Zdeněk Hřib: the Czech mayor who defied China

By refusing to expel a Taiwanese diplomat, the Prague mayor has joined the ranks of local politicians confronting contentious national policies

By Robert Tait in Prague

Zdeněk Hřib of the Czech Republic’s Pirate party.

Zdeněk Hřib had been Prague’s mayor for little more than a month when he came face-to-face with the Czech capital’s complex entanglement with China.
Hosting a meeting with foreign diplomats in the city, Hřib was asked by the Chinese ambassador to expel their Taiwanese counterpart from the gathering in deference to Beijing’s ‘one China’ policy, under which it claims sovereignty over the officially independent state of Taiwan.
Given recent Chinese investments in the Czech Republic, which have included the acquisition of Slavia Prague football club, a major brewery and a stake in a private TV station, the fledgling mayor could have easily agreed. 

Prague city council had, under the preceding mayor, signed a twin cities agreement with Beijing that explicitly recognised the one China policy.
Instead, Hřib refused and the Taiwanese diplomat stayed.
The episode is a rare case of a local politician defying the might of a global superpower while making a principled stand against a national government policy that has promoted Chinese ties.

Hřib has since gone further, demanding Beijing officials drop the clause stating Prague’s support for the one China policy in the 2016 deal and threatening to scrap the arrangement if they refuse.
“This article is a one-sided declaration that Prague agrees with and respects the one China policy and such a statement has no place in the sister cities agreement,” Hřib said in an interview in Prague’s new town hall, close to the city’s historic tourist district, which draws an increasing number of visitors from China.
“The one China policy is a complicated matter of foreign politics between two countries. But we are solving our sister cities relationship on the level of two capital cities.”

Hřib, a 38-year-old doctor who spent a medical training internship in Taiwan, is challenging the Czech president, Miloš Zeman, who has visited China several times, installed a Chinese adviser at his office in Prague castle and declared that he wanted to learn “how to stabilise society” from the country’s communist rulers.
The dispute has catapulted the unassuming Hřib to household name status in Czech politics, helped by Prague’s position as an international cultural draw and its outsize share of national resources.
Hřib’s rise from obscurity is striking because Czech mayors, unlike their US and Polish counterparts, are not directly elected. 

He became mayor of a coalition administration after his Pirate party, a liberal group with roots in civil society, finished second in last October’s municipal elections.
He says he is merely adopting the policy of his party and its two coalition partners in taking decisions that are cooling Prague’s relations with Beijing.

Zdeněk Hřib and Lobsang Sangay at the Old Town Hall in Prague. 

In March, his administration restored the practice of flying the Tibetan flag from Prague’s town hall, reinstating a tradition begun in the era of the Czech Republic’s first post-communist president, Václav Havel, that was dropped by the previous city administration. 

At the same time, in a move tailor-made to infuriate Beijing, Hřib hosted the visiting head of Tibet’s government-in-exile, Lobsang Sangay.
An official visit to the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, followed. 

During the visit, Hřib criticised China for harvesting organs from political prisoners belonging to the Falun Gong movement.
Threats of retaliation came soon afterwards. 

A planned tour of China by the Prague Philharmonia in September is in jeopardy after it rebuffed Beijing’s demands to repudiate the mayor.
Iva Nevoralova, the orchestra’s spokesperson, likened the request to the actions of Czechoslovakia’s former communist regime, which pressured artists to denounce Havel’s dissident Charter 77 movement as the price for being allowed to perform.

Members of the Prague Philharmonia. 

Speaking to the Guardian, Hřib questioned whether Prague’s arrangement with Beijing was a fair relationship and criticised China’s “social scoring” system for good citizenship. 

