As Václav Havel wrote: if human freedom is denied to anyone in the world, it is therefore denied, indirectly, to all people. Long live Havel, long live the Dalai Lama!
What China is proud to call propaganda has never been more important, both as the only source of information available to Chinese citizens and, beyond China, a story of China’s “rightful place” that demands acceptance.
The world’s former no. 1-ranked doubles player accused a top Communist Party of China official of sexual assault. She’s been missing from public view ever since.
Last week in Glasgow, I chaired a very special COP26 panel on climate change in Tibet titled “Tibet’s Climate Crisis: Critical Lessons for Global Climate Policy.”
This week, countries are meeting virtually to open the first sessions of the COP15 conference on biodiversity in Kunming, People’s Republic of China. This conference is significant, as it will finalize the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework—a new ambitious plan to halt and reverse the loss of the planet’s plants, animals and ecosystems.
Although the nomenklatura system allows for nominal representation of Tibetans in the government bureaucracy, Chinese dominate all the strategic party bodies with real power or are strategically embedded in bureaus where Tibetans are the majority.
It is horrible enough that China has turned Tibet, an ancient and inspiring country, into a human rights nightmare. We must not let the Chinese government replicate those rights abuses here.
In a recent press statement, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment David Boyd urges the inclusion of human rights principles in conservation planning and specifically in the UN Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
This year’s review of the historical ensemble of the Potala Palace is of particular interest, as there is mounting evidence of mismanagement and institutional disregard for the cultural heritage of Tibet— both serious threats to what UNESCO terms the “Outstanding Universal Value” of the site and sufficient reason to inscribe the site as “Heritage in Danger.”
As the Dalai Lama turns 86, the CCP ages up into being one of the longest-running single party dictatorships in human history.