A bipartisan delegation of US lawmakers traveled to India this week in order to meet with the Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, this week to express their support for Tibetan self-determination.
The group, which was led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) and included former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, presented Gyatso with a framed copy of the Resolve Tibet Act, passed in Congress earlier this month.
The bill, which President Joe Biden is expected to sign in coming weeks, represents a massive sea change in US policy with regard to China, which states that “it is U.S. policy that the conflict between Tibet and China is unresolved and that Tibet’s legal status remains to be determined in accordance with international law.”
This may sound like nothing, but it is actually very, very big deal.
While the United States government initially supported the Tibetans and the exiled Dalai Lama (for the usual reason of stopping communism), that mostly ended once we started normalizing relations with China in 1977. US policy since then has basically been that whatever China wants to do or claim about Tibet is their business and not ours.
However, it seems that now that relations have cooled, the US may not be so willing to ignore the occupation and human rights abuses any longer.
Pelosi told reporters, on behalf of the delegation, that they are calling for China to engage in “unconditional dialogue” with the Dalai Lama about the future of Tibet.
China was, characteristically, super pissed off about this.
“We urge the US to clearly see the sensitivity and importance of Xizang-related issues and earnestly respect China’s core interests,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said ahead of the meeting, adding that US lawmakers “should abide by our commitment on the issue of obstacles, refrain from any form of contact with the Dalai clique, and stop sending wrong messages to the outside world.”
Xizang, by the way, is what the Chinese call Tibet. China’s “core interest” is that China wants to occupy Tibet, while Tibetans want China to get the fuck out of there and leave them alone.
“We urge the US side to honor its commitment of recognizing Tibet as part of China and not supporting Tibetan independence, and not to sign the above-mentioned bill,” Lin told reporters, promising that China would take “resolute and forceful measures” to prevent Tibetan independence.
Things are getting particularly dicey right now, because the Dalai Lama is about to turn 89 and the question of a successor is looming. The Chinese government believes it has the right to choose the next Dalai Lama, and obviously the current Dalai Lama and Tibetans do not want that at all. After the current Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was identified in 1995 at the age of six, he was kidnapped by the Chinese government and became the world’s youngest political prisoner. The Chinese government then named their own Panchen Lama who was raised in China and more or less functions as a proxy for the Chinese government. It’s a truly repugnant situation, and one that the Chinese government is hoping to repeat with the next Dalai Lama, which is why the current Dalai Lama says he may not reincarnate at all.
For those who are unaware, the People’s Republic of China has been violently occupying Tibet since they first invaded in 1950. In 1959, after a failed uprising, the Dalai Lama fled to India, where he and the rest of the Tibetan government in exile have been ever since. By 1976, China had decimated 6,000 Buddhist monasteries and destroyed 90 percent of all shrines and temples in the region. By 1979 they had killed, disappeared, or incarcerated nearly all of the nation’s 600,000 monks and nuns. They separate children from their families, refuse to allow the Tibetan language to be taught in schools, imprison people for things like “waving the Tibetan flag,” and worse.
China claims that they have the right to do all of this because Tibet has always been a part of China, but that’s some bullshit, as modern nation-states as we understand them today did not really come about until 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, and it took a long while and a whole lot of colonization for that to be fully implemented across the globe. The People’s Republic of China, for instance, was established only a year before they invaded Tibet in 1950.
Saying that Tibet has “always” belonged to China would be like saying “Oh! Everyone is Italian, actually, because of the Roman Empire,” when in actuality, “Italy” did not exist until the risorgimento in 1861. Dig?
Tibet, throughout the years, was part of various dynasties and empires (including their own at one point), but it had its own government and was, for the most part, its own independent, autonomous thing. From 1912 to 1951, after the Qing Dynasty fell, it was not part of anything at all. Obviously, if it had always “belonged” to China, it would not have been necessary for the PRC to invade it in 1950, now would it?
For its part, the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government in exile, is hopeful. Spokesperson Tenzin Lekshay told the Washington Post that “there is a convergence of the free world in showing solidarity and support for Tibet,” and told Reuters that he believes that the Resolve Tibet bill will be a “game changer.”
It really will be. If the US feels free to criticize the occupation of Tibet, other countries will follow suit. Because Lekshay is correct. As hard as China has worked to push their ridiculous propaganda about Tibet, actual human beings throughout the world support Tibetan freedom and have for decades — it’s just our governments that have had to play nice.
And now that they don’t … there is actually a chance that things might change.
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