He suggested that investment from Taiwan, with its western-style democracy and record of technological innovation, offered greater benefit.
The mayor has won praise for restoring the Czech Republic’s image as a champion of human rights and self-determination at a time when its politics have been dominated by the populist messages of Zeman and Andrej Babiš, the anti-immigration billionaire prime minister.
“It is empowering to see that a mayor of Prague can have a principled position, despite large portions of the Czech political establishment being co-opted by the narratives spread by the totalitarian government of China,” said Jakub Janda, executive director of the European Values thinktank, which monitors anti-western influence in Czech politics and beyond.


Jakub Janda@_JakubJanda
THREAD:
CZECH RESISTANCE TO CHINESE HARASSMENT:
We have a good Mayor of Prague. He supports Tibet + Taiwan. When the PRC ambassador tried to force him to have a TW diplomat kicked out of a diplomatic meeting hosted by Prague City Council, he declined.
2,268
8:59 PM - Apr 28, 2019

Jiří Pehe, the director of New York University in Prague, said Hřib was using the mayor’s office to reassert the values of Havel, who died in 2011. 

“Everyone in this country knows that when you support Taiwan and Tibet, you’re saying exactly what Havel used to say,” said Pehe. 

“This was intentional on the part of the Pirate party as soon as he took over Prague. They are saying that the Czech Republic has a special history of fighting against communism and you should respect it.”

China's Fifth Column: The Manchurian Senator

How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding
By Josh Rogin

A congressional delegation led by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) presents frozen steaks to Li Keqiang on April 10 in Beijing. The gift was meant to underscore the importance of opening Chinese markets to U.S. beef imports.

In its effort to cultivate foreign influence, the Chinese Communist Party boldly mixes economic incentives with requests for political favors. 

Its dealings with Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) this year offer a success story for Beijing.
Last month Daines announced a breakthrough in his long-standing effort to win access for Montana’s beef exports to China — a $200 million deal with a leading Chinese retailer.
Then, on Dec. 5, the regime of Xi Jinping got something at least as valuable from Daines. 

The senator hosted a delegation of Chinese Communist Party officials who oversee Tibet, at the request of the Chinese Embassy — thereby undercutting a simultaneous visit to Washington by the president of the Tibetan government in exile.
Lobsang Sangay, the Tibetan leader regarded as an enemy by Beijing, was in Washington to meet with lawmakers and members of the Tibetan community. 

The House Foreign Affairs Asia subcommittee held a hearing Dec. 6 on Chinese repression in Tibet.
The rival meeting hosted by Daines the day before included Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). 

After the meetings, the state-owned China Daily claimed the congressmen had praised Chinese officials in Tibet for doing “a good job in environmental protection and traditional cultural preservation.”
The episode illustrated China’s growing practice of enlisting Western politicians to blunt criticism of the regime — and also its determination to haunt its opponents wherever they travel. 

“Everywhere I go, I’m followed by a high-level Chinese delegation” denying human rights abuses in Tibet, Sangay told me, adding that Chinese officials pressure governments across the world not to meet with him.
Sangay was in town to push legislation calling for foreigners to have the same access to Tibet that Chinese officials who oversee Tibet have here. 

The Chinese Communist Party did allow one congressional delegation to visit Tibet in April — led by Daines — which met top Chinese officials.
Daines’s office couldn’t produce any record that he, either in China or Washington, publicly raised the fact that the Chinese government is perpetrating brutal, systematic repression in Tibet, including attempted cultural genocide, environmental destruction, mass surveillance, mass incarceration and severe denial of freedoms for Tibetans.
The senator had another agenda — selling Montana beef. 

He presented four frozen steaks to Li Keqiang in Beijing and hosted Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai at a Montana ranch. 

The $200 million contract was the first reward for his efforts.
Daines has done other favors for the Chinese government. 

Early this summer, he discussed with other senators his opposition to a bill that would rename the street in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington after Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who later died in Chinese government custody, his office confirmed.
Spokeswoman Marcie Kinzel told me Daines has pushed to visit multiple Chinese regions where human rights are a concern. 

Daines’s approach to Chinese human rights is “not connected” to his push for beef exports, Kinzel said. 

