US to oppose any Chinese meddling on the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation

DHARAMSALA, Dec 6: The US will oppose any move by China on picking the next Dalai Lama, a top official from the Trump administration has said.

The United States believes that the decision on picking the next Dalai Lama should be as per Tibet’s religious traditions and that it is not a role of the state, PTI reported quoting Laura Stone, the acting deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs from the US President Trump’s administration.

The top official from the Trump administration has made the remarks at a congressional hearing while responding to a question from Senator Cory Gardner who asked her what will be the US’ response If China proceeds and tries to impose a Dalai Lama?

The senator further said that the Congress would not recognise a Chinese imposition, the report noted while he made a case for the intensifying crackdown in the Tibet Autonomous Region as Beijing continues to refuse negotiations with the Central Tibetan Administration.

“Human rights defenders are routinely jailed, tortured, and otherwise deprived of liberty. A genuine freedom of speech and assembly are nonexistent. Corruption and abuse of power are rampant. The judicial system is a tool of the state and the party and not an impartial arbiter of legal disputes,” the Senator has said in the report.

Additionally, the acting deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs has asserted that though she wouldn’t want to prejudge exactly how this, a future scenario, would roll out but she would like to lay a marker it is  the clear position of the United States government and, that she thinks is widely supported within the American society, and that decision on the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama should be made by religious communities on their own without outside interference.

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