Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence


APPENDIX 12

Memorandum submitted by Mr John Billington

POLITICAL

  In theory the TAR enjoys "autonomy" and the FCO currently subscribes to this claim. In reality Tibetans have no autonomy: all important decisions are made by Chinese personnel, or their Tibetan stooges who are not answerable to an electorate. No one who has had dealing with Tibetans inside Tibet can doubt that they view the Chinese with fear and loathing—loathing because Tibetan wishes are not taken into consideration and their culture is marginalized as China seeks to subsume Tibet into what it calls the "Motherland". Tibetans do not view China as their motherland. HMG originally agreed to accept Chinese "suzerainty" on condition that China allowed Tibet genuine autonomy, including in foreign affairs. Since China has never fulfilled its side of the bargain, HMG should withdraw its recognition of Chinese suzerainty—a relationship that Tibetans have never accepted. HMG should take a lead in supporting Tibet since Britain has historically had closer relationships with Tibet than any other western nation. The status of Tibet could be used as a bargaining counter in persuading China to change.

  The most serious problem for Tibet is the current massive transfer of population, which continues despite China's bland assurances and "statistics" to the contrary. I was shocked and depressed on my recent visit to note the enormous increase in the size of New Lhasa (Chinese Lhasa ie) And the enormous influx of Chinese even in the last twelve months. Unemployment in China proper had led to Tibet being viewed as a latter-day Yukon or Klondyke—a remote western land where the enterprising may make a fortune. I would estimate that Chinese now outnumber Tibetans in their own capital city by about 8 to 1; the visitor has to look hard to find a Tibetan and when he does so it is a couple of ghettoes in the old part of Lhasa (around the Jokhang and Ramoche temples).

HUMAN RIGHTS

  China is a State Party to the Convention against Torture but torture is endemic in Chinese prisons. China executes more of its citizens than the rest of the world put together. Torture and execution are used to suppress resistance to one-party rule. Sentences of political prisoners are regularly extended even for peaceful protests if those protests involve what the Chinese see as a threat to their national unity, and Tibetans, Mongols and Uighurs suffer because they are not Han. Over three-quarters of the 615 known political prisoners in Tibet are monks and nuns who are doubly persecuted—for their religion and for their educated understanding of their own history and culture which puts them at odds with the Chinese claim to "own" Tibet. To date, HMG's support for motions criticising China's human rights record in Tibet (and elsewhere) has been compromised by our hope to gain commercially. I do not believe that is what the people of this country want and I urge the FCO to take a more robust stand on China's abuses of human rights and especially in Tibet. HMG should support a motion at the UN urging China to grant genuine autonomy at the very least, if not outright independence to the Tibetan people whose right to independence is considerably greater than that of the people of East Timor (for example). HMG should actively renew support for the implementation of the UN's GA Resolution 1723 which calls upon China to cease practices "which deprive the Tibetan people of their fundamental rights and freedoms, including the right to self-determination."

EDUCATION

  I have made a detailed study of this (as a teacher myself). Tibetans are discriminated against in that their language is subordinated for all forms of higher education to Chinese; support for the Tibetan language and culture is seen as a threat to national unity. To get anything other than a manual job a Tibetan must first learn to speak and write fluent Chinese as all examinations are in Chinese. Tibetans loathe the learning of Chinese which they see as a betrayal of their own culture. Tibetans are thus hugely disadvantaged in the job-market. Moreover, Tibetans are denied all opportunity to learn English even when they wish to, because they are time-tabled to learn Chinese when their Chinese counterparts living in Tibet are time-tabled to learn English (ie Chinese do not have to learn Tibetan even when they live in Tibet, but Tibetans do have to learn Chinese). Thus again Tibetans are disadvantaged in any area (including tourism and running restaurants etc) where English might be useful while their Chinese counterparts steam ahead. I am currently engaged in attempting on behalf of GAP Activity Ltd (a charity in Reading supplying school-leavers to teach EFL overseas) to set up this scheme in Tibet. GAP already supplies about 100 Volunteer teachers to various provinces within China but Tibet is currently excluded from this scheme. There is no reason in law why both Tibetan and Chinese Middle School students in the TAR should not benefit from this scheme which is totally non-political. I would urge the FCO to take up and support this project. Our Director, Brigadier John Cornell, would I believe welcome FCO support. Such a scheme would help Tibetans but would also help young Chinese students living in Tibet.

  2,474 Tibetans are recorded as having crossed the border into India and Nepal in 1999 alone. Of these 1,115 were children below the age of 18. The majority of these on-going refugees give as their reason for escaping the desire to get an education free of indoctrination.

  Religious Freedom (or lack of it): In 1999 a three-year "atheism" campaign was launched in Tibet, the aim of which was to demonstrate that Buddhism is "alien" to Tibet. The Chinese capacity to attempt to prove the impossible is breathtaking since no-one who knows anything about Tibet could deny that Tibet and Buddhism are closely and inextricably intertwined. Fifty years after taking over Tibet the central government is still trying to liquidate religion, despite all the evidence that it will not work. In the "strike hard" campaign that has been continuing since 1996, over 11,000 monks have been expelled from their monasteries for refusing to condemn the Dalai Lama etc; and 541 have been arrested. In my recent visit I saw not a single photograph of the Dalai Lama on show anywhere. In places where the Dalai Lama's picture would traditionally be displayed the Chinese authorities had substituted pictures of the late Panchen Lama and the Chinese-appointed new successor. The Panchen Lama approved by the Dalai Lama and therefore by the Tibetan people (Gedun Choekyi Nyima) remains under close house arrest and has not been seen by any western enquirer. You will scarcely need to be reminded that the head of the Karmapa sect (the Karmapa Lama) escaped in January this year from his monastery in Tsurphu; or that the suppression and arrest of followers of Falun Gong indicate a serious absence of religious freedom in China.

  These seem to me some of the key issues which the FCO should bear in mind in its dealings with the PRC. I believe they reflect the concerns of many people who are now increasingly well-informed on this issue.


 
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