Associated Press, 11 March 2019 Read original news here
China is defending its often-criticised rule in Tibet 60 years after the Dalai Lama fled into exile amid an abortive uprising against Chinese control, saying those who question its policies are merely showing anti-Chinese bias.
On Sunday, an editorial in the Communist Party-run Tibet Daily attacked the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s traditional Buddhist leader, for what it said were his efforts to “sow chaos in Tibet”.
The Dalai Lama has been living in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala since he fled from Tibet after a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Beijing accuses him of seeking to separate Tibet from China, which he denies.
In India’s capital, New Delhi, at least 3,000 Tibetans marched about 3 kilometres (2 miles) through the centre of the city on Sunday carrying Tibetan and Indian flags.
Invoking India’s concerns over China’s expansive power in Asia and beyond, the marchers shouted slogans including “Tibet’s freedom is India’s security” and “India-China friendship is a sham”.
They also carried a portrait of the Dalai Lama while occasionally chanting slogans wishing him a long life and calling for freedom for Tibet.
Hundreds of Tibetans and Taiwanese rallied in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy that China also claims as its territory.
Tashi Tsering, chair of the Human Rights Network for Tibet and Taiwan, recalled what he called China’s history of reneging on agreements to Tibetans and others.
“We should not trust the Communist Party of China whatever it says,” he said.
China says Tibet has been part of its territory for centuries, although many Tibetans say they were essentially independent for most of that time. Communist troops took control of the region in 1950 after a brief military struggle.
, and the region is closed to foreigners entirely during sensitive anniversaries.
The Xinhua editorial did not directly mention Sunday’s uprising anniversary, referring to the events of 1959 instead as the inauguration of “democratic reform” that saw the dismantlement of the Buddhist hierarchy and feudal structures.
“Sixty years since the epoch-making democratic reform in Tibet, people in the plateau region have enjoyed unprecedented human rights in history,” Xinhua said.
“Undeniable facts and figures” related to development “debunk the repeated lies and accusations that aim to smear Tibet’s human rights with vile motives,” it said. “Anyone without bias will recognise Tibet’s tremendous progress in human rights.”
Among the figures it cited were a rise in life expectancy from 35.5 years in the 1950s to nearly 70 now; a double-digit growth in regional GDP over the past quarter-century; and reduction of poverty by 80 per cent.
China has refused to meet the Dalai Lama or his representatives until they surrender their conditions for a greater degree of autonomy and submit to Beijing’s authority unequivocally.
On Wednesday, China’s Communist Party chief in Tibet insisted that the Tibetan people feel more affection towards the government than to the Dalai Lama.
The Dalai Lama had not done a “single good thing” for Tibet since he left, Tibet party secretary Wu Yingjie said during a meeting of China’s ceremonial legislature.
since anti-government protests in 2008 culminated in attacks on businesses and individuals of Han Chinese ethnicity, the country’s ethnic majority.
The government says rioters killed 18 people. An unknown number of Tibetans were killed by security forces in the aftermath.
“Each time I come here, I get encouraged, I get the fuel to go back and say, ‘There are people around the world who support us, who believe us,’” said Lobsang Sangay.
