Conférence : The Tibetan Crisis - Political Rhetoric Versus Moral Reality

Tibet has been at the center stage of geopolitical maneuverings since the beginning of the twentieth century. The first move came when the then British colonial administration in India sent an expedition under Francis Younghusband to Tibet at the beginning of the 20th century on the unproven premise that Czarist Russia was seeking to establish dominance over the region. This move opened up this region to the outside world but also stoked Chinese fears of   further colonial encroachment into this area. These found resonance in Chinese efforts to  erode Tibetan independence after the 1949 Chinese revolution, which ultimately led to the voluntary departure of His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, to India with over 80,000 followers in 1959.

The Cold War ended in 1989 and the euphemistic Iron Curtain became a part of history. But a solution to the Tibetan Question has eluded the modern world order. Perhaps the moral imperatives have collided with the political and economic priorities of the key state actors  involved. Recent world developments as well as the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing have again projected this issue center stage in the hope that moral righteousness will matter more than realpolitik in the ultimate analysis".

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