The autocratic government of China has a long list of things that representatives of governments of other countries are never supposed to do, and one of these forbidden things is publicly meet the Dalai Lama.
The current Dalai Lama, fourteenth in the line of premier spiritual leaders of Tibet, is a symbol of Tibetan resistance to Chinese tyranny who has been living in exile since 1959, the year he fled Tibet in the wake of a failed rebellion against China. China had invaded Tibet in 1950. The most tightly restricted region of the former Tibet is the not quite aptly named Tibet Autonomous Region.
In early July 2023, a U.S. specialist in Tibetan issues, Uzra Zeya, met with the Dalai Lama in India. China protested, calling this interference. On Twitter, Wang Xiaojian, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, asserted that Tibetan affairs “are purely internal affairs of China and no external forces have the right to interfere. China firmly opposes any form of contact between foreign officials and the ‘Tibetan independence’ forces.”
He added:
The so-called “Tibetan government-in-exile” is an out-and-out separatist political group and an illegal organization completely in violation of China’s Constitution and laws. It is not recognized by any country in the world.
The U.S. should take concrete actions to honour its commitment of acknowledging Xizang as part of China, stop meddling in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of Xizang-related issues, and offer no support to the anti-China separatist activities of the Dalai clique.
This is incorrect, however. The United States should offer support to the anti-China separatist activities of the Dalai clique.
A little later, also on Twitter, embassy spokesman Wang delivered himself of this vorpal utterance:
China has the best record on peace and security. We have never invaded any country or engaged in any proxy war. We have never conducted global military operations, threatened other countries with force, exported ideology or interfered in other countries’ internal affairs.
Which is not an innovation in brazenness but merely the nth repetition the Chinese government’s standard lies about its crimes.
