Bylined Article Refuting US Report on China's Tibet

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Bylined Article Refuting US Report on China's Tibet

A signed article published Monday refutes a US report on so-called Tibet negotiations. Citing historical data and present-day facts, the article, titled "What is the real intention of the United States" by writer Hua Zi, criticizes the US government's gross interference in China's internal affairs.

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An article titled "What is the real intention of the United States" published Monday refutes a US report on Tibet negotiations.

Following is a summary of the article written by Hua Zi:

In accordance with the "Foreign Relations Authorization Act, 2003", US president George W. Bush submitted a report on Tibet Negotiations Consistent with Section 613 of the Act to the Congress on May 8,2003.

The report on the one hand reiterates that the United States recognizes Tibet to be part of the People's Republic of China, whereas it claims that it supports Dalai Lama's "Middle Way Approach" of seeking "genuine self-rule", and urges the Chinese government to respect the unique religious, linguistic, and cultural heritage of its Tibetan people and to respect their human rights and civil liberties.

According to the report, the "important objective" of the United States is to encourage the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama to hold substantive dialogue, to lead to a negotiated settlement of "questions related to Tibet".

The report also lists efforts taken by the US President, Secretary of State and other US government officials to encourage the Chinese government to enter into a "dialogue" with the Dalai Lama.

As is well-known, the "Foreign Relations Authorization Act, 2003" carries quite a number of anti-China clauses. The Chinese government immediately expressed strong opposition to the legislation right after it was raised in the US Congress.

In September, 2002, President Bush made an announcement when signing the legislation, noting that the clauses related to China in it were inappropriate, that the one-China policy of the United States had not changed, and that its signing did not mean that he had accepted them or incorporated them into the country's foreign policy.

Commenting on the announcement made by President Bush, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said at a press conference on Oct.4, 2002: "We hope the US side, being true to its word, will not implement those clauses so as to avoid any negative impact on China-US relations."

It is a regret that the US government submitted the presidential report on Tibet eight months later. Such a move by the US government, which went back on its word, has already had a negative impact on China-US relations, no matter what the content of the report is.

This writer has been following the "Tibet issue" in China-US relations for years, and has noted that it was the first time that a US President ever submitted such a report, which showed the degree of Bush administration's concern on the "Tibet issue".

Strictly speaking, there would have been no "Tibet issue" in the world, just as there have been no "Washington issue" or "New York issue".

The "Tibet issue" essentially arose from the fact that for nearly a century western imperialist forces had fostered and supported Tibetan separatists attempting to separate Tibet from China.

At present, the "Tibet issue" would not exist, if the United States and other western countries don't support the Dalai clique, if the Dalai clique gives up its intention of seeking "Tibet independence" or independence in disguised forms, and stops activities of splitting the country. The United States should not shun the essence of the issue.

So far, all previous US governments have never recognized Tibet as an independent state, but recognized that the Tibet Autonomous Region is part of the People's Republic of China, and also held that this is the view of the international community.

People will naturally ask: Why has the United State showed so much interest in China's internal affairs and concerned itself so much over the "Tibet issue"?

According to the report, the United States is concerned about the "Tibet issue", taking it as an "important objective" of the US government to "encourage substantive dialogue between the Chinese govenrment and the Dalai Lama," just because "for China to work with the Dalai Lama or his representatives to resolve problems facing Tibet is in the interest of both the Chinese Government and the Tibetan People", and also because "the Dalai Lama can be a constructive partner as China deals with the difficult challenges of regional and national stability. He represents the views of the vast majority of Tibetans".

If the Chinese government doesn't hold "substantive dialogue" with the Dalai Lama "without preconditions" and doesn't reach resolution of differences at an early date, it will lead to "greater tensions inside China and will be a stumbling block to fuller political and economic engagement with the United States and other nations."

This is really an American way of thinking. Does what the report say conform to the facts? This writer reviewed what the US government had done on the "Tibet issue", and analyzed whether the US concern on the "Tibet issue" is beneficial or detrimental to the Tibetans, to the stability of China, and to China's political and economic exchanges with the United States and other countries.