Yet for the Chinese government, economics and politics are always linked. 

By helping the Communist Party squash political criticism in Washington, Daines’s actions constituted a victory for Chinese foreign influence operations, said Derek Mitchell, former U.S. ambassador to Burma.
“It confirms everything the Chinese believe about us, that anyone can be bought,” he said. 

“We’re only as strong as our weakest link, and that Daines would do this only encourages them to continue.”
There’s no evidence of a direct quid pro quo or any illegal behavior, just multiple favors between Daines and the Chinese government. 

But by using his power to protect China from accountability on human rights, Daines compromised American values and helped perpetuate the suffering of innocent people abroad.
In Australia last week, a senator resigned after it was revealed he took money from a Chinese donor and then parroted Chinese government lines on the South China Sea issue. 

It’s the same pattern: China dangles economic incentives and, soon enough, its friends begin helping China’s political aims.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is leading a national drive to excise Chinese foreign influence from Australian politics. 

“Foreign powers are making unprecedented and increasingly sophisticated attempts to influence the political process, both here and abroad,” Turnbull said.
In Washington, political and policy leaders are just waking up to the scope and scale of China’s efforts to interfere. 

But if the Chinese government can claim U.S. lawmakers as defenders of its repression in Tibet, it’s clear the problem is much worse than we realize.

Tibet's fragile ecosystem is in danger. China must change its flawed environmental policy

Rising temperatures on the roof of the world make Tibet both a driver and amplifier of global warming. China’s unchecked mining and dam building has to be reigned in.
By Lobsang Sangay

‘In the age of climate change the future of Asia and by extension that of our planet Earth hinges on the developments in Tibet, the roof of the world.’

As Australia continues to battle a water crisis and the challenges facing the world’s driest inhabited continent, Tibet on the other hand is Asia’s water tower, its principal rainmaker and the largest source of fresh water, feeding over a billion lives in Asia including China.
At an average elevation of 4,000 meters above sea level and with an area of 2.5m sq km, Tibet is the world’s highest and largest plateau. 

It’s nearly two-third the size of the European continent. 

If Tibet were still a sovereign nation it would be the world’s tenth largest. 

It has the largest concentration of the world’s tallest mountains and is called the earth’s third pole because it has the largest reservoir of glacial ice after the two poles. 

Tibet is also a treasure trove of minerals, oil and natural gas reserves and a leading producer of lithium in China.
The Chinese scientists have over the years been proposing an increase in nature reserves across Tibet considering the fragile ecosystem on the plateau. 

In April this year China unveiled its grand plans on turning the entire stretch of Tibet into a national park.
The Chinese government has been declaring more and more national parks and nature reserves across Tibet in recent years, and this is a welcome gesture. 

The Chinese government must take into consideration the fragility and delicate nature of Tibet’s environment and reign in the factors that contribute to environmental crises in Tibet: rapid urbanisation, transfer of Chinese population into Tibet, unchecked mining on Tibet’s sacred mountains, and damming of Tibet’s rivers to facilitate hydro power projects.
In light of such robust projects, Tibetans are not only deprived of their traditional way of living, but are made peripheral beneficiaries of the projects.
The real beneficiaries are the Chinese officials who pocket their share of the gain, the Chinese companies and the Chinese employers benefitting from the economic opportunities.
We are not against Chinese developmental projects in Tibet per se, but we propose that the real beneficiaries of any development must be Tibetans in Tibet. 

Any projects that China undertake must be environmentally sustainable, culturally sensitive and economically beneficially to local Tibetans.
China’s rolling of its strategic and economic imperatives in Tibet has greater implications on the larger environmental consequences caused by climate change.
Today, the Chinese government’s flawed environmental and developmental policies have turned this resource-rich plateau and fragile ecosystem into a hub of its mining and dam building activities. 

This not only changes the water map of Asia for the worse but also contributes to an environmental crisis, which in turn contributes to climate change across Asia. 

