Penpa Tsering, the political leader of Tibet's government in exile, was in Paris this week to raise awareness about the increased repression faced by Tibetans living in Chinese-controlled areas. He spoke to RFI about issues such as intense surveillance and the destruction of Tibetan cultural identity.
Penpa Tsering, the "Sikyong" (political leader) of the Central Tibet Administration, the Tibetan government in exile, based, based in Dharamsala, India. Picture taken in Paris, 1 December 2023. [RFI/Jan van der Made]
Jan van der Made
December 4, 2023
After the 1949 Communist takeover of China, Beijing tried to co-habit with Buddhist Tibetans, who lived in vast areas in China’s south west.
But the increasing presence of the Communist army triggered Tibetan protests that were met with a brutal Chinese crackdown, in 1959. Thousands of Tibetans were killed, monasteries destroyed, and Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, was forced into exile.
Currently, the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan government in exile, the Central Tibet Administration (CTA) reside in Dharamsala, India. The CTA is led by Sikyong ("political leader") Penpa Tsering, who was born in a refugee camp in India.
Penpa Tsering (56) is now touring the world, taking over some of the tasks of the Dalai Lama who turned 88 this year, including raising awareness of Chinese "colonial" policies with regards to the Tibetans living within Beijing-controlled areas.
Diaspora
His mission also involves keeping in touch with 130,000 strong Tibetan diaspora communities, 8,000 of whom live in France.
Before arriving in Paris, he visited the US, Latin America, Canada, Spain and Austria.
RFI: Can you begin by telling us more about the objective of your tour?
Penpa Tsering: Above all, there needs to be a lot more education about China and about what China is doing to other parts of the world.
Under [China's supreme leader] Xi Jinping, control, surveillance, and everything has increased from 2012-2013 onwards, with the activities of the United Front Work Department having become pervasive in the form of Confucius institutions, overseas police stations or espionage, as shown by the latest report by (Berlin-based think tank) Merics.
Xi Jinping's flagship program is the Belt and Road Initiative. It's not just investment in other countries but also political influence in these regions.
Just because you have freedom here, you cannot neglect freedom in other countries. Tomorrow [dictatorship] may knock on your door.
Strategy
"Most of the governments are only interested investment from China and business with China but they fail to realise the strategic approach of China.
I keep telling them I'm not here only to seek support for my people and for my country, but I'm also here to warn you. That if you don't understand China and its motivations, then it is your nation and your people who are going to suffer eventually.
These facts about what China is doing internally and domestically to the Chinese people themselves need to be known to the outside world.
RFI: France established ties with Beijing in 1964, 15 years ahead of the US and its much-heralded "opening to China". What do you expect from the French government and President Emmanuel Macron?
Penpa Tsering: The French government likes to have its own independent foreign policy, not necessarily toeing the line of United States. But there has to be more transatlantic cooperation when it comes to China.
The European Union also needs more uniform trade and foreign policy. Because you don't have that, China is doing exactly what the European colonials used to do against the colonies: divide and rule, carrot and stick, using one country against the other.
Over the last 10 years, Xi Jinping introduced the security law in Hong Kong. He was responsible for the concentration camps in Xinjiang. He was responsible for the colonial-style boarding schools in Tibet, where Tibetan children are separated from their families, from their culture, from their language, from their religion. The Chinese government's aim is to change every young Tibetan into Chinese, to avoid ethnic problems in the future.
Join Forces
Penpa Tsering: So, while the whole world is moving towards multiculturalism, China is the only country that's moving towards uniculturalism at the expense of every other culture.
But when you point that out to the Chinese government, they point fingers at the United States and say, how did they treat their native people? Or the Canadians with the First Nations, the Scandinavians with the Sami people, or the Australians with Aboriginals, New Zealanders with Maoris?
True, these countries have made mistakes. But they realise it and they are trying to make up for it. But China is consciously doing it to the Tibetans inside Tibet, destroying its very identity from language to religion.
I tell the Europeans: please don't look at us [Tibetans] only from the perspective of a victim of communism. If you want to bring about positive change in China, eventually you need both internal forces and external forces.
And we are the internal forces, Tibetans. Uyghurs, Mongols, Hongkongers, Taiwanese, including the pro-democracy movement inside China. They all will have to come together. Just because you have freedom here, you cannot neglect freedom in other countries. Tomorrow [dictatorship] may knock on your door.
RFI: The dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Beijing authorities has been brought back to a minimum since 2010. It's been reported that your government had some level of contact with the Chinese authorities. Is that true? And what is the subject and priority in this context?
Penpa Tsering: We don't even have [official] contacts. I do have a back channel, but that's unofficial. And I can't say more than that because there's nothing concrete to talk about. So the reason for the back channels is to re-establish contact.
RFI: How do you feel about the fact that the human rights situation of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang generates more global interest than the one in Tibet?
Penpa Tsering: There are differences in visibility, differences in people willing to come forward to give evidence and the focus and the scale and the diversity of what the Chinese government is doing.
So I tell my Uyghur friends, it's not a competition. As long as the perpetrator is the same, it reflects the same on the international community. The scale, and there may be variations and differences in policies because the situation is different. Tibet is very large, 2.5 million square kilometres and sparsely populated, whereas the population density in Xinjiang is higher.
China will have to change
RFI: The Dalai Lama is now in his late 80s. There's the reincarnation issue, where religious authorities find a child that is predestined to become his successor. The Chinese may move to find a child somewhere inside the areas they control, and turn him into a person who will toe the Communist party line, as they did with the Panchen Lama. What will be your policy?
Penpa Tsering: His Holiness is committed to live long. He keeps reassuring us that he will live for another two decades and more. So that's why I keep telling our Chinese friends, let us see whether the Dalai Lama outlives the Communist Party or the Communist Party outlives the Dalai Lama. Because China will have to change.
On reincarnation, this is a purely religious activity. His Holiness says that if the Chinese government is really serious about reincarnation, they should study Tibetan Buddhism first. They then should look for Mao Zedong's, then for Deng Xiaoping's reincarnation and then Jiang Zemin's reincarnation. And only then maybe the Dalai Lamas’ reincarnation.
RFI: Currently the CTA's Ministerial Cabinet, the Kashag, has you as Sikyong (political leader), and three "Kalon" (Ministers) who are all female. When do you think the Tibetan government will be ready to have a female as their president?
We are the only exiled government with all democratic structures. I believe in women's empowerment. Right now, I'm the only man in the cabinet. I have three other women ministers. So, any one of them or any other woman could get elected. It will depend on the public as to who they want to choose. I cannot foretell when we will have the next woman Sikyong.
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