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As “Kundun” turns 25, Dalai Lama’s wisdom must be preserved

January 12, 2023

A few months ago, the actor Simu Liu wrote something all too memorable in the most disposable medium. “If the only gatekeepers to movie stardom came from Tarantino and Scorsese, I would never have had the opportunity to lead a $400 million plus movie,” the “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” performer boasted on Twitter. “I am in awe of their filmmaking genius. They are transcendent auteurs. But they don’t get to point their nose at me or anyone.”

The potshots from Liu came in response to criticism two of Hollywood’s most prominent directors—Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese—made of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe,” of which Liu is a proud part. In an interview that premiered in November, Tarantino said Marvel’s stable of actors are “not movie stars.” “Captain America is the star,” he said. “Or Thor is the star.” It’s worth noting that Anthony Mackie, who actually plays Captain America, said much the same thing years ago. But Liu evidently felt he is a star and wanted the world to know it.

As for Scorsese, the eminent helmer of “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull” helped kick-start this whole controversy in 2019 when he told a British magazine that Marvel’s cinematic universe is “not cinema.” Scorsese elaborated: “It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”

Scorsese is likely the most famous and accomplished director of English-language cinema in the world today. But that didn’t shield him from the ire of Marvel fans, who apparently felt they understood film better than the man who earned the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award in 1997. With his now wisely deleted tweet, Liu showed himself to be just as presumptuous.

There are so many things wrong with what Liu wrote. To begin with, Scorsese absolutely has the right to “point” his nose at others working in his form (I am not as familiar with the movies of Tarantino and am not here to defend him). A master in any field has the prerogative to critique an upstart.

There’s also Liu’s confusion about auteurism—a rare breed of filmmaking that expresses the personal vision of the director—versus the assembly-belt production of Marvel Studios. Liu basks in leading a “$400 million plus movie,” but he and Scorsese are after different goals. More on that later.

“Kundun” left unsaid

But the most egregious part of Liu’s remark was its obliviousness. He followed up his ill-conceived initial tweet by defending Marvel on the grounds of inclusion. “No movie studio is or ever will be perfect,” he said in another now-deleted tweet. “But I’m proud to work with one that has made sustained efforts to improve diversity onscreen by creating heroes that empower and inspire people of all communities everywhere. I loved the [Hollywood] ‘Golden Age’ too.. but it was white as hell.”

There’s no disputing the first or last part of that comment. But in the middle, Liu was being either embarrassingly ignorant or willfully deceitful. Perhaps he didn’t know—or didn’t want to acknowledge—“Kundun,” Scorsese’s sublime biopic about the current Dalai Lama of Tibet. “Kundun” just had its 25th anniversary last month, yet it remains one of the least seen, least accessible titles in Scorsese’s legendary filmography. That’s no accident: Disney, the same company that now owns Marvel, has deliberately tried to keep “Kundun” out of public view for the past quarter century.

Actually, Disney’s attempts to bury “Kundun” began even before its release date. In the 1990s, China was not the box office behemoth it has since become. The People’s Republic had only begun to open its market to foreign studios when Disney innocently went into production on “Kundun,” not realizing the furor it would provoke among Chinese authorities. But once China’s government started pulling Disney films and series from the country, Disney CEO Michael Eisner reportedly promised Chinese officials that “Kundun” would “die a quiet death.” He even recruited former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, an alleged war criminal, to assure the Chinese that Disney wouldn’t aggressively promote the movie and that it would bomb at the box office.

“Kundun” premiered in the United States on Christmas Day 1997. It brought in just $72,000 in its opening weekend, ultimately finishing with a total gross of $5.7 million. The following year, Eisner traveled to China, where he apologized to government officials for releasing “Kundun,” saying it was “a stupid mistake.” According to the records of China’s former Premier Rongji Zhu, Eisner groveled:

“[W]e released the film in the most passive way, but something unfortunate still happened. The film was a form of insult to our friends and it cost a lot of money, but other than journalists, very few people in the world saw it. The bad news is that the film was made; the good news is that nobody watched it. Here I want to apologize, and in the future we should prevent this sort of thing, which insults our friends, from happening. In short, we’re a family entertainment company, a company that uses silly ways to amuse people.”

Twenty-five years later, that’s still what Disney is, despite Liu’s self-important claims about “creating heroes that empower and inspire people of all communities everywhere.” (As a CBR headline wisely puts it, “Simu Liu Sided with the Wrong Gatekeepers in His Tarantino Response.”)

Continued erasure

Although Eisner is long gone, the current leadership at Disney is no less dedicated to ensuring that as few people as possible see “Kundun.” The studio has pumped a fortune into Disney+, but “Kundun” is not available there, and as far as I can tell, it’s not on any other streaming service either. I am a cinephile; watching great movies is an important part of my life. I am even part of a film group that gets together every month to discuss a classic movie. But we probably couldn’t add “Kundun” to our lineup because most group members wouldn’t be able to stream it. (Thankfully the good people at Kino Lorber offer a special edition Blu-Ray and DVD of the film. Link below.)

Disney’s effacement of the Tibetan people is not limited to the Dalai Lama and “Kundun,” however. In 2016, the Marvel Cinematic Universe gained a new main player with the release of “Doctor Strange,” yet another superhero spectacle. In the comic books, Doctor Strange learns his magic powers from the Ancient One, a Tibetan sage. But in the movie, the Ancient One is a Celt played by Tilda Swinton, a White actress from Scotland. Although Disney claimed it was trying to avoid a stereotypical portrayal of Asians, the screenwriter, C. Robert Cargill, shockingly admitted, “If you acknowledge that Tibet is a place and that [the character is] Tibetan, you risk alienating 1 billion [Chinese] people.” In contemporary discourse, I think that’s called erasure.

Marvel’s attempt to hide its invisibilizing of Tibetans behind false concerns of racism set the stage for Liu to brandish racial injustice to ballyhoo his own success and bodyguard the studio that pays him. That’s one of the things that annoyed me most about his tweets. As a person of color, I do not see “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” as some breakthrough, even though Liu obviously does. As a South Asian, I also couldn’t care less about “Ms. Marvel” or “Eternals,” both of which feature actors born in Pakistan. Instead, I’d rather watch the enriching cinema of the late Bengali auteur Satyajit Ray or the 2020 Marathi movie “The Disciple,” which is now streaming on Netflix. And I appreciate what I’ve seen from the Tibetan director Pema Tseden. Such films are the “cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”

When Liu says that he “would never have had the opportunity to lead a $400 million plus movie” with Scorsese and Tarantino as gatekeepers, he’s in effect saying that people of color should have the same freedom as Whites to create trashy, dehumanizing entertainment. I suppose that’s only fair, but I’d like to think we can all set our sights a little higher.

Purifying effect

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

“Kundun” is a perfect example. There are no superhuman powers in the film; instead of pummeling his adversaries into submission, the Dalai Lama tries to negotiate with them, which he continues to do to this day.

There also isn’t any whitewashing. All the Tibetan characters are played by Tibetans. And rather than use a Western intermediary to guide the audience through the story, Scorsese and screenwriter Melissa Mathison—a late ICT Board Member—throw us right into the family home of Lhamo Dhondrup, a 2-year-old boy in a Tibetan outskirt who would soon be recognized as His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. From there, we see how the young reincarnate and his people lived their traditional lives before Communist China swallowed their homeland.

