Lobsang Sangay, Prime Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, speaks during a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on 22 November 2016.
File photo/Reuters/Chris Wattie
Reuters Staff | Reuters
BEIJING, China, 20 October 2020
China’s foreign ministry said the United States should immediately stop interfering in its internal affairs, after the leader of the head of the Tibetan government-in-exile met a US State Department official in Washington.
Lobsang Sangay, the president of the Tibetan Central Administration (CTA), met the new US special coordinator on Tibet last week. Sangay said it was the first time that the head of the CTA had been received at the State Department.
“China will take all necessary measures to protect its interests,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said during a daily news conference in Beijing on Tuesday.
China’s irritation with the United States over Tibet comes at a time when relations between the two world powers are at their lowest point in decades over a range of issues, including trade, Taiwan, human rights, the South China Sea and the coronavirus.
Describing Sangay as an anti-China separatist, Zhao said the United States should cease any official contact with him.
The meeting “sent a seriously wrong signal to Tibetan independence forces,” he said.
“The US should immediately stop using the Tibet issue to interfere in China’s internal affairs.”
China seized control over Tibet in 1950 in what it describes as a “peaceful liberation”. International human rights groups and exiles routinely condemn what they call China’s oppressive rule in Tibetan areas.
Since its formation in 1959, the Tibetan government-in-exile has been based in Dharamshala in northern India. China’s relations with India became fraught in recent months following a bloody clash between troops stationed on the disputed Himalayan border.
The visit of the Sikyong to the State Department is the first sign of treating the elected leader of Tibet with foreign diplomatic courtesy. This is very welcome step by the Trump Administration. It’s a tacit recognition of the Tibetan Government in exile since the US withdrew its support for Tibet after Nixon’s visit to China in 1972.
The US sees India as a counterweight against an aggressive China and has been building relations between the two countries since the Clinton era. Therefore, a stable and prosperous India is in America’s interest. However, India is being destabilised by China on the Indo-Tibet-border and giving support to militants in Assam and Maoist insurgency in Chhattisgarh in Central India.
The greatest threat comes from Occupied Tibet. Without an independent Tibet, India will remain unsettled by Chinese incursions and border disputes. Therefore, for the sake of India’s stability and the peace in Asia, Tibet must be re-instated as the historical buffer which kept China and India apart.
The US must bury all inhibitions of Chinese sensitivity and recognise Tibet as an independent nation that is illegally occupied by communist China. That China had to sign the “17 point” Treaty in 1951 with Tibet proves, Tibet was in full control of its territory and that the Chinese had to seek Tibetan permission to sent troops to Tibet.
At this crucial time when China is losing its legitimacy as a responsible stakeholder, Tibetans should not miss this golden opportunity to achieve the goal of Tibet’s legitimate right to independence. We need a new leader who is aggressive to push for independence rather than sit on the hands and dream of CCP metamorphosis to grant autonomy.
We have to demand what is historically ours. Our sovereignity.