A meeting in Washington this week provides an instructive look into the Obama Administration’s willingness to match the President’s championing of the universality of human rights with his desire for pragmatic policies that achieve results. As a further challenge, this engagement occurs with China, a bilateral relationship that the Administration has affirmed as its most critical, and thus provides a window...

Google’s decision to pull out of China has brought with it a flurry of discussion among pundits, all of them postulating what exactly this means for China’s millions of internet users.  Many question Google’s motives, finding it hard to believe that the internet giant would willingly leave such an untapped wealth of future users for the cause of human rights. But whether or not the decision...

ICT guest blog by Dechen Tsering, President of the Tibetan Association of Northern California, on her involvement in the 2010 Tibet Lobby Day. On March 1st 60-70 Tibetans descended on DC from all parts of the United States to participate in the 2010 Tibet Lobby Day on March 1st and 2nd organized by the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), in collaboration with the Tibetan Associations in the United States...

There they go again. Chinese opinion makers have once more displayed their penchant for offending U.S. leaders while simultaneously revealing a deep ignorance of American society and politics. Last fall they reminded President Barack Obama that he is black and should think accordingly. Now they’ve told Nancy Pelosi she’s a woman and should behave accordingly. Recall that right before Obama visited China...

On Monday, March 1 as part of the 2010 Tibet Lobby Day activities, ICT and the Capital Area Tibetan Association hosted a reception for Lobby Day participants and friends of ICT. Lodi Gyari, Special Envoy of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Executive Chairman of ICT’s Board of Directors, made remarks to the gathering, highlights of which are reproduced below. Tashi Delek. Let me wish you all a Happy New...

As His Holiness the Dalai Lama arrives in town today, I pose a question: Is tomorrow’s meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama getting greater attention than it would have had it been held last October? I think, indisputably, YES, even without the benefit of a time machine to test the hypothesis. Jump back to last summer/fall. We knew two things: (1) the Dalai Lama was scheduled to come to Washington,...

The following is a list of  public reactions thus far (January 26) from national capitals on the announcement that the representatives of the Dalai Lama are in Beijing for the ninth round of their dialogue with their Chinese counterparts. It is interesting to observe that the British and the Danes expressly  are calling for “meaningful autonomy” or “genuine self-rule” for Tibetans as a goal of the...

Now that President Barack Obama has ended his maiden East Asia visit, it is time to start reading the tea leaves concerning his reference to Tibet during the joint press appearance/press conference in Beijing on November 17. First of all, here is what the President said publicly as can be seen from the media video footage below. I am yet to see the transcript on the White House website. “I spoke to President...

In the days since Monday’s announcement from Dharamsala that His Holiness had received a high level delegation from the Obama White House, there has been much speculation about the reasoning and the meaning of the visit. I and my colleagues at ICT have been talking and listening to many people with connections to the Tibet issue – in and out of government, inside and outside Washington. We have found a diversity...

Last week, ICT put out a press release on recent Congressional action on legislation that funds a variety of Tibet programs. Further details about the content of these bills (the House and Senate versions of the Fiscal Year 2010 Foreign Operations Appropriations bills) can be found here. (Final funding awaits passage of a reconciled version combining these two bills, likely in the fall.) Most of these are long-standing...