FreeTibet – Tibet for Tibetans – Page 2 – Whole Dude

Whole Nexus – The complexity of international relations in Cold War Asia

Tibet Consciousness – The Complex Relations between Tibet, Taiwan and the United States

Tibet represents one-quarter of Red China’s landmass. Tibet is about 965, 000 square miles in area and it includes Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), and Tibetan territory found in Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces. Tibet is apparently three times larger than Texas (Area. 267, 338 square miles), the largest state in the coterminous United States. Tibet is by far the largest nation in Asia when compared to Red China’s regional neighbors like Taiwan (Area. 13, 885 square miles), Philippines (Area. 115, 830 square miles), Japan (Area. 142, 811 square miles), Malaysia (Area. 128, 430 square miles), Vietnam (Area. 125, 622 square miles), Indonesia (Area. 741, 096 square miles), and Brunei (Area. 2, 228 square miles). Taiwan has population of about 23, 434, 000 people and ranks No. 54 among 196 countries.

United States policy towards Tibet is flawed for it failed to take into account the size of Tibetan territory and its geopolitical importance to hold the Balance of Power in Asia. It is encouraging to note Taiwan’s support for Free Tibet. The resolution of Tibet-China Border dispute will help to resolve all other border disputes of China and its regional neighbors.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162 USA
Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

The Republic of China (ROC)

The term “Republic of China” (ROC) refers to the government that ruled mainland China from 1912 to 1949. This era, also known as the Republican Era, saw the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of a republic based on Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People. After a period of internal struggles including warlordism and a civil war between the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the ROC government retreated to Taiwan in 1949 following the Communist victory on the mainland.

Since then, the Republic of China has continued to exist on Taiwan and its surrounding islands (Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu), while the Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on mainland China. Both the ROC and the PRC claim to be the legitimate government of all of China.

***The resolution of Tibet-China Border dispute will help to resolve all other border disputes of China and its regional neighbors.***

THE DIPLOMAT

***It is encouraging to note Taiwan’s support for Free Tibet. The resolution of Tibet-China Border dispute will help to resolve all other border disputes of China and its regional neighbors.***

A pro-Tibet rally in Taipei
Image Credit: REUTERS/Pichi Chuang

TIBET, TAIWAN AND CHINA – A COMPLEX NEXUS

Recent developments in cross-strait relations raise interesting questions for Tibet’s leadership in exile.

By Tshering Chonzom Bhutia for The Diplomat
November 24, 2015

The historic meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou is relevant to the Tibet issue in many ways. In 1979, when the post-Mao Chinese leadership decided to “solve old problems,” Tibet and Taiwan were both on the list. After having reached out to the Dalai Lama through his brother in 1978, Beijing turned its attention to Taiwan. “A Message to Compatriots in Taiwan” was issued by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) on January 1, 1979 that sought to end the military confrontation across the straits and resolve the crisis through dialogue. This marked a shift in Beijing’s Taiwan policy from “military liberation of Taiwan” to “peaceful reunification of the motherland.”

Later, in September 1981, Beijing issued a “Nine Point Proposal” to Taiwan. It was enunciated by Ye Jianying, the then NPC Standing Committee chairman, which promised the island a “high degree of autonomy as a special administrative region,” retention of its armed forces, socio-economic system, way of life, and cultural and economic relations with foreign countries, and non-interference in its local affairs. Later, Deng suggested that this proposal could also be considered as “one country, two systems.” This was the first (p.23) time that such a concept was put forward. It was later formalized during the second session of the sixth NPC in 1984.

On July 28, 1981, about two months before the proposal to Taiwan, Beijing had issued a “Five Point Proposal to the Dalai Lama.” It basically echoed Chinese concerns in mid-1981 about how to achieve the return of the Dalai Lama and “his followers.” Since Beijing was not comfortable with the idea of having the Dalai Lama live in the Tibetan region (point four) – possibly fearing that his presence there might evoke nationalist sentiment – it was proposed that he return, but reside in Beijing. The Dalai Lama was promised that he would “enjoy the same political status and living conditions as he had before 1959,” while the returnees were promised better jobs and living conditions. This was nowhere close to what the Tibetans had in mind.
Even though the Dalai Lama had decided by the early 1970s that he would not seek independence/separation from China, the Five Point Proposal was not an acceptable proposition, for it sought to reduce the Tibet issue to that of the Dalai Lama.

Meanwhile, Taiwan too had rejected the Nine Point proposal put forward by Beijing. Interestingly, the Tibetan delegates during the talks in 1982 argued that if Taiwan was being offered such concessions, then the same or greater concessions should be granted to Tibet, given the fact that the Tibetans were different from the Chinese in race, culture, religion, customs, language, natural habitat, and history.

INCOMPARABLE

Tibet and Taiwan were incomparable for Beijing, which argued, “Tibet has already been liberated 33 years ago and decisions have already been made. Because Taiwan is not liberated that is the reason why we presented these nine-point offer. It is not the case for Tibet.” For that matter, without bringing up Taiwan, in its White Paper on Tibet in 2004, “Regional Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet,” Beijing rightly alleged that the Dalai Lama was seeking “one country, two systems…after the model of Hong Kong and Macao.” Such an “argument [was] totally untenable” according to China. A similar argument was made:

“The situation in Tibet is entirely different from that in Hong Kong and Macao. The Hong Kong and Macao issue was a product of imperialist aggression against China; it was an issue of China’s resumption of exercise of its sovereignty. Since ancient times Tibet has been an inseparable part of Chinese territory, where the Central Government has always exercised effective sovereign jurisdiction over the region. So the issue of resuming exercise of sovereignty does not exist.”

The differences in Beijing’s approach to the Tibetans on the one hand and to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan on the other, has not gone unnoticed among the Tibetan leadership. The Tibetan leader, Sikyong Lobsang Sangay, in an interview with the World Policy Institute in 2012 wondered whether Beijing’s discriminatory approach owed to the fact that the Tibetans are “racially different” from the Han Chinese?

TIBET – TAIWAN RELATIONS

Meanwhile, following a changing of the guard in Taiwanese leadership and politics starting from the early 1990s, Beijing’s two primary opponents, the Tibetans and the Taiwanese, began to coalesce. Prior to 1992, Tibet-Taiwan relations were almost non-existent, and what exchange existed was in fact quite contentious. One factor was the role played by Taiwan’s Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (MTAC), an agency set up under the Kuomintang (KMT) government to administer Republican China’s sovereignty over Tibet. The Tibetan government in exile always held that the MTAC had for a very long time been funding “conflicts and discords in the Tibetan community.” Since 1992, after relations began to normalize, the Dalai Lama has travelled three times to Taiwan, in March 1997, March 2001, and September 2009. The first trip was during the tenure of President Lee Teng-hui, the second was after the victory of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) under the leadership of President Chen Shui-bian, and the third was right after the KMT had been reelected to power under President Ma Ying-jeou. All visits evoked fierce condemnation from China.

The Dalai Lama’s visit to Taiwan in 1997 resulted in Beijing adding a third precondition to restarting the Sino-Tibetan talks: “As long as the Dalai Lama makes a public commitment that Tibet is an inalienable part of China and Taiwan is a province of China, then the door to dialogue and negotiation is open.” Beijing’s reformulation of the preconditions to include Taiwan was perhaps its response to the increasing closeness in Taiwan-Tibet relations. A symposium on “International Relations vs Tibetan Issue” organized jointly by the International Relations College of Peking University and China’s Tibet on September 10, 2000, dismissed the coming together of Tibetans and Taiwanese as meaningless, though it agreed that “it deserves our close attention” (China’s Tibet 2000).

But is this coalescing of Tibet-Taiwan forces meant to counter Beijing? At least the Dalai Lama’s strategic imperative for building a coalition with the Taiwanese seems to be limited in its scope and goals. Even though it may be considered as an attempt at building coalition, it did not necessarily mean that the Dalai Lama was contravening his position on dialogue with China through the middle way approach. For instance, in his March 10 statement in 1994, when the Tibetans had just begun stabilizing relations with Taiwan, the Dalai Lama had argued that better relations with the “Chinese living in free countries, especially in Taiwan” would help in explaining the Tibetan situation to them, which he hoped “will gradually percolate to China.”

A similar view was expressed in 1997, when he said that the Taiwan trip might serve “as a gesture of reconciliation.” An additional reason was “to stop the misdeeds of these people forthwith.” The Dalai Lama was referring to the secret agreement signed between the exile organization Chushi Gangdruk and Taiwan on March 31, 1994, without consulting the exile leadership. By the terms of the agreement, the Taiwanese are reported to have promised that once China is “unified under a free, democratic system” they would guarantee “rights of self-governance for Tibet” and recognize the Dalai Lama as “the political and religious leader of the Tibetan people.” The Tibetan leadership in exile were probably concerned because the agreement not only questioned the authority of the exile government to represent the Tibetans in exile, but also had the potential to give rise to a trend of separate agreements by groups with either the PRC or the ROC/Taiwan. The seriousness of the issue is evident in the fact that a referendum was held in exile on the matter.

According to a source in Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, the possibility of establishing bilateral diplomatic relations between Taipei and the Central Tibetan Administration was raised by the Taiwanese during the visit of the Dalai Lama to Taiwan in March 1997, but both sides decided to shelve the matter for fear that the PRC authorities would accuse them of “cooperating in activities to split the Chinese motherland.” The same source said that an invitation to the Dalai Lama to attend Chen Shui-bian’s inauguration in 2000 did not materialize because the Dalai Lama did not want to provoke Beijing.

These inhibitions were later cast aside somewhat as Taiwan set up the Taiwan-Tibet Exchange Foundation in January 2003, with a view to phasing out the Mongolian Tibetan Affairs Commission (MTAC). Though this foundation was touted as “a nongovernmental agency charged with handling relations with the Tibetan government-in-exile,” its launch was presided over by President Chen Shui-bian himself. The leader openly invited the “Tibetan government in exile to join Taiwan in defying China,” thus suggesting a DPP-led Taiwan’s interest in forming a coalition with the Tibetans. The Tibetan leadership in exile seems to have been wary, given that talks were ongoing with Beijing on an annual basis since 2002. The then Kalon Tripa Samdhong Rinpoche, for instance, distanced the Dharamsala establishment from the Taiwan-Tibet Exchange Foundation by commenting that it had no role in the founding of the foundation. Taiwan has also yet to do away with the MTAC, since the DPP lost power to the KMT in 2008. In fact, increasingly, the body has come under fire for focusing on relations with the Inner Mongolia and Tibetan regions in China, for its lack of engagement with the Tibetan exile government, and for “failing to provide any report on alleged Chinese human rights violations in Tibet.” This again is owing to Taiwan’s own political dynamics, as much of the aforementioned criticism of the MTAC has come from DPP legislators. Taiwan’s KMT leader Ma Ying-jeou has focused his attention on normalization of cross-strait economic relations under his policy of “Three Nos”: No unification, No independence and No use of force.

If the DPP is triumphant in the upcoming Taiwan elections, Taiwan’s ties with the Tibetan government in exile are bound to increase. The MTAC may be dissolved, as previously planned. Might Taiwan even consider making a formal statement on the status of Tibet? If so, it would be interesting to see Beijing’s response, and the implications for Sino-Tibetan relations. To recall, the Dalai Lama’s trip to Taiwan in 1997 coincided with the opening of informal channels of communication between the exiled Tibetan leadership and Beijing. The 2001 visit was followed by the opening of formal talks in 2002. By this logic, perhaps it is time for the Dalai Lama to make a fourth visit to Taiwan. Earlier in the year, that is in March 2015, a 12-member Taiwanese delegation met with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala and presented him with an invitation from “15 Taiwanese civic organizations,” to which the Dalai Lama readily gave consent. As we have seen though, the visits also led to the addition of Taiwan to the list of preconditions Beijing set for the restart of a Sino-Tibetan dialogue.

Historically, while Beijing’s outreach to the Tibetans preceded its formal outreach to Taiwan, contemporaneously, Sino-Tibetan talks have lagged far behind. The last round of formal meetings between the Dalai Lama’s representatives and Chinese leaders were held in 2010. How likely is a meeting between Xi Jinping and the Dalai Lama, similar to the one between Xi and Ma? Not very.

