US LEGISLATION GIVES TIBETANS HOPE FOR FREEDOM

On Tuesday the US Congress passed the Tibetan Policy and Support Act (TPSA) and outgoing President Donald Trump may sign it into a law before handing over the baton to his successor Joe Biden. It is an important strategic development for India too. The US legislation calls for the establishment of an American consulate in Tibet’s main city of Lhasa, the absolute right of Tibetans to choose a successor to the Dalai Lama, and the preservation of Tibet’s environment. The Us-based Executive Director of the Students for a Free Tibet, Dorjee Tseten, told

The Sunday Guardian that the TPSA is ground-breaking legislation, which will ensure that US foreign policy solidly upholds Tibetan human rights in a few key areas:

Religious Freedom: China is determined to dictate how Tibetans in Tibet practise their religion. Chinese President Xi Jinping even plans on appointing future successions of the Dalai Lama. The TPSA makes it an official US policy that only the Tibetan community has the right to appoint Tibetan Buddhist leaders.

Consulate in Lhasa: Having an American consulate in Tibet’s capital would help guarantee that human rights violations in Tibet do not go unnoticed. The TPSA would only permit future Chinese consulates in America if China allowed the US to build a consulate in Lhasa.

Tibet Climate Crisis: The TPSA also would require the US government to address water security and environmental issues in Tibet, which provides water to more than one billion people in Asia and is currently warming at a rate three times faster than the global average. This bill calls for a stronger international response to monitor the environmental catastrophe on the Tibetan plateau.

Vijay Kranti, an authority on Tibet affairs, told this writer that the passing of the TPSA is a historic development for the Tibetan freedom struggle against colonial China: “For the first time, a country has formally recognised

Tibet as ‘an occupied country’; US Congress has formally put its weight behind the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration (Tibet’s Government in Exile), saying that the selection of next incarnation of the Dalai Lama (15th Dalai Lama) is purely an internal matter of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans and that the government of China has no right to interfere in it; the US Congress has made it obligatory for the current and future Secretary of State and all American government agencies to deal firmly with China on issues related to Tibet. Since this resolution was passed (with full support of Republicans as well as Democrats) in the House of Representatives and the Senate, it is going to be followed by the new Biden Administration.”