Shot on a budget of $28 million (still only about 1/8 of “Shang Chi’s” budget in today’s dollars), the movie generates more power and suspense in one roughly 15-minute sequence showing His Holiness’ escape to India than any green-screen battle Marvel has ever programmed into existence. Soundtracked by Philip Glass’ hypnotic score and edited by Scorsese’s longtime collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker, this climax of the film envisions the Dalai Lama’s perilous route to freedom as a sermonic spiritual journey.

That finale alone makes “Kundun” worth watching. Yet some of the moments that have stuck with me most are the quieter, more pacific recreations of the old Tibet. One scene that has a purifying effect on my mind involves the 5-year-old Dalai Lama playing with toy soldiers, the way any child might. His Holiness throws his figures at the soldiers of his playmate: a sweeper working in the Potala Palace. “I have more men!” he thunders. “I have smarter men,” the sweeper calmly replies, pulling the boy’s soldiers toward him. “I have all the men.” The Dalai Lama slumps. “Today you lose, Kundun. Tomorrow you may win,” the sweeper says as the camera zooms in. “Things change, Kundun.”

Need for preservation

It is this ancient culture of wisdom that all of us in ICT’s community of compassion and the wider Tibet movement are trying to preserve. That vital heritage has already been fractured by China and its assimilationist regime. But it has also been swept away by shameless corporations like Disney and Marvel, which will sacrifice anything of artistic or spiritual value at the altar of the almighty buck.

After 25 years, a film like “Kundun” would never even make it into production today. Instead, we get junk like “Shang Chi” and whatever the latest intellectual property iteration is from Disney and its brethren. But as our lives grow ever more digitized and soulless, we should seek out and preserve great art like “Kundun.” And as the modern world leads us further astray from compassion and nonviolence, we need the wisdom of the Dalai Lama, captured so expressively in “Kundun,” now more than ever.

Buy “Kundun” on Blu-Ray or DVD from Kino Lorber!

The Dalai Lama’s wisdom is also on vivid display in the soon-to-be-released book, “Heart to Heart,” illustrated by Mutts’ cartoonist Patrick McDonnell. Proceeds from the book will benefit ICT. Preorder your copy of “Heart to Heart” today!

How human rights protections offer an alternative future for biodiversity conservation in Tibet

December 7, 2022

Palmo Tenzin

The COP15 UN biodiversity conference is beginning this Wednesday in Montreal, Canada. It was meant to be held in Kunming, China, under China’s presidency, but was rescheduled and relocated due to strict COVID restrictions in China, as well as delays in the ambitious negotiation process.

The COP15 on biodiversity is a meeting of countries signatory to the convention on global biodiversity. Although the meeting on biodiversity enjoys less fanfare than its climate change meeting counterpart, this 15th meeting of the parties is a major calendar event. It is carving out a post-2030 global framework for biological diversity conservation, and it is being ambitious in setting targets and indicators. Biodiversity is critical, as it is a measure of the earth’s environmental health and resilience—something we will need as we face increasing pressures from climate change.

While there are many contestations in the negotiations, the International Campaign for Tibet is concerned by the methods used to achieve the targets. Any solution to biodiversity should always include human rights protections, such as the right to information, right to consultation, and right to participation, remedy and compensation in cases of abuse.

In the past, it has not been enough to push for such human rights protections. For many, human rights seem unrelated to the issue of biodiversity, dismissed as an unrelated political issue, agenda or distraction. But in this article, I want to show how human rights protections offer an alternative future for biodiversity conservation in Tibet, one that is worth pursuing. I want to do this through a counterfactual for the situation in Tibet. I want to explain how human rights protections and genuine participation can empower and activate a community whose health is tied to its regional biodiversity. Through a counterfactual, I hope to show why it is just as important to set the standards on methodology and not just the end goals of biodiversity. These lessons will not only be relevant to biodiversity, but also climate change responses.

Tibetans: ecological natives and environmental stewards?

First of all, I’m not offering up Tibetans as model “native ecologists” or natural “environmental warriors.” Tibetans, Tibetan culture and Tibetan Buddhism cannot and should not be essentialized and simplified to fit an externally defined environmental criterion to be deemed worthy of attention and support. More importantly, western concepts of ecology, environmental protection and climate change don’t fit neatly with the Tibetan worldview or the vocabulary that Tibetans use when they engage with environmental issues. However, Tibetans are environmentally conscious and conveniently endowed with cosmological and normative frameworks that should not be lost and that make them well suited to designing sustainable environmental initiatives in their homeland. Here I want to draw out some of the concepts in the Tibetan worldview and religion to demonstrate why empowering Tibetans to speak up and engage without fear is so important for Tibet’s environment.

Tibetan cosmology: mutually sustaining relationship with nature and deities of the landscape

Cosmology is how we understand our creation and relationship with nature and the universe. Tibetans have a cosmology grounded in the concept of “the container and its contents.” The container is the world, and the sentient beings are the contents or the inhabitants. While Tibetans can and do interpret this analogy in slightly different ways, the essence is that the container and its contents exist in an interdependent relationship.

In addition to this, worldly territorial spirits and deities inhabit the natural landscape, such as lakes, mountains and rivers. These spirits have agency and can be both benevolent (providing protection and prosperity) and wrathful (unleashing natural disasters and other misfortunes) based on the conduct of local individuals or the community.^[1] With this worldview, Tibetans live in a mutually sustaining relationship with the nature and the deities of their local land. This cosmology predates the arrival of Buddhism to Tibet and is rooted in indigenous traditions.

This view treats all land as important, with sacred sites perceived to be more critical. To illustrate this, some Tibetans draw an analogy with the body and its organs, arguing that injuring a sacred mountain is similar to injuring a critical organ like the heart or brain.^[2] Combining this with the interdependent relationship between the container and its contents, one elderly Tibetan pastoralist describes how “digging gold from the mountain is like taking my heart out of my body.”^[3]

Tibetan Buddhism

Buddhism arrived in Tibet in the seventh century under the reign of King Songtsen Gampo and has since become the dominant religion of Tibetan society. Buddhist principles of no-self, interdependence, compassion, non-harming and karma have significantly shaped Tibetan views and approaches to the natural environment, especially in the treatment of living beings.

While these concepts do shape a broader Buddhist environmental philosophy or ethics, there is no singular definition of Buddhist environmental philosophy. As a result, there can be variations in how Buddhist principles are interpreted in the environmental context. For example, as Emily Yeh points out, the Buddhist law on cause and effect and, in particular, the concept of karma can treat environmental destruction as the fruit of past individual and communal karma, which can only be corrected with improving one’s mind and conduct over infinite lifetimes.^[4] Extending this logic, an individual could choose to seek spiritual education and service to others with a goal to benefit future lifetimes over engaging in immediate environmental interventions in the present.

Putting it all together: conserving biodiversity

Conserving biodiversity requires a people who are empowered and a culture rooted in environmental consciousness. So, if human rights protections are secured in the post-Global Biodiversity Framework, how might Tibetans apply their cosmology and Buddhist religion to manage biodiversity? One successful example is the management of sacred sites.

Sacred landscapes

Local Tibetan communities or monasteries have already taken the initiative to manage sacred sites, with some even negotiating legal rights through community conservation agreements.^[5] Through establishing environmental associations or NGOs, or working through existing monastic institutions, Tibetans have been protecting sacred sites by engaging in activities such as monitoring and regulating hunting, fishing, logging, mining, grazing, harvesting or other destructive activities. Some have also been cataloguing and monitoring local flora and fauna, replanting trees, and organizing waste removal as well as community environmental education activities. Many have also begun with sacred sites and extended their work into other landscapes. What is distinct about their approach is that Tibetans are not prioritizing specific animals above others or drawing on financial rewards to induce good behavior.

