By Phurbu Thinley
Dharamsala, June 15: New Zealand Tibet campaigners have called on Prime Minister John Key to raise Tibet issue when the Chinese vice president pays a three-day state visit this week.
Chinese Vice President Mr Xi Jinping, the man widely tipped to succeed the president Hu Jintao in 2012, is visiting New Zealand from June 17 to 19, when he will meet Mr Key.
New Zealand’s Friends of Tibet, in a statement released today, urged the Mr key to “raise concerns about the situation in Tibet” during their meeting.
“Specifically we call on him to ask Vice President Xi to help to urge Hu Jintao to meet the Dalai Lama in order to progress a genuine solution to the occupation of Tibet,” the statement said.
Xi Jinping is a senior member of the 5th generation of Chinese leaders. He is a “princeling”, the son of Xi Zhongxun, a former Vice Premier who supported Hu Yaobang’s progressive ideas, denounced the leadership’s handling of the Tiananmen Square protests and was reportedly close to the 10th Panchen Lama of Tibet.
“Although Xi Jinping is currently thought to have relatively little involvement in determining China’s policies in occupied Tibet, he attended the recent 5th Work Forum on Tibet, and has the opportunity if he becomes President to lead a complete transformation in China’s approach to the Tibet issue,” the statement said.
“We call on Xi Jinping to demonstrate that the 5th generation of leadership in China will herald a new era for Tibet” said Thuten Kesang, the national chairman of Friends of Tibet (NZ).
“We urge Mr Xi to show that he is his father’s son, and to ensure his place in the history books, for the right reasons, by bringing China’s occupation of Tibet to an end. We also call on Prime Minister Key to urge Mr Xi to pass a message to Hu Jintao that it is time for him to meet the Dalai Lama.”
“A lasting solution for Tibet suitable to both sides will benefit China.” Kesang said in the statement.
While little is known of Xi Jinping’s opinions about Tibet and human rights issues, he visited Xinjiang in June 2009, soon after the protests there, where he reportedly insisted that the local party should appoint officials who could do a better job of handling ethnic relations. Xi also warned that they should solve the “real difficulties” that Uighurs suffer in housing, food, health, education and employment. (Read: Who is Xi Jinping?)
Like Hu Jintao in the run-up to his presidency, Mr Xi is currently seen doing a lot of international travel. This week alone he is visiting Bangladesh, Laos, New Zealand and Australia.
Just last week, ahead of Xi’s ongoing visit to Bangladesh, a Bangladeshi Tibet activist and social worker Wasfia Nazreen was reportedly harassed by the country’s police.
Prime Minister John Key chose not to meet the Dalai Lama during the latter’s visit to New Zealand in December last year, saying they had met before and there was no need for another.
Mr Key, however, had denied being pressured by China not to meet the Dalai Lama.
Meeting the Dalai Lama usually draws vehement protests from Communist China, which sent military troops to illegally occupy Tibet in 1949.
When the Dalai Lama was in New Zealand in 2007, Key was then the leader of the opposition and had “dropped in” on a meeting between the Tibetan leader and his National Party foreign affairs spokesman, now minister, Murray McCully.