One problem is the proliferation over the past few years of the Chinese bureaucracy overseeing Tibet. For a long time, Beijing’s lack of insight into Tibet and the misrepresentation of the ground reality by local leaders were considered key reasons for the failure of Beijing’s Tibet policy. Increasingly, though, bureaucratization and the creation of groups with a vested interest in the status quo are seen as a major hurdle to any substantive talks. Still, many in the Dharamsala establishment seem optimistic that Xi will be able to overcome this hurdle and initiate a major breakthrough on Tibet in his second term when he has consolidated his position.

In late 1978, when Deng decided to get in touch with the Dalai Lama’s brother Gyalo Thondup to discuss the Tibet issue, he may have wanted to make Tibet an example of Chinese sincerity in resolving its outstanding issues. Certainly, the Tibetan delegates who went to Beijing for talks in 1982 were reported to have felt this way. Yang Jingren, the Chinese interlocutor to the talks, is reported to have conveyed to the Tibetan delegates China’s interest in solving the Tibetan problem as an important step to normalizing relations with India.

So, we see an interesting nexus of issues and imperatives that Beijing may be looking at, and, if not, then the Tibetans have been pushing China to consider the links. For example, the Dalai Lama in his March 10 statements of 1994 and 1996 suggested that successful negotiations on Tibet would positively influence sentiment in Hong Kong and Taiwan towards China. These statements were made at a time when the Sino-Tibetan talks had reached a stalemate and all communication had ceased between the two sides. When the announcement of the Xi-Ma meeting in Singapore was made, the Tibetan leadership in exile is likely to have assessed it positively and as an affirmation of their belief in Xi. As to whether that assessment is justified, only Xi can tell.

Tshering Chonzom Bhutia is an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, in Delhi, India.

**TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – TIBET, TAIWAN, AND UNITED STATES. TAIWAN FOR FREE TIBET. DALAI LAMA’S VISIT TO TAIWAN IN 2001.**

**Tibet Consciousness – Taiwan for Free Tibet. Dalai Lama praying for village destroyed by typhoon Morakot.**

**Tibet Consciousness – Taiwan For Tibet. Dalai Lama’s visit to Taiwan.**

**TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – TAIWAN FOR FREE TIBET. RALLY IN TAIPEI TO SHOW SUPPORT FOR FREE TIBET.**

**TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – TAIWAN FOR FREE TIBET. PRO-TIBET RALLY IN TAIPEI ON TIBETAN NATIONAL UPRISING DAY, MARCH 10, 2013.**

Whole Land – Occupied Tibet is No Man’s Land

Tibet Consciousness – Tibet Under Occupation is No Man’s Land

**TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – OCCUPIED TIBET – NO MAN’S LAND. NOTES FROM TSERING WANGMO DHOMPA.**

The loss of natural freedom in Occupied Tibet has alienated Tibetans from their own Land. Tibet is the natural home for Tibetans and they have a natural right to reclaim Tibet as their own.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162 USA
Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

NOTES FROM NO MAN’S LAND

By Shevlin Sebastian

Published: 02nd January 2016 10:00 PM

Tsering Wangmo Dhompa | Albin Mathew

In 1994, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa went from Kathmandu to Nangchen in East Tibet, to meet her aunt Parchen, as well as her cousins. Her aunt had recently been freed after being imprisoned for 20 years. Her husband had been a part of the resistance movement against the Chinese. He was killed and Parchen was jailed, for being his wife.

And very often, they would do physical labour. One day, the authorities made the prisoners dig a part of a hillside. As Parchen was doing so, she saw several dogs running around. And she thought, ‘‘How lucky the dogs were.’’

“It was a moving moment for me,” says Tsering, the first female Tibetan poet writing in English. “Parchen did not feel bitter. She would laugh and sometimes cry when she recounted her experiences.”

Later, when Tsering went to Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, she was taken aback by the presence of a large number of policemen and the near-total surveillance. “That feeling of always being watched is a terrifying experience,” she says.

In Lhasa, today, the Chinese outnumber the Tibetans. The younger Tibetans have no option, but to study at Chinese universities. “Unfortunately, they feel marginalised, because they are not treated as equals,” says Tsering, whose parents fled to India in 1959. “But such experiences have helped them to develop a sense of identity.”

Later, Tsering made three more trips to Tibet, the last being in 2009. Her sojourns laid the seeds for her well-received non-fiction book, A Home in Tibet (2013). “While growing up, I read books on Tibet, but they were by Westerners,” she says. “I wanted to read a book by a Tibetan who lived outside, but could also be on the inside. So I thought I would write such a book targeted towards young Tibetans in exile.”

Here is an extract which reflects the pain of exile: ‘‘The flowers in Tibet were always taller, more fragrant and vivid. My mother’s descriptions, imprecise but unchanging, from year to year, had led me to an inevitable acceptance that her past was unequalled by our present lives. She would tell me of the knee-deep fields of purple, red and white, that over time served to create an idea of her fatherland, as a riotous garden. ’’

Tsering had recently come to Kochi, at the invitation of the Kochi chapter of Friends of Tibet, to interact with literature students at the St. Albert’s and Union Christian colleges. She read a few of her poems, and gave them an idea of life in Tibet. “The students asked many questions, because it was so far outside their experience,” she says.

One experience which all of them did not have is to live without a country. “To be stateless is painful,” says Tsering. “Initially, when I wanted to travel to the US, I had to apply for an identity certificate.” This is not a passport, but is recognised internationally. However, an explanation has to be given to every immigration officer about it. In India, Tsering had a refugee card which is issued by the Central government.

But Tsering has no problems living in India. “I was treated very well,” she says. “In my school [Wynberg Allen school at Mussoorie], and college [Lady Shri Ram at Delhi], I have never experienced any discrimination. But the sense of not being at home is an inner feeling. This happens, regardless of where you live.”

Today, Tsering is a naturalised US citizen and lives in San Francisco. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Santa Cruz. And her subject is Tibetan nationalism and identity.
Tsering has published three books of poetry: Rules of the House, (a finalist for the 2003 Asian Literary Awards), My Rice Tastes Like the Lake, and In the Absent Everyday.

“In my poetry, I have always returned to the idea of place, memory and storytelling,” she says. “Stories help people, who are stateless, to experience a sense of place.”

Notes from No Man’s Land

**TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – OCCUPIED TIBET – NO MAN’S LAND. CRY OF THE SAINTS. A CALL FOR HELP.**

Whole Melt – Whole Plateau -Save Tibetan Plateau

Tibet Consciousness – Save Tibetan Plateau

To save Tibetan Plateau, we need to utterly defeat Red China’s Imperialism, a policy that seeks domination of world by exploiting raw materials, and natural resources and manipulation of global markets to flood nations with Made in China consumer goods.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162 USA
Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

UCANEWS.COM

November 27, 2015

FAITH, POLITICS AND WATER COLLIDE IN BID TO SAVE TIBETAN PLATEAU

Crucial water source needs protection, but politics could get in the way during Paris climate summit

TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS - SAVE TIBETAN PLATEAU. DEFEAT RED CHINA'S IMPERIALISM. — **TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – SAVE TIBETAN PLATEAU. DEFEAT RED CHINA’S IMPERIALISM.**

Ice melts from a glacier outside of Maduo, Qinghai province, on the Tibetan Plateau, known as the “roof of the world.” (Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP)

ucanews.com reporter, Beijing
China
November 27, 2015
When the Dalai Lama and state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences recently issued separate takes on environmental dangers facing the Tibetan Plateau, there was rare agreement.

The academy warned of dangerous rises in temperature above the world average on the “roof of the world,” while Tibet’s spiritual leader delivered an emotional warning that two-thirds of the region’s glaciers could disappear by 2050.

“The Tibetan Plateau needs to be protected, not just for Tibetans but for the environmental health and sustainability of the entire world,” said the Dalai Lama.
But his demands for a stake in the critical climate talks in Paris, which begin Nov. 30, enraged the Chinese government.

“The Dalai Lama clique” was angling for Tibetan independence with “sinister intentions,” state-run news site Tibet.cn said in an editorial on Nov. 23.

As Beijing officials, state-approved nongovernmental groups, representatives of Tibet’s exiled government and activists head to Paris, all sides claim to represent the best interests of this fragile Himalayan region. Can they finally strike a balance to curb alarming signs of environmental degradation?

THE THIRD POLE

Known as the “third pole” — the largest source of freshwater outside of the Arctic and the Antarctic — the Tibetan Plateau represents a water tower of glaciers, permafrost and freshwater lakes that trickle down to form among the mightiest rivers in the world. The Yellow River, the third-largest in Asia, originates here, so too India’s holy Ganges and the Brahmaputra, which join before emptying into the Bay of Bengal.

About 25 percent of the world’s population depend on rivers originating from the snow and ice on the Tibetan Plateau.

When Chinese officials arrive in Paris for the United Nations climate change conference, they will submit a report that points to worrying trends. Glaciers are melting at faster speeds than during the 1990s, and the number of fresh water lakes on the plateau has increased from 1,081 to 1,236 due to melting glaciers or permafrost — scientists don’t agree on this yet.
Meanwhile, natural disasters on the Tibetan Plateau are increasing in number. The cause: Temperatures here are rising more than the world average, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences report.

**TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – SAVE TIBETAN PLATEAU. DEFEAT RED CHINA’S IMPERIALISM TO SAVE MEKONG RIVER AND OTHERS.**

A boat travels across the Mekong River near Phnom Penh, Cambodia. About 25 percent of the world’s population depend on rivers originating from the snow and ice on the Tibetan Plateau. (Photo by Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP)

While the warnings are stark, it remains unclear whether Beijing is telling us the full picture. Chinese scientists have become increasingly willing to share their data on Tibet in recent years.

But there is still a sense that findings are being held back, said Walter Immerzeel, a hydrologist at Holland-based consultants FutureWater, who has worked on and around the Tibetan Plateau for more than a decade.

“The most critical, I think, is for hydrological data in particular of the large river systems like the Brahmaputra, which flows in Bangladesh,” he said. “There are geopolitical tensions between those countries and this is usually why hydrological data is restricted. So even though it’s there, it’s usually not accessible to the scientific community.”

Countries like Bangladesh have complained that Beijing essentially controls the levers to the floodgates that determine water flow downstream following the construction of hydropower dams on the Tibetan Plateau. Beijing argues they are vital for providing clean energy as the country moves away from coal.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences report to be presented in Paris will note government policies to combat climate change that “have received remarkable results,” according to the nationalistic tabloid Global Times.

In recent years, China has gone from zero to hero during global environmental meetings. Last September, China signed a landmark agreement with the United States targeting a one-fifth reduction in carbon dioxide emissions — currently the highest in the world — by 2030. Beijing has also been more proactive in punishing river and air polluters, at least in more developed eastern China, while dramatically increasing the use of renewable energy including solar, wind and hydropower.

But critics warn a drive to develop Tibet’s economy — while restricting access to this politically sensitive region — means that while polluting industries are being scaled back in the booming east, on the Tibetan plateau in the west they are expanding.

‘A GROWING CANCER’

In August last year, Greenpeace reported a huge illegal coal mine on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai province risked polluting the source of the Yellow River. Fourteen times the size of London, the Muli coalfield had “destroyed” alpine meadows connecting glaciers to the plateau.

“The Muli coalfield is a growing cancer on an otherwise intact alpine ecological system,” Greenpeace said.

China Kingho, the company operating the coal field, says on its website the local area had benefitted from its construction of a highway where once there was only a single road “which gives easy access to major traffics [sic].” The company did not respond to emailed questions.

Among the estimated 7.5 million-plus Tibetans who live on the plateau, the majority of whom are Buddhist, protests against mining and hydropower projects remain common.

In October 2013, a contaminated pond at a mine overflowed into nearby rivers in Tagong township on the eastern edge of the plateau, causing fish and livestock to die up to 30 kilometers away, London-based Tibet Watch reported in February.

“If you don’t stop doing this, one day we will die like the fish killed by contaminated water,” wrote one of many angry Tibetans on the microblogging site Weibo.
Locals dumped dead fish outside of government offices as they took their protest to county officials, who promised to raise the issue with higher authorities. But nothing was ever done, reported Tibet Watch.

While Chinese consider all protests in Tibet a challenge to Communist Party rule and therefore the unity of China, ordinary Tibetans see environmental damage as a blow against everything: livelihood, life and faith.

“The very nature of life on this planet is that of interdependence,” Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje, the third-most senior Tibetan spiritual leader, told ucanews.com. “Therefore if the environment suffers, we suffer as well.”

