25-yr-old first Tibetan to be Indian citizen
Anand Bodh, TNN, Jan 20, 2011, 01.32am IST
CHANDIGARH: Thousands of Tibetans born in India between 1950 and 1986 may have a reason to cheer. They can now become Indian citizens under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 1986. These Tibetans have 25-year-old Namgyal Dolkar to thank, who although born in India was declined citizenship and termed ‘stateless’.
Dolkar became the first Tibetan to get Indian citizenship after Delhi High Court ruled in her favour last month. ”I am a Tibetan at heart, but now I am an Indian citizen. I believe one should be aware of one’s rights, and I got my rights due to my awareness,” she told TOI.
Dolkar is no ordinary Tibetan. She is the oldest of four siblings who claim descent from Tibet’s 33rd King Songtsen Gampo, ruler of Tibet in the 7th century. In June 2004, during a coronation ceremony presided over by the Dalai Lama, her younger brother, Namgyal Wangchuk Trichen Lhagyari, was ordained descendent of the first dharma King Songtsen Gampo.
Dolkar said she hoped her case would help others Tibetans struggling for an identity in India. ”For one year, Dolkar’s queries went unheard. We sent a legal notice, but after it failed to get a response, we approached the Delhi High Court,” said Roxna S Swamy, Dolkar’s lawyer.
”I found that Tibetans, who are eligible for citizenship as per the amended 1986 Citizenship Act, were not aware of it,” she said. ”According to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 1986, any person born in India on or after January 26, 1950, but prior to the commencement of the 1986 Act on July 1, 1987, is citizen of India by birth.”
Born in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, on April 13, 1986, and brought up in Dehradun, Dolkar never thought her quest for national identity would lead to a legal battle that would turn out to be a milestone for her exiled community.
The battle began after she applied for an Indian passport in March 2008 in Delhi. The passport office rejected her application, saying her parents were Tibetans. In response to her application, the passport office wrote back on September 1, 2009 that the ministry of external affairs had decided that she could not get a passport and be treated as an Indian.
Dolkar then approached the high court. Justice S Muralidhar on December 22, ruled Dolkar was entitled to citizenship. The court had also ordered MEA to pay her a compensation of Rs 5,000, and give her a passport within two months.

A new era for Tibet’s rivers
? 11-1-17 ?? ChinaDialogue Latest Articles ???Jiang Yannan, He Haining
Construction of a massive dam on the Yarlung Zangbo marks a turning point for Tibet, write He Haining and Jiang Yannan. A development boom is coming.
The rushing waters of the Yarlung Zangbo, the last of China’s great rivers to remain undammed, will soon be history. On November 12 last year, the builders of the Zangmu Hydropower Station announced the successful damming of the river – the first public announcement on a matter that, until now, has been kept under wraps.The Zangmu hydroelectric power station is being built on the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo (known as the Brahmaputra when it reaches India) between the counties of Sangri andGyaca. Around 7.9 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) is being invested in the project, located in a V-shaped valley 3,200 metres above sea level. At 510 megawatts, the plant is much smaller than China’s 18,000-megawatt Three Gorges Dam, but still equivalent to the entire existing hydropower-generating capacity of Tibet.The construction workers have now reached the centre of the river. The water is being diverted into sluiceways and rows of grouting machines and stone crushers are working at full pace, while trucks come and go. One worker said that the winter here is mild, so there’ll be no need to stop work. Geologist Yang Yong said the activity represents the start of a new age: “Hydropower development on the Yarlung has begun, marking the start of a hydropower era for Tibet’s rivers.”A series of hydropower stations is proposed for the Yarlung Zangbo. If they are all built, Zangmu will be the fourth in a row of five on the Sangri to Gyaca stretch of the river, between the Gyaca and Jiexu plants. There has been no official confirmation that the construction of these will go ahead. But Yan Zhiyong, general manager of China Hydropower Engineering Consulting, said in a recent media interview: “By about 2020 most of China’s hydropower projects outside of Tibet will have been completed, and the industry’s focus will shift to the Jinsha, Lancang, the upper reaches of the Nu River and the Yarlung.”Several well-known Chinese hydropower firms have already made their way into Tibet. The backer of the Zangmu project, the Tibet Generating Company, has already built a residential area on the open spaces alongside the river at Zangmu and a flourishing town is taking shape, with a supermarket better-stocked than those in the county’s main town. The boss, from Zhejiang, moved here from the Xiaowan dam in Yunnan, south-west China, two months ago and is positive about the future: “There’ll be loads of workers next year, business will be great.”The Zangmu dam is located in the southern Tibetan county of Gyaca, which has a population of around 17,000. “The economy here is going to be among the fastest-growing in Tibet,” said businessman Li Hua, who has already invested in a three-star hotel here – a five-storey building that is now the tallest in the area.Work on a highway to the administrative centre of Lhoka prefecture is to start in 2011, cutting travel time in half. “Hydropower development will very quickly spur mining, and there’ll also be very rapid growth in road and railways. The Tibetan hinterland will see a new development boom,” predicted Yang Yong. Guan Zhihua is a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research. In 1972 the academy established a survey team to study the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, and Guan – now in his seventies – was the head of the group charged with calculating the hydropower potential of the Yarlung Zangbo, China’s highest river. As if describing a family heirloom, he said: “The river flows for 2,057 kilometres within China’s borders, and its hydropower potential is second only to the Yangtze. It has more power-generating potential per unit of length than any other river in China.”
Guan’s was the first comprehensive and systematic study of the plateau – a four year field project carried out by more than 400 people across 50 different disciplines. But the study of the Yarlung Zangbo and its tributaries was only a part of the survey, and at the time nobody had any idea of the extent of the river’s potential. The entire basin was found to have hydropower potential of 114 gigawatts – 79 of which was on the main river. And this potential was highly concentrated, with the possibility of a 38-gigawatt hydropower facility at the Great Bend in Medog county, equal in power to the Three Gorges Dam.In 1980, a nationwide survey of hydropower resources was carried out and 12 possible dam locations identified on the Yarlung Zangbo. “This would have been the first hydropower plan for the Yarlung,” recalled Guan. In the 1980s, Tibet twice planned to dam the Yarlung Zangbo, but in neither case did the project get off the groundZhang Jinling, a 76-year old retiree from the Tibet Surveying Institute, recalled the first bid to build a dam here: “In the 1980s, Shigatse [a city in southern Tibet] wanted to build a hydropower station at Jiangdang and that would have been the first attempt to dam the river.” But there were concerns: this part of the river carries a lot of silt and the project would have required swaths of land to be inundated and many people to be relocated – and the dam would only generate 50 megawatts of power. The plan was submitted to Beijing, but was not approved.
