Dharamsala, May 25 – China on Monday asked the United States to “respect its core interests and major concerns, and to pay particular attention to handling sensitive issues such as those regarding Taiwan and Tibet.”
“This was one of the seven proposals China made at the on-going second round of China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogues (S&ED),” China’s official news agency quoted Ma Zhaoxu, spokesman of the Chinese delegation attending the strategic track of S&ED, as saying.
The second round of S&ED opened in Beijing on Monday morning, and was attended by 50 representatives from more than 40 departments of both countries.
“China believes both sides should abide by the three joint communiques between the two countries and the joint statement issued during U.S. President Obama’s visit to China last November,” Ma said.
President Hu Jintao’s special representatives, Vice Premier Wang Qishan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo, co-chaired the economic and strategic tracks of the SE&D with U.S. President Barack Obama’s special representatives, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
China claims Tibet and Taiwan as its territories and rebukes world leaders and governments for meeting the Dalai Lama or expressing any sympathy for the Tibetan people. It accuses the 1989 Nobel peace laureate of “inciting separatism” and calls him “a wolf in monk’s robes”. Tibetans however maintain that Tibet was historically an independent country.
Talks between Dalai Lama’s envoys and Beijing resumed in January 2010 after it had come to a standstill with the “Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People” submitted by the Tibetan side at the eighth round of talks meeting with derision from China which called it a demand for ‘half-independence’ and ‘disguised independence’ or ‘covert independence’.”
Tibetan side, however, maintains that the articles of the proposed memorandum were prepared in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the PRC and its laws on National Regional Autonomy, and claims China has rejected the proposal without providing any “legal and rational explanations”.
“We have already made all necessary and possible compromise that could have been made, and there is nothing left to concede any further,” Rinpoche told a gathering of Tibetan parliamentarians and leaders, including former ministers, on the sidelines of the ninth session of the 14th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile.
Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama in New York said that “harmony” as envisioned by the Chinese leadership can not develop under fear or gunpoint. “Openness and freedom of speech are essential,” the Tibetan leader currently touring the US told a conference of 230 Chinese and Tibetan students Saturday at Hunter College. “Under fear, with police watching, how can harmony develop? Harmony by gun – impossible.”