Tibetan environmentalists have found that drawing on Tibetan cosmology, culture and Buddhism is useful for environmental protection, as these traditional frameworks shape the rules of human use of nature and make environmental protection an ethical, rather than economic, issue. In doing so, it creates a culture of self-surveillance and accountability.

Human rights: a prerequisite

For Tibetans inside Tibet working on environmental issues, it has been clear that “Tibetan cultural survival, religious continuity and ecological health are inseparably linked.”^[6] However, it is equally important to recognize that human rights are the prerequisite for all.

We saw this with Rinchen Samdup, who drew on Tibetan culture and religion to mobilize his community around illegal poaching and deforestation in his area. In 2003, Rinchen together with his brother Karma Samdup and friend Tador created an environmental group with more than 1,000 adult residents from 11 hamlets. They drew up a detailed list of rules and fines for hunting and fishing in their community area and plans for afforestation that saw half a million sea buckthorn, spruce and poplars in the first two years. They also organized community garbage clean-ups, wildlife patrols and monitoring, and environmental education activities, including the publication of an environmental protection journal.

Rinchen later went on to co-found the Three Rivers Environmental Protection Group with his brothers Karma Samdup and Chime Namgyal. Despite being recognized as award-winning environmental activists, Rinchen and Chime were arrested in August 2009 for challenging a local police chief who hunted endangered species on a Tibetan nature reserve.^[7] Rinchen was sentenced to five years in prison, while Chime received a 21-month prison sentence. Karma, who lobbied for their release, was arrested on Jan. 3, 2010 and subsequently sentenced to 15 years in prison. He is due for release in 2025.

As long as human rights are not protected, meaningful environmental protection work and biodiversity conservation will remain precarious and secondary.

Footnotes:

[1] Annabella Pitkin, ‘Sustaining the Sacred Mountains: Tibetan Environmentalism and Sacred Landscape in a Time of Conflict’. Volume II Intellectual History of Key Concepts, edited by Gregory Adam Scott and Stefania Travagnin, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2020, page147.

[2] Emily Yeh, ‘Reverse environmentalism: Contemporary articulations of Tibetan culture, Buddhism and environmental protection’. Religion and Ecological sustainability in China, edited by James Miller, Dan Smyer Yu, and Peter van der Veer, 2014, page 192.

[3] Yonten Nyima and Emily Yeh, ‘Environmental Issues and Conflict in Tibet’. Ethnic Conflict and Protest in Tibet and Xinjiang: Unrest in China’s West, edited by Ben Hillman and Gray Tuttle, Columbia University Press, 2016, page 168.

[4] Op. Cit., Yeh, ‘Reverse environmentalism: Contemporary articulations of Tibetan culture, Buddhism and environmental protection,’ 2014, pages 201-204.-

[5] See cases such as the Voluntary Association for the Protection of the Natural Environment of Domed Anchung Sengge Namzong, Khawakarbo Culture Society, Nyanbo Yutse Environmental Association, and more small scale local village initiatives such as anti-poaching patrols on Karpo Lhasham mountain in Gomri village, Hashul Township, Yushul prefecture, Qinghai.

[6] Op. Cit., Yeh, Reverse environmentalism: Contemporary articulations of Tibetan culture, Buddhism and environmental protection,’ 2014, pages 214-215 and Pitkin, ‘Sustaining the Sacred Mountains: Tibetan Environmentalism and Sacred Landscape in a Time of Conflict’, 2020, page 193.

[7] International Campaign for Tibet, 4 August 2010, ‘”A sharp knife above his head”: the trials and sentencing of three environmentalist brothers in Tibet’, https://savetibet.org/a-sharp-knife-above-his-head-the-trials-and-sentencing-of-three-environmentalist-brothers-in-tibet/.

Why does the Dalai Lama look to Avalokiteshvara for his long life?

December 5, 2022

Bhuchung K. Tsering

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On Nov. 30, 2022, during a “Tenshug” (long-life offering ceremony) to him in Dharamsala, His Holiness the Dalai Lama pointed to a headshot beside him of the Jowo Wati Sangpo statue and told the gathering that although they are making this offering for him to live long, he in turn was putting faith in the Jowo, the image of which he had specially brought to the ceremony, to grant him the same. He mentioned that this image usually was in his residence, implying its special significance to him.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama drawing attention to the headshot of Jowo Wati Sangpo during the Long-Life Ceremony in Dharamsala on Nov. 30, 2022

The concept of Tenshug is part of our spiritual tradition. It comes from the belief that certain superior beings like His Holiness have the power to decide the course of their lifespan and their rebirth. Therefore, there is the tradition of disciples beseeching upon such lamas, through established rituals, to live long for the sake of all sentient beings. Tenshug literally means “Permanent existence.”

However, I found this statement by His Holiness intriguing as generally during such Tenshug rituals, I have seen him expressing his gratitude to the disciples for their devotion and his determination to continue serving the cause of humanity. So I tried to look into this a bit more to get some clarity on the story behind Jowo Wati Sangpo’s importance.

Jowo Wati Sangpo is believed to be a self-manifested statue of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, in sandalwood that appeared in the Nepal-India border region. Avalokiteshvara is known as Chenrezig in Tibetan and is regarded as the patron deity of Tibet. In fact, in Tibetan Chenrezig is referred to as Tibet’s Lhakel, “quota from among the gods.” This is because legend has it that the Buddha of Infinite Light, Amitabha, prophesied in the past that Avalokiteshvara would be the one in the future to “subdue the barbaric Land of Snows.” In his response, Avalokiteshvara committed to Amitabha, “May I have the opportunity to establish all living beings in happiness, beginning with those in the Land of Snows. Until I relieve all living beings, may I never, even for a moment feel like giving up the purpose of others for my own peace and happiness.” According to another version, Avalokiteshvara vowed to Amitabha: “If I should ever get discouraged down there, working with those barbaric Tibetans, may my body be shattered into a thousand pieces.” The Dalai Lamas are believed to be manifestations of Avalokiteshvara and therefore having a special concern for the Tibetan people.

The statue of Jowo Wati Sangpo

This statue is more popularly known as Kyirong Jowo (as it came to be housed in a shrine in Kyirong in Western Tibet). The statue has a legendary beginning, believed to be part of five “Arya Brothers” statues that came into existence sometime in the seventh century. Arya is a reference to those who have attained an exalted level of practice in Buddhism. The five statues, according to Tibetan Buddhist historian Pawo Tsuklak Trengwa, are 1) Arya Wati Sangpo, also known as Kyirong Jowo; 2) Arya Bukham of Patan in Nepal; 3) Arya Akham, also of Patan in Nepal; 4) Arya Jamali of Kathmandu in Nepal; 5) Arya Lokeshvara, also known as Jowo Lokeshvara, in the Potala Palace, in Lhasa.

In the seventh century, Tibetan Emperor Songtsen Gampo, being aware of these sacred statues, wanted to bring one to Tibet for the sake of the Buddha Dharma. Legend has it that he sent a light ray from between his eyebrows carrying an emanation known as monk Akaramatiśīla (Lodoe Jungney Tsultrim Sangpo) to go to a sandalwood tree in southern Nepal and get the statue. It is said that the five statues emerged from the tree and miraculously decided on their respective future locations. Thus, two of them ended up in Tibet while the remainder three were in Nepal. One interpretation says that the statues are located along the traditional trade route from Nepal to Tibet, which begins in Patan, passing through the Kathmandu valley and reaching up to Lhasa.

