The Chinese government criticized the United States for a law recently approved about the Xizang Autonomous Region, known in the West as Tibet. By signing the law drawn up by Republicans and Democrats, President Joe Biden said he shares with Congress the compromise of “promoting Tibetans’ human rights.”
Biden stated that the new law does not change the long-term policy the US adopted of recognizing Tibet and other areas where Tibetans are the ethnic majority as part of the People’s Republic of China. However, China says the measure intends to question this policy.
This is because the document by the US government states that there is a conflict between the Chinese central government and what the law now calls Tibet, which, in addition to the Xizang Autonomous Region, would include the Tibetan autonomous prefectures of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan.
In China, autonomous prefectures exist in places where ethnic minorities make up more than 50% of the population or have an important historical presence. There are 30 autonomous prefectures and 120 autonomous counties, which may or may not be within the five autonomous regions, which are on the same level as provinces: Xizang, Guangxi, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia.
The new measure Biden approved was named “Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian demanded that the US “fulfill its commitment to [recognize] that Xizang is part of China, not to support ‘Xizang independence’” and to refrain from signing the law.
“China will take resolute measures to firmly defend its sovereignty, security and development interests,” stated Lin Jian.
Pelosi went to India to say that the Dalai Lama will surpass Xi Jinping
Weeks before the law was approved, a US congressional delegation led by the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, traveled to Dharamsala, India, where the Dalai Lama has lived since 1959.
That year, an armed rebellion broke out in Xizang opposing the reforms promoted by the Chinese central government, which included ending the feudal system that kept 95% of the Tibetan population as landless serfs or slaves.
The book The CIA's Secret War in Tibet reveals the US agency's involvement in these armed actions and the Dalai Lama's flight to India. The authors are Kenneth Conboy, deputy director of the Center for Asian Studies in Washington, and James Morrison, a US Army veteran and member of Unity, the CIA military operation that sent mercenaries from Thailand to Laos to fight the communists.
The visit to Dharamsala was attended by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who raised the tone against China: “His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with his message of knowledge, tradition and compassion, and purity of soul and love, will live long and his legacy will live forever. But you, the President of China, you’ll be gone and nobody will give you credit for anything,” said Pelosi in India.
This is the second recent time that Pelosi has made provocations against China, after traveling to Taiwan as president of Congress in 2022, which sparked outrage in the government and among the Chinese people.
For China, the 14th Dalai Lama is not a pure religious figure, but a political self-exile “involved in anti-China separatist activities under the cloak of religion”, as Lin Jian said at a press conference.
“We urge the US to fully recognize the anti-China separatist nature of the Dalai's elite group, to honor the commitments the US has made to China on issues related to Xizang, and to stop providing any support to the forces of 'Xizang separatism' engaged in anti-China activities.”
Edited by: Rodrigo Durão Coelho
