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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →The Dalai Lama recalled meeting Mao Zedong in Beijing in September 1954, when he was nineteen and Mao was sixty-one. In his memoir, he described Mao as “warm and welcoming” and recounted a roughly hour-long private conversation. The scene comes from the Dalai Lama’s retrospective account; official biographies confirm the visit and meeting, but not the conversation’s precise date or details.
When did the Dalai Lama meet Mao?
The Dalai Lama’s memoir places their first meeting a few days after he and the Panchen Lama arrived in Beijing on September 4, 1954. They had travelled by train from Xi’an, and Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and other officials met them at the station. The memoir does not specify the exact day of the first meeting.
The encounter took place during the Dalai Lama’s wider visit to China, which the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama dates from July 1954 to June 1955 and describes as a visit for peace talks. Its brief biography also confirms that he went to Beijing in 1954 and met Mao and other Chinese leaders.
What happened at their first meeting?
In the account published as an excerpt from Voice for the Voiceless, the Dalai Lama says he met Mao alone at a reception house in a former imperial garden beside the Forbidden City. The conversation lasted about an hour, by his estimate. He remembers Mao speaking of the importance of the relationship between the Chinese and Tibetan peoples and saying the central government would make efforts to develop Tibet.
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The Dalai Lama’s description of Mao’s manner is concise: “He was warm and welcoming.” As the meeting ended, Mao reportedly opened the car door, shook his hand and invited him to approach directly if he needed anything. The Dalai Lama recalls Mao saying: “Your coming to Beijing is coming back to your own home. Whenever you come to Beijing, you can call on me… Don’t be shy; if you need anything, just tell me directly.”
How old were the Dalai Lama and Mao?
According to the memoir, the Dalai Lama was nineteen and Mao was sixty-one when they met. These ages, along with the setting, length and dialogue, are details from the Dalai Lama’s account rather than a separate contemporaneous record.
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What is independently confirmed about the meeting?
The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s brief biography confirms the 1954 Beijing visit and that the Dalai Lama met Mao. Its chronology supplies the broader July 1954–June 1955 date range and describes the trip as being for peace talks. These official accounts corroborate the visit and meeting, but do not establish the memoir’s exact first-meeting date, setting or words.
A 2008 U.S. Senate hearing publication reproduces a later statement in which the Dalai Lama recalled meeting Mao and other senior Chinese leaders during the 1954–55 visit, and said Mao gave him advice and personal assurances about Tibet. It is a separate retrospective statement by the same speaker, not independent eyewitness corroboration of the first meeting’s scene.
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What the memoir can—and cannot—establish
The first meeting is best understood as a personal recollection set within a documented diplomatic visit. The Dalai Lama’s memoir is the direct source for the private conversation and its remembered atmosphere; the official biography and chronology confirm the larger trip and the meeting with Mao. The sources cited here do not provide a separate transcript or third-party eyewitness description of that first encounter.
The account appears in the Dalai Lama’s memoir, Voice for the Voiceless: Over Seven Decades of Struggle with China for My Land and My People, excerpted by Scroll.in on March 20, 2025.
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