R-64 Envoy fears for Tibet when Dalai Lama dies

Envoy fears for Tibet when Dalai Lama dies BEIJING (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama's top envoy, in rare remarks on a dialogue process with China, has warned of potential instability unless the issue of Tibet is resolved within the lifetime of the 71-year-old spiritual leader.

About half of China's Tibetans live in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, the remote, mountainous area the Dalai Lama fled in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese Communist rule.

The remainder live in parts of the western Chinese provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan, which are considered part of a historical, or cultural, Tibet.

Uniting Tibetans in those regions was not an effort to create a "greater Tibet" or a cover for a separatist plot, Lodi Gyari said, but stemmed from a desire to restore the integrity of Tibetans as a distinct nationality within China.