By Phurbu Thinley
Dharamsala, November 4: UK Tibet supporters are calling on their Prime Minister David Cameron to stand up for Tibet as he gears up to lead Britain’s “largest-ever delegation” to China sometime next week.
Mr Cameron will meet Chinese president Hu Jintao as he pays an official visit to China from Nov. 9 to 10, at the invitation of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
The UK-based Free Tibet group, which stands for the right of Tibetans to determine their own future, has initiated an online petition campaign – “Cameron: Stand Up for Tibet” – to urge Tibet supporters worldwide to “join the thousands who have already called on Mr Cameron to stand up for Tibetans while he is China”.
This would also be Mr Cameron’s first visit to China after he took office in May and comes amid pressure by the western nations on Beijing to free jailed Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo. According to media reports, this would be the “largest-ever delegation in British History” to China.
The delegation would be composed of Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Vincent Cable as well as about 50 leading figures from the nation’s industrial and commercial sectors.
In October 2008, just months after massive unrest against Chinese rule broke out in Tibet, Britain disappointed Tibetans, growing coalition of academics and Tibet supporters by deciding to accept China’s direct control over Tibet.
The move marked an unprecedented shift in its policy, which for nearly a century has stopped short of formally recognizing Tibet as part of Chinese territory.
In a little-noticed parliamentary statement on Oct 29, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband described a historic agreement dating back almost a century, which acknowledged Chinese interest in Tibet but asserted that Tibet had never been fully part of the country, as an “anachronism” and added: “Like every other EU member state, and the United States, we regard Tibet as part of the People’s Republic of China.”
Many believe such an inattentive move by the British government has further weakened the position of the Tibetan exiles in their dialogues with China to seek a “real and meaningful autonomy” for their Himalayan homeland, which Chinese communist troops invaded in 1949.
In the statement, British government, nevertheless, gave strong backing to talks between the Chinese Communist Party and envoys of the Dalai Lama. He also backed the Dalai Lama’s call for autonomy, rather than independence, for his homeland as a basis for agreement, and said that the exiled Tibetan leader had actually met conditions set by the Chinese government in order to have dialogue for a negotiated settlement over Tibet.
“Our interest is in long-term stability, which can only be achieved through respect for human rights and greater autonomy for the Tibetans,” Milliband said in the statement.
Mr Cameron’s visit also comes amid growing unrest in Tibet’s Amdo (Ch: Qinghai) region with Tibetan school children protesting Chinese government’s forceful attempt to replace Tibetan language by Chinese language as medium of instruction in Tibetan schools.
In Dharamsala, the seat of Tibet’s government in exile in north India, hundreds of school children on Thursday took part in a solidarity peace march to oppose what they described as Chinese government’s deliberate move to “eliminate” the Tibetan language.
Following the widespread March 2008 unrest in Tibet, China unleashed a new wave of crackdown in Tibet to squelch all forms of dissent. And those now targeted also include Tibetans once known for having close ties to the government and for carefully eschewing politics.
