Dalai Lama Talks China With Stanford Students

Dalai Lama Talks China With Stanford Students

Fang Zheng was 22 years old when a Chinese tank ran over his legs. It was 1989, and he was one of tens of thousands of protesters in Tiananmen Square rallying against the government's repressive policies.

On Thursday afternoon, in a quiet, shady courtyard of the Stanford Park Hotel in Menlo Park, Zheng rolled his wheelchair up to a microphone to ask Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, what the prospects of democracy are in the country where Zheng lived for four decades. Leaning forward in a red and gold chair, the Dalai Lama listened closely, furrowed his brow and then replied: "I myself hope to return to Beijing. But right now I cannot."

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