In any case, while the town of Kyirong was the location of Jowo Wati Sangpo, the statue was placed in the care of the Dzongkar Choede monastery in Dzongkar, also in western Tibet, now re-established in south India. According to abbot Jampa Sopa of Dzongkar Choede, the origin of the name Wati Sangpo is traced to a water gutter or trough (In Tibetan a water trough or gutter is called “Wati” or “Wakha”). It is said that when the statue first came to Kyirong, it rested on a stone slab beside a water trough from where people would get water.

As an aside, it is said that Kyirong (“Happy town,” in Tibetan) came to be named as such because the coming of the Jowo Wati Sangpo statue brought happiness to its residents.

After the establishment of the Dalai Lama institutions, there was a special connection between them and the two statues in Tibet. For example, the fifth Dalai Lama is believed to have undertaken an Avalokiteshvara retreat and experienced visions of deities emerging from the heart of Jowo Wati Sangpo. Also, twice during the time of the Fifth and the Eighth Dalai Lamas, the statue was taken to Lhasa for safekeeping in the wake of an incursion by Nepal.

The present Dalai Lama has also talked about his own special connection to Jowo Wati Sangpo. He even calls himself a “Donyer” (chamberlain) of Wati Sangpo and talks about being at his service. During a teaching session in Yokohama in Japan on Nov. 15, 2018, he said, “That statue, the Kyirong Jowo, was brought to India by the monks of Dzongkar Chodé and is now staying with me in Dharamsala. The monks say that different expressions can be seen on its face and I’ve noticed that it seems to smile when I’m making prayers related to bodhichitta. I had a dream about it once in which I was talking to him face to face. I asked if he had realized emptiness. ‘Yes’, he replied. Some people regard the Dalai Lamas as emanations of Avalokiteshvara, but I consider myself to be just his messenger.”

Confirming the Dzongkar Choede monks’ reference to changes in the facial composure of the statue at different times, the Dalai Lama said, “When I pray to him, I feel he smiles at me. Although he can’t walk or talk, he gives me his blessing and as Chenrezig’s representative, I am determined to fulfil his wishes.”

In the wake of the Chinese invasion and occupation of Tibet, the Dzongkar Choede authorities carried out a successful plan to take the statue into exile. This included commissioning similar replacement statues, one in Kyirong itself so that no one would realize that it was no longer there, and the other one in Nepal as a way to placate the devotees who did not want the statue to go onward to India. A fascinating account of how the statue was taken out of Tibet is relayed by Lhakpa la, who was from Kyirong and entrusted with the main task then, to Voice of America’s Lhakpa Kyizom. Eventually, the statue was brought to His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala on April 24, 1967. When the Dzongkar Choede monks were resettled in south India, His Holiness conducted a divination on the issue of the statue, which said that the statue should remain in Dharamsala. Thus, it has been in His Holiness’ residential complex. Occasionally, including during the holy month of Sagadawa (fourth month in our calendar) it is brought to the adjacent Thekchen Choling Tsuglakhang for the public to pay their obeisance.

During his address to the gathering on Nov. 30, His Holiness said while the Jowo Lokeshvara is still in the Potala, the Kyirong Jowo ended up with him in Dharamsala. He continued, “Chenrezig or Avalokiteshvara is the patron deity of Tibet and I am someone who receives his blessing. I pray every day to this Wati Sangpo. As a representative of the body, speech and mind of Avalokiteshvara I work to fulfil his wishes. And I will continue to do so for the coming decades. Since you are making these prayers and offerings on my behalf today, and since Wati Sangpo is my refuge and guardian, I’ve brought this photograph of him here with me.”

So now you know the story of the Dalai Lama and the image of Jowo Wati Sangpo.

Tibetans largely unaware of protests in Chinese cities or the spark of change

December 2, 2022

Tenzin Norgay

As the world scrutinized the anti-regime and anti-Xi protests in Chinese cities beginning last weekend, Tibetans inside CCP-ruled Tibet remain largely unaware of the events shaping up in China. Tibetans notice the sudden stepping up of restrictions in their lives and an increase in public announcements in their hometowns beginning Nov. 27 but remain puzzled over the reason.

Impact of China protests in Tibet

On the day of protests in Chinese cities, the Office of the Leading Group for Lhasa’s Response to the New Coronavirus Pneumonia Epidemic issued an announcement titled “Notice of Behavior” to Tibetans in Lhasa. While COVID-related public notices are frequently issued, the “Notice of Behavior” dated Nov. 27 is extraordinarily long and comprehensive in laying out the prohibitions and the relevant laws applicable for punishment. The notice carried 44 points on prohibited behaviors with point number 28 warning that “Those who use the novel coronavirus infection pneumonia epidemic to create, spread rumors, incite secession, undermine national unity, or incite subversion of state power, overthrow the socialist system are suspected of and shall be held criminally responsible for violating Article 103, paragraph 2, of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China and Article 105, paragraph 2 of the crime of secession or incitement to subvert state power.”

The “notice of behavior” was backed up with reinforcement of law enforcement. The Jamestown Foundation’s senior fellow Willy Wo-Lap Lam wrote that the party’s Central Military Commission had deployed more People’s Armed Police and soldiers to big cities as well as to Xinjiang and Tibet. However, police and military personnel have been ordered to act with restraint on a selective basis and to minimize the number of arrests of residents or students.”

Deployment of armored vehicles in front of Lhasa’s sacred Jokhang temple (Photo via Radio Free Asia)

A day after protests erupted in Chinese cities, the Party Secretary of “Tibet Autonomous Region,” Wang Junzheng, presiding over a standing committee meeting, issued instructions to prioritize stability and struggle against separatists to safeguard the political security of China.

On Nov. 28, the authorities suspended the religious activities in Kardze Monastery in Sichuan, leaving the monks and the local Tibetans puzzled over the reason. Monks in the monastery could not congregate for their religious offering prayers and local religious Tibetans’ access to the monastery was limited.

Similarly, Tibetans and others in Xining in Qinghai were ordered by the authorities to stay confined to their homes beginning the evening of Nov. 27. While the authorities came for home visits to assess the COVID situation, the public were prohibited from leaving their homes.

Party Secretary, Wang Junzheng, presiding over the standing committee meeting on November 28. (Photo via state media)

Takeaways

Since the loss of lives in the horrific burning of an apartment building in Xinjiang catalyzed the protests in Chinese cities by the students and urban middle class, it is deducible that information travels from the far west to east rapidly. But the reverse is not true, at least in terms of spontaneity in Tibet. The only point of view that travels from China to Tibet nonstop is in the form of propaganda and decrees issued by Zhongnanhai in Beijing and executed on the ground by the party and government cadres.

The protests in Chinese cities are remarkable for their leaderless characteristic and spread throughout China, which was not seen even during the 1989 Tiananmen protest. When the Chinese elite spoke out in unison, the party budged in mollifying its social contract with the Chinese people. COVID restrictions across the Chinese heartland are being eased amidst protest participants being tracked down and digital traces of the protests being erased one person at a time. Despite the party’s show of power, by and large the Chinese people won in this protest.

But what about the Tibetans in Tibet and Uyghurs in Xinjiang or East Turkestan, as the Uyghurs prefer to call their homeland?

Double standards

It is noteworthy that there wasn’t a single concurrent solidarity protest in both Xinjiang and Tibet. It should be noted that while information from the far west travels rapidly to the Chinese heartland in the east, the reverse is not true. This is glaringly clear from the current round of protests in China. Tibetans by and large were unaware of the massive but quickly cooled down protests in China. When asked, a Tibetan in Lhasa told the International Campaign for Tibet, “ I have not heard about the protests in China. I think 95% of the Tibetans would be unaware of the protests in Chinese cities.”

