Sixty members of Congress have penned a letter to Undersecretary of State for Civilian Democracy, Security and Human Rights, Uzra Zeya, who is about to be named Special Coordinator for Tibetan issues, urging the Biden administration to take a series of steps to advance Tibetan “autonomy” as an entity that is completely “apart” from the People’s Republic of China in religious, ethnic, and cultural terms and should really never be referred to as “a part of China.” (Tibet is referred to as Xizang in China.) Global Times appropriately lambastes this as a ploy of the U.S. and separatist forces who are “racking their brains in playing all cards with China’s Xinjiang and Xizang region in order to push for tougher policies against China.” It quotes Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University, who warns, don’t expect anything less from the “anti-China hawks” who inhabit the U.S. Congress in large numbers.
The rabidly anti-China, pro-separatist Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) in the Senate and Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Chris Smith (R-NJ) in the House were the initiators of the letter, which among other things, calls on the Biden administration to “engage the Dalai Lama” by inviting “His Holiness” to the White House, as past Presidents have done, to “discuss shared interests and strategies for addressing the world’s most pressing problems"—as if he were a head of state. If the Holy Man can’t come to the White House, Biden should try to meet with him in India, or send a high-level representative such as Kamala Harris to meet with him. (!) The letter urges resumption of Sino-Tibetan Dialogue, last held in 2010, and recommends that the U.S. and like-minded partners seek “novel strategies” to encourage forward motion in this regard. But, it adds, Beijing’s insistence that Tibet is part of China is an “obstacle” to dialogue. “Consistent with the State Department’s call for dialogue without preconditions,” the letter urges “the continued exclusion of this phrase [that Tibet is part of China] from future reports and statements.”
