What Amnye Machen is doing, he says, is not opposing but providing another perspective which is at times critical. In one major respect Amnye Machen's goal is identical to the Dalai Lama's - they want to keep Tibetan culture alive. They publish books by Tibetan writers in Tibetan. But they also think that one way of keeping Tibetan culture alive is to keep it fed with foreign ideas, so they have translated into Tibetan for the first time the works of George Orwell, Vaclav Havel and others. The democratic structures may be in place but it is very difficult to criticize openly.
People take it so personally.
What is going on in China is the key to Tibet's future. Beijing is losing its grip on its provinces. The economic disparity between the rich coastal areas and the poor inland areas is throwing up all sorts of problems. Farmers are leaving the countryside and moving to the cities. Unemployment is high and there are fears of insurrection.