Second, unlike the protests by Chinese in China, protests in Tibet and Xinjiang are perpetually labeled as “separatism” or “extremism” irrespective of their genuine grievances and aspirations. In Tibet, as noted above, the party is ready to crush a nonexistent protest in the name of “anti-separatism” and “stability” while the events were unfolding in the Chinese cities.

Third, in the eyes of the party, the Chinese demands are legitimate but the Tibetan demands would be “separatism” if a concurrent protest sparks off in Tibet. This is true not only from the protests in China this week but also observed during the Chinese migrants’ protest in Lhasa a little over a month ago. Because of the suffocating COVID measures in Lhasa, when the Chinese migrants staged a coordinated and large-scale protest on Oct. 28 to be allowed back to their hometowns, they were on their way home the next day. They exited so quickly that the authorities had a hard time clearing the traffic from Lhasa to China. It must be noted that Tibetans’ participation in the Chinese migrants’ protest in Lhasa was minimal except for a possible few joining them.

Change brewing up

While a horrific fire in Xinjiang catalyzed the protests in China this week with the Chinese venting out their frustration at COVID controls on their lives to the point of uttering “Xi Jinping, step down”, none of the protesters in China shouted “Free Tibet” or “Free Xinjiang.” The Chinese urban middle class and the students could relate their lives under COVID lockdowns to those burned to death in an apartment building under COVID lockdown in the far west. But they still couldn’t empathize with how it feels to live a suffocating and controlled life from day one of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

But that seems to be changing.

Unlike their kin at home, Chinese in solidarity protests in foreign countries, most prominently in the United States, uttered the previously unheard of during Chinese protests even in foreign countries. Some of the protesters shouted the unimaginable “Free Tibet, Free Xinjiang” during their solidarity protests for their compatriots at home.

One may dismiss this as mere symbolism or an “isolated case.” One voice in a country of 1.4 billion people does not change things is what is often argued.

But in a changing China, leaders throughout China’s history of protests and revolutions in the past two centuries have almost all the time carried home a spark lit and ideas sharpened in foreign countries. It might not be different this time round as well thanks to COVID.

China after the Communist Party?

November 28, 2022

Kai Mueller

Something that has never, or at least seldom, been heard is currently echoing on China’s streets. “Down with Xi Jinping, down with the Communist Party,” chanted hundreds of demonstrators, perhaps more, openly and apparently without fear of the omnipresent surveillance and repression, in Shanghai and many other cities on the last weekend of November. The protests against the brutal zero-Covid policy of the CCP still seem manageable for the Communist Party. But they must ring the alarm for the autocratic leadership around Secretary General Xi Jinping. After all, what if the voices of the brave few multiply and Xi and the Communist Party can no longer hold on to power? An unlikely, even unreal, scenario given how accustomed we have become—or are meant to become—to the omnipotence of the Communist Party.

But as in the case of Russia, entrenched assumptions can be proven wrong, and as in the case of Russia—and many are already doing so—we must grapple with the question of what comes after the autocrat. Will a peaceful transformation of China be possible—and what role will the many peoples colonized by Beijing, the Tibetans, the Uyghurs, the Mongols, play in this? Are there blueprints, ideas, suggestions for a way out of a potentially explosive situation?

The current protests should give reason to think about this as well, they may even force one to do so. And one would get answers and leads right away. There is the Charter 08 by the late Liu Xiaobo, and there are the Tibetans who have made many constructive suggestions as to what peaceful coexistence could look like. The 1987 Five Point Peace Plan, the 2008 Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People and the Dalai Lama’s Middle Way Approach. And these proposals do not only refer to Tibet but could be an inspiration for a fair balance of interests between all parties involved. China policy and strategy development should deal intensively with these scenarios. We have to think the unthinkable.

On China’s “strategy for governing Tibet in the new era”

November 23, 2022

Bhuchung K. Tsering

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Third plenary meeting of the Tenth Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region Committee Communist Party in Lhasa on Nov 16, 2022.

In the light of the 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, time has come for us to brush up on our understanding of Communist jargons and see if we can truly comprehend what the “new era” means to the Tibetan people.

Obviously, whenever a political leader comes out with an initiative there is an interest in knowing what is new about it and how it might impact the people concerned. Given that Tibet is currently under Chinese rule, and as someone interested in the welfare of the Tibetan people, the urge is there to find out what the “new era” will bring to them.

During the 19th Party Congress in 2017, we saw the incorporation of Xi Jinping’s “Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” in the Party’s Constitution. During the recent 20th Party Congress, China claimed to have established the “new era.”

In fact, even on Taiwan, the 20th CPC document says, “We have put forward an overall policy framework for resolving the Taiwan question in the new era.”

So, what exactly is new in this “new era”? Although the 20th Party Congress report itself did not expand on what it might mean to the Tibetan people, developments before and after it tries to shed some light.

On November 16, 2022, a meeting of the Communist leaders of the Tibet Autonomous Region in Lhasa saw Party Secretary Wang Junzheng making a reference to the “Party’s strategy for governing Tibet in the new era”.

I had a glimmer of hope that there will be clarity now. However, this is not the first time when a Chinese leader has connected the “new era” to Tibet.

Xi Jinping made the first reference to governing Tibet in the new era during his address at the seventh Tibet Work Forum in August 2020. According to Xinhua, “Xi underlined the need to fully implement the CPC’s policies on governing Tibet for a new era.” The state media reported Xi as telling the meeting,” Efforts must be made to build a new modern socialist Tibet that is united, prosperous, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful”.

Thereafter, in May 2021, in its White Paper “Tibet Since 1951: Liberation, Development and Prosperity” the Chinese Government devoted a whole section to “Embarking on a New Journey in the New Era.” The White Paper said the “four main tasks embodied in the guidelines for governing Tibet – ensuring stability, facilitating development, protecting the eco-environment, and strengthening the frontiers – will be implemented”.

At the recent meeting in Lhasa, Wang expanded on what is meant by governing Tibet in the new era through bringing in more Chinese Communist jargons. He said it meant “anchoring the “four important issues” (四件大事 Sì jiàn dàshì) and “four guarantees”(四个确保 sì gè quèbǎo). Wang added that “The strategic deployment of “Four Creations” (四个创建 sì gè zǒu zài qiánliè) and “Four Advances” (四个走在前列 sì gè zǒu zài qiánliè) is an inevitable requirement for implementing the “two-step” strategic arrangement in the new era and building a new socialist modernized Tibet.”

What these jargons mean in actual practice is not clear to me and so the question remains on what the “new era” entails. Irrespective of the labels, one thing is clear from the “new era”: the Chinese authorities intend to strengthen their hold on all things Tibetan. In 2020, we surmised that the “new era” includes “Sinicization” of Tibetan Buddhism and improving the ability of Chinese Communist Party organizations and members at all levels “to deal with major struggles and prevent major risks.” This being the case, the new era that the Chinese Communist Party is offering to the Tibetan people is not a welcome one.

Speaking of jargons, the November 16 meeting in Lhasa was the third plenary meeting of the Tenth Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region Committee Communist Party. As a matter of curiosity, I looked up the outcome of a similar plenary of the previous Ninth Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region Committee Communist Party held in 2017. The 2017 meeting clearly said, “we must persist in carrying out the anti-separatist struggle in depth” whereas the 2022 meeting did not have any such references. Should one conclude from this that “separatism” — as the Chinese government terms Tibetan struggle for their own rights — is no longer an issue today? Something to ponder.