On another occasion, plans were drawn up to dam the river outside Lhasa. Zhang’s team carried out preliminary surveys, drilling rock samples out of the mountainsides to acquire geological data. But a large reshuffle of officials in both 1981 and 1982 saw the team lose two-thirds of its manpower. Plans were shelved.Those plans were spurred by a shortage of electricity in Tibet. Zhang recalled that the Tibetan government was seeking a quick way of providing power by any means – diesel-fired and geothermal power generation were also used.During the 1980s, Lhasa, with 120,000 residents, only had 20 or 30 megawatts of power-generating capacity, mostly provided by several hydropower stations each providing a few megawatts. In winter there was no choice but to rotate power supplies to different areas of the city, with those cut off using kerosene for heating.When Zhang retired in 1995, the electricity grid in eastern Tibet was just beginning to take shape, but it has remained isolated from the national grid. A connection between Tibet and Qinghai is due to be completed in 2012, which will relieve the electricity shortages Tibet suffers in winter and spring.”It wouldn’t have been possible to build a large dam on the Yarlung before the Qinghai-Tibet railway was completed – you need a rail line to move the building materials,” said He Xiwu, who was head of the survey team’s water-resources group at the time.In 1994, work started on the Three Gorges Dam, but plans for the Yarlung Zangbo were kept quiet. The low-key approach was unusual given the river’s huge potential. Even recently, a water-resources official with the Tibetan government stressed that developing hydropower in Tibet was mostly about self-sufficiency.
Since the early 1990s, Tibet has built a series of medium-sized hydropower stations, of about 10 megawatts each, such as the pumped-storage hydropower station at Yamdrok Lake and the dam at Zhikong. These are intended to relieve electricity shortages in the Lhasa area. Although government work reports mention it every year, hydropower development on the Yarlung Zangbo was never made a priority. But in the final years of the 11th Five Year Plan, things changed. “The current proposal is an appropriate degree of industrialisation, with a process of capacity building, then focusing on priorities, and then overall development,” said He Gang,research fellow at the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Economic Strategy. “The priorities most often proposed are mining and hydropower.”Behind the scenes, preparations for hydropower development on the Yarlung Zangbo have been constant. In a recent media interview, Zhi Xiaoqian, head of the Chengdu Surveying Institute, said that plans had been drawn up for all of Tibet’s major rivers, including the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo. But a lack of clear policy direction has meant approval for those plans has been slow and the projects have not commenced. “Now the time and conditions are ripe. China’s energy supply is becoming ever more pressured, and there’s an urgent need to develop the rich hydropower resources of Tibet,” Zhi said.Currently less than 0.6% of Tibet’s hydropower resources have been developed. In comparison with the rest of China, this is virgin territory.The Zangmu Hydropower Station is only the start. The huge potential of the Yarlung Zangbo is concentrated at the Great Bend in Medog county, where two or more dams the size of the Three Gorges could be built. This is also the most spectacular section of the river, where it falls steeply as it makes a u-turn, and is regarded as one of the world’s most striking river sections.
As early as 1998, Chen Chuanyou of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences published an article in Guangming Daily entitled “Could the world’s biggest hydropower station be built in Tibet?” He proposed building a reservoir on the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo to raise the water level, and then drilling a 16-kilometre tunnel to carry the water to its tributary, the Duoxiong – a drop of 2,300 metres that would allow for three hydropower stations. For the sake of safety and the environment, they could be built underground, he said.In 2002, Chen published another paper in Engineering Sciences, looking at the positive impact that a hydropower station at the Great Bend would have on electricity generation in south-east Asia, and pointing out that, if there were financial issues, funds could be raised both domestically and abroad, and that electricity could be exported to south-east Asia.He Xiwu said: “I’ve heard there is still no plan for the Great Bend. The state should spend a bit every year on long-term research. There’s 38-gigawatts of potential there, but the geology is complicated and construction would be difficult. It has to be done carefully.””Hydropower development in Tibet has come late, but it is on the agenda now,” said Fan Xiao, chief engineer for the regional geological survey team at the Sichuan Bureau of Geological Exploration. What worries Fan, however, is this: “Tibet’s ecology is extremely vulnerable, and would be very hard to restore if damaged. This kind of full-river development can’t just see the Yarlung Zangbo as a hydropower resource – everything needs to be taken into consideration.”
This article was first published by Southern Weekend.He Haining is a reporter and Jiang Yannan an intern at Southern Weekend. Feng Jie, also a reporter, contributed to this article.

Nepal’s king traded Tibetan refugees for US support
WikiLeaks
Economic Times: Jan 15, 2011
KATHMANDU: After ordering the closure of the Dalai Lama’s envoy’s office in Kathmandu and taking over absolute power with a military-backed bloodless coup in 2005, Nepal’s King Gyanendra dangled Tibetan refugees as bait before the US in a bid to get American support, whistle-blowing web site WikiLeaks said in its latest revelation.
Ramesh Nath Pandey, the man appointed foreign minister by the king, met the then American ambassador to Nepal, James Moriarty, saying the royal regime wanted a long-term relationship with the US and would respond better to “engagement” rather than pressure.
The American ambassador emphasised that the Congress was considerably concerned about the Tibetan refugees escaping to Nepal from China-held Tibet and urged the royal minister to ensure the refugees’ transit was proceeded without hindrance.
At time, there were about 1,000 Tibetan refugees at the Tibetan Refugee Reception Center, that facilitates the forward journey of the refugees to India and other countries, and the envoy said Nepal needed to make sure that the process of transiting refugees to India resumed.
The US had earlier proposed it would resettle the Tibetan refugees in Nepal in American cities but the proposal remains stuck officially after Nepal declined, due to Chinese pressure.
The ambassador also pushed for an NGO, the Tibetan Welfare Society , to be given registration. The society, believed to be a new form for the office of the Dalai Lama’s representative in Nepal, was shut down in January 2005. The leaked cables said the Nepal minister’s response was ambiguous.
He first said Nepal needed to have a close relationship with the US and then indicated that given the Chinese support, Nepal might not act on the issues raised by the ambassador unless Washington changed its Nepal policy.
The king’s messenger reportedly said Nepal’s long-term interest was in a relationship with the US, not China or India. He also claimed that though India and the US had stopped providing military assistance to Nepal after the coup, “Nepal would not be short of arms” and that “a plane of material from one of your best friends” would arrive.
The American ambassador advised the king, who was waging a war on the Maoists with little result, to declare a cease-fire with international monitoring and to reconcile with the political parties.
The royal minister countered that saying the party leaders were a major problem and the king should bypass them and ally with middle-tier leaders. He also said the Maoists would exploit the parties against the king and dump them when they had their way. The ambassador noted that Pandey’s proposal meant “essentially… decapitating the parties and was
unacceptable”.
