Sikyong interacts with participants of Asia and Australasia Regional Meeting

October 24, 2022

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Sikyong Penpa Tsering addressing participants of the Asia and Australasia Regional Meeting on 23 October 2022. Photo/Tenzin Jigme/CTA.

Dharamshala: Sikyong Penpa Tsering on Sunday presided over an interactive session with participants of the Asia and Australasia Regional Meeting in Dharamshala organised by the International Tibet Network.

During the hour-long session with the Sikyong, the participants were apprised of the nature and evolution of the Middle Way Policy that was unanimously adopted and passed by the Tibetan Parliament in Exile. Sikyong spoke about the significance of understanding the national and international political situation, particularly the dire political situation inside Tibet.

To advocate and publicise the true situation inside Tibet across global platforms, the 16th Kashag, as Sikyong stated, deemed it necessary to set up the Voluntary Tibet Advocacy Group (V-TAG) with a core aim to engage the youth in utilising their optimum potential to carry out advocacy campaigns in their respective countries.

“To carry out the advocacy effectively, it is essential to understand Tibet’s history before soliciting foreign support for the cause. If you are unaware of your own history, no one apart from the handful of researchers and Tibet supporters will actually show interest in studying Tibet’s history. Studying Tibet’s history is imperative to counter the false narrative consistently propagated by the Chinese government”, said Sikyong. Furthermore, he encouraged the participants and the youth, in particular, to read Micheal Van Walt Van Praag’s Tibet Brief 20/20, whose extensive research of Tibet’s historical relations with the dominant empires in Inner and East Asia revealed Tibet as an independent state historically while condemning PRC’s legitimacy to rule Tibet and exploit its resources. Likewise, Sikyong encouraged studying the testimonials of Professor Hon-Shiang Lao, who also contends the disregard for Tibet as part of China while emphasising Tibet as sovereign in the pre-1949 official historical records of China.

In conclusion, Sikyong reiterated collective effort as means to counter China’s power as their futile attempt to interfere in the reincarnation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama continues. He said, “The reincarnation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a religious practice which can only be determined by no one but His Holiness himself”.