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Mark O'Neill

'I have closely followed recent events in Tibet and my heart is heavy. My father always said all nationalities should be united and our world should be stable.'
This is the only public comment on the Tibetan unrest of a person unique in the Tibetan world - Yabshi Pan Rinzinwangmo (Renji), 25, daughter of the late 10th Panchen Lama, Qoigyi Gyaincain, and a Han doctor, Lie Ji, in the People's Liberation Army. She is the first child of any of the 10 Panchen Lamas since the dynasty was established in the 14th century.
After a life of privilege in China and the United States and the best education the two countries can offer, Renji is waiting for the call of destiny.
'Since I was young, I have had a clear objective - to do something for Tibet,' she told Guangzhou Southern People Week. 'Because I am the daughter of my father, whatever I do, good or bad, will influence his reputation.
'People have transferred to me their love of my father: on my shoulders are so many hopes and feelings. He is my eternal model.'
Since the outbreak of monk-led, pro-independence protests in mid-March, Renji has kept a low profile. A  doctoral student in finance at the elite  Tsinghua University in Beijing, she has only said that there should be 'harmony' among all the nationalities, echoing the government line.
Highly educated, fluent in  Putonghua, Tibetan and English and a friend of the political elite in Beijing, Renji has the potential to play an important role in reconciling the Han and Tibetan peoples.
This will be decided not by her alone but by her political masters in Beijing, who see her as a powerful symbol of unity, as someone who carries the loyalty of tens of thousands of Tibetans towards her father.
Ambiguous about this popularity, Beijing controls her infrequent visits to Tibetan areas. Each time she goes, she is greeted by thousands of people. The last time, in February,  she went to Xunhua county in Qinghai  to commemorate the 70th birth anniversary of her father. Thousands of monks and villagers lined the roads from his birthplace to the local temple in the hope of seeing her.
Her father achieved the remarkable feat of being accepted and respected by both the central government in Beijing and the community in exile led by the Dalai Lama.
At the end of a 45-day visit in the summer of 2002, to improve Renji's knowledge of the Tibetan language and of Buddhism, tens of thousands gathered in the square of the Jokhang Temple to see her off. 'Please come back often. We miss you,' they cried, many in tears.
It is unclear what her future role will be. Some children of the Tibetan ruling class in China have defected to the opposition community in exile: so Beijing may be waiting to confirm her loyalty before giving her a position.
Renji grew up as a member of the communist 'nobility'. The family home, in a traditional Beijing hutong, was full of servants, lamas and 'living Buddhas'. She had six people waiting on her, including a driver, a nanny and someone assigned to play with her.
The family stayed at the city home on weekdays and, during the weekends, went to a villa in the western hills, with ponies and calves, each with Tibetan and Chinese names. The Panchen Lama rose each  day at  5am to recite Buddhist scriptures, and servants put his daughter on his knee. She attended the local primary school. As she tells it, when she was 10, her mother had a dream in which the Buddha appeared and told her to send her daughter for education in a distant place, the United States.
Accordingly, in July 1996, after she had graduated from primary school, her mother sent her to stay in the family of an aunt who lived in a rough district of Brooklyn, New York. Renji spoke no English and only a little Cantonese and went to a school that was predominantly black, with four Asian students.
The violent neighbourhood was a rude awakening from the life of servants and privilege she had enjoyed in Beijing: she was completely unable to adapt. After five months there, her mother came for a visit and decided to find her an American guardian.
She picked Steven Seagal, action-film star and director in Hollywood and devout believer in Tibetan Buddhism. Renji moved to Los Angeles and attended a private international boarding school with fewer than 150 students, including children of the Sony family of Japan, the Samsungs of South Korea and oil magnates from the Middle East.
Seagal sent a car to pick her up at weekends, when she stayed at his spacious mansion in  Beverly Hills. He has six children from three different relationships with ages close to her.
'The house was like a free market,' Renji told Three United Living Weekly. 'Constantly, there were people coming and  going. Through him, I saw the brave and independent spirit of American people.' At his frequent parties, she met children of the rich and famous in Hollywood.
She went on to study political science at Virginia University and took part in international seminars on Tibetan and women's issues.
An allowance from her mother and income from a property bequeathed by her father allowed her to live in comfort in the United States, with her own car.
The source of this wealth is an issue among Tibetans, according to a biography of the Panchen Lama by Jingbian Jiaco, a Tibetan scholar and former PLA soldier, who served as the Panchen Lama's interpreter from 1959.
According to tradition, the Panchen Lama should bequeath his large collection of gold, silver, jewellery and antiques to his successor. 'It seems that Li Jie has retained 12 safety boxes full of jewellery belonging to the Panchen Lama,' the biography says. 'Devout Buddhists donate their assets to living Buddhas. Tibetans are very angry that a Han woman has kept the Panchen Lama's assets for herself.'
The book was first published in Hong Kong in 1989; it is banned on the mainland. A Hong Kong publishing company has reprinted  it and put it on sale again this month in bookshops  in the city.
After she graduated, Renji was considering offers from Columbia and Oxford universities, when Beijing invited her to do a doctorate in finance at  Tsinghua University, which she accepted.
After 10 years studying in English, she had to work hard to learn the specialised Chinese vocabulary needed for the course.



Waiting for the call of destiny