The rising temperatures on the roof of the world make Tibet both a driver and amplifier of global warming.
2016 has been a year of natural disasters: a glacial avalanche in Aru in the Ngari region (Western Tibet), and mud floods and a landslide in Amdo (eastern Tibet). 

Between June and July 2017 alone, four distinct cases of floods were reported in Kham (south east region of Tibet). 

These are the cumulative effect of climate change.
More cases of natural disasters are imminent. 

The Chinese government must consider these impending threats and accordingly orient its urban development project towards mitigating the increasing threats posed by climate change.
China has escalated military control over Tibetan borders, expanded mining based on the rich resources of the Tibetan plateau in order to fuel China’s economic development and has dramatically expanded infrastructure with a strategic road and rail network. 

It seeks to raise the productivity of the industrial cities of Xi’an, Chongqing and Chengdu at the foot of the Tibetan plateau and to address the progressive scarcity of water resources in the North and North-East of China with water sourced in Tibet.
Tibet is facing two critical issues: Its political and environmental future. 

Of the two, the latter is a bigger issue given the implications for Asia and the rest of the world.

Dalai Lama says strong action on climate change is a human responsibility.

Tibet symbolises the three crises that confront Asia today; a natural resources crisis, an environmental and a climate crisis. 

These three are interlinked and potentially pose a threat to the ecological wellbeing and climate security not just of Asia but even of Europe, North America and Australia. 

According to leading scientists, the recent heat waves in Europe are linked to loss of ice on the Tibetan plateau. 

A team led by Hai Lin, an atmospheric scientist at Environment Canada in Quebec found that the greater snow-cover in Tibet, the warmer the winter in Canada.
Such formidable scenarios demand greater global attention and a forward-looking leadership to assuage the larger affects of an environmental crisis befalling Tibet. 

The world leaders must act prudently and not allow political constrains to dwarf redressal mechanism at institutional level to an impending global environmental crisis.
Veerabhadran Ramanathan from the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego has rightly said that “our understanding of global climate change would be incomplete without taking into consideration what’s happening to the Tibetan plateau.”
Tibet’s environment impinges on regional and global security. 

The global efforts to reign in China’s policies in Tibet underpinning an oversight of the importance of Tibet’s environment and sensitivity over its fragile ecosystem, must be robust. 

In the age of climate change the future of Asia and by extension that of our planet Earth hinges on the developments in Tibet, the roof of the world.

Hurting the Feelings of the Chinese Dictators

India to host Dalai Lama in disputed territory
By Sanjeev Miglani and Tommy Wilkes | NEW DELHI

Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama wipes his face during an international conference of Tibet support groups in Brussels, Belgium, September 8, 2016. 

Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama puts a towel on his head during a news conference in Paris, France, September 13, 2016.

Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is seen at the Arcimboldi theater before receiving honorary citizenship of the city of Milan, in Milan, Italy October 20, 2016. 

Indian federal government representatives will meet the Dalai Lama when he visits Arunachal Pradesh, officials said, despite a warning from Beijing that it would damage ties.
India says the Tibetan spiritual leader will make a religious trip to Arunachal Pradesh next month, and as a secular democracy it would not stop him from traveling to any part of the country.
China claims the state in the eastern Himalayas as "South Tibet", and has denounced foreign and even Indian leaders' visits to the region as attempts to bolster New Delhi's territorial claims.
A trip by the Dalai Lama, whom the Chinese regard as a dangerous "separatist", would ratchet up tensions at a time when New Delhi is at odds with China on strategic and security issues and unnerved by Beijing's growing ties with arch-rival Pakistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration is raising its public engagement with the Tibetan leader, a change from earlier governments' reluctance to anger Beijing by sharing a public platform with him.
"It's a behavioral change you are seeing. India is more assertive," junior home minister Kiren Rijiju told Reuters in an interview.
Rijiju, who is from Arunachal and is Modi's point man on Tibetan issues, said he would meet the Dalai Lama, who is visiting the Buddhist Tawang monastery after an eight-year interval.
"He is going there as a religious leader, there is no reason to stop him. His devotees are demanding he should come, what harm can he do? He is a lama."
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Friday the Dalai Lama's trip would cause serious damage to India-China ties.

