvenient time, but sent a small donation and a few nice prayers to the victims from the far away India instead.

KMT appear to be the biggest winner. Mainland side understand KMT's need to allow the visit, no longer view KMT "(privately) colluding with the lamaist splitists" after KMT kept themselves MILES away from the political monk.

More importantly, the event has smashed any hopes of significant engagements between DPP and mainland, and KMT will remain the "sole representative" of taiwan for the years to come.


dalai lama appears on every issue of this magazine, he certainly gets more attention than obama, bin laden, and machael jackson


I suggest the writer of the article to make sure the messages you write in your articles are correct before delivering those to the readers. First, the former President's wife, son, daughter and son-in-law are NOT jailed for perjury so far. Perjury is one of many counts they have been indicted, and September 1st was the day of judgement of the first trial. Second, the writer cited the Dalai Lama's nephew's words that cancellation of a press conference was a result of heavy pressure from Mr Ma’s National Security Council was incorrect. The Dalai Lama's aide in Taipei admitted it was strongly suggested by Kaohsiung City Mayor Chen who initiated the invitation. Mayor Chen visited Beijing not too long ago to solicit support for the world sports competition taken place in Kaohsiung in July. Local newspapers conjectured that Mayor Chen should have received some pressure from Beijing, NOT from President Ma, that she measured to make suggestion to the Dalai Lama to cancel the press conference. The Dalai Lama then held a Buddhist ceremony, however, those DPP individuals who endorsed to invite the Dalai Lama were all not showen up except Mayor Chen. DPP people's reaction to the Dalai Lama's visit was first exciting, not because of the Dalai Lama was coming to pray for those dead, but because they thought that was a heavy punch at President Ma. Then they found there were many different voices about their scheme, and that they used the Dalai Lama for their political purpose, the DPP people became to shrink and denied that they initiated the invitation but that the Dalai Lama wished to come so they offered the invitation. Local opinions view the DPP show as too cunning to gain any polotical advantage. They set the trap for Mr. Ma but ended up falling in their own trap.

When dealing with the Dalai Lama, the western media are used to making negative cirticism on anyone who thinks differently from them. I guess you, the writer of this article, have only picked up opinions or statements you prefer about the Dalai Lama's visit in Taiwan, and your viewpoint appears in this article actually wiped out different voices. A qualified journalist is not supposed to do this way.

The Dalai Lama has left Taiwan. No one can say that he has or has not political intention in his visit. People can only observe and persuade themselves to believe or not to believe. The Taiwanese people have long been entangled in political emotion, they are sensative to anything that smells the very slightest political odor, and easily to magnify the very minor issue, thanks to the politicians long time mind pollution! But as time goes by, the Taiwanese will become smarter and more observing, and will not be the puppets dangled and played by those demagogic politicians.

By the way, China curbs their fume this time. This must have disappointed those who eagered for the fray. I believe both Taiwan and China have learned that the best way not to satisfy those full of schadenfreude is to deal things with wisdom and reason.


After reading the comments from Kevindatz and long march, I checked out the news websites from Taiwan for more info.

Guess what? Front page heading "National Security Council denied exerted any pressure to Dalai Lama's delegation". After further reading, apparently the reporters pressed Dalai Lama’s nephew for his reaction on National Security council's statement. He first reacted by saying "maybe pressure was felt by DL's side", then completely reverted his previous position by saying "there was no pressure from NSC" after further questioning from the reporters.

In addition, key figures from Dalai Lama's delegation criticized a prominent local Buddhist monk for being "unfriendly and not good" when the local Buddhist monk commented an invitation from the religious organizations would be more appropriate. Looks like the Dalai Lama camp is looking for more publicity than actual humanitarian mission.

Please economist, get the whole picture before you jump into a conclusion.

long march

This article hides the political price that green leaders paid by tendering this controversial invitation.

The invitation was political motivated as Dalai Lama was invited by political leaders, not religious leaders; In addition to that, very few of the victims are Buddhism believers, let alone Tibetan Buddhism. In fact, most of them are Catholic/Christians.

This visit was masterminded by Gaoxiong mayor Chen Ju, who is aiming at a higher stage within the DPP party. Her ambition certainly threatens opponents within DPP and it's only natural for those political figures to distant themselves from this visit. Local religious and charity groups feel that all their efforts were not appreciated by these politicians and question the usefulness of a remote Tibetan Monk. Being accused of playing dirty politics amid humanitarian relief efforts, Chen Ju's move has clearly backfired. Amid complaints and pressure from all sides, this visit has been scaled down again and again.

On top of that price, Chen Ju has bankrupted her mainland credit card. Merely a few weeks ago, she visited mainland to win support for a sports event hosted in Gaoxiong. Now that the game is over, she stabbed on mainland's back. This kind of short-term dirty tactic cancels all green leaders' political credibility in maintaining ties with the mainland, which is essential for Taiwan's economic survival.

All in all, things didn't go the way Chen Ju planned. Maybe she miscalculated Mr. Ma's approval; Maybe she underestimated the victims and local residents' reaction. The truth is, mainland's influence has grown so strong, that even a green figure can no longer ignore.

My prediction? This is our dear Lama's last visit to Taiwan.

This article did a great job in hiding what has been going on...



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