China Meets Dalai Lama's Envoys

Secret negotiations between China and the Dalai Lama are due to resume after the arrival in Beijing last night of two senior envoys of the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen are due to meet officials later this week with a secret message from the Dalai Lama, and there is speculation that he will soon return to Tibet after nearly 50 years' exile.

They are also likely to travel to Tibet. Their visit to China last September was the first formal contact between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama for 10 years.

Last night Tibetan officials described the talks as "confidence building", and were hopeful that they would lead to "full-blown negotiations" between Beijing and Tibet's exiled government in India to establish Tibet's autonomy.

The recent signs from the new Chinese president, Hu Jintao, had been encouraging, they added.

Thupten Samphel, a spokesman for the exiled government, said: "The return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet is a peripheral issue.

"The whole of Tibet inhabited by the Tibetan people should be given genuine autonomy... The new generation growing up under Chinese rule is still carrying the torch for Tibet."

In the past Beijing has played down the significance of its meetings with envoys from the Dalai Lama, whom it accuses of trying to split the nation. But there seems to be a new willingness to explore the renewal of formal contacts.

In recent months it has released several Tibetan political prisoners, and in recent weeks the Dalai Lama has made pro-Beijing statements which have dismayed those Tibetans who want full independence.