China ready for talks with Dalai Lama

From anything I have heard the Dalai Lama has consistently adovcated a non-violent approach. In return he has often been villified by the Chinese govt. as a trouble maker. The Dalai Lama is not even requesting independence but simply autonomy for Tibet. This of course might interfere with China's present course which involves using Tibet as a place to settle Chinese and to develop Tibet according to plans made in Beijing not Lhasa. I really know little about the issues but it just seems to me that not working with the Dalai Lama will lead to a continuation of what is happening: more radical leaders will use violence as part of the mix of strategies to advance Tibetan aims.

Tibet: China 'ready for for talks with Dalai Lama'
Philip Webster, Political Editor, and Jane Macartney in Beijing
Britain called for a resumption of negotiations between China and Tibetan representatives yesterday after Gordon Brown announced that he had spoken to the Chinese Premier and would meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, in May.

Last night China’s state media admitted for the first time that riots had spread to two provinces outside Tibet, but Beijing claimed that order was returning to the restive Himalayan region.

Mr Brown took the Commons by surprise when he informed MPs that Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Prime Minister, had told him in a telephone conversation yesterday that he was ready to enter into a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, provided that he did not support the total independence of Tibet and that he renounced violence.

Downing Street said that the Dalai Lama had already satisfied both conditions in recent statements and that Britain believed that conditions were in place for talks to resume between Beijing and Tibet’s spiritual leader.