The ambassador also emphasised that Tibetan refugee issues were one of the administration’s and Congress’s key concerns regarding Nepal, and if there were no progress, Nepal could put at risk other parts of the relationship, including development assistance.
The new revelation comes even as the controversial memoir of a former military secretary to the palace claimed China wanted Nepal to deploy its army to prevent Tibetan refugees from escaping and proposed the army should be strengthened for that.

Nepal’s king traded Tibetan refugees for US support
WikiLeaks
Economic Times: Jan 15, 2011
KATHMANDU: After ordering the closure of the Dalai Lama’s envoy’s office in Kathmandu and taking over absolute power with a military-backed bloodless coup in 2005, Nepal’s King Gyanendra dangled Tibetan refugees as bait before the US in a bid to get American support, whistle-blowing web site WikiLeaks said in its latest revelation.
Ramesh Nath Pandey, the man appointed foreign minister by the king, met the then American ambassador to Nepal, James Moriarty, saying the royal regime wanted a long-term relationship with the US and would respond better to “engagement” rather than pressure.
The American ambassador emphasised that the Congress was considerably concerned about the Tibetan refugees escaping to Nepal from China-held Tibet and urged the royal minister to ensure the refugees’ transit was proceeded without hindrance.
At time, there were about 1,000 Tibetan refugees at the Tibetan Refugee Reception Center, that facilitates the forward journey of the refugees to India and other countries, and the envoy said Nepal needed to make sure that the process of transiting refugees to India resumed.
The US had earlier proposed it would resettle the Tibetan refugees in Nepal in American cities but the proposal remains stuck officially after Nepal declined, due to Chinese pressure.
The ambassador also pushed for an NGO, the Tibetan Welfare Society , to be given registration. The society, believed to be a new form for the office of the Dalai Lama’s representative in Nepal, was shut down in January 2005. The leaked cables said the Nepal minister’s response was ambiguous.
He first said Nepal needed to have a close relationship with the US and then indicated that given the Chinese support, Nepal might not act on the issues raised by the ambassador unless Washington changed its Nepal policy.
The king’s messenger reportedly said Nepal’s long-term interest was in a relationship with the US, not China or India. He also claimed that though India and the US had stopped providing military assistance to Nepal after the coup, “Nepal would not be short of arms” and that “a plane of material from one of your best friends” would arrive.
The American ambassador advised the king, who was waging a war on the Maoists with little result, to declare a cease-fire with international monitoring and to reconcile with the political parties.
The royal minister countered that saying the party leaders were a major problem and the king should bypass them and ally with middle-tier leaders. He also said the Maoists would exploit the parties against the king and dump them when they had their way. The ambassador noted that Pandey’s proposal meant “essentially… decapitating the parties and was
unacceptable”.
The ambassador also emphasised that Tibetan refugee issues were one of the administration’s and Congress’s key concerns regarding Nepal, and if there were no progress, Nepal could put at risk other parts of the relationship, including development assistance.
The new revelation comes even as the controversial memoir of a former military secretary to the palace claimed China wanted Nepal to deploy its army to prevent Tibetan refugees from escaping and proposed the army should be strengthened for that.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama Urged Not to Retire from Leader of Tibet
Wednesday, 05 January 2011 20:53 YC. Dhardhowa, The Tibet Post International
Dharamsala: Tibetan parliament in exile here Dharamshala Wednesday urged the Tibet’s spiritual and political leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama not to consider retirement or even semi-retirement from his position as the leader of Tibet and the Tibetan people. “Tibetans, both in Tibet and in exile, have been greatly concerned about your intention to retire
completely from governmental roles,” a memorandum submitted to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama said.
The following is a memorandum issued on Wednesday by the members of the Standing Committee of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile. “During the conclusion ceremony of the First Tibetan National General Meeting held in 2010 at the Bylakuppe Tibetan settlements, South India; in your response to questions asked during a meeting with the Chinese public in Toronto; at the founding anniversary of the Tibetan Children’s Village at Upper Dharamshala; and in your answer to questions asked at a press conference in New Delhi, Your Holiness expressed an intention to retire completely from governmental roles. Tibetans both in Tibet and in exile have been greatly concerned and grieved by this and have been continuing to petition Your Holiness, beseeching that you never entertain any thought about carrying out a plan for such a decision. We, the members of the Standing Committee of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile, too have, likewise, been holding successive meetings with extremely grave concern over Your Holiness’s wish to take complete retirement from governmental roles.
Out of a feeling of great kindness for us, Your Holiness led the Tibetan people to the fine path of democracy, beginning with the introduction of reforms in the functioning of the Tibetan government the moment you assumed spiritual and temporal powers in Tibet. And as soon as you stepped foot on Indian soil after escaping into exile, Your Holiness introduced election to allow the Tibetan people to vote for their own representatives, and in 1963, Your Holiness also promulgated a Tibetan constitution. In 1991, Your Holiness approved to us the Charter of the Tibetans in Exile, under which you expanded the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile and made it into a lawmaking body which was in full conformity with the definition of a modern national legislature. In particular, Your Holiness, in 2001, introduced the system of direct election of the Kalon Tripa, thereby ensuring that the Tibetan people themselves vote for the head of their government.
To state it simply, no amount of offerings of precious materials can make up for even a fraction of the gratitude the Tibetan people owe for what they have received solely as a result of Your Holiness’s enormously great wishes and deeds. Besides, it does not bear mention that Your Holiness’s successive speeches of the recent times were, no doubt, motivated by your very kind desire to ensure the well being of the entire Tibetan people both for the present and in the longer term future. Nevertheless, it remains a fact that all of us of the Snowland of Tibet have been sustained thus far by Your Holiness’s kindness and generosity. On the basis of the Buddha’s sacred prediction, Your Holiness has been firm in abiding by the oath you had been moved to take over your chosen realm of religious teaching or temporal rule especially in these apposite times for fulfilling it.
Thus, it is inconceivable that for as long as this aeon endures, there can ever be a moment at which the people of Tibet can at all be separated from your excellent religious and temporal leadership. The very first point in each of the reports and resolutions adopted in a series of recent relevant meetings have made this point clear. They included the report adopted at the end of the First Special General Meeting of Tibetans held in 2008 in accordance with the provisions of Article 59 of the Charter of the Tibetans in Exile; during successive sessions of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile; and, in particular, Document Number of 63 of 2010, which was a unanimous resolution adopted during the ninth session of the fourteenth Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile.
