New bill in US Congress A new beginning for Tibet

NOTICE

Vijay Kranti* is pleased that the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has paved the way for a new US law that will recognize Tibet as an occupied country, CHOLKA-SUM as the real Tibet, and show the world how to reject President Xi Jinping leads the one-China policy, giving a new start to the Tibet issue on the world stage.

On April 16, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a bipartisan bill relating to Tibet (HR-533), adopted two months ago, on February 15, by the House of Representatives by a near unanimous majority and thunderous (392 to 28). This Committee approval virtually removes the final obstacle to passing the bill into law that will pave the way for America and encourage the global community to reject and challenge President Xi Jinping's One China policy and of his Chinese Communist Party. Once adopted and signed by President Biden as American law, it will inevitably give new hope to the people of Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and millions of others colonized by China. This bill officially announces Tibet as an occupied country; CHOLKA-SUM as true Tibet and tell the world that the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet have the exclusive right to decide the next Dalai Lama and all future reincarnated Tulkus.

In response to President Xi's ever-increasing thuggish and bullying behavior and his challenge to the rules-based global order in general and the superpower status of the United States of America in particular, the determination of policymakers American policies and strategies at the Capitol in Washington too, it seems that the situation has started to change gear. This bill proves beyond a doubt that the United States has begun not only to oppose President Xi Jinping's acts of intimidation, but also to strike his communist regime where it hurts most. A similar series of bills and resolutions on Xinjiang, another colony that China occupied two years before Tibet in 1949 and renamed East Turkistan as the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), also reflects the new approach by the United States to challenge Xi's bullying methods and his one-China approach. Policy. The current Tibet-related bill further strengthens and refines the U.S. Congressional Tibet Policy Act of 2002 (TPA-2002), which was subsequently revised in January 2020.

This bill is a decisive response to the six-decade aggressive campaign by President Xi and China to make the world believe that the geography of Tibet is limited only to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) that Mao created in reorganizing occupied Tibet in 1965. In the Definition portion (Section 622) of this bill, the US Congress removed any ambiguity created by China on the formal definition of what constitutes true Tibet. In both parts of this section, the bill makes it clear that the term Tibet not only refers to the TAR alone, but also includes all parts of the Tibetan provinces of Kham and Amdo which have been removed from Tibet and distributed to the neighboring Chinese provinces of Yunnan. , Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai. It is worth noting that the dialogue process between the exiled Dalai Lama and Beijing has remained stalled since the late 1970s simply because China always insisted that only TAR meant Tibet, while the Dalai Lama and his representatives insisted on also including Kham and Amdo in Tibet. negotiations as an integral part of Tibet. Therefore, although this new US assertion on the geographical definition of Tibet will add to the moral strength of the Dalai Lama and his fellow Tibetans, it will also greatly irritate President Xi.

This bill reflects a qualitative shift in America's approach to Tibet and China. This eliminates the ambiguity and lukewarmness that was visible in the conduct of most previous US governments in their approach to the Tibetan cause. Just two examples should suffice. One of them is the oft-repeated statement by many American presidents and other American leaders whenever they were confronted with their Chinese counterparts on the issue of Tibet. The standard US response was: No policy of the US administration is based on the assumption that Tibet is not part of China. The other example is the funny and rather shy act of President Barak Obama on February 19, 2010, when, just to avoid the media cameras and the subsequent troubles of the Chinese government, he accompanied the visiting Dalai Lama to the rear door through the passage. dotted with dirty laundry bags full of the White House.

However, contrary to the previous ambiguity, the current bill and its broader form, the Tibet Policy Act of 2002 (amended and enacted in 2020 and also known as HR-4313), demonstrate a shift on three fronts in US policy towards China on the China question. Tibet. The first and most dramatic of these changes is the reaffirmation that Tibet is an occupied country under established principles of international law. The second is the US government's decision to openly support the Dalai Lama; THE Phodrang Street, the national trust which serves as the supreme repository of the authority of the Dalai Lamas; and the representatives of the Dalai Lamas as the final authority to decide the next reincarnation of the Dalai Lamas. In the amended form of this bill in 2020, the US Congress also added democratically elected leaders of the Tibetan diaspora to this list. This change not only gives elected officials Sikyong (President) of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) the authority to participate in the installation of the next Dalai Lama but also to dialogue with the Chinese government on the future of Tibet. In practical terms, this gives de facto recognition to the CTA as the government in exile of Tibet.

And the third is that these bills statutorily require all future U.S. presidents and administrations to take active action against China's wrongdoing, such as imposing a Dalai Lama of their choosing on the people of Tibet. The current bill reiterates the US position on both the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama as well as the settlement of the Tibetan issue between the Dalai Lama and Beijing through dialogue, as expressed in the latest HR-4331 which has already become a American law. following its bipartisan adoption by both houses of the US Congress and its signing by President Donald Trump. The current bill goes even further by adding that China should enter into dialogue without any preconditions. The previous dialogue process has been stuck since 2010 because the Dalai Lama refuses to accept China's condition of admitting that Tibet has been part of China since ancient times.

Another element of this bill that marks a decisive shift in US policy towards Tibet and towards China is the new determination and enthusiasm of the US Congress to counter Chinese propaganda regarding Tibet. The bill directs and authorizes the United States government and its agencies dealing with China to combat disinformation and propaganda from the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party about the history of Tibet, the Tibetan people and Tibetan institutions, including that of the Dalai Lama. Lama.

After the approval of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the current bill will certainly be passed by the Senate and signed by President Biden to become law in the near future. This is sure to irritate and provoke President Xi, who has always asked the world to accept that Tibet and Xinjiang are both core interests of China and are therefore non-negotiable issues for him and the Party. Chinese communist. More than anything else, this will be the first time that Xi's idea of ​​a one-China policy has been challenged so openly and aggressively. The world will closely watch its reaction to this surgical diplomatic strike by the US Congress, as this issue risks turning into an international tsunami. And for the Tibetan people, this new US law will open a new world of hope where the concept of maintaining the whole of Cholka-Sum has a good chance of becoming a reality and where the world begins to gain strength to challenge Xi's idea of ​​one China. Policy .

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*Vijay Kranti is a veteran journalist and Tibetologist who has just completed 50 years in Tibet. He is the President of the Center for Himalayan Asian Studies and Engagement (CHASE)