The United States has never denied China's sovereignty over Tibet, nor recognized Tibet as an independent state. The State Department said in a statement in 1995 that historically, the United States recognized China's sovereignty over Tibet. At least beginning in 1966, the US policy has clearly recognized the Tibet Autonomous Region to be part of the People's Republic of China (The Tibet Autonomous Region was established in September 1965). This long-standing policy is in consistence with the view of the international community, including China and its neighboring countries. None of the countries in the world ever recognizes Tibet as a sovereign state. Because the United States does not recognize Tibet as an independent state, it has not established diplomatic relations with the self-claimed "Tibetan government-in-exile".

On July 27, 1998, at a joint press confernce in Beijing with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, US president Bill Clinton said that he agrees that Tibet is part of China, an autonomous region of China.

The report submitted by President Bush also says: "the United States recognizes the Tibet Autonomous Region to be part of the People's Republic of China. This long-standing policy is consistent with the view of the international community."

The report on the one hand recognizes Tibet to be part of China and doesn't recognize Tibet as an independent state, while on the other hand, it holds that the Dalai Lama represents the views of the vast majority of Tibetans, "His moral authority helps to unite the Tibetan community inside and outside of China".

In other words, the US government holds that the Government of the People's Republic of China cannot represent the views and interests of the vast majority of Tibetans, who are citizens of the People's Republic of China.

Such a concept, putting China's vast Tibetan citizens in opposition to the government elected by themselves, is illogical if not ill-natured, and will by no means be beneficial to the Tibetan people and China's stability.

On April 17, 1997, US Ambassador to China James Sasser said during his visit to Lhasa that ever since the Sun Yat-sen era, the US government has recognized Tibet as an inseparable part of China.

The Chinese central government has adopted explicit and consistent policies towards the Dalai Lama. That is, only when the Dalai Lama abandon his claim for the "independence of Tibet", halt any separatist activities, openly states he recognizes Tibet as an unalienable part of China, Taiwan as one of China's provinces and the government of the People's Republic of China as the country's sole legitimate representative, would China have contacts and negotiations with him.

Nevertheless, those policies, which the United States itself recognizes publicly and the international community adheres to universally, are not required from Dalai Lama by the US government. On the contrary, the US government has repeatedly prompted the Chinese government to have substantial dialogues with the Dalai Lama unconditionally and resolve the so-called "questions related to Tibet's relationship with the Chinese authorities".

Let the "Tibet's relationship to Chinese authorities" and "resolution of such questions through negotiation with the Dalai Lama" rest for the time being, such act and tones of connivance and provocation from the US government have betrayed their hidden motives to abet the Dalai Lama to dispute with the central government of China. Does this help resolve the so-called "Tibet issue" at an early date?

Since Tibet is an unalienable part of the Chinese territories, the Tibet Autonomous Region exercises regional autonomy under the leadership of central government. It is widely known to the international public that the Chinese government adheres to its clear and definite stances and policies on affairs concerning Tibet. Any country in the world (including the United States itself) would not allow foreign forces to finger and gesture on how to deal with its internal affairs. It is the basic norm of the international law.

On the so-called "Tibet issue", the United States not only failed to abide by such a basic norm, but grossly intervene in China's internal Tibet affairs. More than a dozen such intervening measures listed in the US "Tibet Policy Act of 2002" include "steps taken by the President", "steps taken by the Secretary of State" and "steps taken by other Department of State officials". The U.S. act even claimed "the lack of (China's) resolution of these problems will be stumbling block to fuller political and economic engagement with the United States and other nations." Aren't these threats too overbearing?

For over half a century, what had the US "concerns" for "Tibet issue" brought to the political situation in Tibet? What consequences they had incurred to the Tibetan people? We'd better take a look at the past.

In the end of 1942, the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency) assigned Captain Ilia Tosltoy and First Lieutenant Brooke Dolan to Lhasa. They were the first officially sanctioned American mission to Tibet.

In the end of 1946, then President Harry Truman ordered to sendto Tibet several diesel generators which were used subsequently by Tibetan separatists in 1949 as power for its radios carrying out propaganda for the "independence of Tibet" and also as equipment to contact and communicate with the United States.