Also, at the conclusion of the First Tibetan National General Meeting, which was held at the Tibetan settlements at Bylakuppe, in south India, a report was compiled which brought together the opinions and suggestions of all the delegates who attended it. The very first point of the political section of the report stated: “His Holiness the Dalai Lama has thus far assumed responsibility as the leader of the great Tibetan nation and as the head of the Tibetan government. On behalf of the Tibetan people both in Tibet and in exile, we offer immense gratitude to His Holiness. At the same time, His Holiness the Dalai Lama remarked in his speech that he was already in semi-retirement. This has plunged the entire people of Tibet, both those in the county and outside it, to such depth of despair that they are no longer able to digest their food or to go to sleep in peace. In view of this development, this general meeting appeals to His Holiness the Dalai Lama never to carry out any plan for such a decision.” This was unanimously adopted by the entire meeting.
Giving due consideration to the above series of pleas, we beseech and pray with heartfelt devotion that Your Holiness never ever contemplate going into either semi-retirement or full retirement.”

“How I Met His Holiness the Dalai Lama Without a Passport”
By Woeser
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2011
http://www.highpeakspureearth.com/2011/01/how-i-met-his-holiness-dalai-lama.html
High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by Woeser that was originally written for broadcast on Radio Free Asia on January 5, 2011 and posted on her blog on January 10, 2011.
As reported on the Dalai Lama’s official website, the Dalai Lama participated in a video conference with Chinese human rights lawyers Jiang Tianyong and Teng Biao on January 4, 2011. Organised by Woeser’s husband Wang Lixiong, this video conference followed on from a series of Twitter conversations between the Dalai Lama and Chinese netizens that Wang Lixiong organised in 2010.
High Peaks Pure Earth has used the translation by Ragged Banner of Woeser’s poem “On the Road” that appeared in the volume “Tibet’s True Heart” and that she quotes in her article below, it is a poem that she wrote in Lhasa in May 1995. Follow this link to read the whole poem: http://raggedbanner.com/pOTR.html
It all started with a video conversation in cyberspace. On January 4, 2011, His Holiness was in Dharamsala engaging in a video conversation with the two human rights lawyers, Teng Biao and Jiang Tianyong, as well as the author Wang Lixiong. And I, I was standing behind Wang Lixiong, attentively listening to every word. When the Dalai Lama appeared on screen, I could hardly believe it, tears started streaming down my face.
“How I Met His Holiness the Dalai Lama Without a Passport”By Woeser??
Seven years ago, in my essay collection “Notes on Tibet”, I wrote this about a group photo showing a father with his son quietly making their way from Lhasa to Dharamsala: “he who conveys an air of humility and modesty on both sides but embraces the centre, is the most illustrious of all devout Tibetan people, the most affectionate, eager person – the Dalai Lama.” Because of this sentence and because of a few articles that touch on the truth, the local authorities labelled my work as “containing severe political errors”, “praising the 14th Dalai Lama and 17th Karmapa, and promoting serious political and religious opinions are wrong. Some essays already to some extent contain political errors.” After this, I was removed from my public position, this is when I left Lhasa.
Even earlier than that, already 16 years ago, I composed a poem implicitly conveying: “On the road, I clutch a flower not of this world, Hurrying before it dies, searching in all directions, That I may present it to an old man in a deep red robe. A wish fulfilling jewel, A wisp of a smile: These bind the generations tight.” Later on, I turned this poem into lyrics, openly saying that “old man in a deep red robe”, “is our Yeshe Norbu, our Kundun, our Gongsachog, our Gyalwa Rinpoche …” all of which are Tibetan terms of respect for the Dalai Lama.
Just like so many Tibetans, hoping to be able to see His Holiness, to respectfully listen to his teachings, to be granted an audience, this has also been my innermost wish; from a very young age, I have always longed for this moment to come true. But, I cannot get a passport, just like many other Tibetans, it is almost unthinkable that this regime that controls us will ever grant us a passport, which should, in actual fact, be a fundamental right that every citizen enjoys. Last year, Lhasa gave out passports to anyone above 60 years of age, albeit only for the period of one week. As a result the office in charge of passports was full of the grey-haired, limping elderly; and it was clear that they were all heading for the foothills of the Himalayas to visit relatives, pay homage to the holy land of Buddhism, as well as to fulfil that dream that no one speaks of but everyone knows. I am sorrowfully thinking that I may have to wait until I am 60 years old until I get hold of a passport.
However, the internet gave my passport-less self a pass to travel; in the New Year, it helped me to make my dream come true – through the internet I met, as if in a dream but still very vivid and real, His Holiness the Dalai Lama!
It all started with a video conversation in cyberspace. On January 4, 2011, His Holiness was in Dharamsala engaging in a video conversation with the two human rights lawyers, Teng Biao and Jiang Tianyong as well as the writer Wang Lixiong. And I, I was standing behind Wang Lixiong, attentively listening to every word that was spoken. When the Dalai Lama appeared on screen, I could hardly believe it, tears started streaming down my face. This miracle facilitated by the technological revolution, making it possible to overcome geographical distances and man-made barriers and building a bridge that enables the Dalai Lama to speak with Chinese intellectuals, is unquestionably of tremendous magnitude. I heard His Holiness saying to the three Han Chinese intellectuals: “it’s just as if we were together, we only can’t smell each other’s breath”. At the end of the 70-minute long conversation, His Holiness asked in a concerned voice: “Can you see me clearly?” When all three of them said that they could, he light-heartedly pointed at his eyebrows and laughed: “so, did you also see my grey eyebrows?”
I cried and I cried. When I, as Tibetans do, prostrated three times, silently reciting some prayers, holding a khata in my hands and kneeling in front of the computer with tear-dimmed eyes, I saw His Holiness reaching out both of his hands as if he was going to take the Khata, as if he was going to give me his blessings. I am unable to describe with words how I felt…I am really such a fortunate person; in Tibet, many people get into trouble simply for owning a photo of the Dalai Lama.
In fact, today, many people from all over China have met with His Holiness and they have not at all lost their freedom, since we are all citizens of this country, Tibetans should also not be punished for having an audience with His Holiness.
Facing the image of me on the screen, the Dalai Lama instructed me in an earnest and tireless way: “Do not give up, keep going, it is of the utmost importance that Han Chinese intellectuals and we Tibetans always tell each other about the real situation, that we communicate with and understand each other; you have to internalise this. Over the past 60 years, the courage and faith of those of us Tibetans living in Tibet has been as strong as a rock. The international community is paying close attention to the real situation in Tibet, people from all over the world see that there is a truth in Tibet, Chinese intellectuals are increasingly aware of this, looking at it from a broad perspective, big and powerful China is in the process of transforming. Hence, you must remain confident and work even harder, do you understand?”
By then, I had already calmed down and kept the words spoken by His Holiness in my heart.
Beijing, January 5, 2011

Mining and the new colonization of Tibet
Vancouver-based mining companies implicit in government repression of villagers
by STEPHANIE LAW, DOMINION STORIES
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/story/mining-and-new-colonization-tibet/5523
In the next five to 10 years, there might be a change in what comes to mind when thinking about Tibet.
The 2008 Olympics in Beijing saw an international outcry against the Chinese government’s oppressive policies and practices in Tibet. Mass riots within Tibet and rallies across the globe informed the general public of human rights violations in the disputed area, Tibetans’ loss of culture and identity, and their desire for independence from China.
But the 2010 WikiLeaks have exposed something different.
A leaked U.S. Embassy cable showed that the Dalai Lama is urging the international community to focus on environmental issues in Tibet instead of political ones, for at least the next half-decade. He specifically referred to increasingly polluted water from mining projects in Tibet as a major problem that “cannot wait.”
Tsering Woeser, a Tibetan poet/blogger and recipient of the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism award this year, said the number of mines in Tibet has increased dramatically since 2006.
“For the past few years, Tibetan villagers have been protesting against the mines and writing letters to the Chinese government asking for their concerns to be addressed,” Woeser said. “But the government never cared.”
In 2006, only one-percent of discovered mines in Tibet were prospected due to limited infrastructure and investment. But mining operations boomed after the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, which connects all 72 counties in Tibet to the rest of China. There are now over 90 mining sites, with at least one in each county.
The impact of mining operations
The Chinese government announced plans in March to develop Tibet by exploiting over 3,000 mineral reserves, potentially worth more than USD 125 billion.
Dorje, director of the region’s Bureau of Geology and Mineral Exploration and Development, told state-run China Daily that exploitation of the mineral resources would boost Tibet’s development.
“We must make sure the exploitation serves the interests of the Tibetan people, and minimize its impact on the environment,” Dorje said.
The plan aims to boost the mining industry’s contribution to Tibet’s GDP from three to 30 percent by 2020. At the same time, the state government will continue to pour investment into the region to further develop it and provide over 1,400 new jobs for locals via mining operations.
But Woeser said compared to the few thousand Tibetan miners, migrant Han workers have flocked to Tibet on the railroad and have taken up over 10,000 mining jobs.
“This has caused a lot of resentment among locals, widespread discrimination against Tibetans, and a loss of cultural identity among locals,” she said.
Pempa Dondrup, a villager in Nanggarze County of Shannan Prefecture, told China Daily that the government must respect local customs and religious beliefs. “For example, they must not excavate into our holy mountains.”
But likely to the Dondrup’s dismay, there are at least six mining operations in the great Tibetan emperor Songtsan Gampo’s hometown, Gyama. It now has the highest daily output among all mining pits in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau.
In Han Chinese culture, the hometown of any emperor is sacred and carries the ‘dragon’s pulse’ (lóng mài). It brings fortune and happiness to the nation, and warrants ritual sacrifices.
“According to this, Gyama should be protected from environmental destruction by the mining taking place today,” Woeser said. “But it’s not. And protests so far have been silenced by Chinese troops.”
Woeser added that local Tibetans have lost much more than they have gained from the wealth the government claims mining would bring. They have also received little to no financial compensation.
“There has been damage to both the environment and the lifestyles of Tibetan villagers, farmers and nomads,” Woeser said. “Now there are diseases that are new and untreatable for the villagers. The livestock, like lamb and cows, are also getting diseases and dying at alarming rates.”
Almost 20 years of mining in the Gyama valley has led to elevated concentrations of various minerals – including copper, lead, iron and aluminium – in the surface water and streambed, according to a study published in the September issue of Science of the Total Environment.
The Gyama stream water drains into the Lhasa River, which flows into the great Yarlong Tsangpo. Over a third of the world population lives downstream of the rivers flowing from the Plateau.
“Uptake of heavy metal into local agricultural products from
contaminated irrigation water may therefore pose a health risk to the
local population,” the authors of the study wrote.
Over 3,500 local inhabitants live in this valley just east of Lhasa city. There are also nomads who frequent the semi-agricultural area, which is used for growing crops and animal husbandry. But nearly 182,000 residents live in Lhasa city just downstream from the valley. The main drinking water source for the city is from wells located in the banks of the Lhasa River.
The authors of the study warned that large-scale mining activities in the valley “pose a great future risk for the regional and downstream environment.”
Tibetans have limited opposition power
Contaminated water, loss of lands and the heavy influx of Han migrants into Tibet caused by the mining industry boom have led to numerous conflicts and riots in the region in past 20 years.
Huatailong, China’s largest mining project in Gyama, used the villagers’ water during a drought in June 2010. This led to riots in the village to which a great number of military police, including special police forces, were allegedly sent from Lhasa, according to witness reports. The police arrested many villagers and three of them, including the village head, are still in jail.
Woeser said military forces and police always quickly crush any local dissent against mines.
“The problem is most mines are state-owned and backed by the government,” Woeser said. “So when the conflict erupted, it got politicized. The government decided the villagers weren’t protesting against the mine but were rioting for Tibetan independence.”
More recently, about 100 protesters carried Chinese flags outside government offices in a protest between Aug. 15 and 17 against the expansion of a gold mine in the Kham region of Tibet, administratively in China’s Sichuan province. They were upset about the heavy equipment being brought in and damaging their farmlands, according to U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia.
“The farmers were scared, so they carried Chinese flags to show that they weren’t protesting for political reasons or independence,” Woeser said. “They just wanted to point out that the mines were impacting their life.”
But despite taking extra precaution, the government still sent troops to quell their protest. According to various reports, at least three protesters were fatally shot, over 30 injured and more than 35 were arrested. Two police officers were also injured.
Almost two weeks after the incident, conflicting news reports appeared in China Daily, Xinhua News Agency and Reuters. They reported only one death from the incident and cited a different reason for the protests.
“The protest was sparked after police detained a businessman from the Sichuan city of Mianyang “for illegally exploiting gold mines with some villagers in Jiaxu village and damaging the grassland in the county,” according to Reuters.
Exerting pressure outside of Tibet
It is evident that local Tibetans are left powerless against large-scale mining operations. If they protest, they face disproportionate force from the military and police as well as imprisonment. Many face jail terms of seven to eight years, partly due to the politicization of their dissent.
Woeser said the conflict in August was one of very few protests covered in state and international media, albeit inconsistently.
“I think this really needs outside help and requires outsiders to understand the mining situation in Tibet,” she said. “Only through the outside, like international environmental agencies and human right organizations, and through international investigations might there be a positive impact on Tibetans’ lives that are affected by mining.”
In the recent years, there has been a growing presence of foreign-owned mining companies in Tibet.
“These operations have also faced local protests, but not to the same extent as Chinese-owned mines,” Woeser said. “This is in part due to minor improvement in environmental impact, but largely due to higher financial compensation offered by foreign firms to silence dissent.”
In addition to protests in Tibet, some companies have faced opposition from activists in their own countries. Pressure from the Australia Tibet Council and the Central Tibetan Administration, also known as the Tibetan government-in-exile, allegedly caused Australia-based Sino Gold to pull out of an exploratory gold mine in eastern Tibet in 2003.
Sino Gold was later acquired by Canadian-based Eldorado Gold in December 2009. Eldorado Gold is now the largest foreign gold producer in China and owns a mine in Tanjianshan, which is located in northern Tibet.
There are six Canadian-based mining companies currently or soon to be operating in Tibet: China Gold International Resources Corp Ltd, Inter-Citic Minerals Inc, Silk Road Resources Ltd., Eldorado Gold Corp, Maxy Gold Corp, Silvercorp Metals Inc., and Sterling Group Ventures Inc.
Vancouver-based China Gold International announced on Dec. 1 it completed the acquisition of Skyland Mining Ltd., formerly owned by Rapid Result Investments Ltd. and China National Gold Group Honk Kong Ltd., a subsidiary of China National Gold Group Corp. It is now the sole owner of the Jiama Mine, one of the largest copper poly-metallic mines in China, according to its website.
The acquisition of the Jiama mine in Gyama completed in spite of protests staged in Toronto,Vancouver and Hong Kong.
Frank Lagiglia, investor relations spokesperson for China Gold International, said he does not share the concerns of the protesters. He said the company’s technical report shows the mine has full support of the local people, and that it is on track to becoming the most environmentally friendly mine in the world.
“They talk about contamination of water; we use a recycling water program so there is no contamination,” Lagiglia said. “I don’t know the issues that they’re talking about, when we were there, we went with Tibetan officials and we were talking to the Tibetan people there, and really everyone is glad to be working.”
But Raymond Yee, a Vancouver activist and member of the Canada Tibet Committee, said their worries go beyond environmental damages endured by local villagers.
“Our main concern is that the Chinese don’t seem at all concerned with the needs and the wants of the Tibetans,” Yee said. “And the Canadian firms will refuse, even though we know they know better, to get their heads wrapped around the whole concept of free, prior, informed consent
of the local Tibet people about what’s happening.”
Although China Gold International is based in Vancouver, the Chinese-owned China National Gold Group owns a 39 percent stake, according to a Bloomberg news report.
“We’re against this kind of activity that exploits people that are occupied,” Yee said. “It’s occupied land in an environment where there’s a real climate of fear because most people are pretty privy to how the Chinese government cracks down on dissent.”
Tibet enjoyed de facto independence between 1912 and 1951, before China annexed the region. Annexation became official when the Chinese government and delegates from the Tibetan administration signed the 17-point agreement.
But the agreement has been widely disputed and the annexation is widely viewed as an occupation. A report published by The International Commission of Jurists in 1959 supported claims that the agreement was signed under military pressure and significant duress.
Large mining companies such as Rio Tinto have reportedly ruled out mining in Tibet because it is too politically sensitive.
“We’d be more open to it if they, for example, had consultations with the Tibetan government-in-exile to talk about mining and to see what it would have to say,” Yee said. “We’re just against mining under these kinds of conditions.”
Looking to the future
The future of Canadian-based mining companies operating in Tibet might have been different if Bill C-300, known as the Corporate Accountability Act or Responsible Mining Bill, had passed the House of Commons vote on October 27. But the bill was defeated 140 to 134.
If passed, the Bill would have enforced financial and political sanctions against mining companies operating in foreign countries without free, prior and informed consultation from local indigenous peoples.
Catherine Coumans, a research coordinator at MiningWatch Canada, said that under the bill there could have been a strong case made against mining companies, like China Gold International, even if they claim to have support from local Tibetans.
“The free part is the part that we would be really addressing,” Coumans said. “How free were the people they talked to? Given the political realities in Tibet, it would be very difficult [to have free consultation].”
Since the bill was defeated, there is no legal or formal mechanism for complaints against foreign practices by mining companies. However, Coumans said the Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability, of which MiningWatch is a member, is currently discussing other options.
One alternative is private member’s Bill C-354, which was tabled by NDP MP Peter Julian and passed first reading on March 3. The bill had remained dormant after its first reading, but resurfaced on Oct. 21 when Julian submitted a petition in support of the bill to the house.
The Bill seeks to amend the Federal Courts Act to permit non-Canadians to initiate lawsuits against Canadian companies based on violations – in foreign countries – of international law or treaties to which Canada has ratified.
“The bill would ensure corporate accountability for Canadian firms operating abroad,” Julian told the house on April 1, 2009.
But regardless of what happens in the future, Coumans argues that the mining industry as a whole generally accepts International Finance Corporation’s performance standards as de facto international standards. These standards include having free, prior and informed consultation with local peoples.
“Based on these standards, one can definitely make the argument that a company cannot call itself a responsible mining company and mine in Tibet,” Coumans said, “because it cannot possibly poll the community in a free way.”
Given the recent acquisition of the copper mine in Gyama by China Gold International, as well as the leaked U.S. embassy cable regarding the Dalai Lama’s concerns with widespread environmental destruction caused by mining project, there is hope of increased international and Canadian pressure against mining in Chinese-occupied Tibetan land.
But if the discussion around Tibet sees no change in the next five to 10 years, then the imagery one usually conjures when thinking of Tibet will change. What is often known as Shangri-La and rooftop of the world will be extensively mined away, and a culture with thousands of years of history will fade away along with the land.
“Tibet is the earth’s highest ecosystem and is extremely vulnerable: its rivers flow and are connected to many other areas and countries,” Woeser said. “But the mining companies are operating for their own profits and are blatantly neglecting any environmental concerns. Over time, the local area won’t be the only region affected; but a vast area of the world will be too.”

Finding the Facts About Mao’s Victims
Ian Johnson
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/dec/20/finding-facts-about-maos-victims/
Photo: Yang Jisheng, November 2010
Yang Jisheng is an editor of Annals of the Yellow Emperor, one of the few reform-oriented political magazines in China. Before that, the 70-year-old native of Hubei province was a national correspondent with the government-run Xinhua news service for over thirty years. But he is best known now as the author of Tombstone (Mubei), a groundbreaking new book on the Great Famine (1958–1961), which, though imprecisely known in the West, ranks as one of worst human disasters in history. I spoke with Yang in Beijing in late November about his book, the political atmosphere in Beijing, and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo.
