China Sought Media Curbs on Tibetan Outlets Ahead of BRICS Summit
By Tenzin Chokyi
DHARAMSALA, 3 Aug: Ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s expected visit to India for the BRICS Summit in September, the Chinese Embassy has reportedly urged Indian authorities to restrict media access for Tibetan and Falun Gong-linked news organisations, according to a report by ThePrint.
Senior Chinese Embassy officials are said to have raised concerns over media accreditation for news organisations associated with the Tibetan community and Falun Gong, particularly over the possibility that journalists from these outlets could question members of the Chinese delegation during the BRICS Leaders’ Summit, scheduled for 12–13 Sept. in New Delhi.
The Ministry of External Affairs began the media accreditation process for the summit last week. As host of this year’s BRICS Summit, the Indian government oversees media accreditation and access to designated media areas at the venue.
The request comes weeks after the self-immolation of Tibetan activist Pawo (Martyr) Lobga Rangzen outside the United Nations headquarters in New York on 2 July, an act that has prompted sustained protests, hunger strikes, and advocacy campaigns by Tibetans worldwide calling for greater international attention to Tibet. While no official connection has been made between those developments and the reported accreditation request, it comes at a time of heightened activism by Tibetan communities across the world.
India is home to one of the world’s largest Tibetan refugee communities, with several Tibetan media organisations, including Tibet Times, Tibet Express, Phayul, Voice of Tibet and Radio Free Asia’s Tibetan Service, operating from the country. ThePrint’s report did not identify any specific Tibetan media organisation as having been singled out.
If Xi attends the summit, it will mark his first visit to India since the informal summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Mamallapuram in 2019. Relations between the two countries deteriorated following the 2020 Galwan clashes before gradually improving after both sides reached a disengagement agreement along parts of the Line of Actual Control in 2024.
The BRICS Summit is expected to bring together leaders from the BRIC’s 11 member states and several partner countries, making it India’s largest multilateral summit since hosting the G20 Leaders’ Summit in 2023.
