Frustrated at the lack of progress in official talks with Beijing, hundreds of Tibetans are meeting in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala, the exiled Tibetans’ headquarters, searching for a way forward.

Some want the Dalai Lama’s long-standing “Middle Way”, which advocates greater autonomy within China, replaced by demands for outright independence.

“If the majority of the people offer some different way than the present (Middle Way), then of course we would gladly follow that,” Samdhong Rinpoche, the Tibetan exile prime minister, told reporters.

“If the parliament by majority makes the decision that we should go for independence, then of course there is no way to escape that,” Rinpoche said.

“The parliament has the final decision-making power.”

Analysts say the meeting may be an attempt to persuade the Chinese that if they don’t compromise, more radical elements will surface against China’s rule.

The exiles gathered in Dharamsala were hopeful of reaching a consensus and were huddled in closed door meetings.

“Everybody (has a) kind of mixed feeling — frustration, hope, determination to do something but not very clear what to do,” Rinpoche added.

China this month rejected demands for autonomy during talks between Chinese officials and the Dalai Lama’s envoys.

The Tibetan leader, who fled into exile in 1959 after an unsuccessful uprising, recently hinted his push for an autonomous Tibet had failed. Speculation has grown he wants to step back from day-to-day political leadership.

After being hospitalized with abdominal pain in August and undergoing gallstone surgery last month, he is not attending the Dharamsala meeting.

Some Tibetan activists say he is laying the ground for a possible successor.

At the latest talks in Beijing, the Tibetans presented a “memorandum on genuine autonomy”, which stressed their right to create their own regional government and to be represented in decision-making in the Chinese government.

It also called for protecting the culture and identity of minority nationalities in Tibet, and preserving the environment.

Chinese officials have said the door to Tibetan independence or semi-independence would never open, and China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday attempts to split Tibet from Chinese territory would not succeed.

“No country in the world recognizes an independent Tibet,” Qin Gang, a foreign ministry spokesman, told a news conference in Beijing.

China has already stepped up security inside Tibet.

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