In March 1953, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) marched towards Qamdo as a prologue to the liberation of Tibet. The United States then agitated the Dalai Lama and local Tibetan authorities to expand its arms in a bid to resist the liberation. For a time, the so-called "theory on Communist threat" and "theoryon China's aggression and expansion" flooded all American newspapers and journals, big and small. On May 23, 1951, Tibet was peacefully liberated with the signing of the Agreement of the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet on the Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet.

In July 1951, Thubten Norbu, Dalai Lama's eldest brother and his private envoy arrived in New York and served as an intermediary for the secret contacts between the United States and the Dalai Lama with the aid of the US Central Intelligence Office (CIA). While another of Dalai Lama's older brothers, Gyalo Thondup, signed an agreement with the CIA to conduct intelligence collecting and carry out guerrilla warfare in Tibet.

Meanwhile, with the involvement of the CIA, American diplomats in India had worked out a "outside flight plan" in an attempt to bring Dalai Lama to India. But the plan failed to implement immediately because of the opposition from Tibetan patriotic strength. However, close contacts between separatists of Tibet's upper strata and the CIA and separatists' schemes asking for CIA's financing, support and supply continued all along.

Initial CIA missions in Tibet appeared in early 1957 when the first groups of six Khampas residing in India were picked to receive secret service training by agents from the United States. The United States also established training camps in Colorado for those picked agents who were later parachuted back into Tibet and other Tibetans-inhabited areas in China to join the rebel forces against the Chinese central government.

When the Tibetan rebellion occurred in 1959, Dalai Lama was helped to flee to India with CIA's support. Planes of the CIA intruded hundreds of miles into China's airspace to escort those fleeing Tibetans, spy the movement of the People's Liberation Army(PLA) and drop food, maps, radios and money for those rebels. A trained-in-US Khampa agent escorted Dalai Lama all along during his flight.

Around 1960, under the plotting of the CIA, the base of the Tibetan rebelling forces were transferred to Mustang, Nepal. In the end of 1960, some 200 Tibetan rebels arrived at Mustang and founded a guerrilla base there. Since then, they had kept crossing border, stole into Tibet and assaulted PLA men and other government staffs. It was until the eve of late President Nixon's first official trip to China in 1972 that the CIA stopped financing Tibetan rebels, suspended their weapons supply to those guerrillas and closed their guerrilla bases within the boundaries of India and Nepal.

During this historical process, the United States' "concerns" over the "Tibet issue" only resulted in the aggravation of the rebellions in Tibet and other Tibetans-inhabited areas. Such "concerns" connived the flight of Dalai Lama and landed the Tibetan people in an abyss of misery and led to many years of unrest alongthe border areas in China's Tibet.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the United States' instigated some small countries to put forward motions on the so-called "Tibet questions" in the United Nations. They adopted means that were so inferior that they themselves would probably never want to mention again.

However, the history of the United States' "concern" about "Tibet questions" did not end there. The so-called "Tibet questions" then became a card serving its "human rights diplomacy."

On June 18, 1987, the US House of Representatives approved an amendment regarding so-called "China's violation of human rights in Tibet." The amendment, after further revision, was passed by the US House of Representatives and US Senate and was affixed to the US Foreign Relations Authorization Act Fiscal Year 1988-1989.

Parliaments of other Western countries followed suit and passed bills that interfered in China's Tibetan affairs, accused the Chinese government for "violating human rights in Tibet," and supported the Dalai Lama.

On Sept. 21, 1987, the human rights sub-committee of the US House of Representatives gave the floor to the Dalai Lama, who put forward a "five-point proposal" regarding the so-called "status of Tibet."

The Foreign Affairs Committee of the House held a hearing on Oct. 14, 1987 on human rights in Tibet, during which several congressmen backed the Dalai Lama and tried to put pressure on China. After that the Dalai Lama stepped up separatist activities and frequently went all out selling his ideas in Western countries.

Was the US "concern" on the questions related to Tibet really conducive to China's domestic stability during 1987-1989? The fact was that on Sept. 27, 1987, six days after the Dalai Lama spoke at the human rights sub-committee of the US House of Representatives, Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, witnessed the first riot aimed at realizing the so-called "Tibetan independence" since 1959. Some slogans and posters appearing on the streets at that time said that the US Congress had begun to pay attention to Tibetan affairs.

