President Sangay: India shares border with Tibet, not China, urges New Delhi to make Tibet core issue

DHARAMSALA, 3 March: Like China, India too should declare Tibet as its core issue, the President of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) Dr Lobsang Sangay has said.

“Tibet is the main issue in the Indo-China challenges. I have been saying this for many years, if you want to understand China, you must know Tibet. If you don’t understand Tibet, you will never understand China,” President Sangay said while addressing the local press in Guwahati on Tuesday.

President Sangay reiterated that historically, India shared its border with Tibet, not China.

“The 2500 km long border is between India and Tibet. Historically it was always with India and Tibet, never with China.”

He further stated that the border clashes between India and China and the latter intrusions on Indian territory came about as a result of India not taking up Tibet as its core issue.

Calling the reference to the border as Indo-China a “mistake”, he likened it to welcoming Chinese troops to the border.

“The day, or the year you stopped saying Indo-Tibet border, you have essentially allowed if not invited Chinese troops to the border,”  he added.

He further described the passage of the Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020 by the US, a landmark legislation that enshrined support for Tibet in US law over the matters of the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist leaders, Tibet’s environment, and the recognition of the CTA as the sole representative of the Tibetan people among others as an indication that the US has realized the importance of Tibet and urged India to follow the suit.

Exposing China’s expansionist drive, be it at Dokhlam, Galwan, south China and east China sea and the likes, he said that over the last six decades Tibetans have been warning the world about Beijing’s Middle Kingdom mentality and the five-finger strategy of Mao Zedong to no avail only for that the world to realise it now as it faces the consequences.

President Sangay remarked that it’s about time for everyone to acknowledge that by minimising or sidelining the issue of Tibet with an illusion of thinking that one has a solution or harmony with China is not a reality.

The political head of the Tibetan people who is at the tail end of his second term in office is currently on his farewell tour across  India’s northeast states thanked the Tibetan people for trusting him and the people of the northeastern states for hosting the Tibetan people.

“No government or country has done more for Tibetans than this great nation called Bharat,” he concluded.