Overseas trips by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) have taken center stage and consumed a lot of the media space, mainly because they visited nations on the extreme ends of the ideological spectrum. Tsai visitied the US, representing democracy, and Ma China, representing communism. Amid it all, Tibet and Taiwan hit a home run and secured victory for democracy against Beijing and communism.
On Monday last week, Norzin Dolma, the Tibetan government-in-exile’s minister of information and international relations, led a delegation to Taipei. Her week-long visit included several meetings with political figures, such as her Taiwanese counterpart, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮).
In the meeting with Wu, both parties engaged on how best to work together to curb the influence of Beijing in democratic nations around the world.
Tibetan Representative to Taiwan Kelsang Gyaltsen Bawa, who was part of the delegation, said that the group updated Taiwanese officials on the harsh and dire situation in occupied Tibet under communism, and what their official stance is on resolving the Tibet-China conflict.
The delegation also held intensive talks with legislators, including independent Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐), who chairs the Taiwanese Parliamentary Group for Tibet, and Democratic Progressive Party legislators Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) and Wang Ting-yu (王定宇), as well as Legislative Speaker You Si-kun.
The legislators told a news conference that they backed a joint effort with Tibet to counter Chinese aggression and supported the democratic Central Tibetan Administration, which is based in Dharamshala, India.
Groups that support Tibet welcomed the delegation, while its members engaged extensively with Taiwan Foundation for Democracy president Huang Yu-lin (黃玉霖).
The foundation is supportive of the Tibet office, while Huang has focused interest in supporting the government-in-exile’s undertakings, internationally and domestically.
In all meetings, the delegation raised issues about Tibet’s conflict with China and shared issues that Tibetans face in Taiwan, including visa issues, with the executive and legislative branches, as well as civic groups, expressing empathy.
Tashi Tsering, the president of the Tibetan Association Taiwan, who was also part of the delegation, in an interview with Voice of America said that “the leadership in Taiwan has changed its outlook on us Tibetans compared to before.”
The events of late last month and early this month showed that there is a clear ideological battle occurring, but one in which democracy holds the high ground.
The results of next year’s presidential and legislative elections will be a referendum on this.
Tenzing Dhamdul is a research associate at the New Delhi-based Foundation for Non-Violent Alternatives.
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