Neither Panacea nor Pandora’s Box: comparing autonomy with a view on Tibet and China

Since the Dalai Lama fled into exile, in 1959, China has gained formal international recognition of its sovereign claim to Tibet through a combination of physical occupation and realpolitik. In parallel, however, over the last decades, a strategy of non-violence and global outreach has created considerable inter-national interest in the human rights situation in Tibet and in the autonomy claims of Tibetans (in exile), reaching a peak after demonstrations, riots and subsequent Chinese crackdown in early 2008, just before the Beijing Olympic Games.