Nagano (Japan), June 19: A famous Japanese alpinist and environmental activist today said China cannot go on dismissing international criticisms against its policies in Tibet as an attack on its sovereignty because “human rights violation is a universal issue”.
“There’s no border, national or international, for issues such as human rights,” Mr. Ken Noguchi said at an event organized by the Japan chapter of Students for a Free Tibet in Nagano. Mr. Noguchi is widely known in Japan for being the youngest climber (he was 25 at the time) to scale the Seven Summits, the highest mountains on each of the seven continents and for his passionate activism on environmental issues.
Incidentally, he is the only alpinist in Japan who has fearlessly spoken out against Chinese policies in Tibet. In his talk after the screening of the documentary film ‘Meltdown in Tibet’ at Nagano City Hall, Mr. Noguchi said Tibet is rapidly losing its culture, way of life and its belief systems as China continue to suppress the Tibetan people’s aspiration for freedom and human rights. He warned that the current nomad relocation program initiated by the Chinese government to move Tibetan nomads in fixed concrete buildings could have negative social impacts on the resettled Tibetan nomads and their relationship with nature.
Mr. Noguchi also raised the issue of water crisis in China and the fate of major river sources on the Tibetan plateau saying Japan has the responsibility to keep a watchful eye on China and to speak out. “It’s right next door,” he said. In the past couple of years, Chinese companies were reportedly trying to buy large tracts of Japan’s mountainous forestlands to augment its burgeoning needs for timber. Mr. Noguchi said Japan is also facing water shortage and the destruction of its watershed forests could bring not only untold damage to the ecology but also worsen the already dwindling water resources.
As China flexes its economic clouts beyond its borders, Mr. Noguchi said Japan has to give serious consideration to the Tibet issue because “in future, this may well become a Japanese issue.”
Mr. Noguchi said his intrepidity on the Tibet issue has caused one of his sponsors to drop him; his staff expressed fears that his outspokenness against China could cause him professional troubles. “But I knew I was doing the right thing and it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Now that he has provoked the ire of the Chinese government, Mr. Noguchi thinks he may not be able to scale Everest for a long time. But a fellow alpinist recently gave him hope. “He was 75-years-old when he climbed Mt. Everest. So, maybe I too can in future,” the 36-year-old climber said.
