In his latest book, Tibet, Tibet, writer Patrick French (left) takes aim at a cause that has long been near and dear to him. French is a veteran of the Tibetan freedom movement in Britain-as well as a superb historian and author-but he's changed his mind about the usefulness of foreign support for the people of Tibet.

He no longer thinks it helps reduce Tibetan suffering under Chinese rule. This book is a powerful, frank and moving tale of one man's painful discovery that cherished views can be mistaken.

Reading it is both humbling and valuable to all of us who think the world can change if it only pays more attention to our favourite causes.

French is a friend of mine. I am an admirer of his writing.

His earlier works, Younghusband and Liberty or Death, are classic populist history, leavened with anecdote and the travels of the author. Tibet, Tibet is a book of a different sort but no less powerful, no less worth the read.

From the opening chapter on the tragic death of Thubten Ngedup by self immolation in Delhi in 1998 through his own travels in modern Tibet and the revelatory closing moments about deceit by members of the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, French takes us on a remarkable journey. Yes, it's a tale of dusty Tibetan highways and austere mountainscapes. But it's also an inner voyage by an honest man-rare enough amongst writers, I dare say.

I too was in Delhi for Ngedup's fiery end a few years ago and I remember it vividly. It was my first exposure to the odd combination of cynicism and self-righteousness found amongst the fringes of foreign free-Tibet crowd. For even as the unfortunate Ngedup was getting ready to douse himself in petrol and set it alight, a European supporter of Tibetan freedom found the time to phone me and other television journalists to urge us to cover the grisly scene. I reacted in horror, screaming at the woman who called to do everything she could to stop the protest by any means possible. She didn't. And I still feel guilty for not taking the matter further, for reading of Thubten's horrible end in the next day's newspapers.

French too began to feel uncomfortable with Tibet's foreign fellow travellers around this time. He'd spent 20 years in the Free Tibet Campaign, Britain's largest such organisation, but as a historian and sometime journalist, he was beginning to wonder if he wasn't actually just helping to prolong Tibet's agony. To prove this point, French relates tales of Chinese people who see foreign support for Tibet as yet another example of Western colonial powers coveting China's riches. He also meets Tibetan collaborators with the Communists and explores the confused and often contradictory affairs of the Dharamsala government. Through it all, French, a committed Buddhist, maintains respect and devotion for the Dalai Lama.

His Holiness, we read, is a good man surrounded by the usual array of well meaning, incompetent and occasionally wicked characters who flock to charismatic people.

Tibet, French concludes, will never again be a sovereign state, at least not in the lifetime of anyone living now. But various options do present themselves, such as autonomy within China, like Hong Kong. And these pragmatic solutions to the agony of a people-while not erasing a horrendous recent past of pogroms, cultural genocide and oppression-need to be explored. The Dalai Lama himself has been doing so, French points out, much to the dismay of some freedom campaigners in America and Europe.

It is time, French tells us, to do something sublimely Buddhist about the cause of Tibetan independence, sovereignty from China, territorial integrity. It is time, for foreigners at least, to "let it go", to move on, to allow Tibetans to find their own solutions to their own problems. None of this rules out humanitarian support or even subtle political backing. But the flaming fate of Thubten Ngedup must never, ever be repeated. Not to mention the humiliation and betrayal by Washington of the Khampa rebellion of the 1970s.

It's obvious that I agree with French, and this does colour my reaction to his book. But how can one not be struck by the ludicrous behaviour of some Tibetan campaigners in their foreign comfort zone? Earlier this year, this newspaper took up the columnists cudgel against one such example-the nasty call for a tourist boycott of Nepal in response to an admittedly nasty event, the deportation of 18 Tibetan refugees by the Nepali government. People in San Francisco find it very easy to be self righteous about causes far away, and this, say I and Patrick French, does more harm than good to those at the receiving end of the oppressors' wrath.

Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land
Patrick French
333pp, HarperCollins, ?20