Dr. Orville Schell has professorial benignity that restores your faith in the noble profession of teaching. As a leading scholar of Chinese history and Tibet Dr. Schell could be forgiven a little bit of vanity, but dealing with one of the world's greatest ancient civilizations has given him a sense of detachment from his personal accomplishments.

An author of 14 highly regarded books, scores of important essays and articles, advisor on Emmy award winning documentaries and Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism, Berkeley, Dr Schell chooses to conduct himself with a great deal of self-effacement.

He sat down with Literate World for an interview on a powerful moral cause that is in the real danger of being forgotten amid the din of the war on terror - China's continuing occupation of Tibet over five decades after its annexation. Dr Schell describes the Tibet issue as "relatively quiescent" and apprehends that it could well become irrelevant. In a wide ranging interview he discusses the leadership of the Dalai Lama, the future of the institution of the Dalai Lama and narrowing options before him.

Q: Are we any closer to a resolution of the Tibetan dispute now than we were in 1959 when the Dalai Lama went into exile in India?

A: I would have to say that hope has sprung eternal on this question. The last two delegations by Lodi Gyari (the Dalai Lama's special envoy) to China raised some hope and expectations, but having watched this for a very long time it is very unclear whether this means any major movement or a shift in China's attitude towards Tibet. In many ways the subjects of Taiwan and Tibet are as frozen as any issue that China confronts and it's a shame and counterintuitive that it should be so because in actuality both these problems can be solved very simply without any deleterious effect to either side, in fact to a great positive effect. I think China's strategy very often is to yield a little bit here or a little bit there but not to actually make major shifts on issues like these. So I am not optimistic that we are a whole lot closer now than we were 10, 15, 20 years ago. We may have been much closer in the early 80s.

Q: Do you believe that China is waging a battle of attrition, essentially waiting for the Dalai Lama to die?

A: The trouble with the system that China now has that it is very difficult to move in a deliberate and radically new way on anything. The whole path of reform has been tiny little piecemeal experiment which has become the de facto reality. In a certain sense the problem with Tibet is more symbolic than real, a little bit like Taiwan. So it is harder for China to move symbolically to clear major policy shifts and easier to move on piecemeal practical questions. I don't think this leadership feels capable of making such a shift. It is one of the great mysteries of China's political system how resistant it is to fundamental change and less resistant to superficial change which in aggregate add up often into something major but that's not Tibet's problem. So they are hoping that the Dalai Lama would simply die. What they fail to appreciate, however, is that he is their best hope to bring about some sort of reconciliation and to keep Tibet peacefully within the sovereign boundaries of China. They don't fully understand the negative consequence of what they are doing to themselves.

Q: What are the consequences of the Dalai Lama's death at this stage?

A: There are two consequences. When he dies no one will replace him that we can see. He is a person very high on the periodic table of leadership. I do think that the entire movement will have a very difficult time staying together. On the other hand it is possible that things could blow up in Tibet at some point and there will be no one to calm it down. This is one of the great roles he could play before such a thing happens.

Q: What about the possibility of him anointing a successor in his lifetime?

A: It is possible but it is a long shot. However, it is not going to have the mystery of ritual credentials that this Dalai Lama has as a result of the old system in Tibetan society. Apart from the force of his own personality this whole mythology of reincarnation is very powerful for people outside of China.

Q: Where would you place Tibet as a world conflict in terms of its importance?

A: Right now it is relatively quiescent. But you never know when these things blow up, if the economic situation in China takes a bad turn or something like that. Right now though, it is not a major international issue. But it is a major international moral issue. So there is a great capital for China to win by doing the right thing on that front. I don't think it is going to lose all that much by continuing the status quo which is exactly the dilemma that the Dalai Lama finds himself in. There is no place to get a finger hole in a new way. He wants to talk. They don't want to talk. End of story.

Q: How does Buddhism play into this whole debate given the fact it is non-confrontationist and non-violent? Does this philosophy go against Tibetans?

A: Buddhists are never capable of fighting against Leninists from a distance. I mean fight in a non-violent way against the forces of violent repression by China the way it happened in India under Gandhi against the British colonial rulers, but they will never allow a force like Gandhi to emerge in Tibet. Buddhism and all the Dalai Lama represents is ill-equipped and with the kinds of secret police, military police and the kind of controlled society that China specializes. All that marginalizes the Dalai Lama's government in exile. On the other hand one would be loathe seeing him change in a sense that he would become a Leninist who believes that the end justifies the means. That is exactly the problem that China confronts. To play their game is to be defeated and not play their game is also losing as well. Here the lack of international resonance is also not helping.

