Lobsang Sangay warns China trying to transform Tibet into Chinese province
May 30, 2021
Washington [US], May 30 : As the oppression of Tibetans by the Chinese government continues, the outgoing Tibetan President-in-exile Lobsang Sangay has warned that China wants to transform Tibet into a Chinese province.
In an interview with Fox News, Sangay said: "They want to make Tibet into a Chinese province and they want to make Tibetans into Chinese."
Sangay also said that the increased pressure by the Chinese military in Tibet - where people are being forcibly sterilised, arrested, tortured and killed - 'must be stopped'.
"The challenge before the world, as far as China is concerned, is either you transform China or China will transform you," he said.
The outgoing president of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) recently visited the United States to press the Biden administration for more support for Tibet against increasing Chinese aggression.
Fox News reported that the abuse inside Tibet is getting worse, as even poets, artists and singers are arrested for creating Tibetan art, while others are being tortured for displaying pictures of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who is unable to return to the country.
According to Freedom House, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Tibet is now ranked as the least-free country in the world, tied with Syria. Most Buddhist places across the country are banned, their flags were torn down and nuns and monks locked up in camps as China tries to wipe out this millennia-old culture.
"If you compare communist ideology with Buddhist civilization, Buddhism is 2,500-plus years old. So it has gone through ups and downs, but it has survived ... Communism is only 100 years old. So they are just a child compared to our philosophy and ideology," Sangay told Fox News.
China is using the same suppression tactics against Tibet that it has been using against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, with about 500,000 Tibetans are now being held in labour camps.
The Chinese government occupied Tibet in 1950, destroying 98 per cent of the monasteries and nunneries, and has ever since tried to control the region.
In recent years, China has intensified its efforts to eradicate the Dalai Lama from the religious lives of Tibetans to crush their identity. During a meeting, Mao Zedong had told the 14th Dalai Lama, that "religion is poison."
Monks have protested the occupation throughout, including by self-immolation - 155 monks have set themselves ablaze in the last decade, reported Fox News.
Even so, protests against the Chinese occupation have remained peaceful in line with their Buddhist teachings.
