Tibetans living in Taiwan yesterday confirmed WikiLeaks’ revelation that the number of Tibetans that escape from Tibet into India has fallen sharply in recent years because China is paying Nepal to arrest Tibetan refugees.
According to cables sent by an unnamed officer at the US embassy in New Delhi and made public on the WikiLeaks Web site on Sunday, the Chinese government “rewards [Nepali forces] by providing financial incentives to officers who hand over Tibetans attempting to exit China.”
“Beijing has asked Kathmandu to step up patrols ... and make it more difficult for Tibetans to enter Nepal,” the released cables say.
Regional Tibetan Youth -Congress-Taiwan president Tashi Tsering said that he was not surprised at all by the news in the leaked cables.
“This is actually not news, we’ve all heard stories of Tibetans being arrested by Nepali police and sent into Chinese hands,” Tashi told the Taipei Times via telephone. “The Chinese pay the Nepalese police to do so, they also put political pressure on the Nepali government.”
Tashi said that China is gaining more influence in Nepal because it provides a large amount of financial assistance to the Himalayan state.
Dawa Tsering, chairman of the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama — the de facto embassy of the exiled government in Taiwan — said that while arrests of Tibetan refugees by Nepali authorities have always happened, the number of such cases has increased dramatically since the Maoist government took office in 2008.
“Before, there were between 3,000 and 4,000 Tibetan refugees crossing the Himalayas into India through Nepal each year,” Dawa said. “However, since the Maoist party took office, the number has reduced to about 500 to 600 each year.”
He said that China is behind the dramatic decrease in the number of refugees.
“China has gained so much influence in Nepal that now Nepal is like a province of China,” Dawa said. “Many Tibetan refugees said that they saw officials from the Chinese embassy behind Nepalese police officers when they arrested Tibetan refugees.”
Dawa said that although the refugee reception centers set up by the Tibetan government in exile in Nepal are under UN jurisdiction, “the Nepalese police have nevertheless raided the reception centers several times to arrest specific Tibetan refugees wanted by the Chinese government and turn them into Chinese hands.”
SILICON VALLEY HUB: The office would showcase Taiwan’s strengths in semiconductors and artificial intelligence, and help Taiwanese start-ups connect with global opportunities Taiwan has established an office in Palo Alto, one of the principal cities of Silicon Valley in California, aimed at helping Taiwanese technology start-ups gain global visibility, the National Development Council said yesterday. The “Startup Island Taiwan Silicon Valley hub” at No. 299 California Avenue is focused on “supporting start-ups and innovators by providing professional consulting, co-working spaces, and community platforms,” the council said in a post on its Web site. The office is the second overseas start-up hub established by the council, after a similar site was set up in Tokyo in September last year. Representatives from Taiwanese start-ups, local businesses and
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
INDUSTRIAL CLUSTER: In Germany, the sector would be developed around Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s plant, and extend to Poland and the Czech Republic The Executive Yuan’s economic diplomacy task force has approved programs aimed at bolstering the nation’s chip diplomacy with Japan and European nations. The task force in its first meeting had its operational mechanism and organizational structure confirmed, with Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) the convener, and Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) and Minister Without Portfolio Ma Yung-cheng (馬永成) the deputy conveners. Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) would be the convener of the task force’s strategy group in charge of policy planning for economic diplomacy. The meeting was attended by the heads of the National Development Council, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the
RSS