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Chinese students protest Dalai Lama's Iowa visit

By Mary Stegmeir | WCF Courier

The Dalai Lama gestures as he speaks to an audience in Indianapolis on 14 May 2010.File photo/AP/Michael Conroy/US

The Dalai Lama will discuss the nonpolitical topic of education Tuesday at the University of Northern Iowa, but his very presence — and the school’s promotion of the event — is enough to anger some students and faculty on campus.

Tibet’s spiritual and political leader in exile was vaulted into the international spotlight in the ‘60s and ‘70s as he told the outside world about the abuses his people faced under Chinese rule. The monk’s version of events, which is generally supported by Westerners, holds that Tibet was an independent country until around 1950 when its neighbour to the East occupied the region.

Chinese nationals studying in the Cedar Valley tell a different story.

They contend that Tibet has been part of China since the 12th century and that troop movements into the area were part of a national reform movement. In the case of Tibet, the Chinese government says the military freed the population from a system of feudal serfdom, in which the majority of the population were enslaved to religious and governmental leaders.

By welcoming the Dalai Lama to campus, university leaders are showing bias toward the Tibetan view, UNI’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association wrote in a statement to The Courier.

“(T)he recent overwhelming PR efforts on the Dalai Lama’s visit to UNI have reinforced the negative image of China in the minds of the American students, faculty, and staff as well as the local community,” according to the group, members of which declined to be interviewed for this story. ”... If this is an educational event, The Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) of UNI does not deem it appropriate for the University of Northern Iowa, as a state university, to endorse Dalai Lama’s political agenda on UNI’s official Web site or any public occasion during the event.”

In an effort to tell the Chinese students’ side of the story, the university partnered with the CSSA in February to bring filmmaker Chris Nebe to campus, said President Benjamin Allen. The award-winning producer has released documentaries supporting the Chinese version of events.

“We obviously know that (the Dalai Lama) does bring some controversy wherever he goes,” Allen said. “That’s what college campuses are about, having people with differences of opinion and having that kind of debate and discussion.”

The monk will receive an honorary degree during his visit to UNI. Last year, the Chinese government removed the University of Calgary from its list of accredited institutions after it awarded the Dalai Lama a law degree when he visited the city in September 2009. That means that Chinese Ministry of Education will no longer certify degrees from that university.

At UNI, around 100 Chinese students were enrolled in programmes and majors this spring. The institution also partners with a handful of Chinese institutions, including the Hangzhou Normal University, but President Allen says he has not received any feedback from the schools regarding the Dalai Lama’s appearances.

The Chinese government, who has referred to the Dalai Lama as “a wolf in sheep’s clothes,” often attempts to use its weight as a growing economic force to mute the message of the Tibetan people, said Dhirendra Vajpeyi, UNI political science professor. The policy has been somewhat successful in the states. The US and China resumed human rights talks this week for the first time in two years. Yet some experts questioned whether the dialogue would continue as scheduled after President Obama met with the Dalai Lama in February. Even that encounter was influenced by the Chinese, Vajpeyi said.

“It was a very low-visibility ceremony,” he said. “American policy is we don’t want to get the Chinese upset. They own our debts, they’re an emerging power. That tells us our diminishing power in relation to China.”

A protest area will be located a block away from the McLeod Center, where the Dalai Lama will participate Tuesday in a panel discussion and give a keynote address.

Nangai Yang, a UNI graduate student, said although education is the topic of the speech, any appearance by the Tibetan is inherently political.

“I really don’t understand the move,” he said. “The university has more and more Chinese students coming in. (The Dalai Lama) is just trying to create problems.”

Yet Yang plans to attend the monk’s speech.

“I don’t agree with what he says, but I want to sit and hear what he has to say,” he said. “I want to get his perspectives and view.”

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Published in Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier