By Mayank Chhaya-
With President Joe Biden signing the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act into law, the nearly 75-year-old dispute has yet again come into sharp relief much to the chagrin of Beijing.
However, the new law’s immediate or even short-term impact remains doubtful given China’s intransigence as well as profound political rancor and uncertainties in the U.S. over presidential elections.
Notwithstanding those, there is a reference in the official White House statement that is being greeted with great hope by the Tibetan community in exile.
After signing the act into law yesterday, Biden’s made a particular reference which is bound to rile China. He said, “I share the Congress’s bipartisan commitment to advancing the human rights of Tibetans and supporting efforts to preserve their distinct linguistic, cultural, and religious heritage.”
Recognizing the distinctiveness of Tibet from the linguistic, cultural and heritage standpoints has historically been at the heart of the dispute since China has maintained that Tibet and Tibetan people have been part of China.
Quite curiously though the president continues to maintain America’s longstanding bipartisan policy that recognizes the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas of China as part of the People’s Republic of China.
There are clearly unresolvable tensions between asserting Tibet’s distinctiveness as a culture and heritage on the one hand and recognizing it to be geographically and historically part of China on the other.
Biden also called on China to “resume direct dialogue, without preconditions, with the Dalai Lama, or his representatives, to seek a settlement that resolves differences and leads to a negotiated agreement on Tibet.”
Talks between Beijing and the Dalai Lama’s representatives have stalled since 2010. Even when the negotiations stalled 14 years ago, Beijing had shown no particular inclination to resolve the Tibetan dispute. In the interregnum, the rise of and dramatic consolidation of power by President Xi Jinping since March 14, 2013, has meant that China’s position on Tibet has become even more entrenched.
Despite that the Tibetan exile community sees hope in the new law.
“The Resolve Tibet Act cuts to the heart of China’s brutal treatment of the Tibetan people,” said Tencho Gyatso, President of the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). “To Tibetans it is a statement of hope. To other countries it is a clarion call to support Tibet’s peaceful struggle for human rights and democratic freedoms. And to Beijing it is a declaration that American support for Tibet does not come with an expiration date; China must resume dialogue and find a solution that supports the fundamental rights of the Tibetan people.”
Inevitably, Beijing responded sharply to the new law. The country’s foreign ministry was quoted as saying that it “grossly interferes in China’s domestic affairs, undermines China’s interests, and sends a severely wrong signal to the ‘Tibet independence’ forces.”
“The U.S. must not implement the Act,” it said, adding, “If the U.S. continues down the wrong path, China will take resolute measures to firmly defend its sovereignty, security and development interests.”
Gyatso said “President Biden promised his administration would stand up for the people of Tibet, “There is not a moment to lose. Experienced State Department officials like Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues Uzra Zeya now have a valuable tool to elevate their calls for negotiations and fulfill the core objective of the Special Coordinator’s office: promoting substantive dialogue, without preconditions, between China and the Dalai Lama, his representatives, or democratically elected Tibetan leaders in support of a negotiated agreement on Tibet.”
However, given that the act became law barely five months before the presidential election and that too at the hands of a deeply politically embattled Biden means that at least for the foreseeable future there will not be any significant positive movement on the question of Tibet.
In the event that former President Donald Trump returns to the White House, it is not even remotely clear what position he might take, if any at all, since in his world Tibet does not figure at all.
The ICT’s expectations that in the aftermath of the new law the State Department and the White House would “vigorously champion genuine negotiation and overcome Beijing’s stalling tactics” may be belied for now.
