The spirit behind US Tibet bill

On Tuesday last week, the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations unanimously passed the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act, also known as the Resolve Tibet bill. The US House of Representatives had passed the resolution on Feb. 15. The next stage is for it to be reviewed in the US Senate. Given the high level of support it received in the foreign relations committee, there is a strong chance of it being passed and signed into law.

The bill calls for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to respect the rights to freedom and selfdetermination of Tibetans, and to enter into negotiations with the Dalai Lama for a peaceful resolution of the Tibetan issue. It also says Tibet includes the Tibet Autonomous Region and areas inhabited by Tibetans, including Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, and calls on the CCP to stop spreading disinformation about Tibet and its history.

The bill seeks to encourage the CCP to resolve the Tibet issue in accordance with international law.

No one knows whether the bill would be signed into US law. However, if it is, the CCP is almost certain to react with indignation and anger, and it would warn the US not to interfere in China’s domestic affairs, and that it was “playing with fire.”

One might say that this is a reasonable reaction, except that all the bill seeks to do is to ensure that a peaceful resolution is sought in a genuine way, unclouded by untruths and historical distortions, and in accordance with international convention and law. Yet that is not the CCP’s way.

On this page, Khedroob Thondup, a former member of the Tibetan parliament in exile, writes about the implications of the passage of this bill into law for Tibetans, and for the potential resolution of tensions between India and China.

India is now dealing with the untruths and historical distortions propagated by the CCP regarding the border region that Beijing insists has always been part of China’s territory, and which it now calls Zangnan, or “South Tibet.”

The Philippines is also dealing with the CCP’s untruths and historical distortions about claims over the South China Sea.

On the Taiwan issue, the US is continuously trying to push back on the CCP’s untruths and historical distortions about UN Resolution 2758 and the definition of the US’ “one China policy” as opposed to the CCP’s “one China principle.”

The CCP will focus on its insistence that Tibet is a domestic issue, as it believes its claims over the South China Sea and over Taiwan to be.

However, that is not the point of the Resolve Tibet bill. The bill’s simple aim is that the issue be resolved in accordance with historical veracity and international law, and with respect for people’s right to self-determination.

This is why the CCP will rebuff the encouragement called for in the Resolve Tibet bill. The CCP has no interest in history or international law or the rights of people unless these things serve its own interests. They are merely tools to achieve an end, and the final arbiter is where the power lies.

Tibet has no power without the support of the international community and a recognition of the injustice of its predicament. Taiwan is in the same position, although the free world is waking up to the fact that Taiwan has long been subjected to the CCP’s position that power makes right.

The Tibetans welcome the impetus that led to the proposal of the Resolve Tibet bill. So will India. And so should all Taiwanese.