TNC Declares Xi “Dictator,” Calls Out Five Tibetan NGOs for Dishonouring Tibetan Sacrifice
DHARAMSALA, 10 Sept: The Tibetan National Congress (TNC) has said Chinese President Xi Jinping is “not welcome,” condemning Tibetan groups that publicly welcomed him ahead of his expected visit to India and announcing a “Rangzen Walk” from UN Headquarters in New York to the White House in Washington, D.C., on 24 September to protest his arrival.
The statement came after the Central Tibet (U-Tsang) Regional Association, Dhotoe Regional Association, Dhomay Regional Association, the Central Tibetan Women’s Association and the GTPM for Middle Way Approach, in New Delhi on Tuesday urged renewed dialogue with Beijing and called Xi’s expected trip an opportunity to reopen talks on Tibet.
In its statement, TNC said it “condemns the decision by certain Tibetan NGOs to publicly welcome Chinese dictator Xi Jinping to India and address him with language of honour and deference while Tibet remains under brutal Chinese occupation.” It added that “to voluntarily honour and welcome Xi is not diplomacy but a deliberate political choice.”
Addressed to “His Excellency President Xi Jinping,” the groups said, “we welcome his visit and the continued strengthening of relations between the two great Asian nations.” The groups further declared that “through the Middle Way Approach, Tibetans do not seek independence for Tibet.”
TNC also said Beijing has intensified “its campaign to erase Tibetan identity through repression, surveillance, political detention, religious control, colonial boarding schools, and the criminalisation of peaceful dissent,” and called the proposed Ethnic Unity and Progress Law “China’s Genocide Law.”
Recalling “the recent sacrifice of our TNC NYNJ Chapter President, Pawo Lobga Rangzen,” whose final message called on Tibetans to continue the struggle for independence, the TNC declared the NGOs’ welcome to Xi “unacceptable.”
TNC said it will “publicly and unequivocally unwelcome” Xi through the “Rangzen Walk” from UN Headquarters in New York to the White House, adding: “We will not legitimise occupation, dignify those who enforce it, or remain silent while Beijing seeks to erase Tibet as a nation.”
The TNC traces its roots to the Rangzen Alliance, formed in 2001 at a gathering convened by Taktser Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama’s elder brother, who wanted to revive the independence movement after the exile leadership’s shift toward the Middle Way Approach. The Alliance evolved into a formal political party at a 2012 roundtable in New York, and the TNC was publicly launched in February 2013, with Jigme Ugen as its first president.
The TNC’s statement came after the five Dharamsala-based NGOs courted a spate of criticism and condemnation online.
A netizen commented on the development that “We are Tibetan. We are not the minority of China. I don’t agree and reject the notion that we are one of other minorities of China. How can you claim that? It is too much of a self destruction and great political loss for Tibet when people like these are elected. Little knowledge is a dangerous thing is proven yet here again.”
Cactustserma, a contemporary Tibetan political cartoonist and satirical artist, said this is “what selling your nation looks like.”
Another netizen quipped, “MP Dawa Tsering la is totally lost and confused! He talks as if Tibetans have already accepted Chinese rule in Tibet. I strongly oppose this and will unwelcome the Chinese dictator anywhere he goes.”