CHINA INVESTING NEARBY
Visits of the Dalai Lama are initiated months, if not years in advance, and approval for the April 4-13 trip predates recent disagreements between the neighbors.
But the decision to go ahead at a time of strained relations signals Modi's readiness to use diplomatic tools at a time when China's economic and political clout across South Asia is growing.
China is helping to fund a new trade corridor across India's neighbor and arch-foe Pakistan, and has also invested in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, raising fears of strategic encirclement.
Last month a Taiwanese parliamentary delegation visited Delhi, angering Beijing, which regards Taiwan as an integral part of China.
In December, President Pranab Mukherjee hosted the Dalai Lama at his official residence with other Nobel prize winners, the first public meeting with an Indian head of state in 60 years.
Some officials said India's approach to the Tibetan issue remained cautious, reflecting a gradual evolution in policy rather than a sudden shift, and Modi appears reluctant to go too far for fear of upsetting its large northern neighbor.
India's foreign secretary, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, was in Beijing last week on a visit that analysts said was aimed at stabilizing relations between the world's most populous countries.

TANGIBLE SHIFT
That said, Modi's desire to pursue a more assertive foreign policy since his election in 2014 was quickly felt in contacts with China.
At one bilateral meeting early in his tenure, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj asked her Chinese counterpart whether Beijing had a "one India" policy, according to a source familiar with India-China talks, a pointed reference to Beijing's demand that countries recognize its "one China" policy.
"One India" would imply that China recognize India's claims to Kashmir, contested by Pakistan, as well as border regions like Arunachal Pradesh.
India's hosting of the Dalai Lama since he fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule has long irritated Beijing. 

But government ministers often shied away from regular public meetings with the Buddhist monk.
"These meetings were happening before. Now it is public," Lobsang Sangay, head of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in the Indian town of Dharamsala, said in an interview.
"I notice a tangible shift. With all the Chinese investments in all the neighboring countries, that has generated debate within India," he said.
The chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, a member of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, met the Dalai Lama in New Delhi in October and officially invited him to visit the state.
On the Dalai Lama's last visit in 2009, the state's chief minister met him. 

This time he will be joined by federal minister Rijiju, a move the Chinese may see as giving the trip an official imprimatur.
New Delhi has been hurt by China's refusal to let it join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the global cartel that controls nuclear commerce.
India has also criticized Beijing for stonewalling its request to add the head of a banned Pakistani militant group to a U.N. Security Council blacklist.
Rory Medcalf, Head of the National Security College at the Australian National University, said New Delhi appeared to have been surprised by China's inflexibility since Modi came to power, fuelling distrust in the Indian security establishment.
"India does feel that the cards are stacked against it and that it should retain and play the cards that it does have," he said. 

"The Dalai Lama and Tibetan exile community is clearly one of those cards."

Hundreds of Tibetans defy China, gather at birthplace of Buddhism in India

By Annie Gowen

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is assisted by his aides as he prepares to perform rituals during the inauguration of a Mongolian Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, India, Jan. 9, 2017. 

BODH GAYA, India — The young Tibetan monk was taking his elderly aunt and uncle on a trip of a lifetime — a tour of holy Buddhist sites in India and a chance to meet the Dalai Lama. 

But halfway through, word came from China: The family was to return right away.
Chinese police had descended on the monk’s home five times in December, fingerprinting his parents and forcing them to sign documents guaranteeing his return.
But the monk and his family were determined to see the Dalai Lama speak at Bodh Gaya, the Indian city that many consider the birthplace of Buddhism. 