There were dozens of riots in Lhasa in the following two years, which caused tremendous losses of lives and properties to people in Tibet and seriously undermined their normal work, study and life. The riots were resolutely opposed by people of various ethnic groups in Tibet. The People's Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region has irrefutable evidence that the riots in Lhasa were directly plotted and instigated by Tibetan splittist forces overseas.

The US Government and congress continued to support the Dalai Lama in various ways after 1989. And the tones of the Dalai Lama's splittist activities changed from time to time. On Aug. 19, 1991, the Dalai Lama announced abandoning the so-called "Strasbourg Proposal" made in June 1988, and firmly asked for "complete independence of Tibet," which he predicted the same year would be realized within five to 10 years.

After 1993, the Dalai Lama put forward the so-called "middle road approach," and asked for a "high degree of autonomy " in Tibet like the "One country, two systems" designed for Hong Kong, following a statement of the US vice president, who advocated realizing "Tibet independence" in two steps.

Up to now, we've not seen any public statements by the Dalai Lama indicating he would accept the principles for negotiations proposed by the Central Government. The United States, taking no notice of the Dalai Lama's duplicity, has kept pressing the Chinese Government to conduct negotiations with the Dalai Lama "without preconditions."

Such "concern" cannot but set people thinking as the recent report by the US Government went so far as to say that the issue would possibly become a "stumbling block to fuller political and economic engagement" with the United States.

To sum up, all instability in Tibet over the past half century and more was because of the disturbances and sabotage by the Tibetan splittist forces, backed by US and other Western anti-China forces.

For the United States, which calls itself a pioneer of "democratic politics," it seems difficult to make clear who represents the interests of the people in Tibet. The Chinese people would not allow it if the Chinese Government, elected by the National People's Congress (NPC), and the deputies to the NPC,elected by people of various ethnic groups in China, do not represent the people's interests. It's the same case with the People's Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Therefore, it is the Chinese Government and the Tibet Autonomous Regional government, rather than the US government and the Dalai Lama who left his motherland and religious followers more than four decades ago, that best know how to safeguard the fundamental interests of people of all ethnic groups in Tibet, including protecting the Tibetan language, religions and cultural heritage.

The Tibetan local government reported a population of one million in 1953 when new China conducted its first census. The population of Tibetans in China amounted to nearly 4.6 million, ofwhom 2.41 million lived in the Tibet Autonomous Region in 2000, according to the fifth national census. It is estimated that there are 120,000 to 130,000 Tibetans living overseas.

Either viewed historically or realistically, the US Government report's claim that the Dalai Lama "represents the views of the vast majority of Tibetans and his moral authority helps to unite the Tibetan community inside and outside of China," is a lie.

The Dalai Lama used to be the chief executive of the local Tibetan government, which was an integration of political power and religious authority, and Tibet under his rule was under the dark feudal serf system.

The Dalai Lama betrayed his country and threw himself under the shield of foreign anti-China force just because he was opposed to any change of the barbaric system. In exile, he has made no contribution to the development of Tibet nor to the happiness and benefit of the Tibetan Buddhism followers over the past 40-odd years.

On the contrary, the so-called Tibetan "government-in-exile" led by the Dalai Lama has been involved in political activities aiming to split the country for years. The Dalai Lama, in violation of the religious rite and historical convention of Tibetan Buddhism, appointed Panchen living Buddha on his own. How could he be the representative of the Tibetan people? How could he "unite the Tibetan community inside and outside of China"?

It is a historical choice made by all Tibetan people to follow the socialist road and the system of regional national autonomy under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and they will never turn away from this choice.

The US government, by distorting the facts, has tried its best to puff the Dalai Lama. It has patently profaned the will of several million Tibetan people in China. By putting pressures or even threat on the Chinese government, it is interfering in China's internal affairs, which hurts the progress of Tibet, the stability of Chinese society, and the improvement and development of Sino-US relations. Such interference can but meet with firm opposition from the Chinese government and create further distrust in the United States by all Chinese people including Tibetans.

Why is the US government concerned about the Tibet issue, since it is not for protecting Tibetan people's language, religion,cultural heritage, human rights and freedom, or for safeguarding China's stability? This writer believes that the Tibet issue or the Dalai Lama serves as a card for the US anti-China force in its attempts to contain China.

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