A decade after fleeing Tibet in 1999, Karmapa set up an association of monasteries in India, Nepal and Bhutan to set up environmental projects, including solar power and reforestation aimed at reversing climate change on the Tibetan Plateau.

Remaining cautiously optimistic about the crucial climate summit in Paris, he said there were growing signs environmental problems were being taken more seriously by many governments — without naming China.

“I sincerely pray that a global agreement emerges from the Paris negotiations and it serves the greater good rather than a handful of countries,” he said.

Next week in the French capital, China will be represented by an army of state officials as it engages in complex negotiations designed to thrash out a global cap on emissions. By contrast, the exiled Tibetan government’s delegation is made up of just one person, said Mandie Keown, a campaign coordinator for the International Tibet Network.

A team of campaigners in and around the meetings will meet with ministers while others generate discussion on social media, she said — the aim being to generate awareness of issues hushed up by Beijing, including hydropower.

“It’s obviously a battle doing that because China is seen as one of the main countries that is going to help alleviate climate change,” Keown told ucanews.com. “So it is a very difficult time to raise these serious issues. It’s such a closed off region.”

**TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – SAVE TIBETAN PLATEAU. DEFEAT RED CHINA’S IMPERIALISM. ILLEGAL COAL MINE SYMBOLIZES TIBET’S EXPLOITATION.**

**TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – SAVE TIBETAN PLATEAU. DEFEAT RED CHINA’S IMPERIALISM. MULI COALFIELD RUN BY THE KINGHO ENERGY GROUP, QINGHAI, TIBET.**

**TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – SAVE TIBETAN PLATEAU. DEFEAT RED CHINA’S IMPERIALISM. ILLEGAL COAL MINE IMPACTS YELLOW RIVER UPPER BASIN.**

**TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – SAVE TIBETAN PLATEAU. DEFEAT RED CHINA’S IMPERIALISM. SAVE YELLOW RIVER FROM IMPACTS BY CHINA’S ILLEGAL COAL MINING ACTIVITY.**

Whole Trip – The Revelation of True Tibetan Identity

My Dream Trip to Mount Everest gives testimony about True Tibetan Identity

The Supreme Ruler of Tibet cannot be chosen by any foreign government.

Whole Dude – Whole Trip: **The Living Tibetan Spirits Make a Dream Trip to Mount Everest.**

In my Dream Trip to Mount Everest or Qomolangma, the mighty mountain gives me testimony in support of true Tibetan Identity. Mount Everest proclaims that Tibet is never a part of China.

**Whole Dude – Whole Trip: Mount Everest or Qomolangma is my mighty witness testifying in support of true Tibetan Identity. Mount Everest proclaims that Tibet is never a part of China.**

As my miserable mortal life journey crawls towards its end without giving me any clue about my destination, I can only afford to make a dream trip to Mount Everest. I give my thanks to photographer Bruce Connolly and ChinaDaily.com.Cn for sharing with me the story about ‘A Road Trip Across Tibet to Mount Everest’.

A road trip across Tibet to Mount Everest

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201811/30/WS5c00a0e7a310eff30328c06b_1.html

Lhasa – the start of the road trip in 2000. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

In 2000, Lhasa was a different city in many ways, compared to what it is today. High on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, it was much more isolated back then. Its airport, a roughly 90-minute drive from downtown, was at that time the only one operating across all of Tibet. In earlier years, flying into Lhasa had been restricted to early morning flights from Chengdu in Sichuan. By 2000, however, it was well-served by modern, powerful jet aircraft capable of landings and takeoffs at high altitudes, able to cope with occasionally difficult afternoon weather conditions. In recent years several new airports have also opened across Tibet.

Despite the advances in aviation technology, flying into Tibet was expensive. Before the completion of the Tibet railway in 2006, roads were the only feasible option for most freight and passenger traffic. It amazed me during my time in Lhasa how so much that made my stay both pleasant and comfortable must surely have come up to the city by road. Two main highways served Lhasa at the time. From Golmud to Xining, Highway G109 was a long, lonely journey through an empty upland plateau. The other route, Highway G318, runs 5,476 kilometers from Shanghai’s People’s Square, via Sichuan and southeastern Tibet ultimately to Zhangmu, the border crossing with Nepal. I would leave Lhasa along G318 on a road trip initially to the base of Qomolangma, known in the West as Mount Everest.

I noticed several oxygen bags loaded into what was a comfortable but strong SUV. Lhasa was modern and well-planned, but outside the city, infrastructure such as road quality was quite variable. The physical terrain often proved very challenging for highway construction, even between Lhasa and Xigaze, Tibet’s second city. Geologically, much of the area is still active. Landslides remained a danger during the rainy season.

Initially, my departure from Lhasa along G318 followed the road that had brought me a few days earlier from the airport. Nearing the Yarlung Tsangpo Bridge, we turned right for Xigaze. Initially, the route followed a wide valley and the river braided into many channels, with sweeping views toward glacial mountain peaks and ridges. Villages sat near intensively cultivated, irrigated farmland. Then it started narrowing, with scenery becoming increasingly breathtaking. Settlements perched on any patches of level terrain available.

**Whole Dude – Whole Trip: The Living Tibetan Spirits Make a Dream Trip to Mount Everest. Yarlung Tsangpo River (Brahmaputra River).**

Highway 318 to Xigaze along Yarlung Tsangpo River. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

The road started along a ledge cut below almost vertical cliffs. High gullies were filled with long fingers of snow. Below the road, sheer drops reached the river that appeared to be cascading around huge rocks. Workers tirelessly cleared fallen boulders from roadside ditches. Flocks of sheep and goats also shared the road space, with drivers carefully edging past.

A wide section of Yarlung Tsangpo near Xigaze. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

Gradually the valley widened, and the river slowed, allowing flat-bottomed ferry boats to carry villagers across. Both road width and quality improved. Where bridges spanned river junctions, small restaurants and shops had opened, providing supplies for travelers. At intervals, pack horses gathered beside narrow trails leading to seemingly inaccessible villages.

Eventually, the valley really did widen and the waters calmed, becoming almost lake-like. A tugboat pulled a pontoon carrying vehicles across to the far shore. Some of the landscape appeared as a small sandy desert with protective trees planted along the highway. I noticed poles being erected to carry electricity to some villages while concrete-lined aqueducts helped irrigate reclaimed land for arable farming.

Rounding a bend, I saw a concentration of modern buildings, some even medium-rise. We arrived at Xigaze, at an altitude of 3,836 meters, the highest city I had ever reached. Since that 2000 road trip, travel to and from Xigaze has greatly improved. Not only has the road been upgraded but the railway has been extended from Lhasa and a modern airport opened. Partly in response to such infrastructure investments, tourism has grown significantly, not just to Xigaze but across much of Tibet.

I stayed at the Xigaze-Shandong Hotel, which then was the city’s tallest building. I discovered at that time a certain arrangement existed, where the more developed parts of China were paired up with areas of Tibet to assist in regional assistance programs such as infrastructure projects. Xigaze had relationships with Shanghai and Shandong, Lhasa with Beijing, and so on.

It was an unexpected joy to find excellent accommodation in what in theory was then a remote location. After a spicy Sichuan-style lunch in the hotel, I spent the afternoon visiting Tashi Lhunpo Monastery. Founded in 1447, it was the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama — Panchen meaning “great scholar”, the title bestowed on the abbots of Tashi Lhunpo.

**Whole Dude – Whole Trip: The Living Tibetan Spirits make a Dream Trip to Mount Everest. Paying respects to Lord Maitreya at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery.**

I was spellbound by the magnificence of the monastery as I walked through its halls illuminated by trays of butter lamps. One chapel was home to a 26-meter-high copper image of the Maitreya, or Buddha of the future. Around the walls were around 1,000 gold paintings of the Maitreya.

**Whole Dude – Whole Trip: The Living Tibetan Spirits Make a Dream Trip to Mount Everest. Tashi Lhunpo Monastery.**

Groups of monks at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery Xigaze. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn ]

Within an assembly hall dating from the 15th century, chanting monks sat on carpets while above them long thangka images and colored scarves hung from the ceiling.

**Whole Dude – Whole Trip: The Living Tibetan Spirits Make a Dream Trip to Mount Everest. The Official Seat of Panchen Lama at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery founded by the First Dalai Lama.**

A large throne in the middle was where the Panchen Lamas once sat.

A doorway within Tashi Lhunpo Monastery Xigaze. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

I wandered the alleys between prayer halls crowded by people chanting, prostrating themselves, walking clockwise along balconies or spinning personal prayer wheels. Some, along with young monks, scooped up chunks of butter from large bowls and smeared it into lamp bowls. The butter produced a distinctive aroma that seemed to permeate everywhere. Above the monastery’s perimeter wall, people quietly followed the Tashi Lhunpo Kora (pilgrimage).

That evening I tried writing in my diary but found it a challenge because I had experienced so much throughout the day. I did realize that this hotel would offer the last comfortable bed for the next few days, as there were no more cities ahead on this route, with only small trading towns and to look forward to.

Leaving Xigaze early next morning, I saw many people already walking around the monastery. The road was initially unpaved, passing many exposed multicolored rock formations that stood as a testament to the massive tectonic movements that had uplifted the area’s geology. The land became increasingly dry with small patches of cultivation, mostly barley and potatoes, where water could be sourced. Occasionally someone on horseback would tend herds of black-coated yaks.

Villages. Photo by Bruce Connolly/ChinaDaily.com.Cn

The road would climb up and over several passes usually crowned with prayer flags, such as the 4,500-meter-high Gyatso-La Pass and the 4,950 meter-high Yulang-La Pass.

Rough driving on G318 and a former fort above the road. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

The visibility was so clear, giving excellent views of distant peaks. At one point I saw the heavy walls of what had been a fort guarding a pass. Descending, lower areas would have limited cultivation, although I did observe groups of farmers scattering seed potatoes onto plowed soil. Ponies pulled wooden carts along the farmers.

**Whole Dude – Whole Trip: The Living Tibetan Spirits Make a Dream Trip to Mount Everest. Tso-La Pass, Shigatse, Tibet.**

Along G318 there also was a regular procession of blue trucks laden with goods, for this road was also the main lifeline to western Tibet.
Some 150 kilometers from Xigaze is Lhaze, a small county whose main street had many small restaurants with name boards in English such as “Chengdu Restaurant”, for it was where G318 to the Nepalese border splits from the highway to western Tibet. Apparently, travelers heading up toward Mount Everest maybe would stay one or two nights, for it was the last real town on the route.

**Whole Dude – Whole Trip: The Living Tibetan Spirits Make a Dream Trip to Mount Everest. Gyatso-La Pass, Shigatse, Tibet.**

The road climbed again up a narrow valley where herders would camp while tending their yaks. This led up to Gyatso-La Pass, at an altitude of 5,220 meters, one of the highest along the route.

**Whole Dude – Whole Trip: The Living Tibetan Spirits Make a Dream Trip to Mount Everest. Gyatso-La Pass.**

Stopping briefly, I thought it was amazing how people gathered around, yet there was no sign of any habitation.

Across the high, arctic, plateau lands. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

The landscape felt like arctic tundra vegetation, and beyond it, I could finally see the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas. However, clouds were building up over those peaks for the monsoon would soon push up from the Indian sub-continent. In this area, the road was not surfaced and it was a constant struggle for work crews to keep it open.

Highway 318 at Tingri. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

When we reached distance marker 5,115, a sign declared we were entering the Mount Everest Protection Area. Scattered trees indicated the approach toward a small village, Tingri, where the main road turned off to Shegar. Notices proclaiming “guesthouse” and restaurant adorned building exteriors signaled the area was used to visitors. I had lunch in a restaurant that amazingly had television, hi-fi, and a fridge! Boys tried to sell fossils dug up locally while people gathered for onward transport by truck or bus.

Incredible geological formations alongside road up to Pang-la Pass. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

Soon after the village was the 63-kilometer route leading up to Mount Everest. As we drove gradually higher, I was enthralled with the geology exposed everywhere, often showing bedding planes of the rocks tilted vertically.

**Whole Dude – Whole Trip: The Living Tibetan Spirits Make a Dream Trip to Mount Everest. Pang-La Pass.**

Pang-la Pass 5120 meters. Looking towards the Himalayan foothills. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

That gravel road gradually climbed up through a wide valley with an increasing sensation of being on the roof of the world as we reached the 5,120-meter-high summit of Pang-La Pass.