So they defied Chinese authorities and continued their journey, risking imprisonment, harsh questioning or loss of identity cards when they return home.
“I’m very worried,” the monk said on a chilly evening, sitting in a tent not far from a teaching ground where thousands have gathered each day since Jan. 3 to pray, meditate and hear their religious leader. “If we are put in prison, they will interrogate us: ‘Why did you go to India?’ This can be very dangerous.”
Authorities from the Tibetan government in exile say the Chinese government barred an estimated 7,000 Tibetan pilgrims from attending this month’s 10-day gathering in India, an unprecedented move that further erodes the rights of 6 million people who live in the Tibetan region of China. 

It was also a fresh reminder that the Chinese are threatening to control the selection of the next Dalai Lama after the eventual demise of the renowned religious leader, who is now 81.

An Indian fan takes a “selfie” photograph with actor Richard Gere in Bodh Gaya on Jan. 12, 2017. 

“It’s tragic,” said Lobsang Sangay, the head of Tibet’s government in exile in India. 

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip for Tibetans, like Muslims going to Mecca. It’s a sad commentary on the Chinese claim to have religious freedom — or any kind of freedom in Tibet.”
The Dalai Lama told reporters that the move was “unfortunate.”
China has denied that threatening pilgrims or blocking their departures, but local authorities in Tibet declared this ritual gathering, called the Kalachakra, illegal in 2012, the last time it was held in Bodh Gaya. 

Most of the 7,000 had already traveled legally to India and were forced to return early. 

Only 300 remain.
Since unrest broke out across the Tibetan plateau in 2008, the Chinese government has enacted sweeping measures that have curtailed freedom of expression, notably by prioritizing Chinese over the Tibetan language in schools, posting police in monasteries and increasing surveillance.
China’s Communist Party seeks to break the connection between Tibetans and their revered leader to ensure compliance with ambitious party objectives in Tibet, a region rich in mineral and water resources.
“What we’re seeing is new,” said Kate Saunders, of the International Campaign for Tibet. 

“It’s a systematic attempt to prevent Tibetans from having any access at all to the Dalai Lama.”

Buddhist monks participate in a special religious teaching prayer attended by the Dalai Lama during the Kalachakra event at Bodh Gaya on Jan. 6, 2017. 

An estimated 10,000 Tibetans attended the last such gathering in Bodh Gaya in 2012, but many were jailed or detained for “reeducation” in military camps when they returned, Saunders said.
Around 200,000 maroon- and saffron-robed monks and nuns and Buddhist devotees from around the world — including American actor Richard Gere — converged on the town in eastern India for days of chanting and lessons on Buddhist thought. 

As darkness descended, many of them performed prostrations and encircled the ancient stupa next to the tree — a descendant of the original — where the Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment.
Since the Dalai Lama escaped over the mountains from Tibet to India in 1959, Indian governments have treated him as an honored guest in Dharamsala, a hill town in northern India, but they long kept him at arm’s length to avoid offending the Chinese. 

Now, that may be changing.
The Dalai Lama appeared prominently at an event with India’s president in Delhi last month. 

And Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made preserving India’s ancient heritage a priority, becoming the first prime minister in decades to visit Bodh Gaya.
“I don’t believe it’s a fundamental shift of position, but certainly what you’re seeing is trending towards perhaps a less self-conscious expression of our sentiments and our support for the Tibetan cultural identity and the high standing the Dalai Lama enjoys here in India,” said Nirupama Menon Rao, a former foreign secretary and ambassador to China.
The support is key, as the Tibetan exile community faces uncertain times. 

The Dalai Lama has said that when he dies, he may choose not to be reincarnated, as Buddhist belief holds, or that he could come back as a woman. 

But China has signaled it will control the search for the next Dalai Lama by anointing its own Panchen Lama, another important religious figure in Tibetan Buddhism.
Some of the attendees said they are worried it will be the last such ceremony the Dalai Lama will perform. 

