Tragedy in Crimson: How the Dalai Lama Conquered the World but Lost the Battle With China

Is the Dalai Lama enters the twilight of his life, China patiently waits for him to die. The endgame for Tibet is quickly approaching. In Tragedy in Crimson, award-winning journalist Tim Johnson shows how China's leaders are tightening their chokehold on Tibet even as they bring epochal economic growth to China. The battle pits a Communist regime founded on atheism against a Tibet that has become a spiritual beacon to millions around the world. Tibet's exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, is a global moral figure but with a tragic dimension---he captures worldwide fame and brings Hollywood figures to his side, but can do little to end six decades of repression against the six million Tibetans living under Chinese rule.

Tragedy in Crimson reveals the high stakes game between China's leaders, who fear that ethnic and social unrest could loosen their grip on power, and the Dalai lama, who gambles that the Communist Party may collapse and open the door to greater freedom for his people. In gripping and haunting detail, the book lays out the repression Beijing imposes on Tibetans, as well as the hypocrisies and contradictions of the pro-Tibet camp.

Based on extensive on-the-ground reporting in China, Nepal, India, and the United States, Tragedy in Crimson takes readers from the isolated huts and monasteries of the Tibetan Plateau, to the heart of the exile movement in India, on tour with the Dalai Lama, to the Hollywood salons and halls of power in Washington where the Tibet issue gets the most public exposure.

As global supporters toast Tibet, China's repression on the Plateau goes unabated, and popular unrest routinely boils over. Tibet remains a powder keg. Tragedy in Crimson delves into the reasons for Tibetan resentment, including China's brutal control of Buddhist monasteries, its meddling in the selection of reincarnated lamas, and its efforts to lessen and even extinguish - Tibetan self-identity. Johnson offers a deeper understanding of what may happen when the Dalai Lama dies, introducing some of the rising stars in the Tibetan firmament. And he explains why the unfolding tragedy of Tibet is crucial to understanding how an ascendant China is wielding its power in the modern world.

Award-winning journalist He has spent the last twenty years as a foreign correspondent for the Miami Herald: Knight-Riddcr Newspapers, and the McClatchy Newspaper group. He was Beijing bureau chief for the latter two companies for six years and is now Mexico City bureau chief for McClatchy.