Like a real politician, he has said contradictory things to different audience at different places and at different time. PRC had offered him a big olive leaf before 1989. Because of the Tianamen Square incident, he grossly miscalculated that PRC would collapse like the former USSR. So he took a much harder line toward his independence claim. This really upset the guys in BJ. Dalai Lama has been trying to fix this ever since.
As to whether he is a genuine peaceloving monk or a dirty politician, the truth lies somewhere in between.