BRUSSELS – Actor Richard Gere, campaigning for a free Tibet, has demanded Europe match the United States in appointing a special envoy for Tibet to increase pressure on China to end its occupation of the Buddhist region.
The Hollywood star, chairman of the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), also said the European Union must not scrap its embargo on arms sales to Beijing.
Former President Bill Clinton first appointed a special coordinator to ensure Tibet was brought up in all US contacts with Beijing, a move Gere said the EU should emulate.
“If the EU also had this, obviously it would increase pressure, good pressure on China, who obviously wants to be part of the modern world, wants to be an equal player with the rest of nations,” Gere told a news conference in Brussels.
He said joint EU-US pressure would encourage China to continue a dialogue with representatives of Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who wants an autonomous state.
Communist China invaded Tibet in 1950. The Dalai Lama fled to India nine years later after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. China refuses to allow him to return.