Kasur Lodi Gyari and international diplomacy on Tibet

October 28, 2022

Bhuchung K. Tsering

Oct. 29, 2022 marks the fourth death anniversary of Kasur Lodi Gyari, who until his retirement was the Special Envoy of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and concurrently Executive Chairman of the Board of the International Campaign for Tibet.

Even though Rinpoche, as he is reverently addressed by people in the Tibetan cultural world, is no longer with us, his legacy lives on and is a daily reminder to many of us at ICT who knew him. Now, a book that he had been working on since his retirement has been published by the Columbia University Press. It is aptly titled, “The Dalai Lama’s Special Envoy: Memoirs of a Lifetime in Pursuit of a Reunited Tibet.”

I have been reading the book and taking in all the information therein like any other new reader. I am saying this since some might assume that having worked with Rinpoche closely, I might have seen it in manuscript form. Rinpoche told me categorically that he intentionally did not include some of us who were working closely with him (I understand even some of his family members did not have access to it) in the process of writing this book so that his process would be clear.

This is also not a book review. In addition to my not having finished reading it at the time of writing, it will take much more space and analysis to thoroughly appreciate the book. Having said that, the title of the book summarizes Rinpoche’s objective: fulfilling the vision of H.H. the Dalai Lama keeping in consideration all Tibetans. In his preface, Rinpoche says, “I firmly believe that I was destined to serve my people and His Holiness. When I look back over the past decades of my service, it is clear to me that each major change in my life was guided by some unseen force.” Indeed!

Me assisting Gyari Rinpoche as he prepares a Mandala set for a formal presentation to Dr. James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, in July 2010, part of the items that His Holiness the Dalai Lama had gifted to the Library of Congress.

Even from the pages that I have read so far, the book provides insight into how His Holiness’ vision was put into action. It has revelations of the different players with whom Rinpoche interacted and self-examination of developments and challenges with recommendations for the future.

In the post-1959 period Kasur Lodi Gyari is among those notable Tibetan leaders who have made a mark in shaping the direction of the Tibetan movement. Rinpoche’s fingerprints can be seen in the development of the Tibetan media, democratic governance system and also in public diplomacy. All of these are highlighted in the book.

Rinpoche’s greatest contribution is his role in the field of Tibetan diplomacy, and virtually two-thirds of the book are devoted to this topic. It was also because of this quality of Rinpoche that His Holiness the Dalai Lama assigned him to be the lead interlocutor in the dialogue process with China.

Rinpoche had a clear strategy and game plan. He redefined “dialogue” to the Tibetan people. Conventionally, people assumed that Tibetan-Chinese dialogue meant the actual act of Tibetan officials meetings with Chinese officials. However, Rinpoche asserted that dialogue did not merely mean the few days of actual talks that might take place with Chinese officials. Rather, it included the need to take into consideration the building of a necessary support base among governments and in the international community so that the talks could have the needed outcome. Rinpoche came up with a strategy to build a coalition of governments whose representatives met regularly to discuss with him in Washington, DC and elsewhere. To fulfill this, he regularly consulted with officials of different governments in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Similarly, he chose to reach out to think tanks and influential individuals, including Chinese intellectuals and Tibetan personalities inside Tibet, who could use their good offices to help with the dialogue process. Rinpoche thus brought a multifaceted approach to the process. I have had the privilege of accompanying him on many of these meetings. Each of these entities were a piece of a puzzle, the complete image of which was clear to Rinpoche.

Interestingly, there were times when Rinpoche even felt the need to ask the international community not to give up its hopes for forward movement in the Tibetan dialogue process. In a testimony to the then-House Committee on International Relations (now the House Foreign Affairs Committee) on March 7, 2002, some months before he was to lead the first round of talks, Rinpoche said: “Members of Congress acting in Committee and individually have taken significant initiative to reach out to the Chinese leadership to urge dialogue with His Holiness, respect for religious freedom, and on behalf of certain Tibetan political prisoners. I know that some congressional friends have been deeply frustrated in their efforts and have even questioned the utility of continuously raising Tibet with the Chinese when their words appear to fall on deaf ears. Yet, I must ask you today not to give up.”

He added, “For the people of Tibet, congressional resolve has given us hope that the possibility of a political solution has not been foreclosed. As long as people have hope, they refrain from desperate measures. Although Tibetans inside Tibet must live in a political and economic situation increasingly beyond their control and by every measure less and less Tibetan, they still cling to hope—hope that His Holiness the Dalai Lama will one day return and hope that they will be delivered from Chinese oppression.”

Rinpoche also provided an international dimension to the Tibetan issue, asserting that the international community is a stakeholder in its future. In a speech at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government on Oct. 8, 2008, Rinpoche expanded on this. He said, “But resolving the Tibetan issue is also important to the international community, particularly to our region. The historically volatile Central Asian region has revived and has already become an area of conflict. Here Tibet can play a stabilizing role, which is important to the countries in the region such as India, China, and Russia, as well as to the United States and other countries. Tibet, which for centuries played the vital role as a buffer in the region, can help create a more cohesive and stable region by serving as a valuable bridge. A number of political observers from the region also acknowledge that resolving the Tibet issue is an important factor in the normalization of India-China relations. Understanding the great mutual benefit for all concerned, His Holiness has consistently supported closer India-China relations.

“There is also increased awareness of the vital importance of the Tibetan plateau from the environmental perspective. Just on the issue of water alone, it is an undeniable fact that over the next few decades water may become as scarce a commodity as oil. Tibet is literally the life-source of the region, serving as the source of most of Asia’s major rivers. Therefore, protecting Tibet’s fragile environment should be accorded the highest priority.”

Rinpoche also did much to explain what the Tibetan issue was and what it was not so that the dialogue process was not confused. For example, when China was literally forcing governments to repeat adherence to the “one-China” principle at every opportunity, Rinpoche explained how this should not apply to the Tibetan situation. In an address to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, on April 23, 2012, Rinpoche explained it this way: “If one has to look for any reference point for China-Tibet relations, it is not the 1972 Shanghai communiqué, but the ‘17 Point Agreement,’ previously mentioned. In fact, the lack of relevance of the ‘one China’ policy is precisely what I would like to address. No Tibetan government has ever claimed to be the government of China, so the application of the ‘one-China’ policy to Tibet—or for that matter, the PRC government’s ‘one China’ principle that stresses the inalienability of both Taiwan and mainland China as parts of a single ‘China’—simply does not arise.”

Rinpoche’s diplomacy encompassed outreach to the Tibetan people as well. One of his constant lamentations, also mentioned in the book, is that we Tibetans fail to study our history properly and to learn from it. For example, concerning the Middle Way Approach, Rinpoche says this in the book’s preface: “Unless we fully understand the tumultuous and complex decades of our early years in exile, we cannot truly appreciate why His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama took the courageous decision to adopt the Middle Way Approach.” The book has a section totally devoted to this tumultuous period.

Nature of his assignment

In the final years of the 2002-2010 dialogue period, there were those who felt that the exercise had not achieved anything. By this, they meant that the issue remained unresolved even after nine rounds of talks. Rinpoche spoke out on many occasions about the nature of his assignment and how there might be differing public reaction no matter what the outcome was. This was because he knew that trying to talk to the Chinese leadership on the complicated issue of Tibet where there were several factors at play was a herculean task. Any outcome would be controversial.