Whole Dude – Whole Trip: The Living Tibetan Spirits Make a Dream Trip to Mount Everest. Before reaching Rongphu the road crosses over Pang La Pass (5200m / 17062 ft) offering amazing views of Everest, Lhotse, Cho Oyo, Makalu and Shishapangma.

Beyond it lay one of the most spectacular views in the world. Along the horizon stood the glacial peaks of the Himalayas, with Mount Everest, or Qomolangma, at the center. It was so stunning I could easily have stayed there all day.

From the summit, the road descended through a moon-like landscape reaching a small agricultural village, Tashi Dzom. Notices again in English advertised accommodation and dining. Turning right into a broad valley, we encountered a river spreading over a wide terrain of gravel and stones, which was actually meltwater draining off the northern slopes of Mount Everest.

**Whole Dude – Whole Trip: The Living Tibetan Spirits Make a Dream Trip to Mount Everest. Glacial meltwater river from Mount Everest.**

Glacial meltwater river from Mount Everest. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

Jeeps carrying tourists descended as we headed higher, passing Chodzom, possibly the world’s highest village, again offering a hotel built in a local Tibetan style. The route went up through boulder fields, the descending river now milky white as it carried so much gravel and crushed stones.

Rongphu Monastery at 5030 meters. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

At an altitude of 5,030 meters sat Rongphu Monastery, the last inhabited building before the base of Mount Everest. I would stay there overnight, but first, the last section of the road had to be skillfully accomplished.

Whole Dude – Whole Trek: The Living Tibetan Spirits Make a Dream Trip to Mount Everest. Rongphu Monastery and Everest Base Camp. It’s a beautiful location with an imposing view of Everest just up the Rongbuk Valley. It’s a beautiful location with an imposing view of Everest just up the Rongbuk Valley.

The going was extremely rough, bumping over many rocks and glacial debris while driving through streams. Great mounds of stones and silt had been carried down and deposited by the Rongphu Glacier.

End of the road to Everest. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

Reaching the road’s end, I found myself lacking the energy to manage anything beyond a slow walk up a gravelly hill. There was no vegetation on this stark landscape, but it was very inspiring. My only disappointment was that Everest was wrapped in clouds. It was windy and felt very cold.

I returned to the guesthouse for a simple meal of egg fried rice and pot noodles, and went to bed, trying to sleep, an almost impossible task. This proved fortuitous.

**Whole Dude – Whole Trip: The Living Tibetan Spirits Make a Dream Trip to Mount Everest. Dawn over Mount Everest.**

Dawn over Mount Everest – thirty minutes later it clouded over. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

As dawn was breaking I went outside for a glimpse of the grandeur of Mount Everest exposed before me. I sat on a rock trying to take it all in, the world’s highest peak. At last, I had arrived at this breathtaking vista, which I had seen so many times in books from years back. Within 30 minutes the clouds once again enveloped it!

I enjoyed a simple breakfast, and then weathered a bumpy descent as villages such as Chodzom were waking up. I watched people heading out to the fields, some by horseback, and children going to school.

Prayer flags on high passes along the highway. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

Back over the Pang-La Pass, with its many prayer flags, it felt like time for a memorable look back toward Mount Everest, sadly almost obscured by clouds. Soon we returned back to the G318, stopping for lunch at Tingri before arriving in Xigaze once again. I had accomplished an incredible journey, thanks in part to the amazing skills of my Tibetan driver.

Amazing colors of the land alongside the highway. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

Villages along the road to Everest. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

Villages and a mill where there was water. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

Whole Quest – Tibet declares its own Full Independence

Tibet Awareness – Tibet’s Quest to Declare Full Independence

***“The Great Game” of rivalry between the empires of Czarist Russia and Queen Victoria’s Great Britain to control Asia changed the fortunes of Tibet forever.***

The Great Fifth Dalai Lama founded the ‘Ganden Phodrang’ Government of Tibet in 1642. The successive Dalai Lamas have headed Tibetan State for nearly four centuries without any disruption despite Mongol conquest of Tibet in 1279. During the reign of Seventh Dalai Lama (1708-57), Tibet came under nominal protection of Ch’ing or Manchu Dynasty (1644 – 1912) that ruled China while Tibetans enjoyed their natural freedom and independence. At no time in history, the Chinese Emperor required Tibet to pay taxes or tribute. Qing, Ch’ing, or Manchu China made no attempt to directly rule or govern Tibet. Manchu China’s influence in Tibet was almost nonexistent. “The Great Game” of rivalry between the empires of Czarist Russia and Queen Victoria’s Great Britain to control Asia changed the fortunes of Tibet forever.

TIBET AWARENESS - TIBET'S QUEST FOR FULL INDEPENDENCE. THE INSTITUTION OF DALAI LAMA, GANDEN PHODRANG GOVERNMENT OF TIBET BEGAN IN 1642. — ***“The Great Game” of rivalry between the empires of Czarist Russia and Queen Victoria’s Great Britain to control Asia changed the fortunes of Tibet forever.***

During the reign of Thirteenth Dalai Lama, who ascended the throne at Potala Palace in 1895, Tibet repeatedly rebuffed overtures from Great Britain who at first saw Tibet as a trade route to Manchu China and later as countenancing Czarist Russian advances that might endanger British India. Eventually, in 1903, after failure to get Manchu China to control Tibet, Great Britain dispatched a political mission to Lhasa from British India to secure understanding on frontier and trade relations. When Tibet resisted, Great Britain sent a military expedition in 1904 forcing the Dalai Lama to seek shelter in Mongolia in June 1904. The British Expedition in 1905 imposed a treaty that made Tibet a protectorate of Britain without Chinese adherence. After declaring Tibet as her Protectorate, Great Britain lost interest in keeping that commitment, went ahead and achieved a treaty with Qing China without Tibetan participation. In this treaty of 1906, Great Britain conceded to Qing China’s suzerainty over Tibet as Britain was only interested in blocking Czarist Russia’s expansion of power from Central Asia. In 1906, the 13th Dalai Lama returned to Kumbun monastery in southern Tibet and stayed there for over a year. Qing China in an attempt to control Tibet dispatched a military force that launched a brutal attack on Kham killing several Tibetans including monks. In his quest for Tibetan Independence, the 13th Dalai Lama visited Peking during September 1908 to initiate direct diplomatic efforts with Qing Court and other foreign missions in Peking. However, the 13th Dalai Lama could not find any success in Peking, returned to Lhasa at the end of 1909. This success in keeping Britain away from Tibet emboldened Qing China to seek direct control of Tibet by using force against the Tibetans for the first time in 10 centuries. Soon after the 13th Dalai Lama’s arrival in Lhasa, in early 1910, Chinese General Zhao Erfeng marched into Tibet. Great Britain was unwilling to take any role in the dispute between China and Tibet. He had narrowly escaped getting captured by the Chinese and fled to India reaching there on February 21, 1910. The British allowed him to live in Darjeeling, and Kalimpong. The situation in Lhasa changed suddenly in 1911, when the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing Dynasty and established the Republic of China. Taking advantage of the fall of Qing China, the 13th Dalai Lama directed operations from Sikkim defeating the Chinese occupying force in 1912. Tibet expelled all Chinese nationals including diplomats living in Lhasa. He returned to Lhasa in January 1913 and made public the “five-point” statement fully asserting Tibet’s Independence on February 13, 1913.

That dying burst of military aggression by the Qing or Manchu Dynasty converted Tibetan indifference into enmity. From 1913, Tibet functioned as an independent government and defended its frontier against China in occasional fighting as late as 1931. The Great 13th Dalai Lama died on December 17, 1933 while Tibet existed as a fully independent nation. In 1949, Red China, the Evil Empire founded by China’s Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, heralded “Liberation” of Tibet. In 1950, Red Army invaded eastern Tibet, overwhelming the poorly equipped Tibetan troops. An appeal by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama to the United Nations was denied as support from Republic of India, and Great Britain was not forthcoming. A Tibetan delegation summoned to Peking in 1951 had to sign a treaty dictated by the Communist conquerors. Red China, a Liar, a Jackal, used deception, and trickery while she promised to guarantee Tibetan autonomy in exchange for keeping her civil and military headquarters at Lhasa. This story of enmity between Tibet and China that began with Manchu China’s military invasion of Tibet in 1910 continues to survive and majority of Tibetans seek full independence and not a meaningful autonomy to which the 14th Dalai Lama has agreed to find a ‘Middle Way’ to placate Red China. As Doomsayer of Doom Dooma, I predict the downfall of Red China and announce Tibet’s destiny to regain full Independence.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162, USA
Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

THE 13th DALAI LAMA’S DIPLOMATIC PARLEYS IN PEKING IN 1908

August 19, 2015 11:54 pm

The Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thupten Gyatso

This article appeared in the March-April 2015 edition of Tibetan Review.

Matteo Miele* examines the diplomatic activities of the 13th Dalai Lama in Beijing during his escape there in the aftermath of the British invasion of Tibet in 1903-04, which explains why he made the 1912 declaration of Tibet’s independence: that whereas Tibet viewed itself as an independent country forced to remain subservient to the wishes of its powerful neighbour, China not only considered Tibet a part of its empire but also looked to fully integrate it in ways unprecedented in history and which the communist Chinese eventually carried out in 1959.

The western diplomats

The thirteenth Dalai Lama Thubten Gyatsho (Thub-bstan-rgya-mtsho) arrived in Peking on September 28, 1908[1]. He reached the city by train, at two in the afternoon, greeted by representatives of the Wai-wu pu[2], Li-fan yüan[3] and of the imperial family[4].
Among the conditions for the audience that the Emperor Kuang-hsü and the Empress Dowager Tz’u-hsi would have granted the Dalai Lama there was the k’ou-tou[5], or the act of prostration before the emperor. The reason for the different treatment given to the thirteenth Dalai Lama, in comparison to the one of the visit in the seventeenth century by the Great Fifth, was the intervention of Chang Yin-t’ang who had advised the government on the procedure to follow with the spiritual leader of the Gelug-pa[6]. Thubten Gyatsho had made no secret of his opposition to such a gesture, which would have been therefore replaced by a simple kneel[7]. The successor of Thubten Gyatsho, the fourteenth and current Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatsho (Bstan-’dzin-rgya-mtsho), gave a purely religious interpretation to that genuflection: Tibetans considered the emperor as the body of manifestation of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī (tib. ’Jam-dpal-dbyangs) and therefore Thubten Gyatsho knelt to the sprul-sku and not to the political leader of the Empire[8]. The audience, originally scheduled for October 6, also because of ceremonial matters, was then fixed for October 14, 1908[9].
While in Peking, Thubten Gyatsho had the opportunity to have direct or indirect contacts with several Western representatives: an envoy had gone to the British, Russian, German, American and French legations and Ministers of Washington and Paris had a private audience with the Dalai Lama. This created a certain discomfort with the Government of China[10]. For this reason, on October 8, 1908, the Wai-wu pu informed the Doyen of Diplomatic Body the days and times at which the foreign delegates could meet with the Dalai Lama, and only after they have been received and presented by a Chinese officer[11]. Just two days before, on October 6, the Dalai Lama met with William Woodville Rockhill, the US ambassador[12]. At the meeting there were no Chinese, and the American diplomat found Thubten Gyatsho “in a much less happy frame of mind than when I had seen him last; he was evidently irritable, preoccupied, and uncommunicative”[13]. A couple of weeks later, Dorjiev, who was in Peking with the Dalai Lama, shared the latter’s worries with Rockhill: Thubten Gyatsho saw his temporal power over Tibet threatened: after less than two centuries of substantial autonomy within the Manchu imperial system, Ch’ing Dynasty was rethinking the political and administrative status of Tibet[14]. The country, to be divided into administrative districts «as in China proper», would have been then hit by a series of reforms, to regulate the military, the infrastructures, monetary system, education and agriculture[15].

The US ambassador, however, although he was a connoisseur of historical and cultural issues of Asia, could not avoid comparing the Ch’ing Empire with a federal state and about this he wrote to President :
If these were really the reforms contemplated, I could not see what objections the Dalai Lama could have to them. Furthermore, military questions, relations with foreign States, educational questions (in some countries) were all Imperial matters which could not be left to the various States to deal with independently[16].
The Dalai Lama was concerned about a marginalization of Dge-lugs school and asked to continue to exercise the right to submit memorials to the emperor, after consultation with the Amban in Lhasa, without being obliged to go through the Viceroy of Ssu-ch’uan and the Li-fan yüan, a right that had been denied to him during his stay in Peking by the Li-fan yüan itself[17].

