Dalai Lama's People to Meet Beijing's People: Breakthrough?

Xinhua story below. Seems like a pretty big breakthrough by Beijing to agree to talk again, even though that's exactly what nearly everybody has been saying had to happen if there was to be any progress on the issue. We'll see. There have after all been talks going on since 2002 with no result. More urgent now, obviously.

As has been noted elsewhere there are a host of minor sticking points but the major block--the Dalai Lama's insistence that any newly negotiated autonomous region include greater Tibet, ie all the ethnically Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai Provinces, seems insurmountable. It would take away a quarter of China's territory. No government in Beijing is going to be able to do that and survive.

China's central gov't department to meet with Dalai's private representative

Special report: Tibet: Its Past and Present

BEIJING, April 25 (Xinhua) -- China's central government department will meet with Dalai's private representative in the coming days, Xinhua learned from official sources on Friday.

"In view of the requests repeatedly made by the Dalai side for resuming talks, the relevant department of the central government will have contact and consultation with Dalai's private representative in the coming days," an official said.

"The policy of the central government towards Dalai has been consistent and the door of dialogue has remained open," he said.

"It is hoped that through contact and consultation, the Dalai side will take credible moves to stop activities aimed at splitting China, stop plotting and inciting violence and stop disrupting and sabotaging the Beijing Olympic Games so as to create conditions for talks."