Exile govt trashes China’s white paper on Tibet

Naresh K Thakur, Hindustan Times | April 20, 2015

Dharamsala – Even as China’s state council, in a new white paper, lauds Tibet’s current “path of development” and denounces the spiritual leader the Dalai Lama as well as his “middle way approach”, the Tibetan government-in-exile terms the paper an attempt to whitewash the “tragic” reality on roof of the world.

The recently issued white paper on Tibet describes ‘middle way’ as a camouflaged approach by Dalai group to seize the reins of power and set up a “semi-independent political regime”, saying “the essence of a high degree of autonomy is to set up a state within state, free of any control from the central government”.

“White paper on Tibet clearly indicates the Chinese government’s nervousness over its grip on occupied Tibet,” said Tsering Wangchuk, press officer in the exile government’s department of information and international relations.

Actions of the 137 Tibetans, who set themselves ablaze, Wangchuk alleged, far clearly reflected the deepening anguish and resentment of the Tibetan people at the conditions in their homeland. Since the early 1990s, China has issued 13 white papers on Tibet- almost one in every second year.

“The white papers by nature are authoritative guides on complex issues that need to be resolved or commercially as sales and marketing documents,” said the Tibetan official.

For the Chinese government, he said, to issue 13 white papers means that it is having great difficulty in convincing potential customers to buy its arguments on Tibet.

“These white papers are a dozen too many, too unconvincing and too late to arrest the worsening conditions in Tibet,” Wangchuk alleged.

The exile government sees the latest white paper as a belated reaction on the part of Beijing to the renewed, ongoing campaign on the middle way approach, which aims at creating greater awareness of this policy within the international community.

“The Chinese government’s attempt to portray the middle way policy as an attempt by Tibetans to strike out for independence is deliberately misleading and is an indication of the government’s total failure to come up with better ideas,” Wangchuk alleged.

Slamming the China belittling the Dalai Lama in the paper by questioning his sincerity in dealing with China, the exile Tibetan official said the spiritual leader, who is admired around the world and revered by the Tibetan people, does not need any certificate on his motivation from the Chinese government.

“His holiness remains the unquestioned leader of the Tibetan people and also admired by Chinese people around the world,” he added.

In recent times, Wangchuk said various international organisations, including US State Department, human rights watchdogs and NGOs had pointed out political repression, economic marginalisation, social exclusion and cultural assimilation of the Tibetan people and environmental destruction in Tibet.

Even Chinese scientists talk about the worsening environmental degradation on the plateau of Tibet, also called Third Pole.

Also, the exile official said, media organisations had often stated that international media’s access to Tibet was worse than that of North Korea.

“Instead of issuing white papers on Tibet, China should open up Tibet to both international rights groups and media. Let them do the objective report on issue of Tibet and let the world be the judge,” the exile-government official stated.

 

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