Tombstone, which Yang began working on when he retired from Xinhua in 1996, is the most authoritative account of the Great Famine. It was caused by the Great Leap Forward, a millennial political campaign aimed at catapulting China into the ranks of developed nations by abandoning everything (including economic laws and common sense) in favor of steel production. Farm work largely stopped, iron tools were smelted in “backyard furnaces” to make steel—most of which was too crude to be of any use—and the Party confiscated for city dwellers what little grain was sown and harvested. The result was one of the largest famines in history. From the government documents he consulted, Yang concluded that 36 million people died and 40 million children were not born as a result of the famine. Yang’s father was among the victims and Yang says this book is meant to be his tombstone.
Over the past few years, foreign researchers and journalists have used demographic and anecdotal evidence to arrive at similar estimates. But Yang has gone further, using his contacts around the country to penetrate closely guarded Communist Party archives and uncover more direct proof of the number of dead, the cases of cannibalism, and the continued systematic efforts of the state to cover up this colossal tragedy. This makes Tombstone one of the most important books to come out of China in recent years and led the government to ban it.
Ian Johnson: I wondered when reading Tombstone why officials didn’t destroy the files. Why did they preserve all this evidence?
Yang Jisheng: Destroying files isn’t up to one person. As long as a file or document has made it into the archives you can’t so easily destroy it. Before it is in the archives, it can be destroyed, but afterwards, only a directive from a high-ranking official can cause it to be destroyed. I found that on the Great Famine the documentation is basically is intact—how many people died of hunger, cannibalism, the grain situation; all of this was recorded and still exists.
How many files did you end up amassing?
I consulted twelve provincial archives and the central archives. On average I copied 300 folders per archive, so I have over 3,600 folders of information. They fill up my apartment and some are in the countryside at a friend’s house for safekeeping.
As a Xinhua reporter did you have more latitude to explore the archives?
When I started I didn’t say I was writing about the Great Famine. I said I wanted to understand the history of China’s rural economic policies and grain policy. If I had said I was researching the Great Famine, for sure they wouldn’t have let me look in the archives. There were some documents that were marked “restricted” (“kongzhi” in Chinese)—for example, anything related to public security or the military. But then I asked friends for help and we got signatures of provincial party officials and it was okay.
Were people sympathetic to your task?
Yes, there was an elderly staff member in one archive, for example. My guess is that he also lost family members in the Great Famine; when I asked for relevant archives, he just closed one eye and let me look. I reckon he held the same view as I: that there should be an accounting of this matter. Like me, he’s a Chinese person, and people in his family also starved to death.
Why are you the first Chinese historian to tackle this subject seriously?
Traditional historians face restrictions. First of all, they censor themselves. Their thoughts limit them. They don’t even dare to write the facts, don’t dare to speak up about it, don’t dare to touch it. And even if they wrote it, they can’t publish it. And if they publish, they will face censure. So mainstream scholars face those restrictions.
But there are many unofficial historians like me. Many people are writing their own memoirs about being labeled “Rightists” or “counter-revolutionaries.” There is an author in Anhui province who has described how his family starved to death. There are many authors who have written about how their families starved.
The government admits the fact that some people starved to death. Is mentioning starvation really a sensitive topic half a century later?
The government says the famine was caused by “three difficult years” (natural disasters), the Sino-Soviet split (of 1960), and by political errors. In my account I acknowledge that there were natural disasters but there always have been. China is so big that there is some kind of natural disaster every year. I went to the meteorological bureau five times, looked at material and talked to experts. I didn’t find that climate conditions in those three years were significantly different from that of other periods. It all seemed normal. This wasn’t a factor.
What about the Sino-Soviet split?
It had no impact. The Soviets’ break with China was in 1960. People had been starving to death for more than a year already. They built a tractor factory and that was finished in 1959. Wouldn’t that have been a help to Chinese agriculture rather than a hindrance?
So what can account for starvation on such a vast scale?
The key reason is political misjudgment. It is not the third reason. It is the only reason. How did such misguided policies go on for four years? In a truly democratic country, they would have been corrected in half a year or a year. Why did no one oppose them or criticize them? I view this as part of the totalitarian system that China had at the time. The chief culprit was Mao.
In your introduction to Tombstone, you said that the Chinese Communist Party destroyed traditional values. Did this facilitate the Great Famine?
Traditional values involve valuing life, valuing others, not doing unto others what you don’t want done to yourself. All of these values were negated. From 1950 onward, the Communists criticized the passing down of traditional values. There was a moral vacuum.
When do you think we might see Cultural Revolution-era archives opened up?
It is still early to talk about that. Overseas, many good books have been written about the Cultural Revolution. I have bought many and brought them back. Within China, there’s not a single good book on the topic.
That seems like something you should pursue.
In fact, I am planning a book on the Cultural Revolution. I am collecting material but don’t yet know exactly how I will write it. I am still trying to figure that out.
You also work for Annals of the Yellow Emperor. People say it has been under pressure.
There is some pressure of late. There were the events surrounding Wen Jiabao’s recent speeches and the Liu Xiaobo prize. There has been a backlash. They did not allow Wen’s interview with CNN to be published in the domestic media. [In the interview, which was published on September 29, Wen stated that “for any government, what is most important, is to ensure that its people enjoy each and every right given to them by the constitution,” which many reform-minded Chinese took as a signal that the country would try to live up to its constitutional protections on free speech and democracy.] We ran the full text in our magazine—we didn’t miss one word—and were censured. But that issue of our magazine was not banned; it continued to be distributed.
Why do you think your magazine seems to enjoy more leeway than other Chinese publications?
Because we know the boundaries. We don’t touch current leaders. And issues that are extremely sensitive, like 6-4 [the June 4th Tiananmen Square massacre], we don’t talk about. The Tibet issue, Xinjiang, we don’t write about them. Current issues related to Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin and their family members’ corruption, we don’t talk about. If we talk just about the past, the pressure is smaller.
Do you feel this year’s political climate is tighter?
Usually when the Communist Party feels a sense of crisis, it will spark a backlash. Liu Xiaobo winning the Nobel Prize is a slap in the face for the Chinese government. On the date of the announcement of the prize, October the 8th, Voice of America called me for an interview. I said it was a good thing for the long-term prospects of democracy in China. It’s a good thing, I said, but also don’t over-estimate the impact; China doesn’t yield to external pressure, and there will be a backlash. And now what we are seeing is the backlash.
From a long-term perspective, it might have some inspiring effect on the progress of democracy in China. But within China, Liu is not well-known. He won’t have the same effect as Gorbachev or Havel did, for instance. And the backlash is strong. Many Chinese intellectuals can’t leave the country now, and their family members too. They’re being very strict.
