DPP Legislator Tien Chiu-chin urged President Ma Ying-jeou not to engage in wishful thinking when dealing with China.
TAIPEI – Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tien Chiu-chin led a lineup of 20 Tibetans-in-exile in Taiwan and held a press conference yesterday prior to China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin’s five-day cross-strait talks in Taiwan beginning today.
Tien took the signing of the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet with China as an example saying that despite the peace agreement between Tibet and China in 1951, Tibet has still suffered the painful experience of being invaded by China’s arm force. Therefore, Tien urged President Ma Ying-jeou not to engage in wishful thinking when dealing with China. Also, Tien called on the public to heed the Tibetan lessons and, notwithstanding the risks, concentrate their efforts on safeguarding Taiwan’s sovereignty and national integrity.
Taiwan Tibetan Welfare Association Chairman Rinzin Tsering presented a photograph showing China’s bloody crackdown on Tibetans in March this year and recalled China’s People’s Liberation Army opened fire to suppress Tibetan protesters, killing more than 80,000 people. Tsering said that Mao Zedong then abolished the local government of Tibet, and on March 10, the Kashag Government led by the Dalai Lama, along with hundreds of thousands of people, fled Tibet. They established a government-in-exile in Dharamsala, a mountainous area in northwest India, said Tsering.
Tsering pointed out that Lhasa, the administrative capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China, may seen as a place making abounding progress, but Tibetans have no real freedom nor human rights. He said that Tibetan people’s religious freedom has also been deprived under China’s religious persecution.
A group of Tibetans staged a protest at the Taoyuan International Airport this morning to vent their anger at China upon the arrival of China’s top negotiator.
