Letter from the Chinese Ambassador to
the Court of St. James to the Chairman of the Committee
I am writing to let you know the reactions by
the Chinese people to the "oral evidence session" with
the Dalai Lama on May 22 and his meetings with political leaders
of Britain. Within ten hours of the report of these events by
Chinese media, 7,728 comments were posted on Sina.com, a leading
Chinese internet portal, expressing displeasure on these moves.
Many mentioned the inglorious role of Britain in the history of
China, and Tibet in particular, and the agenda of the Dalai Lama.
The Chinese public seem quite upset by the fact that Britain should
choose to hurt China at such a difficult moment, which they saw
as adding insult to injury.
It is indeed ironic for the British parliament
which has always defended the principle of separation of church
and state to invite someone who personifies the mixing of church
and state. It is also worth mentioning that he has stayed away
for almost 50 years from Tibet. It is, therefore, not surprising
that when asked about the specific cases of human rights violations
in Tibet, he was evasive and failed to provide specifics on his
charges.
I hereby attach some information about Tibet
which I hope will be useful for understanding of the issues. It
would also be interesting to hear your impression about the "evidence
session".
The Chinese side values its relations with the
FAC I do hope that the FAC will take the concerns of the Chinese
people seriously.
SOME FACTS
AND INFORMATION
ABOUT TIBET
1. The Lhasa incident
On March 14 serious and violent rioting occurred
in Lhasa. Rioters set fire to more than 300 locations, burning
down seven schools, five hospitals, 908 shops and private residences.
18 innocent people were burned or slashed to death, including
a baby less than one year old and 382 people were injured. The
government of the Tibet Autonomous Region and its law enforcement
authorities exercised maximum restraint in dealing with these
criminal activities and no lethal weapons were used. However,
the local police sustained serious casualties with one death and
241 injuries. All these facts are well-documented and transparently
reported, including all names and whereabouts of individuals concerned.
Thirty rioters, who were sentenced, appointed their defense lawyers
and had their cases well-defended.
The Dalai Lama and his followers insisted that
from 140 and 150 to 200 people died in the "crackdown".
However, there has been only a list of 40 names of people allegedly
killed, which was forwarded by one of the overseas Tibetan groups.
Among them 16 had addresses and only five are valid. However,
the five persons are either alive or non-existent.
It is worthy to note that during the "oral
evidence session" on 22 May at the British Parliament, when
an MP asked the Dalai Lama whether he had an estimate of the number
of Tibetan people killed during the recent protests, the Dalai
Lama replied "That's very difficult to tell...We really don't
know".
There are also allegations of torture according
to the Dalai Lama and his followers. Article 247 of the Criminal
Law of the PRC stipulates "Judicial workers who extort a
confession from criminal suspects or defendants by torture, or
who use force to extract testimony from witnesses, are to be sentenced
to three years or fewer in prison or put under criminal detention".
Article 413 of the Criminal Procedure Law prohibits the collection
of evidence through means of torture. Allegations of torture need
to have factual support. Any person who commits torture in China
will face the consequences of the law.
2. The human rights situation in Tibet
When asked by a Chinese journalist in London
on 23 May about whether the human rights situation in Tibet was
better or worse than in 1959, the Dalai Lama said "Worse".
Recent studies by a Tibetologist Doctor Xu Xingsheng
revealed chilling files of the Dalai Lama's rule in Tibet before
1959. There was a letter written to the head of a clan, asking
him to prepare for gifts and sacrifices for celebrating the Dalai
Lama's birthday. And the gifts and sacrifices were: "one
whole set of human intestine, two human heads, human blood and
one whole piece of human skin".
The old Tibet was a feudal serfdom and theocracy
ruled by monks and nobles headed by the Dalai Lama himself. The
Dalai Lama's parents owned over 6,000 serfs. More than 90% of
the population were serfs and 5% of the population were slaves.
Serfs and slaves had no basic human rights or freedoms. They could
be bought and sold like commodities and were subjected to all
forms of cruel punishment at the will of their owners.
Such a reality 50 years ago can only be repulsive
to any modem society. Comparing today's Tibet to those dark days
can only be offensive to the people in Tibet and the rest of China.
Many Chinese internet users reacted angrily to such a comment
by the Dalai Lama.
Today in Tibet people live in an improved environment
with more extensive political, economic, social and cultural rights.
GDP of the region has registered an average growth rate of above
12% for the past five years, higher than the national average.
Income for farmers and herdsmen has grown more than 80% in the
same period, reaching RMB 2,788 last year. Before 1959 infant
mortality rate was 450 per thousand and people used to die at
the average age of 35.5 years. Now the average life expectancy
is 67 years. Before 1959 there wasn't even a single modem primary
school, now there are 1,100 schools with more than 500,000 students.
In the past over 90% of Tibetans were illiterate, now the literacy
rate has risen to 95%. And there are now 1,378 hospitals and clinics
in Tibet. Since 2003 the elderly lamas in Tibet were also covered
in minimum living allowance schemes provided by the government.