However, this did not mean Rinpoche failed in his assignment. Rinpoche was clear in what he was tasked to do. On Sept. 28, 2002, after the first round of the talks with the Chinese officials, Rinpoche issued a statement in which he said, “The task that my colleague Envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen and I had on this trip was twofold. First, to re-establish direct contact with the leadership in Beijing and to create a conducive atmosphere enabling direct face-to-face meetings on a regular basis in future. Secondly, to explain His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Middle Way Approach towards resolving the issue of Tibet. Throughout the trip, we were guided by this objective.”

On May 10, 2007, in a speech at Asia Centre, a think tank based in Paris, Rinpoche outlined the status of the dialogue process until then, saying, “The five rounds of discussions that we have had with the Chinese leadership have brought our dialogue to a new level. Today, there is a deeper understanding of each other’s positions and the recognition of where the fundamental differences lie. On the surface it may appear that there have been no break-throughs and that a wide gap persists in our positions. But the very fact that the two sides have been able to explicitly state our positions after so many decades represents a significant development.”

Subsequently, he summed up the outcome after the dialogue process ended in 2010. On March 5, 2010, in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington, DC, Rinpoche said, “Through our talks, for the first time after decades of being in and out of contact, we have been able to convey to the Chinese leadership in an unambiguous manner the position of His Holiness and the steps that need to be taken to resolve the Tibetan problem. Our talks have certainly enabled us to understand better the Chinese government’s position and concerns regarding the future of Tibet.”

Even as Rinpoche was able to convey His Holiness’ position directly to the Chinese government, he clearly reiterated the fundamental issues in which there would be no change. In his “My Personal Words of Gratitude,” which he released at the time of his retirement on Dec. 31, 2014, he said, “My delegation made sincere and serious effort to convince the Chinese leaders of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s firm commitment to seek a solution for the future of Tibet without independence and within the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). We were also explicit and firm on three fundamentally important positions as directed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan leadership: 1) that whatever solution was worked out must address all the Tibetans and encompass all the areas inhabited by Tibetan people, 2) that while our commitment to seeking a solution within the PRC was genuine, we could not accept a falsified and distorted version of our history and, 3) that the issue confronting us was not about the title, the function or the future of His Holiness the Dalai Lama but that of the six million Tibetans and their place within the People’s Republic of China.”

Rinpoche also made use of the media to convey his messages as and when needed. In the course of his leading the dialogue process, I saw him strategically give interviews to specific news outlets (including having us organize Chinese-only media events) or write articles for a news outlet with a specific target audience in mind. Some months after the ninth round of talks that ended in January-February 2010, Rinpoche wrote an op-ed in the South China Morning Post on Sept. 12, 2010 in which he had a clear message to the Chinese government. Rinpoche wrote:

“The Chinese leadership needs to take responsibility and make a serious commitment to finding a real solution to the issue of Tibet. The urgency of that responsibility is all the more palpable because of the uniqueness of this current window of time. Never before has there been a Tibetan leader like His Holiness, who has so firmly and persistently pursued such a challenging and treacherous path to achieve visionary change for the Tibetan and Chinese peoples.”

Given his work here in Washington, DC, it was very encouraging that the United States Senate honored him with a resolution passed in September 2012, saying it commends his achievements in building “an international coalition of support for Tibet.”

In 2018, after his untimely demise, I ended a blog piece of mine about him with this: “Following his retirement and departure from Washington, D.C. ‘How is Lodi?’ was a constant refrain that I would hear from serving and retired officials here when I accosted them. Until now, I could respond by saying that he is spending his time writing his memoir as he sees that as something that he can put his retired life in a meaningful use in the service of the Tibetan people. Now Rinpoche is no more, but he will continue to be my inspiration.” Now, I can say that with this book, there is some sort of closure.

This year’s Tibet Lobby Day is reminder of our 1978 advocacy

October 24, 2022

Guest

By Tinley Nyandak. Tinley Nyandak is a Tibetan American who served in the Office of Tibet in New York and subsequently at the Voice of America in Washington, D.C.

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) scheduled September 22 and 23, 2022 as Tibet Lobby Day on Capitol Hill, requesting US Congressional members to support a new piece of legislation on Tibet: the “Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Act.”

I signed up for Lobby Day, and on September 22nd I got up early to take the bus to Washington, DC. This was the first time I’ve visited DC since the Covid-19 pandemic forced the closure of my office; I had been working from home until I retired two years ago.

When I got to the ICT there were a lot of people gathering for Lobby Day, in particular young Tibetans. We were put into groups of four or five, and in my group there were two young Tibetan ladies and one elderly American lady who came all the way from Montana, a trip which took her four days by train.

Tinley Nyandak (on extreme right in white shirt) and other participants of this year’s Tibet Lobby Day

We took a taxi and headed to the Hill to meet staff members of our members of Congress. The meetings were scheduled earlier by ICT,and I was so happy that the staff members on Capitol Hill really paid close attention to what we had to say, took notes, and asked questions. They promised that they would report our requests to their bosses, i.e., Representatives and Senators.

I was also very impressed by presentations made by my two fellow Tibetans: Lobsang Kyizom La from New York and Tenzin Dadon La from Utah. They were very well informed of the current situation in Tibet and their presentation skill was just convincing and fantastic. Of course, Liz McClain from Montana is a veteran lobbyist; she told us that she has been doing Tibet lobbying with ICT for the past four years. My heart-felt gratitude and thanks to Liz McClain for her tireless efforts on behalf of suffering Tibetans in Tibet.

This reminded me of another intense campaign we did on the Capitol Hill 44 years ago (Oh Gosh! I am old, even though I feel young at heart). At the time, there were only a few hundred Tibetans in the United States, and only a handful of them were US citizens.

At the time, I was working at the Office of Tibet in New York. One day Ngawang Phakchok, one of the Tibetans who came to US to do a lumber jack work up in the Maine in early 1960s, came to see me. He told me about his problem. He said that in August 1977, he applied for a US passport so that he can go to India to see his relatives whom he has not seen for many years. When he got the passport, the State Department put his birthplace as “China,” not Tibet.

So, he contacted the State Department, requesting for correction. William B. Wharton, chief of the legal division of the passport office, said in a letter, “Tibet is located in present day China, therefore, China will have to be listed as your place of birth.”

Phakchok was now faced with a dilemma: accept or refuse the passport. He chose the latter and had to postpone his India trip. Based on our conversation, I wrote an Op-Ed piece and sent it to the New York Times. To my pleasant surprise, on February 18, 1978, the New York Times published my piece under the title of “When a Tibetan’s Not Tibetan.”

Screenshot of the New York Times op-ed on February 18, 1978

The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and several other newspapers wrote editorials supporting the Tibetan case. Please bear in mind the power of the media; we Tibetans or Tibetan organizations must have constant contact with both print and electronic media so that when we have an event that needs coverage, we will have our friends right there. It is not easy to get coverage of our events by major media, but constant work will pay off eventually.

In 1978, we also came to the Capitol Hill seeking congressional support for our case. Eventually, the State Department agreed that Tibetan Americans can list their birthplace, city or the town they were born. So, if you were born in Lhasa, your birthplace will be Lhasa. In my US passport, my birthplace is Phenpo.

Similarly, Tibetans in Canada had asked the Canadian government that Tibet and not China be shown as their birthplace on Canadian passports.

In an era when we are too often reduced to categories anyway, the least our government can do is to give us the categories we choose.

Not victims, but partners!

October 19, 2022

Wangpo Tethong

As the world’s largest Communist party (CCP) is meeting in Beijing and the whole planet is puzzling over what will happen to China, many Tibetans such as I look to the future with great optimism.

