The grim spectacle of young monks, nuns and lay people setting themselves on fire to protest conditions in their homeland is a stark reminder of the gloom and despair that now prevails on the Tibetan Plateau. These acts of self-immolation — at least 36 since March last year — have been staged to protest the increasingly heavy controls that China’s government in Beijing has imposed on Buddhist religious practices. At the end of last month, a self-immolation occurred for the first time in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, which may be a powerful portent of new turmoil in Tibet.
The self-immolations are a stark rebuke to the Chinese government’s claims that the lives of many in Tibet have been improving. These singular acts of desperation, irrespective of their motives, should be viewed in the wider context of ongoing religious and political problems in Tibet. Current official Chinese policies threaten the existence of the Tibetan language, culture, religion, heritage and environment.
Simmering tensions have been fueled largely by the lengthy “re-education” campaigns imposed on the Tibetans, who are forced to publicly renounce their spiritual leader and profess patriotism and loyalty to China. The escalating situation in the Aba/Ngaba region, a heavily Tibetan area in Sichuan Province where tensions have led to the imposition of unprecedented security measures, is particularly worrisome.
Aba has long had one of the densest concentrations of Buddhist monks and monasteries anywhere in the world. The security crackdown to stem protests there and the virtual sealing off of the Kirti Monastery in Ngaba, where the first of the current wave of self-immolations occurred, appears merely to have spread protest farther afield. Article 36 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China guarantees all citizens the right to freedom of religion; therefore, religious freedom in Tibet should be respected.
In April, a group of 12 Nobel Peace Prize laureates sent a letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) urging him to “respect the dignity of the Tibetan people” and open “meaningful dialogue” with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan leaders. The US Senate and the European Parliament have adopted resolutions expressing their frustration over Chinese policies. There should be no doubt that the rest of the world is well aware of the gross violation of the Tibetan people’s fundamental rights and dignity.
China has legitimate aspirations to be accepted as a responsible stakeholder in global affairs. The best way for its government to achieve this goal is to demonstrate that it can care for the needs of all of the people living in China, including Tibetans, in a responsible manner. The Chinese government should contemplate the merits of greater openness in Tibet and put a stop to intimidation and harassment, which merely breed further frustration and resentment.
The fate of people arbitrarily imprisoned due to their religious beliefs and participation in recent protests adds to the growing worries about stability in Tibet. To ensure greater transparency, the Chinese authorities should lift restrictions on visits by independent international media and human rights monitors to provide as accurate a picture of the situation on the ground as possible.
The international community ought to initiate an open and honest dialogue with China at all levels, urging it to guarantee freedom of religion to all of its citizens in accordance with its international obligations — and its own laws.
Andre Glucksmann is a philosopher and essayist. Karel Schwarzenberg is foreign minister of the Czech Republic. Desmond Tutu is archbishop emeritus of Cape Town and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Richard von Weizsacker is a former president of Germany. H.R.H. Prince El Hassan bin Talal is the chairman and founder of the Arab Thought Forum and the West Asia-North Africa Forum. Vartan Gregorian is the president of Carnegie Corporation of New York. Michael Novak is a former US ambassador to the UN Commission on Human Rights. All signatories are members of the Shared Concern Initiative.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
After 37 US lawmakers wrote to express concern over legislators’ stalling of critical budgets, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) pledged to make the Executive Yuan’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget a top priority for legislative review. On Tuesday, it was finally listed on the legislator’s plenary agenda for Friday next week. The special defense budget was proposed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration in November last year to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities against external threats from China. However, the legislature, dominated by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), repeatedly blocked its review. The
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said on Monday that it would be announcing its mayoral nominees for New Taipei City, Yilan County and Chiayi City on March 11, after which it would begin talks with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) to field joint opposition candidates. The KMT would likely support Deputy Taipei Mayor Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) as its candidate for New Taipei City. The TPP is fielding its chairman, Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), for New Taipei City mayor, after Huang had officially announced his candidacy in December last year. Speaking in a radio program, Huang was asked whether he would join Lee’s
RSS