Experience of many countries shows that with
greater economic prosperity comes better preservation of traditional
cultures. In particular, 330 million yuan was spent in the past
six years on repairing the Dalai Lama's official residence the
Potala Palace and his summer palace Norbulingka, and the Sakya
Monastery. The Central Government has allocated 570 million yuan
on the renovation of 22 major religious and cultural sites between
2006 and 2010, which is unprecedented in Tibetan history. In 2006,
the number of religious sites in Tibet reached 1,780, or one temple
for every 1,600 people. In England there is one church for every
3,125 people.
The development in Tibet is not perfect and
even compared with the national standard, Tibet is not the most
prosperous region. The important thing is that it is making progress
along with the rest of China.
3. The system of ethnic regional autonomy
in Tibet
The Tibet Autonomous Region was founded in 1965
in accordance with the PRC Constitution and the PRC Law on Ethnic
Regional Autonomy. The system of ethnic regional autonomy in Tibet
aims to ensure Tibetan people's right to manage their own affairs
in light of local conditions in political, legislative, socio-economic
and cultural fields while fully participating in national governance.
Like people of other ethnic minorities, many
Tibetans work in the Central Government and governments at various
levels in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The 14th Dalai Lama used
to serve as the Vice Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee. All
of the seven chairmen (or governor) of the TAR government are
Tibetan. Tibetan and other ethnic minority people take up 77.97%
of Tibetan government employees, and 69.82% of court staff and
82.25% of procuratorate staff.
Since 1965, the People's Congress of the Tibet
Autonomous Region and its Standing Committee have formulated 220
local laws and separate regulations concerning political affairs,
social and economic development, marriage, education, spoken and
written language, judicature, forest, grassland, wild animals
and natural resources protection.
In 1981, for example, the Standing Committee
of the TAR People's Congress adopted the Modified Regulations
of the TAR for the implementation of the PRC Marriage Law, which
lowers the legal marital age for Tibetans by two years. It also
specifies that those involved in polyandry or polygamy may continue
in such relationships as they wish. In 1987, a special law was
enacted to protect the Tibetan language, namely the Stipulations
of the Tibet Autonomous Region for the Study, Use and Development
of the Tibetan Language.
The Tibet Autonomous Region benefits from the
preferential economic policy by the Central Government in the
form of fiscal subsidies and investment in key construction projects.
From 2001 to 2005, the accumulated fiscal transfer from the Central
Government, excluding funds for capital construction, amounted
to 47.5 billion Yuan, or 92% of Tibet's total financial expenditure.
In 1980, the Central Government abolished the centuries-old agricultural
tax in Tibet and gave access to free education by Tibetan children
up to the ninth grade, both 26 years ahead of the rest of China.
4. The population in Tibet
Tibet's birth rate and natural population growth
rate all stayed higher than the national average in the past 56
years, contrary to historical trends. According to the population
sample survey, as of the end of 2006, Tibet's total population
reached 2.81 million, of which 2.6 million or 92% of the total
population were Tibetan. The Hans have not taken up more than
6% of the population in Tibet for the past 50 years. The status
of Tibetans as the main ethnic group in Tibet has never changed.
For the past decade and more, the Dalai Lama
and his followers have tried repeatedly to make an issue out of
the demographic composition in Tibet as a major area of human
rights violation against the Tibetan people. They claimed that
"120 million Tibetans were killed since 1951". Between
1959 and 2007 the population of Tibet grew from 1 million to more
than 2.8 million, much higher than the growth of Tibetan exiled
population from 100,000 to 150,000 during the same period.
The Dalai Lama said during the "oral evidence
session" at the British Parliament on May 22 that two thirds
of the population in Lhasa are Hans. In fact 85% of the 550,000
people living in greater Lhasa are ethnic Tibetan. His so-called
information about "one million Hans moving to Tibet after
the Olympics" is groundless.
5. The one-child policy
In the late 1970s, China began to widely implement
a family planning policy. Since then, China has gradually formed
a sound legal basis in this area. Forced abortion in any form
is prohibited.
Article 18 of the PRC Law on Population and
Family Planning provides that in minority inhabited regions
and areas, specific rules of family planning shall be formulated
by the local people's congress or its standing committee. Article
9 of the Provisional Rules on Family Planning in the TAR
stipulates that ethnic Tibetan farmers and herders are not subject
to family planning policies.
The epicenter of the earthquake in Sichuan is
part of a minority inhabited area, which is not covered by the
one-child policy, either. That is why during the rescue operations,
many families are with more than one child, although this can
in no way lessen the pain of the loss of any child.
On 21 May, the Dalai Lama's private secretary
came to the Chinese Embassy to offer condolences for earthquake
victims. When given explanation about the one-child policy, he
said that the Dalai Lama has always been aware that the one child
policy does not apply to people of ethnic minorities. He also
knows that Tibetan families normally have many children.
(Provided by the Information Section of the
Embassy of the People's Republic of China)
28 May 2008
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