Before any meeting with the Dalai Lama, the British Ambassador to China Sir John Jordan consulted with his Russian counterpart Korostovetz, agreeing on a «purely ceremonial visit», to be made after the audience of the Dalai Lama to the court, and in any case informing the Wai-wu pu[18]
The problem was the political nature that the Dalai Lama seemed intent on giving to these contacts with Western diplomats. In fact, the envoy of the Dalai Lama had spoken to Korostovetz about the contrariety of Thubten Gyatsho about the k’ou-tou and reiterated the claims on the temporal power of Tibet[19].
Shortly after, the meetings with the Russians and the British were held[20]. The visit of Jordan took place on October 20, 1908[21]. After passing the entrance, controlled by two Tibetan soldiers with Russian rifles, the English delegates found themselves in front of the thirteenth Dalai Lama who «was seated cross-legged on yellow satin cushions placed on an altar-like table about 4 feet high, which stood in a recess or alcove»[22]. To his left, five seats for the delegation, to his right, the abbot of Drepung (’Bras-spungs) and the Tibetan-Chinese interpreter, a lama from the bordering area with Ssu-ch’uan[23]. The only Chinese in the room was a young interpreter of the Wai-wu pu, translating into English the Chinese and vice versa[24]. It was a very formal meeting, which lasted about eight minutes[25]. The Dalai Lama expressed his desire to erase the conflicts of the past, wishing a happy new course in relations between Tibet and the Raj and Jordan agreed to his request of handing his message of friendship to Edward VII[26].

The meeting with the Prince of Sikkim

On 25 November 1908, the Dalai Lama also met with Sidkeong Tulku Namgyel (Srid-skyong-sprul-sku-rnam-rgyal), Prince of Sikkim («Maharaj Kumar»)[27]. The young man had arrived at the Yellow Temple[28] around two in the afternoon, and stayed with the Dalai Lama for over two hours[29]. The two talked about their experiences abroad, the Prince in England and Europe, while the Dalai Lama of his travels after the escape from Lhasa and during which he had the opportunity to learn the Mongolian and Chinese languages[30]. In particular, during his stay in Mongolia, the Dalai Lama had been able to meet the Buddhist Mongols and receive affection and respect from them and hoped «to strengthen this influence and to extend it still further over other Buddhist countries in course of time»[31]. The Dalai Lama did not have a good impression of the Jetsun Dampa (Rje-btsun dam-pa)[32]. With regard to the relations with China, the Sikkimese Prince became aware that Thubten Gyatsho had little sympathy towards the Empire, with which he had to continue a forced coexistence[33]. At the same time the Dalai Lama had shown himself well-disposed towards the British and the Raj[34]. In this regard he was interested in the visit of the Panchen Lama in India and the very good hospitality that he had received from the British authorities[35]. Furthermore the Dalai Lama «said that he had been told that the English were the most honest amongst all the nations, and was that so? The Kumar replied in the affirmative, and added that they were the most powerful as well»[36]. The Dalai Lama had the intention, after his return to the Potala, to send some Tibetan students to the Raj to study medicine and other scientific subjects[37]. Another topic of conversation was the project to return the control to the Buddhists of the shrine of Bodh Gaya (at the time controlled by the Hindus), the place where Siddhārtha attained enlightenment[38]. The Dalai Lama would have participated actively in the project, at the request of the Prince, as «joint President» (together with the Panchen Lama) of the company that had to bring the issue forward and of which the Prince would have been the vice-president[39].

Going back to Lhasa

On November 14, 1908, the Emperor Kuang-hsü died, probably poisoned on the orders of Tz’u-hsi[40]. The Empress Dowager died the following day. The Celestial Empire was in the hands of a two-year old child, P’u-i. The thirteenth Dalai Lama left Peking on the morning of December 21, 1908[41]. He headed towards the monastery of Kumbum (Sku-’bum byams-pa gling), in Amdo (A-mdo), waiting “until he receives an Imperial letter, when he will be free to proceed to Lhassa”[42]. While the Dalai Lama was travelling, Sir Jordan received in
Peking, on January 4, 1909, a letter from the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Sir Edward Grey informing him of the response of a grateful Edward VII to the Dalai Lama[43]. Of course, at the time, it was not possible to deliver the message directly to Thubten Gyatsho and Jordan was not enthusiastic of the idea to go through the Wai-wu pu[44]. The alternative, suggested by Jordan, was to inform him through the Government of India on his arrival in Lhasa[45].

However, within the ceremonial dimension, the new friendship between the head of Tibet and the British was now clear. The meetings with foreign diplomats and the audience at court were the prelude to a radical reversal of the geopolitical map in which Tibet was inserted. Those that between 1903 and 1904 had invaded the Land of Snows would become, in early 1910, the new protectors of the Dalai Lama, again fleeing from Lhasa, but this time running away from a Manchu imperial power that will show its most cruel face in its last months of life.

* Matteo Miele (Frosinone, 1984) holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences, Program in Geopolitics from the University of Pisa,
where he is a Cultore della materia at the Department of Political Sciences. Between August, 2011 and July, 2012 he was a lecturer at the Sherubtse College, Royal University of Bhutan.

[1] The National Archives, Kew (TNA), Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey, September 30, 1908, FO 535/11, No. 112, p. 96.
[2] Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
[3] The ministry responsible for outer territories; in Manchu language: Tulergi golo be dasara jurgan. Rowe, William T., China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Ma, 2009, p. 39.
[4] TNA, Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey, September 30, 1908, FO 535/11, No. 112, p. 96.
[5] TNA, Rules for the Reception of the Dalai Lama sent from the Grand Council to the Board of Dependencies, the Board of the Interior, and the Comptrollers of the Imperial Household, Inclosure in No. 112 (Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey, September 30, 1908), FO 535/11, pp. 97-98.
[6] Ya Han-chang, Ta lai la ma chuan, Jen min ch’u pan she: Hsin hua shu tien fa hsing, Pei-ching, 1984, p. 215.
[7] TNA, Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey, October 12, 1908, No. 114, FO 535/11, p. 99.
[8] Laird, Thomas, The Story of Tibet. Conversations with the Dalai Lama, Grove Press, New York, 2006, p. 232.
[9] TNA, Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey, October 12, 1908, No. 114, FO 535/11, p. 100. The visit and its political and religious meanings were analysed with particular attention in Jagou, Fabienne, The Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s Visit to Beijing in 1908: In Search of a New Kind of Chaplain-Donor Relationship, in Kapstein, Matthew T. (ed.), Buddhism Between Tibet and China, Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2009, pp. 349-378.
[10] TNA, Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey, October 12, 1908, FO 535/11, No. 114, pp. 98-99.
[11] Ivi, p. 99; TNA, Wai-wu Pu to Doyen of Diplomatic Body, October 8, 1908, FO 535/11, Inclosure in No. 114, p. 99.
[12] TNA, Mr. Rockhill to President Roosevelt, November 8, 1908, Inclosure 1 in No. 3, FO 535/12, p. 3.
[13] Ibidem.
[14] Ivi, pp. 3-4.
[15] Ibidem.
[16] Ibidem.
[17] Ibidem; TNA, Draft of Paragraphs which the Dalai Lama wished to include in his Memorial to the Empress-Dowager thanking for honours conferred, but which the Li-fan Pu refused to allow him to do. (Given to Mr. Rockhill by one of the Dalai Lama’s Khampos in Chinese, November 5, 1908.), FO 535/12, Inclosure 3, in No. 3, pp. 6-7.
[18] TNA, Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey, October 12, 1908, FO 535/11, No. 114, pp. 98-99.
[19] Ivi, p. 99.
[20] TNA, Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey, October 25, 1908, FO 535/11, No. 117, p. 101.
[21] Ibidem.
[22] TNA, Memorandum by Mr. Mayers, FO 535/11, Inclosure in No. 117 (Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey, October 25, 1908), pp. 102.
[23] Ivi, pp.102-103.
[24] Ivi, p. 103.
[25] Ibidem.
[26] Ibidem.
[27] TNA, Memorandum of an interview between the Dalai Lama and the Maharaj Kumar of Sikkim held at the Yellow Temple Peking on November 25th 1908 (signed by W.A. O’Connor, Major), FO 800/244, pp. 260-262. Sidkeong Tulku was born in 1879, the second son of the ninth Choegyal of Sikkim Thutob Namgyal (Mthu-stobs-rnam-rgyal). Ascending to the throne in 1914, he would die the same year, succeeded by his younger brother Tashi Namgyel (Bkra-shis-rnam-rgyal). Chos dbang gting skyes dgon pa byang mkhan po chos dbang, Sbas yul ’bras mo ljongs kyi chos srid dang ’brel ba’i rgyal rabs lo rgyus bden don kun gsal me long, Rnam rgyal bod kyi shes rig nyams zhib khang, Gangtok, 2003, TBRC Resource ID: W00EGS1016728, p. 273 and p. 280.
[28] Chinese: Huang-ssu.
[29] TNA, Memorandum of an interview between the Dalai Lama and the Maharaj Kumar of Sikkim held at the Yellow Temple Peking on November 25th 1908 (signed by W.A. O’Connor, Major), FO 800/244, p. 260.
[30] Ivi, p. 260 and p. 262.
[31] Ivi, p. 260.
[32] Ivi, p. 262. Indeed, the popular devotion of the Mongols had fuelled some jealousy on the part of the Jetsun Dampa and the latter had subjected the Dalai Lama to several provocations forcing him to move to another monastery. Zhwa sgab pa dbang phyug bde ldan, Bod kyi srid don rgyal rabs, Vol. II, T. Tsepal Taikhang, Kalimpong, W.B., 1976, TBRC Resource ID: W28263, pp. 135-136.
[33] TNA, Memorandum of an interview between the Dalai Lama and the Maharaj Kumar of Sikkim held at the Yellow Temple Peking on November 25th 1908 (signed by W.A. O’Connor, Major), FO 800/244, p. 261.
[34] Ibidem.
[35] Ibidem.
[36] Ibidem.
[37] Ibidem.
[38] Ivi, p. 262.
[39] Ibidem.
[40] Crossley, Pamela Kyle, The wobbling pivot, China since 1800: an interpretive history, Wiley-Blackwell, New York, 2010, p. 141.
[41] TNA, Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey, December 21, 1908, FO 535/11, No. 119, p. 104.
[42] Ibidem.
[43] TNA, Sir Edward Grey to Sir J. Jordan, January 4, 1909, FO 535/12, No. 1, p. 1.
[44] TNA, Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey, January 6, 1909, FO 535/12, No. 2, p. 1.
[45] Ibidem.