Q: Do you see the current thaw in India-China relations weakening the Tibetan cause?

A: Yes, as long as India is in an antagonistic relationship with China, they will be more sympathetic to the Tibet cause. I don't advocate that but that is the reality. The Dharamshala government has no national advocate. Even in the international fora they do not want to touch it because the Chinese are very sensitive about it.

Q: What are the Dalai Lama's options?

A: The Dalai Lama has done as good a job as he possibly could given the parameters of his own principles. It's the paradox of life that sometime might trumps principles and morality. One wishes it were otherwise but it isn't always. I can't think what else he can do. In many ways is an exemplar of absolutely the opposite of what China is all about. The problem is that China has so polluted itself with its own propaganda in regard to Tibet and Taiwan that it is very hard for them to think in a very revolutionary way and solve Tibet, something we can do in five minutes. Nothing would be lost and everything would be gained. China would become a truly great power in the eyes of the world, cosmopolitan, sophisticated which might be emulated in ways that even the United States cannot be emulated.

Q: What is that solution?

A: Let the Dalai Lama go back as a cultural figure, give real political autonomy. Defense and foreign policy can be in Chinese hands. Do experiments the way Canada does with Quebec or the way Britain does with Scotland. This will have a very salutary effect on Hong Kong and Taiwan. It could do a one-country two systems that is real.

Q: Is there anyone within the Chinese leadership who would share your vision?

A: I wrote a letter to the standing committee of the politburo saying all of this. I heard that this got translated for the higher-ups in the party. I think they know it but there is something blocking the way, probably the military. We don't really know the conservatizing effect and power of whole blocks of Chinese institutional society, the security bureau, People's Liberation Army, the party and so on. I think people are aware of this but evidently no leader or block of leaders feels compelled or strong enough to launch a new policy initiative.

Q: So it is pretty much a dead-end then?

A: Yes but you never know. Look at what happened to Eastern Europe or Russia. I don't think China is right now going to implement a well-ordered well-articulated reform program with the goal of making Tibet as a more autonomous or independent entity with the Dalai Lama playing some considerable symbolic role. They are going to pass out little scraps to a few delegations here and a few delegations there. That keeps everybody quiet and shuts everybody up and it keeps the status quo.

Q: What role can the U.S. play to speed up the process?

A: I am not a great supporter of President George Bush but he has been relatively good on the Tibet policy. May be I am a dreamer but what the US has apparently done with India and Pakistan means it does have a role to play, a positive role to play in Tibet and also in Taiwan. But they are distracted. We have been trying to fix the Arab-Israeli problem for decades. I think China is trapped by its own revolution. It has not completely abandoned its ideology of some sort of primitive reunification that Mao stood for. It can't imagine any new framework that would let China fly apart.

Q: Is Chinese interest in Tibet purely territorial?

Q: I think it is psychological. It is certainly not economic. To a minor extent they imagine it being strategically important. I think it has to do with the humiliation of China being dismembered in the 19th century. There is no reason for the Communist party to govern unilaterally other than for nationalistic reasons. Communism is dead. It is Leninist form of capitalism. It is their one claim to fame and to continue on this one-party system is that it has made China whole. Tibet is a very important piece of it.

Q: It seems the only option that the Dalai Lama has is doing something perhaps absurdly radical like showing up in Lhasa surreptitiously, the way he had left it in 1959. At the risk of sounding naïve how would you react to a suggestion like that?

A: It is an exciting idea, almost like a Hollywood movie. I am sure he would laugh his deep throated chuckle at the idea. Although doing something like that does not sound like him, I cannot say it would not delight me if he did something like that. He is not that kind of person. He is not a provoker. But then that is about the only thing he could do-something utterly shocking. May be hop on a horse and go the same he came out. Right now he plods around the world doing events for fawning westerners. They love his spiritual cuddly side and he feels powerless to help his own people.

Q: How do you see the future of the institution of the Dalai Lama? Do you think it is over?

A: I don't see how it will work in the context of his life in exile. The truth is that there is a receptor side within Tibet which is very worshipful and devout. I think it would be very very hard to continue and the Chinese know this. That's a tragedy. They don't quite understand that it is a loss to them. It could be a loss to them in terms their ability to make something commendable out of Tibet.