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
China’s supreme objective in a war across the Taiwan Strait is to incorporate Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic. It follows, therefore, that international recognition of Taiwan’s de jure independence is a consummation that China’s leaders devoutly wish to avoid. By the same token, an American strategy to deny China that objective would complicate Beijing’s calculus and deter large-scale hostilities. For decades, China has cautioned “independence means war.” The opposite is also true: “war means independence.” A comprehensive strategy of denial would guarantee an outcome of de jure independence for Taiwan in the event of Chinese invasion or
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) earlier this month said it is necessary for her to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and it would be a “huge boost” to the party’s local election results in November, but many KMT members have expressed different opinions, indicating a struggle between different groups in the party. Since Cheng was elected as party chairwoman in October last year, she has repeatedly expressed support for increased exchanges with China, saying that it would bring peace and prosperity to Taiwan, and that a meeting with Xi in Beijing takes priority over meeting
The political order of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) first took shape in 1988. Then-vice president Lee succeeded former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) after he passed, and served out the remainder of his term in office. In 1990, Lee was elected president by the National Assembly, and in 1996, he won Taiwan’s first direct presidential election. Those two, six and four-year terms were an era-defining 12-year presidential tenure. Throughout those years, Lee served as helmsman for Taiwan’s transition from martial law and authoritarianism to democracy. This period came to be known as the “quiet revolution,” leaving a legacy containing light
Gulf states did not ask the US to go to war with Iran, but many are now urging it not to stop short by leaving the Islamic Republic still able to threaten the Gulf’s oil lifeline and the economies that depend on it, three Gulf sources said. At the same time, these sources, and five Western and Arab diplomats said Washington was pressing Gulf states to join the US-Israeli war. According to three of them, US President Donald Trump wants to show regional backing for the campaign to bolster its international legitimacy as well as support at home. “There is a wide
RSS