Whole Exploitation – The Exploitation of Tibetan Underground Aquifers

Tibet Awareness – Tibet’s Ecological Disaster

Red China’s malicious destruction, degradation, and exploitation of Tibet must be stopped to save billions of people living in Southeast Asia from consequences of Tibet’s ecological disaster.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162, USA
Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

ANI NEWS
50 Years of Chinese rule has pushed Tibet into ecological disaster , AniNews.in

Beta Aug 29 2015, 8:04 pm

50 Years of Chinese rule has pushed Tibet ecological disaster

Aug 29, 8:00 am

Hong Kong, Aug.29 (ANI): The establishment of People’s Republic of China in 1949 led to efforts to greatly expand agricultural production in China. The ensuing proliferation of irrigation wells sped ahead of the natural rate of replenishment of aquifers that were their source.
As a result, regions of China, particularly the arid north, have accumulated a considerable water deficit. This deficit has been further worsened by industrialization and the pollution of groundwater tables.
Considering that the Tibetan Plateau is home to some of the world’s most extensive underground aquifers, China’s interest in the exploitation of these resources is obvious. Since the completion of the Golmud-Lhasa Railway in 2006, many such projects have been planned.
A Wilson Center report points out that China’s South-North Water Diversion Project has a ‘Western Route’ planned that will tap three tributaries of the Yangtze on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. While the route has received extensive criticism from Chinese and foreign academics alike, the line remains planned. The project is “definitely not meant to develop Tibet”, according to Tibetan natural resources expert Tashi Tsering, as it takes water from rivers dependent on glaciers that are receding, and will hurt the availability of water in Tibet itself.
In 2014, the Tibet Autonomous Region produced 300,000 tons of bottled water, including the premium brand Tibet Spring 5100 which, as per the Wall Street Journal, has overtaken Evian and Perrier as the most coveted premium water seller in China.
Lobsang Gyaltsen, Chairman of the region, has disingenuously claimed that Beijing wished to “strike a balance between economic development and environmental protection” in the development of the bottled water industry.
As if this was not enough, several concessions have also been offered to water manufacturers in the region, with authorities hoping to raise bottled water output to five million tons by 2017.
Concerns have been raised by academics as to the impact on environmental protection.
Canadian water activist Maude Barlow says that “The bottled water industry is one of the most polluting industries on earth, and one of the least regulated.”
An article in the Vermont Law School journal reveals that the industry in China has “antiquated and lax regulations”, and highlights the energy intensive nature of bottled water production.
Considering that the mega dam projects are routinely being pushed through without adequate environmental impact assessments, it is not a stretch to assume that bottling plants may be getting past with even more lax controls.
Known as the world’s Third Pole, the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau feed the Salween, Mekong, Yangtze, Yellow River, Indus, Ganges and the Brahmaputra. Collectively, these rivers directly sustain 1.3 billion people. Relentless pollution by the expanding footprints of Chinese industry has led to climatic change and to average temperatures on the plateau rising thrice the global speed.
Even according to Chinese scientists, 95 percent of these glaciers are now receding. The retreat and melting of these glaciers will first lead to massive flooding along each river, and then rapidly lead to chronic and devastating water shortages for billions.
While the development of several hydroelectric power plants in the area is lowering reliance on thermal energy, concerns have arisen over the magnitude of the new construction – and its effect on the paths of the great rivers.
Many countries downstream have already protested such development. For Tibetans, more dam construction will lead to a reduced rate of flow of the rivers that sustain them, making subsistence farming unpredictable for those dependent upon it.
A 2003 report on “Ecological Improvement and Environmental Protection in Tibet” published by the Chinese authorities, mentions that Tibet before 1950 was “in a state of passive adaptation to natural conditions and one-way exploitation of natural resources”.
The Chinese are being disingenuous at best, and malicious at worst, by ignoring the sustainable agriculture practices that existed among nomadic Tibetans.
Historically, Tibetan Drogpas have been the protectors of the great Tibetan grasslands. Development policy expert Gabriel Lafitte says that: ‘nomadic knowledge of how, when and where to graze, and the nomadic willingness to live in portable woven yak hair tents, summer and winter, with their animals, kept the pasture free of invasive toxic weeds, erosion, shrub invasion, and infestations of pests’.
Under the commune system, starting in 1958, Chinese authorities moved the herders into small communes and stripped them of their possessions. They were forced to adhere to quotas of production, leading to greatly expanded herd sizes.
Ignoring nomadic advice as backward and irrational, the authorities pressed forward until the late 1970s, when the communes collapsed, with depleted grasslands and unsustainably large herds.
Land reform in the 1990s offered a glimpse of hope in that it gave nomads long-term leases over pastures, encouraging the same traditional modes of care.
However, other policies gradually encroached on the mobility of the nomads, and limits on family and herd size were made compulsory.
These concurrent policies failed spectacularly due to a lack of understanding on part of the authorities, who promptly scape goateed the nomads, pushing through the Restore Grasslands Policy in 2003.
This nullified the traditional biodiversity conservation skills of the nomadic people. Nomads were forcefully resettled into villages.
The overuse of the 1950s continues to affect the ecological situation today, which is now being worsened by mining, agriculture and road construction in the region.
Indeed, the resettlement of nomads has also led to negative consequences. Research has shown that a certain sustainable amount of grazing is better for the grasslands than leaving them completely open as was done after 2003.
The actions of the authorities in the region have exposed the once-vibrant grasslands to desertification, further damaging the ecology of Tibet.
Chinese practices in Tibet can be seen at best as damaging, and at worst as actively exploitative.
The massive water transfer projects will lead to the diversion of important riverine resources; the bottled water industry is essentially unregulated.
Mining projects continue unchecked, with foreign firms invited to participate in the plundering of Tibet.
Dam construction threatens local ecosystems and the flow of rivers that sustain billions of people – and is done without environmental impact assessments.
The forced resettlement of nomadic tribes has led to the degradation of grasslands and the encroachment of deserts into once-living areas.
All of these threaten the people of Asia, dependent upon Tibet as a water source.
More acutely, however, they represent the Chinese attitude to Tibet and Tibetans as a people. The lack of respect for native customs is indicative of the disdain with which Tibet is treated; the eager seizure of natural resources shows a lack of willingness to understand Tibet itself.
Indeed, the manner in which China is administering Tibet in regards to ecological issues is similar to the way European powers once exploited their colonies for their natural bounties. It would be wise now to remember that those colonies were, and continue to be, ravaged by the damage perpetrated on their environment and their cultures.
So, the 50th anniversary of Tibet Autonomous Region on September 1 will be an occasion of pride and self-congratulation for Beijing, but for Tibet, only another opportunity to count what it has lost and might never regain – the autonomy of its ecology, of its culture, and its way of life.
The trade-off is scary, but who in Beijing is listening? (ANI)

50 Years, Chinese Rule, Tibet, Ecological Disaster

Aug 29, 7:20 pm

TIBET AWARENESS - TIBET'S ECOLOGICAL DISASTER: TIBET SPRING 5100 BOTTLED WATER IS JUST ONE SYMPTOM OF RED CHINA'S EXPLOITATIVE PRACTICES IN OCCUPIED TIBET. — ***Red China’s malicious destruction, degradation, and exploitation of Tibet must be stopped to save billions of people living in Southeast Asia from consequences of Tibet’s ecological disaster.***

Whole Downfall – Red China on a Slippery Slope

Tibet Awareness – Communist China on a Slippery Slope

TIBET AWARENESS - RED CHINA ON A SLIPPERY SLOPE : RED CHINA TRIED EVERY TRICK AND NOW HAS NO CHANCE TO SAVE HERSELF FROM DOWNFALL. — By adamantly refusing to consider the generous proposal called ‘Middle Way” offered by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Red China placed herself on a slippery slope and no one can save the Evil Red Empire from downfall.

By adamantly refusing to consider the generous proposal called ‘Middle Way” offered by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Red China placed herself on a slippery slope and no one can save the Evil Red Empire from downfall.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162, USA
Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

September 12, 2015

After 50 years in Tibet, China sees no ‘middle way’

Beijing’s Tibet policies point to legacy of distrust of religious groups

Thousands of people gather in front of the iconic Potala Palace in the regional capital Lhasa on September 8, 2015, for an event billed as marking 50 years since the founding of the administrative area of Tibet. China on September 8 stressed Communist party control over Tibet, with a senior official denouncing the Dalai Lama at a giant ceremony condemned by rights groups. AFP PHOTO CHINA OUT

Thousands of people gather in front of Lhasa’s Potala Palace on Sept. 8 for an event billed as marking 50 years since the founding of the administrative area of Tibet. (Photo by AFP)

ucanews.com reporters, Beijing and Hong Kong

September 11, 2015

Late on Aug. 27, frantic villagers tried to extinguish flames engulfing 55-year-old mother Tashi Kyi. By 3 a.m., on Aug. 28, she was dead.
Tashi self-immolated after authorities bulldozed houses that failed to provide the right paperwork in a small Tibetan village in China’s Sangchu County.

Ten other Tibetans in Sangchu have self-immolated over the past three years, including Tashi’s 18-year-old nephew, Sangay Tashi. In 2012, Sangay called for the return of Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, before setting himself ablaze.

“His self-immolation was also an act of protest against the actions and brutalities of the Chinese government,” Sangay’s brother, Jamyang Jinpa, wrote in a letter published online in early September.

Tibet has been both the testing ground and the blueprint for Beijing’s strategies for dealing with religious minorities in other parts of the country — from Muslim Uighurs, to its long-running campaign against Christianity. And as China marks 50 years of governance in Tibet this week, Beijing continues to ignore complaints over its heavy-handed rule.

On Sept. 8, Beijing staged a huge set-piece anniversary event outside Lhasa’s Potala Palace — the former residence of the Dalai Lama. As part of the event, a 65-member government delegation warned of an even tougher stance against Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader.

“Tibet has entered a new stage of sustained stability after people of all ethnic groups together fought against separatism, successfully foiling attempts by the 14th Dalai Lama group and international hostile forces,” Politburo member Yu Zhengsheng said in a speech at the ceremony where he dished out gifts, including electric blenders for making Tibetan yak butter tea. All week, the Communist Party has presented a positive, unified message on Tibet.

Yu spoke of guaranteeing religious freedom. A new government white paper issued on Sept. 6 offered assurances that the Tibetan people would have the right “to participate equally in the management of state affairs”.

State broadcaster CCTV screened a documentary juxtaposing Tibetan children studying in modern classrooms with the region’s pristine, snow-capped landscape.

And a new museum exhibition, opened in Lhasa on Sept. 7, which displayed photos of development projects and one key economic statistic from Beijing: gross domestic product multiplied almost 300 times in Tibet since the Communist Party took over in 1965. GDP was valued at 92 billion yuan (US$14.4 billion) last year.

Muslim Uighur men walk toward a mosque in Kashgar, in China’s western Xinjiang region. China’s strategy for dealing with Tibetans is reflected in its treatment of other religious groups, including Muslims and Christians. (Photo by Greg Baker/AFP)

Opaque development

Beijing has long justified its heavy-handed development in Tibet as a program that has raised living standards. But separating fact from fiction in Tibet has been difficult. Access to Tibet is restricted — foreigners require special permits to travel to the area and are required to stay in groups, as in North Korea. And foreigners are not allowed in at all during March, the anniversary of one of many Tibetan uprisings under Communist Party rule.

After 50 years of Chinese rule, it’s still “impossible” for outsiders to gain independent access to Tibet, said Michael Buckley, one of just a handful of overseas journalists to spend extended periods there.

“[You are] still blocked off from contact with Tibetans unless you have an interpreter and it’s highly risky for Tibetans to be interviewed,” he said.

Buckley’s book, “Meltdown in Tibet,” published in December 2014, paints a damning picture of the impact of China’s development on the fragile environment, contradicting Beijing’s upbeat narrative.

While party officials speak of the schools built-in Tibet, Buckley counters that China spent more on the railway line to Lhasa completed in 2006 than on the entire health care and education budgets since invading Tibet in 1950.

“The railway is now expanding east and west of Lhasa,” said Buckley. “These railways enable large numbers of Chinese migrant workers to come into Tibet, and enable large-scale exploitation of Tibet’s resources economically.”

Finding out whether the slew of hydropower dams and copper, iron and lead mines built in Tibet in recent years have benefited normal Tibetans is, again, challenging. Tibet Mineral Development Company and China Gold International Resources Corp — both of which operate mines in Tibet — did not respond to emailed questions.

Similarly, campaign groups have complained that the more than one dozen Canadian mining companies operating in Tibetan areas have failed to give feedback on how their operations contribute to the livelihoods of Tibetans.

Often, only when tragedies occur has it has been possible to pin down how many ethnic Tibetans work on the big infrastructure projects that dominate Beijing’s GDP figures for the region. Of 83 miners killed in a huge landslide in March 2013 at a site operated by a state-owned company, just two were ethnic Tibetans. The rest were Han Chinese. Anecdotal evidence suggests infrastructure projects in the world’s highest region have devastated the environment, as noted in Buckley’s book. But again, few independent studies exist separating China’s impacts from the effects of global pollution.

Changing landscape

A Chinese priest who declined to be named for security reasons said the negative impacts on Tibet’s environment were evident on repeat visits in recent decades.
“When I visited a Tibet county above 5,000 feet [1,500 meters] two years ago, it had changed so much. The snow on the mountain had melted and the water level had dropped,” the priest said.

Like many visitors to Tibet, he noted that Chinese development remains dominated by projects that destroy the environment, raising tensions with ethnic Tibetans who consider the landscape sacred, a part of their Buddhist faith. In the half-century that China has ruled Tibet, similar policies have been instituted in cycles targeting ethnic minorities and religions.

