as special envoy for Tibetan issues. Beijing responded sharply, saying this was an attempt to destabilise Tibet and that it would not allow any interference there.
Lobsang Sangay, the president of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), said this was the first time the head of the CTA had been received at the US State Department.
“So this is historic, they are thereby acknowledging the Tibetans’ democratically elected leader and the CTA. It was a sound political gesture on the part of the US government,” he said by telephone from the United States.
China seized control over Tibet in 1950 in what it describes as a “peaceful liberation” that helped the remote Himalayan region throw off its “feudalist” past. But critics say Beijing’s rule amounts to “cultural genocide”.
Sangay said he and Destro agreed on the early passage of the new Tibetan Policy and Support Act through the US Senate in the next few months.
The legislation, which was approved by the House of Representatives this year, lays out a stronger US stand on Tibet since the original act in 2002, Sangay said.
It calls for the establishment of a US consulate in Lhasa, the absolute right of the Tibetans to choose a successor to the Dalai Lama and preserving Tibet’s environment.
“This is big, it is a major revision of the 2002 Tibet policy act,” Sangay said. “Everything we wanted is there in the act.”