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...

So read one of the slogans painted by a group of Chinese on the main gate of Beijing’s propaganda office directed at the Speaker during her China trip this week. It is a sentiment shared by those of us in Washington who advocate for human rights in China and Tibet. After all, it is Pelosi who has been the most outspoken congressional truth-teller of Beijing’s human rights record for the last two...

Beijing has been stepping up its anti-Dalai Lama campaign internationally—and in Washington—so it was heartening to hear someone from the White House praise the political leadership of the Dalai Lama. At a May 1 panel discussion at the Committee of 100, Jeff Bader, the Senior Director for East Asia at the National Security Council, asked the Committee of 100 to “use their credibility with Chinese officials...

Both the United States government and the European Parliament made important and timely statements of support for Tibet, despite stepped up Chinese pressure on governments to drop the Tibet issue. First, a bit of context. In tandem with their “major propaganda drive” on Tibet, Chinese authorities appear to have launched a diplomatic offensive, according to Tibet analyst Warren Smith, against countries that...

Working at ICT and having been involved in the Tibet movement for over ten years, I’m frequently asked the question, “Why Tibet?”  It’s difficult to answer because of course one doesn’t have to care about Tibet to the exclusion of so many other worthy causes.  In fact, learning more about Tibet, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan people, has only increased my feelings of compassion towards...