Elsewhere, the government has long suppressed the Muslim Uighur minority. A “strike-hard” campaign initiated in May has triggered a period of intense persecution against Uighurs.
In Zhejiang province, Christians have been devastated by a two-year cross-removal campaign. While the actions against Zhejiang Christians have been pushed by local authorities, many observers believe such a long-standing campaign must have tacit approval from Beijing. Taken together, such actions underscore the Communist Party’s fear of organized religion as a potential alternative power base to the party itself. The severity of these actions has depended on the threat level perceived by Beijing, notes Fenggang Yang, director of Purdue University’s Center on Religion and Chinese Society.
“At the minimum, the Chinese Communists in their gut have deep suspicion and distrust in religious leaders even if they seem to be amicable toward religious believers and leaders during the good times,” he said.

Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama delivers a lecture in Sydney on June 8. (Photo by Saeed Khan/AFP)

Direct control
For Tibetans, this week’s anniversary marking Chinese rule only brings more uncertainty.
In its Sept. 6 white paper, Beijing rejected a “middle way” approach, put forward by the Dalai Lama, which proposed more autonomy for Tibet.

While sidelining Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, Chinese authorities have further eroded religious freedoms, said Tsomo Tsering, director of the Tibet Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Dharamsala, northern India.

“It’s ridiculous. Sometimes Tibetans will keep images of the Dalai Lama, and the simple act of keeping pictures of their own spiritual leaders is criminalized,” said Tsomo, who works with informants on the ground in Tibet.

Since 2011, authorities have replaced members of monastery management committees with officials who work directly for the government. Small police stations have been built inside some monasteries. This year, authorities ordered all Buddhist monasteries to fly Chinese flags and display pictures of party leaders. “The problem is that the whole of religion is now directly controlled by the Chinese government,” Tsomo said.

Whole Loot and Whole Plunder – Looting and Plundering of Tibet

Tibet Awareness – Red China Looting and Plundering Tibet

Tibet Awareness - Red China- Looting and Plundering of Tibet. Map of Mineral deposits of the Tibetan plateau. — Red China’s practices in Tibet; her indiscriminate taking of Tibetan national assets causing severe environmental pollution with toxic chemicals, massive hydro projects leading to major ecological disaster in Tibet, have to be treated as War Crimes. Red China must be tried by a War Crimes Tribunal and held accountable for stealing Tibet’s national wealth and property.

Red China used her military force to attack Tibet and occupied the country since 1950. After driving His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama into exile, Red China unleashed a systematic campaign to loot, plunder, pillage, sack, ransack, steal, and despoil Tibetan natural resources without any concern for international law. Red China is encouraging foreign companies to join her in illegal exploration for mineral wealth and criminal mining operations. Such activities get media attention if a disaster strikes mining operation. Gold and Copper mining operations in Gyama Valley, Maizhokunggar County of Lhasa came to world’s attention when a massive landslide on March 29, 2013 killed 83 employees of Tibet Huatailong Mining Development Company, subsidiary of the state-run China National Gold Group. Red China is world’s largest producer of Gold and other Rare Earth Minerals. Red China’s practices in Tibet; her indiscriminate taking of Tibetan national assets causing severe environmental pollution with toxic chemicals, massive hydro projects leading to major ecological disaster in Tibet, have to be treated as War Crimes. Red China must be tried by a War Crimes Tribunal and held accountable for stealing Tibet’s national wealth and property.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162, USA
Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

Tibet Awareness - Red China - Looting and Plundering of Tibet. Hydro projects. Ecological Devastation. — Red China’s practices in Tibet; her indiscriminate taking of Tibetan national assets causing severe environmental pollution with toxic chemicals, massive hydro projects leading to major ecological disaster in Tibet, have to be treated as War Crimes. Red China must be tried by a War Crimes Tribunal and held accountable for stealing Tibet’s national wealth and property.

Tibet Awareness - Looting and Plundering of Tibet. Canadian mining projects in Tibet. — Red China’s practices in Tibet; her indiscriminate taking of Tibetan national assets causing severe environmental pollution with toxic chemicals, massive hydro projects leading to major ecological disaster in Tibet, have to be treated as War Crimes. Red China must be tried by a War Crimes Tribunal and held accountable for stealing Tibet’s national wealth and property.

Tibet Awareness - Looting and Plundering of Tibet. Canadian Companies operating in Tibet — Red China’s practices in Tibet; her indiscriminate taking of Tibetan national assets causing severe environmental pollution with toxic chemicals, massive hydro projects leading to major ecological disaster in Tibet, have to be treated as War Crimes. Red China must be tried by a War Crimes Tribunal and held accountable for stealing Tibet’s national wealth and property.

Tibet Awareness - Red China - Looting and Plundering of Tibet. Diversion of River water. Ecological Disaster. — Red China’s practices in Tibet; her indiscriminate taking of Tibetan national assets causing severe environmental pollution with toxic chemicals, massive hydro projects leading to major ecological disaster in Tibet, have to be treated as War Crimes. Red China must be tried by a War Crimes Tribunal and held accountable for stealing Tibet’s national wealth and property.

Tibet Awareness - Red China - Looting and Plundering Tibet. Tibet 5100 Ecological Disaster. — Red China’s practices in Tibet; her indiscriminate taking of Tibetan national assets causing severe environmental pollution with toxic chemicals, massive hydro projects leading to major ecological disaster in Tibet, have to be treated as War Crimes. Red China must be tried by a War Crimes Tribunal and held accountable for stealing Tibet’s national wealth and property.

Tibet Awareness - Red China - Looting and Plundering of Tibet. Depletion of aquifers. Ecological disaster. Tibet spring water bottling operation. — Red China’s practices in Tibet; her indiscriminate taking of Tibetan national assets causing severe environmental pollution with toxic chemicals, massive hydro projects leading to major ecological disaster in Tibet, have to be treated as War Crimes. Red China must be tried by a War Crimes Tribunal and held accountable for stealing Tibet’s national wealth and property.

Tibet Awareness. Major rivers of Asia. Red China diverting waters from major Rivers of Asia. — Red China’s practices in Tibet; her indiscriminate taking of Tibetan national assets causing severe environmental pollution with toxic chemicals, massive hydro projects leading to major ecological disaster in Tibet, have to be treated as War Crimes. Red China must be tried by a War Crimes Tribunal and held accountable for stealing Tibet’s national wealth and property.

China Stages Mass Spectacle in Tibet to Mark 50 Years’ Rule

BEIJING — Sep 8, 2015, 9:22 AM ET

In this photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, a grand ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region is held at the square of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, capital of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015. (Chen Yehua/Xinhua via AP)
The Associated Press

Schoolchildren waved flags and paramilitary troops marched in full battle dress at a mass spectacle China staged Tuesday to mark 50 years since establishing Tibet as an ethnic autonomous region firmly under Beijing’s control.

The event lauded Tibet’s economic successes under Communist Party rule, even as activists criticized its record on human rights.

Top political adviser Yu Zhengsheng stressed Tibet’s unity with the rest of China in his address to thousands gathered in front of the stunning Potala Palace in the regional capital of Lhasa,
once home to the Dalai Lama and now a museum.

“During the past 50 years the Chinese Communist Party and the Tibetan people have led the transformation from a backward old Tibet to a vibrant socialist new Tibet,” Yu told the audience of schoolchildren, soldiers, armed police and party officials applauding and waving flags.

People’s living standards have improved, infrastructure has been built across Tibet and its gross domestic product had grown 68 times, Yu said at the ceremony broadcast live on state television.

Yu’s speech was followed by a parade of goose-stepping marchers carrying the national emblem of China, along with portraits of past and present leaders, including President Xi Jinping. Dancers and musicians in traditional Tibetan dress also performed, although there was no visible participation by representatives of the Buddhist clergy that forms the backbone of the Himalayan region’s traditional culture.

Beijing sent troops to occupy the Himalayan region following the 1949 communist revolution. The government says the region has been part of Chinese territory for centuries, while many Tibetans say it has a long history of independence under a series of Buddhist leaders.

The region’s traditional Buddhist ruler, the Dalai Lama, fled in 1959 amid an abortive uprising against Chinese rule, and continues to advocate for a meaningful level of autonomy under Chinese rule.

China established the Tibetan autonomous region in 1965, one of five ethnic regions in the country today. While Tibet is nominally in charge of its own affairs, its top officials are appointed by Beijing and expected to rule with an iron fist. The region incorporates only about half of Tibet’s traditional territory, is closed to most foreign media and has been smothered in multiple layers of security ever since deadly anti-government riots in 2008.

Reinforcing the importance of strict control from Beijing, the party’s central committee said in a statement that; “Only by sticking to the CPC’s (Communist Party’s) leadership and the ethnic autonomy system, can Tibetans be their own masters and enjoy a sustainable economic development and long-term stability.”
Referring to the Dalai Lama, Yu said activities by him and others to “split China and undermine ethnic unity have been defeated time and time again.”

Free Tibet, a London-based rights group, said Beijing was trying to define Tibetan identity according to its priorities, and that Tibetans suffered restrictions on movement, censorship and lived in a system designed to punish opposition to the Beijing government.

“If Tibet’s people have a good news story to tell, why doesn’t Beijing let them freely tell it or give the world’s media the opportunity to freely see it?” the group said.
The 80-year-old Dalai Lama is in Britain this month for speaking engagements and had no immediate comment.

Tuesday’s event reflects Xi’s taste for organized spectacle, in a throwback to the mass rallies common in the early decades of communist rule. It comes less than a week after a massive military parade in Beijing to mark 70 years since Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II.

Red China’s practices in Tibet; her indiscriminate taking of Tibetan national assets causing severe environmental pollution with toxic chemicals, massive hydro projects leading to major ecological disaster in Tibet, have to be treated as War Crimes. Red China must be tried by a War Crimes Tribunal and held accountable for stealing Tibet’s national wealth and property.

Whole Sin – The Model for Great Power Relations

Tibet Awareness – A New Model for US-China Relations

***Whole Sin – The Model for Great Power Relations: Red China is on a slippery slope and marching towards her self-destruction which no other nation can stop or intervene to help her.***

Red China is on a slippery slope and marching towards her self-destruction which no other nation can stop or intervene to help her.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162, USA
Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

China seeks ‘new model’ for relations with US

CARRIE GRACIE CHINA EDITOR
21 September 2015
From the section CHINA

President Xi and President Obama, pictured in 2013 — ***Whole Sin – The Model for Great Power Relations: Red China is on a slippery slope and marching towards her self-destruction which no other nation can stop or intervene to help her.***

Image copyright Getty Images

Do you have expectations of this week’s summit between President Obama and President Xi? If so, I suggest you lower them.

The sombre fact is that despite the enormous range and complexity of the US-China relationship, it is becoming ever harder to manage. The smiles and ceremony of a 21-gun salute and state dinner will conceal gritted teeth and crossed fingers.

A game of brinkmanship is afoot and on cyber-hacking and contested atolls, it would need a reclamation project bigger and swifter than the one under way in the South China Sea for guest and host to find a piece of common ground to stand on.

But spin it another way and there should be something to celebrate.

Four and a half decades, five Chinese communist leaders, eight American presidents, and a transition from a world in which China is isolated and marginal to one in which it is increasingly able to meet the United States on equal terms.

And through it all, the US-China relationship has broadly held to the course that President Nixon set out in 1972 as he prepared to travel to Beijing to end two decades of enmity:

“The government of the People’s Republic of China and the government of the United States have had great differences. We will have differences in the future. But what we must do is to find a way to see that we can have differences without being enemies in war.”

TIBET AWARENESS - UNITED STATES - CHINA RELATIONS . WHOLE VILLAIN - WHOLEVILLAIN - #WHOLEVILLAIN — ***Whole Sin – The Model for Great Power Relations: Red China is on a slippery slope and marching towards her self-destruction which no other nation can stop or intervene to help her.***

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Richard Nixon shares a toast with Chinese PM Zhou Enlai in Beijing in 1972 during the first visit by a US president to the People’s Republic of China

Forty-three years later an ambitious Chinese leader is coming for his first state visit in the opposite direction and the challenge is still the same. But now the stakes are even higher for this relationship and it has all the advantages of experience and proven resilience. What makes it so hard then?

‘Properly manage differences‘

Only last week, President Obama issued a blunt warning to China on cyber-hacking: “There comes a point at which we consider this a core national security threat… we can choose to make this an area of competition, which I guarantee you we’ll win if we have to.”

Only a scrambled visit by China’s security chief for what the White House described as “candid, blunt discussions” seems to have averted American sanctions.

Meanwhile, in the South China Sea, the latest satellite imagery from this month suggests that even during a summit countdown, Beijing is ready to defy American warnings and possibly even renege on its own promises to continue reclamation work to turn contested atolls into military outposts.