The octogenarian moves and speaks more slowly now, and he had to be helped to the elaborate throne on the dais by two monks.
“He can’t go into top gear anymore,” said Gaden Tashi, a Tibetan from Kathmandu. 

“But he keeps saying he’s happy and healthy.”
One young Tibetan-language tutor who made the risky journey from China recalled that when he first unrolled his prayer mat at Bodh Gaya and got his first glimpse of the Dalai Lama, “I couldn’t control myself; I thought it was a dream.”
The tutor, 29, arrived Jan. 3, weeks after his trip began in a small village in the Tibetan area of Amdo. He paid a guide to take him to Kathmandu, where he then received legal papers from the Indian Embassy to make the pilgrimage.
Almost immediately, he said, frightening messages began appearing on his WeChat, China’s popular social media platform. 

He said police sent a warning through his parents that he should return by Jan. 3, the day the Kalachakra would begin. 

His mother cried and begged him to come home soon. 

Others sent photos of pilgrims who were met at the airport only to have their passports sliced into pieces by police.
He now feels he cannot return to China, but he believes his sacrifice has been worth it.
“Every Tibetan has a dream — to meet the Dalai Lama,” he said. 

“I told my parents I have no regret, even if I die.”

Tibetan leader urges Trump to confront China on rights

By Sanjeev Miglani | NEW DELHI

Lobsang Sangay, Prime Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, speaks on his mobile phone before an interview with Reuters in New Delhi, India, December 16, 2016. 

Lobsang Sangay, Prime Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, poses for a picture after an interview with Reuters in New Delhi, India, December 16, 2016. 

The head of the Tibetan government-in-exile said on Friday he was encouraged by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tough stand on China and urged him to ditch backdoor diplomacy on furthering the Tibetan cause and be more confrontational.
The United States and its European allies have sought to engage China over allegations of repression since Washington reached out to Beijing back in the 1970s, effectively driving the Tibetan issue out of public forums, Lobsang Sangay said.
But that approach had not worked and human rights abuses had only worsened, the Harvard-educated legal scholar told Reuters in an interview.
Beijing had grown even more assertive, from threatening neighbors over the South China Sea dispute to repressing dissent in Hong Kong, he said.
"There is negligible or rather zero result as far as this 'quiet backroom dialogue' is concerned," Sangay said in the Tibetan bureau office in New Delhi.
"It's time for an open discourse where we press the Chinese government. We are not saying put sanctions, but that we be forthright, be frank on what's going on in Tibet and in China in general and to raise the issue.
"And publicly share what's going on what has happened, because we have to make the Chinese government accountable," he said in remarks ahead of the release of a report on what activists see as the erosion of Tibetans' ethnic and religious identity and the degradation of their environment.
Trump has signaled a more "upfront and assertive policy" towards China, and Tibetans -- who number about 6 million in their home region and 150,000 abroad -- are waiting to see how it translates with regard to their struggle, Sangay said.
Trump took a phone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen this month and said the United States did not necessarily have to stick to its long-held stance that Taiwan is part of "one China", triggering a diplomatic protest from China.
Trump plans to nominate a long-standing friend of Beijing, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, as the next U.S. ambassador to China. 

But he is also considering John Bolton, a former Bush administration official who has urged a tougher line on Beijing, for the deputy job at the U.S. State Department, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Sangay said Trump's "bold" statement on Taiwan had been consistent with what the U.S. president had been saying for years and it was rooted in a realistic view of China.
"If you really want to understand China, you have to know the Tibetan narrative. What happened to Tibet is vital to understanding what China is capable of. So the fact that he is indicating some realistic views about China, in that sense, it is a positive indication."
Beijing denounces the Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist who wants an independent Tibet. 

He denies espousing violence and says he only wants genuine autonomy for his Himalayan homeland.
The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule and established the Central Tibetan Administration in the northern hill town of Dharamsala.

