Often I say that, if you really want to understand China, you have to know the Tibetan narrative. Unless you understand the Tibetan story, you will not understand China, because the National Security Law that you mentioned actually already—before it was passed, before it was adopted—was practised in Tibet. So whatever happens in Tibet first is later implemented. I can give you a few other examples as well.
Canadian-based NGOs or American-based NGOs, any NGO that had some humanitarian projects like education or health were all removed and banned from Tibetan areas for “national security reasons”. If you had an NGO from Canada—and I don't want to name any—that had projects in Tibet, it was told, “Now you can't do that” because opening up schools and giving textbooks to Tibetan children was seen as a threat to the national security and it was prevented.
After the adoption of the National Security Law, it's now being implemented in civil society in China in general with regard to all the religious organizations and NGOs—so you can clearly see the restrictions and repression that are going on based on this law. That is because “security” is translated or interpreted very liberally. If three Tibetans come together to meet, the Chinese government can say, “We disallow the meeting” and then they will label these people as splitists.
Recently I had the privilege of meeting with the honourable Speaker of the House of Commons in the U.K. That very day, I think, the Chinese embassy there complained to the foreign ministry and then the next day the spokesman of the Chinese foreign ministry complained. There was a long article in the Xinhua news agency, because those were labelled as splitist activities. I was just meeting a speaker of a sovereign country. How can that be a splitist activity?
They labelled me, even though I was outside. You can imagine what is going on inside China and in Tibetan areas.