For the first time in recent history, Tibetans are in a position to tell European governments that it is in their interest to close ranks with Tibetans, despite the ongoing gross human rights violations in Tibet.

The invasion of Ukraine and the COVID pandemic have made European capitals realize how vulnerable they are. European elites are finally developing an objective view of China and realize that this regime may pose a greater danger to European security than Russia: destabilization of the world order, excessive economic dependence on China, opacity in existential global affairs.

Over the past decades, Tibetans and their supporters have desperately appealed to Western governments not to be lulled into a false sense of security by the CCP’s narratives. The Tibetans, but also the people of Taiwan, Hong Kong and East Turkestan fought a lonely fight and warned that appeasement would never be rewarded.

The West allowed itself to be blinded by pro forma, non-binding and ineffective “human rights dialogues.” In the search for a quick profitable deal, governments accepted lies to be true, and engaged in a disgraceful game at the end of which they stood with their values plundered.

The Dalai Lama and the Tibetans could easily take on the role of the brave Chinese doctor, who shared the Chinese secret about the COVID genome. As for defending the free world, they have decoded the genome of the CCP a long time ago and know the danger of the regime in Beijing.

The best medicine to the corrosive effects of totalitarian regimes is truth and the promise of freedom. The Tibetan people with their leader have risen up and proposed a plan for a modern and democratic future in the heart of Asia. In 1963, a constitution for Tibet was presented and in 1987, the idea for a Zone of Peace. It was their answer to the totalitarian dystopias of a control state. They are aware that China may be able to control the present. But it is incapable of imprisoning the future.

Tibetans have successfully held out against one of the world’s most repressive regimes for 70 years. They are still open to dialogue and have not abandoned their fundamental principles. Therefore, do not see Tibetans as victims, but as partners for your own interests. There is no other group of people in Central Asia that has so clearly conceptualized the future as the Tibetans. It is time for governments to recognize and support this, for their own sake.

Reflections on Tibet Lobby Day 2022

October 17, 2022

Guest

2 Comments

By Lobsang Kyizom. Lobsang Kyizom is studying at New York University under the Tibetan Scholarship Program of the United States government. She currently interns with ICT.

As a Tibetan in exile, the number one challenge I face in advocating for Tibet is defending that what is happening in Tibet is indeed terrible and wrong. Wherever I go, I am required to defend my identity (that despite being born in Nepal, I am a Tibetan), my history (that China occupied Tibet and that’s how my parents ended up in exile), and my life goal (that reclaiming my ancestral homeland is justified). This is a common experience among those of us in exile.

Tibet lingers on the periphery if at all when it comes to “global” news. We have become used to our tribulations being overlooked and trivialized. This trend perhaps started with Tibet’s occupation when, despite the Tibetan government’s repeated appeals to the United Nations, no actions were taken. Except for some countries like El Salvador, the first to support Tibet’s case in the UN General Assembly in 1961, the consensus in the United Nations was that the Tibetan appeal shouldn’t detract focus from the Korean War, which dominated the debate at the time.^[1] A bigger blow had come earlier in 1954 from Tibet’s longtime neighboring friend, India, when it signed the Panchsheel Agreement with China, formally legitimizing the Chinese claim on Tibet to the world.

Dawa Norbu, author of “China’s Tibet Policy” among other books, interprets Han nationalism as a response to a complex politico-cultural crisis Confucian China underwent during the 19th century after its sour encounters with colonial powers leading to a realignment of its strategic focus from culture to military and politics.^[2] As part of this realignment, Tibet’s “priest-patron” relationship with China was politicized even before the end of the century to accomplish this new objective of an emboldened China. In this context, one could make sense of Mao’s 1939 manifesto that compounds the Tibetans as a minority nationality of the Han Nation. In the next century, after winning the civil war against the nationalists in 1949, Mao established the People’s Republic of China and declared that the People’s Liberation Army’s immediate military tasks would be to “liberate” Taiwan and Tibet.^[3]

A pervasive Sino-centric narrative and power politics muddle the subject of Tibet’s occupation today

We often hear world leaders condemn the human rights abuses in Tibet without ever acknowledging their root cause—Tibet’s colonial occupation. The international community has yielded to a Sino-centric narrative which is reinforced by a combination of Chinese state media, propaganda, censorship and state-sponsored “research.”

Therefore, the introduction of new legislation on Tibet titled the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Act in the US Congress this year is a huge milestone for Tibet. This legislation is a step toward righting the wrongs that the international community, including the United States, has committed by condoning the Chinese invasion of Tibet.

Why Tibetan Americans should recognize their political privilege and use it

For a group of people the majority of whom are still stateless refugees, Tibetans in exile have proven themselves to be a strong and resilient community under the leadership of the Dalai Lama, which has now dispersed around the world. One factor in this is the increasing voice of the Tibetan American community. A 2020 CTA population study^[4] estimates that there are over 27,000 Tibetans in the United States alone, the highest outside of South Asia.

Last month, over 100 Tibetans and Tibet supporters from across the United States participated in the annual Tibet Lobby Day in Washington in person after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. I was able to attend the event with the International Campaign for Tibet, which was a unique experience for me as an international student in the States. While there are Tibetans all over the world, Tibetans in the United States possess a special political privilege that affords them the opportunity to make a lasting impact on the future of Tibet. Since its inception in 2008, Tibet Lobby Day has become a powerful means for Tibetan Americans and Tibet supporters in the United States to advocate for the Tibetan cause and spur the movement forward.

It was empowering to see Tibetans of all ages and genders coming to speak up for Tibet and lobby for the new Resolve Tibet bill. I accompanied a group that included constituents from three different states: a high school senior from Utah, a retired VOA journalist from Virginia and a research scientist from Montana.

Our first appointment was with the office of Sen. Burgess Owens. On our way there, Dr. Liz McClain from our group (pictured second from left) slipped off the stairs of the Longworth House Office Building and broke her femur. In her eighties, she took a lone journey of three days on the train to come to Washington, DC to take part in her fourth Tibet Lobby Day. Despite her accident, she persisted and attended all the meetings for the day with us before taking off for urgent care. A big shoutout to Liz!

I got the opportunity to talk alongside the constituents to the staffers of the Senators and Representatives at their respective offices. Not only are they willing to listen to our stories, but they are also interested in what we have got to say about Tibet. I was surprised by the kind of attention and welcome gestures with which we were received at each office. The staffers carefully noted down things as we introduced the bill and talked about the current situation in Tibet. Despite being a non-citizen, I was able to speak about all that I knew that had been going on within occupied Tibet and urged the offices to support the Resolve Tibet bill.

The only qualm that I bear today as I write this blog is why this bill is not receiving the attention, appreciation and endorsement it deserves from within our own community. As His Holiness has turned 87 this year and as we receive bits and pieces of information about the kinds of atrocities that Tibetans inside Tibet are undergoing back home, it is not only critical but urgent to take action.

Tibetans in exile and particularly Tibetan Americans should understand the significance of the Resolve Tibet bill and do everything in our power to ensure that this crucial bill is passed in Congress next year.

Footnotes:
[1] Tsering Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of the Snows, 1st edition. (New York: Columbia University Press), 56.
[2] Dawa Norbu. China’s Tibet Policy, 1st edition. (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press), 91-92.
[3] Michael M. Sheng, 2006 “Mao, Tibet, and the Korean War,” Journal of Cold War Studies. 8, no 3 (2006): 15–33.
[4] Lobsang Choedon Samten and Tenzin Dolkar Sharngoe, 2020 “Baseline Study of the Tibetan Diaspora Community Outside South Asia” (Dharamshala: SARD): 44-45.