Dalai Lama 'seeking to restore theocracy'

A Tibetologist on Sunday criticized the "middle way" approach repeatedly advocated by the Dalai Lama since the 1980s, saying what the Dalai clique really wants remains "Tibet independence".

"Greater Tibet" and "high-level autonomy" are the core claims of the middle way, but they are neither reasonable nor acceptable, Zhu Xiaoming, of the Beijing-based China Tibetology Research Center, said.

By Greater Tibet, the Dalai clique wants not only the present Tibet autonomous region, but also the entire region of the adjacent Qinghai province, and parts of Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan provinces and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. These have a combined area of about 2.4 million sq km, roughly a quarter of China's total territory.