December 20, 2010

The Chinese Dragon Vs The Indian Tiger
David Eshel
Defence Update, December 20, 2011
http://www.defense-update.com/analysis/2010/20122010_analysis_dragon_vs_tiger.html
Beijing’s aggressive “String of Pearls” strategy is not confronting the U.S. alone but is already severely jittering India’s complacency. And here precisely lays the root of the next conflict flashpoint in South East Asia. The soaring “Indian Tiger” facing the rising “Chinese Dragon” will eventually grow into two regional giants, both competing with rapidly dwindling strategic assets, vital for their survival, transforming the geopolitical landscape in the Asia-Pacific region – and challenging American hegemony as a global superpower.
China’s resurgence in recent years has jolted the leading powers of the world out of their stupor ‘ and India’s case is no different. Today, forward-looking Indian mandarins are no longer obsessed only with
Pakistan. New Delhi has started developing strategic plans for dealing with China by 2020 or 2030. Many Indian think tanks are already working on this mission objective.
What transpired last August was an eye opener for China-watchers in the Indian government. On 5 August 2010, The People’s Daily reported that two days previously ‘important combat readiness materials’ (read missiles) of the Chinese Air Force were transported safely to Tibet via the Qinghai-Tibet Railway ‘ the first time since such materials were transported to Tibet by railway. It was a clear demonstration by China, of its capability to mobilize in Tibet, in the event of a new Sino-Indian conflict. China already has four fully operational airports in Tibet, the last one started operations in July 2010.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Navy’s recent seafaring activities and maneuvers have revealed Beijing’s intention to increase its control of the maritime sea lanes in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The latter is an obvious cause of concern for India. China’s new-found aggressive posturing and maritime territorial claims in the South China Sea ‘ which Beijing has begun to describe as an area of its ‘core interest’, a term that the Chinese have been using for Tibet, Taiwan and Xinjiang ‘ is of no less concern in New Delhi.
China knows very well that it is not dealing with the India of 1962, when the two countries fought a one-sided war. Then India had deliberately not used its air force against the Chinese to minimize loss of territory and restrict Chinese military gains to the far-flung border areas. India is rapidly expanding and modernizing its military air, land, naval and missile forces, investing in establishing a nuclear deterrence, through a ‘Triad’ of land and surface launched missiles as well as submarine launched missiles, expansion of its air bases along the northern border, positioning of early warning radars on mountain along the North-Eastern border with Tibet and more.
Though China retains a decisive lead, New Delhi is determined to stay on Beijing’s heals. In the economic race, India could already outpace China in 2011, to become the fastest growing economies, according to the latest World Bank forecast.
But Beijing has one dominant ace along its sleeve. Being a strict authoritarian regime, it is pushing rapidly forward with aggressive modernization of its industrial and military machine, while India’s administration inherent bureaucracy is much slower in getting things done.
But the highest point of tension in the Asian Subcontinent still remains the decade-lasting animosity and suspicion existing between India and Pakistan. Here remains the most potential trigger for a regional conflict. Historically, China has been Pakistan’s strategic and military ally for nearly five decades. It was Beijing who gave Pakistan the designs for a nuclear bomb in 1984 and then helped them build it. China’s has two purposes behind its strategy assisting Pakistan. First, it takes Pakistan as a secure friend and ally in the Indian Ocean and second, they share a common interest to contain India, which, by its huge economic potential, demographic size and geopolitical position, is challenging Beijing’s ambition for regional hegemony.
Within this strategy, China has stepped up its military presence in Tibet, primarily to contain India. Their aim is to capture as much Indian territory as possible, including the town of Tawang ‘ the birthplace of the Dalai Lama ‘ in case of renewed hostilities. A secondary purpose for this buildup is to help Pakistan in any future military conflict with India. Indeed the Sino-Indian border region remains one hotly disputed area since the 1962 India-China war.
The core of territorial disputes between India and China converge at Kashmir, which also ranks as the worlds’ largest militarized zone of contention. The Chinese army, perched on its geographical vantage position, atop the towering peaks and glaciers of the strategic trans-Karakoram tract and Aksai Chin, dominates the Indian positions below. Moreover, the geopolitical ramifications of China’s forceful annexation of Tibet, which had for centuries, posed a natural barrier for India, gave Bejing a tremendous strategic starting point for any military operation against India. The 2006 opening of the China-Tibet rail-link further strengthened China’s potentially offensive capability.
On the other hand India’s quest to enhance its military potential, with active aid from Washington, could reignite a new Indo-China Himalayan border war – with acute danger from its escalating into a terrifying regional nuclear-weapons conflict.
From a strategic perspective, China is hemming India from all four sides- Tibet, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar (Burma) – all within Beijing’s zone of interest. As the deteriorating geopolitical dynamics between Beijing and New Delhi increase, as both are struggling for global superpower status, the role of the United States in this region faces sharp competition.
Although from military perspective, the US will continue to remain a key player; its influence in the region will wane considerably as the troop withdrawals from Afghanistan conclude. With Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean on the rise and its “string of pearl” strategy advancing towards key positions in the Persian Gulf, the strategic importance of India will become crucial for Washington, to prevent a most dangerous development in this part of the world.

Government of Canada to facilitate the immigration of up to 1,000
Tibetan refugees living in Arunachal Pradesh in India
Ottawa, December 18, 2010 — The Government of Canada intends to facilitate the immigration of up to 1,000 Tibetan refugees living in the state of Arunachal Pradesh in India over a five-year period, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced today.
“Our government’s openness to Tibetan refugees is in keeping with Canada’s best humanitarian traditions,” said Minister Kenney. “We look forward to working with the Government of India and the Tibetan-Canadian community on the implementation of this program, and on welcoming these individuals to Canada.”
Special immigration measures will be developed in response to a request by the Tibetan community and will focus on individuals who meet specific criteria. These measures aim to maximize the involvement of communities in Canada by focusing on individuals who have secured the support of the Canadian-Tibetan community or other interested supporters.
Canada has a long-standing tradition of facilitating immigration for various groups around the world by matching prospective immigrants to community sponsors in Canada through private sponsorships. This is done at no additional cost to Canadians because initial settlement costs, including housing, are guaranteed by sponsors.
This humanitarian initiative will assist Tibetan refugees in Arunachal Pradesh, who live in remote and isolated settlements.
“I would like to recognize India’s long-standing support for the Tibetans in India,” added Minister Kenney. “This is Canada’s opportunity to complement India’s support for this vulnerable population.”
This is not the first time Canada has assisted Tibetans. In 1972, Canada established the Tibetan Refugee Program and resettled approximately 230 Tibetans in Canada who had been living in Northern India. This new initiative, which will bring in up to 1,000 Tibetans, is another example of Canada’s efforts to reach out to the Tibetan community.
Persons entering Canada under these special measures would be required to meet Canada’s requirements for immigration, including security, criminal, medical and background checks.