Is President Xi about to waste a huge opportunity? Ahead of the state visit he said: “Both sides must accommodate each other’s core interests, avoid strategic miscalculation, and properly manage and control differences.”

TIBET AWARENESS - UNITED STATES - CHINA RELATIONS. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE DONALD TRUMP CLAIMED THAT CHINA IS STEALING JOBS. — **TIBET AWARENESS – UNITED STATES – CHINA RELATIONS. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE DONALD TRUMP CLAIMED THAT CHINA IS STEALING JOBS.**

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Donald Trump has spoken of China stealing American jobs.

But he needs a much, much better speech writer if he is to get heard amid the US media frenzy of a presidential campaign and a papal visit. Already Republican candidates led by Donald Trump are lining up to complain that China is stealing American jobs and some have said President Xi’s visit should be cancelled or downgraded. US public opinion is increasingly negative on China. President Obama told the media China’s peaceful, orderly rise is in the US’s interest and good for the world.

But President Xi urgently needs to reach out to American politicians and public to explain how it is in the US’s interest. A mix of reassurance, vision and rigour are required, and a measure of charm would no doubt help.

But with a schedule focused on closed-door sessions with big business and tightly choreographed photo opportunities with tame members of the American public, it looks as if President Xi has opted for a risk-averse strategy with minimal substance and candour.

Return to form

Don’t forget this is the man with the Chinese Dream, a plan for what he calls “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”. Implicit is the argument that a great China is not a novelty but a return to form.

For most of the past 2,000 years, China’s economy has accounted for between a quarter and a third of world output and after traumatic shocks delivered by outsiders in the 19th and 20th Centuries, China is on track to overtake the US within the decade and regain its status as the world’s biggest economy.

TIBET AWARENESS - UNITED STATES - CHINA RELATIONS. RED CHINA - ECONOMIC EXPANSIONISM A THREAT TO PEACE AND SECURITY. — ***Whole Sin – The Model for Great Power Relations: Red China is on a slippery slope and marching towards her self-destruction which no other nation can stop or intervene to help her.***

Image copyright Reuters Image caption China wants a foreign policy that reflects its economic rise.

What’s more, China is intent on building military force and diplomatic clout to match its economic might. The swiftest, surest and cheapest way to all three is through US co-operation, and, sound and fury notwithstanding, it has come to count on that co-operation, at least in the economic sphere.

Without American help, how could China have become the world’s largest manufacturing and trading nation in such breathtakingly short order? Without American help how can China confront the daunting economic challenges it faces today?

But expect no warm speeches on that score from President Xi in Washington.

Model v dream

Deaf to American concerns about market access or technology theft, the Chinese narrative of the relationship presents a version of itself as a much-maligned partner, uncomplainingly creating wealth and bankrolling spendthrift American consumers. China does not export its ideology or send troops abroad, it points out.

President Xi’s preferred slogan for the relationship involves not a dream but a model. He raised it again on the eve of the summit, “the new model of great power relations”. This is shorthand for a future in which the US assists China’s inexorable advance in order to avoid the wars and convulsions which have accompanied the rise of other great powers in world history.

Seen from inside his model, the US record is far from benign. Instead, the US threatens China’s political system by pushing democracy, undermines its territorial integrity by supplying arms to Taiwan and schemes to contain China by surrounding it with American alliances and military deployments.

TIBET AWARENESS - UNITED STATES - CHINA RELATIONS . TIME TO DEMAND FREEDOM, PEACE, AND JUSTICE IN OCCUPIED TIBET. — ***Whole Sin – The Model for Great Power Relations: Red China is on a slippery slope and marching towards her self-destruction which no other nation can stop or intervene to help her.***

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Activists want President Obama to call on President Xi to halt the crackdown on Tibetans and Uighurs, and civil society in China.

In fact, part of Mr Xi’s dream is that a rejuvenated China will no longer need to put up with an American security order in Asia at all.
But Americans are famous dreamers too.

And especially since China’s opening up and integration into the world economy, many have hoped that in Beijing they might one day have a democratic partner and “responsible stakeholder in keeping the world safe”.

Hostilities

That American version of the Chinese dream is an affront to Mr Xi’s own and as he goes through the protocol motions on the American red carpet, it is no exaggeration to say that he sees his hosts as outright ideological enemies.

He is at least as hostile to their politics as Chairman Mao was in the days of Nixon’s visit, probably more so because of the close and present danger those politics present in a globalised world.

In his first three years in power, President Xi has used anti-corruption and ideological campaigns to stiffen the sinews of the Communist Party and buttress one-party rule. He has censored the discussion of universal values like democracy and freedom of speech, locking up academics, human rights lawyers, civil society activists, journalists, Christians and bloggers.

President Barack Obama meets with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the Map Room of the White House, Feb. 18, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House. — **President Barack Obama meets with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the Map Room of the White House, Feb. 18, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)**
This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

Image copyright The White House Image caption Chinese media has been critical of President Obama’s meetings with the Dalai Lama

Chinese propaganda teaches that the US is just the latest in a long line of hostile foreign powers trying to keep China down with a range of ideological weapons including meddling in Hong Kong and befriending the Dalai Lama.

President Xi makes no apology for his politics. “Shoes do not have to be the same but simply to fit the wearer,” he says. He is an authoritarian by conviction who believes China needs discipline and a sense of shared mission to realize its “great rejuvenation.” All of this is admittedly a difficult message to articulate for an American public. But some truths should be attempted for the sake of candour and connection.

President Xi could say that China still has enormous challenges at home and will avoid clashes with the US where possible. But that at the same time he wants a foreign policy that reflects the reality of China’s rise. And that on a range of issues, including rules for investment and climate change, he will co-operate with the US to the advantage of both countries.

He would be wise to attempt a much more nuanced and persuasive case on areas of competition like cybersecurity and the South China Sea. And he needs to show that he can listen and respond to the concerns of Americans. If not always with agreement, at least with understanding.

Now that would truly be powerful and might even presage a “new model of great power relations”.

Whole Foundation – Compassion to Uplift Tibetans and to Evict China without causing Pain and Suffering

Tibet Awareness – Compassion, the Foundation of Well-being

TIBET AWARENESS - PAIN AND COMPASSION : I AM SEEKING APPLICATION OF COMPASSION AS A PHYSICAL FORCE/POWER/ENERGY THAT CAN UPLIFT TIBETANS FROM PAIN, MISERY, SUFFERING, SORROW AND "DUKHA." — **TIBET AWARENESS – PAIN AND COMPASSION: I AM SEEKING THE APPLICATION OF COMPASSION AS A PHYSICAL FORCE/POWER/ENERGY THAT CAN UPLIFT TIBETANS FROM PAIN, MISERY, SUFFERING, SORROW AND “DUKHA.”**

Pain and suffering and experience of sorrow or “dukha” may have a cause according to the Doctrine of ‘Dependent Origination’. Sorrow or dukha is the result of one’s desires for pleasures, power, and continued existence. In case of Tibetan people, the experience of pain and suffering is the direct consequence of military occupation and foreign conquest of their Land. Historically, Tibetans never experienced foreign domination and direct interference in their daily lives until Red China invaded Tibet in 1950. Before intervention by Red China, Tibetans had always enjoyed freedom as a natural right.

TIBET AWARENESS - PAIN AND COMPASSION: I AM SEEKING APPLICATION OF COMPASSION AS A PHYSICAL FORCE TO HELP RED CHINA GET OUT OF TIBET WITHOUT EXPERIENCING PAIN AND SUFFERING. — **TIBET AWARENESS – PAIN AND COMPASSION: I AM SEEKING THE APPLICATION OF COMPASSION AS A PHYSICAL FORCE TO HELP RED CHINA GET OUT OF TIBET WITHOUT EXPERIENCING PAIN AND SUFFERING.**

When man recognizes pain, suffering and sorrow in the lives of others, man experiences spontaneous arousal of feelings of compassion which is called in Sanskrit language as ‘Karuna’, ‘Krupa’, or ‘Daya’. Pain and sorrow are an unavoidable part of human existence, while compassion is innate to human nature. The instinctive response of compassion acts like a physical force, power, or energy for it can uplift man from sorrow. I am seeking for the application of this force of compassion not only to uplift Tibetans from pain, and misery but also to help Red China to get out of Tibet without pain and suffering.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162, USA
Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

TIBET AWARENESS - PAIN AND COMPASSION:Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, center, greets devotees as he arrives to give a talk at the Tsuglakhang temple in Dharmsala, India, Monday, Sept. 7, 2015. The four day religious talk organized for the Southeast Asian Buddhists will end Thursday. (AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia) — TIBET AWARENESS – PAIN AND COMPASSION:Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, center, greets devotees as he arrives to give a talk at the Tsuglakhang temple in Dharmsala, India, Monday, Sept. 7, 2015. The four-day religious talk organized for the Southeast Asian Buddhists will end Thursday. (AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia)

Monday, September 14th, 2015

The Dalai Lama to speak at The O2

PAUL COLSTON

The O2 at night

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is to give a public talk at The O2 in London on 19 September 2015. Organized by the Tibet House Trust, the talk, entitled ‘Compassion: the Foundation of Well-Being’, will begin at 1pm and will be followed by a Q&A session chaired by psychologist Daniel Goleman.

The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and religious leader had celebrated his 80th birthday with an appearance at Glastonbury Festival in June.

His Holiness released a statement ahead of his 10-day visit to the UK, in which he said:
“My life is dedicated to the service of all sentient beings, and in particular I try to help my fellow human beings in whatever way I can.
“What unites all sentient beings is that we all naturally seek happiness and try to avoid suffering. Therefore, we have a collective responsibility to try to bring about the well-being and happiness of all living beings and help them overcome their suffering.

“This is the basis of hope on which I make an appeal that we all work enthusiastically to promote ethical values imbued with love and compassion and that we do our best to reduce, if not eliminate, the conflicts and violence that currently beset many parts of the world.”

Rebecca Kane Burton, general manager of The O2, said: “We are honoured that His Holiness the Dalai Lama will be making his public address. The Dalai Lama has visited Britain many times over the years but this is the first time he will address the public at the world’s most popular music and entertainment venue. We know it will be an inspiring and enlightening day.”

The talk at The O2 is the main public event of the Dalai Lama’s visit to the UK.

Tibet Consciousness – The Complex Relations between Tibet, Taiwan and the United States

The Republic of China (ROC)

THE DIPLOMAT

TIBET, TAIWAN AND CHINA – A COMPLEX NEXUS

Tibet Consciousness – Tibet Under Occupation is No Man’s Land

NOTES FROM NO MAN’S LAND

Tibet Consciousness – Save Tibetan Plateau

FAITH, POLITICS AND WATER COLLIDE IN BID TO SAVE TIBETAN PLATEAU

THE THIRD POLE

My Dream Trip to Mount Everest gives testimony about True Tibetan Identity

A road trip across Tibet to Mount Everest

Lhasa – the start of the road trip in 2000. [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

Tibet Awareness – Tibet’s Quest to Declare Full Independence

THE 13th DALAI LAMA’S DIPLOMATIC PARLEYS IN PEKING IN 1908

The western diplomats

The meeting with the Prince of Sikkim

Going back to Lhasa

Tibet Awareness – Tibet’s Ecological Disaster

50 Years of Chinese rule has pushed Tibet ecological disaster

Tibet Awareness – Communist China on a Slippery Slope

After 50 years in Tibet, China sees no ‘middle way’

Beijing’s Tibet policies point to legacy of distrust of religious groups

Opaque development

Changing landscape

Direct controlFor Tibetans, this week’s anniversary marking Chinese rule only brings more uncertainty.In its Sept. 6 white paper, Beijing rejected a “middle way” approach, put forward by the Dalai Lama, which proposed more autonomy for Tibet.

Tibet Awareness – Red China Looting and Plundering Tibet

China Stages Mass Spectacle in Tibet to Mark 50 Years’ Rule

Tibet Awareness – A New Model for US-China Relations

China seeks ‘new model’ for relations with US

‘Properly manage differences‘

Return to form

Model v dream

Hostilities

Tibet Awareness – Compassion, the Foundation of Well-being

The Dalai Lama to speak at The O2

Direct control
For Tibetans, this week’s anniversary marking Chinese rule only brings more uncertainty.
In its Sept. 6 white paper, Beijing rejected a “middle way” approach, put forward by the Dalai Lama, which proposed more autonomy for Tibet.