SETTLEMENT
Sangay said he hoped the United States and other democratic countries including Japan and India would lead an effort to call out China for its repressive policies in Tibet and press for a settlement.
"We just think there has to be coordinated process from all like-minded countries on the issue of Tibet, and then press China to resolve the issues peacefully through dialogue."
He said the Tibetan movement had not formally approached the Trump camp but would do so soon as the president- assembles his cabinet team.
Sangay said Tibetans expected Trump to meet the Dalai Lama when he travels to the United States next year as had his predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
China expressed dissatisfaction on Friday over Indian President Pranab Mukherjee meeting the Dalai Lama this month, saying it hoped India would recognize the Nobel Peace Prize winning monk as a separatist in religious guise.
The Indian government had ignored China's "strong opposition and insisted" on arranging for the Dalai Lama to share the stage with Mukherjee, and meet him, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing in the Chinese capital.
Sangay said the first public meeting between the Indian president and the Dalai Lama sent a powerful message to the rest of the world and to Beijing.

Exiled Tibetan prime minister urges Canada to support human rights

Michelle Zilio

The prime minister of Tibet’s exiled administration says Canada could be a strong supporter of his people’s pursuit of human rights.
Lobsang Sangay says Tibet sees Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government as an obvious partner in the “struggle” for freedom in the region. 

Tibet has been under Chinese control since the 1950s, when its spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, was driven out by invading forces.
“Globally, you can see there is a decline of internationalism and liberalism compared to the 1990s, and there is an increase of nationalism and extremism around the world. So you can clearly see from Brexit, not just Trump, actually – the President of Philippines, and [Japanese Prime Minister] Shinzo Abe, even Israel – it’s a global trend,” Mr. Sangay said in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Monday.
“As for human rights and basic freedom, we [Tibetans] are more on the internationalism and liberal side.”
Mr. Sangay is in Ottawa this week meeting with parliamentarians for the first time since the Liberals came to power last year. 

He is seeking Canada’s support for Tibet’s pursuit of autonomy within the framework of the Chinese constitution, known as the “middle-way approach.” 

The meetings come as Ottawa seeks closer ties with China, including exploratory talks on a free-trade deal.
“The U.S. government has come out in support of the middle-way approach,” said Mr. Sangay, who has been the Tibetan political leader since 2011. 

“It would be nice and very appreciated if the Canadian government also supported the middle-way approach.”
While Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion’s office did not clearly say whether Canada would publicly support the idea, press secretary Chantal Gagnon said the minister raised the issue of Tibet in his meetings with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on June 1 and Sept. 23.
“Our government will continue to have frank discussions with China, including on the respect for the rule of law and human rights of all Chinese citizens, including Tibetans. We have consistently advocated substantive and meaningful dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama or his representatives to work toward a resolution that is acceptable to both sides,” Ms. Gagnon said.
Mr. Sangay suggested Canada share with China its experience dealing with its own minority issues, such as the Quebec referendum of 1995, as a way to start a conversation on Tibet.
“I think Canada can proudly share its experience on how to solve minority issues,” Mr. Sangay said. “Quebec could be a good reference as far as the Canadian government is concerned.”
He said he would also welcome a commitment from the federal government to resettle additional Tibetan refugees from India. 

More than 900 Tibetans have arrived in Canada since 2013 as part of the previous government’s commitment to resettle 1,000 members of the minority group. 

The remaining refugees are set to arrive by the end of January. 

A senior official in Immigration Minister John McCallum’s office did not say whether the government would announce another Tibetan resettlement initiative, but reiterated Canada’s commitment to uphold its “humanitarian tradition to resettle refugees and offer protection to those in need from all parts of the world.”
Mr. Sangay will meet with members of the all-party Parliamentary Friends of Tibet in Ottawa on Tuesday. 

As of Monday, he didn’t have any meetings scheduled with cabinet ministers. It is his administration’s policy not to make such formal meeting requests.