Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much, honourable Chair and honourable members of the Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs. Thank you very much for this opportunity to present the case of Panchen Rinpoche, and the status of Tibet and our analysis of the situation that concerns Tibet. Before I h

Foreign Affairs committee  On the issue of language, I want to inform this committee that our language comes from India. It has nothing to do with Chinese language. The alphabet of Tibetan language is ka kha ga nga; in Hindi, it's ka kha ga gha nga. It's the same language that comes from India. Our religio

Foreign Affairs committee  Even though there is a tradition of Panchen Lamas recognizing the Dalai Lama and Dalai Lamas recognizing the Panchen Lamas, the ultimate issue that relates with reincarnation concerns the person who is going to be reincarnated. The person who is going to be reincarnated leaves si

Foreign Affairs committee  With the permission of the chair, I would like to take a little more time on this because this is one of the most important issues that concerns us in the Sino-Tibet conflict. Since 2010, there has been no traction whatsoever from the Chinese side. They stopped dialogue. In hin

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. I won't go too much into the history. This book says that whether it's according to the Mongolian order or the Chinese order or the Manchu order or the Tibetan order, or as per international law today, Tibet has never been considered part of China. Then we

Foreign Affairs committee  At that time, we were not really sure about Xi Jinping asking for a third term. Now he's asking for a third term and, unlike his predecessors, he has been consolidating all of his powers. It's a very dangerous threat. He likes to be called the core leader, comparable to Mao Zedon

Foreign Affairs committee  These are the challenges we face with President Xi Jinping at the helm. We are not against multiculturalism and we are not against development, but when a majority community completely overwhelms a minority community, it leads to cultural genocide. What is happening to the Uighu

Foreign Affairs committee  Whether the sanctions are effective or not, I think depends on the level of sanctions, because China is huge and the economy is huge. One thing that you have power over is your own people and businesses. You can definitely tell your businesses not to invest in Tibet or Uighur, wh

Foreign Affairs committee  We are still trying to learn from each other how the Chinese perceive the evolving crisis in Ukraine and what implications, post-Ukraine, it will have on Russia and its relations with China, and also what role China will play now, because every one of us knows that the Chinese ar

Foreign Affairs committee  I feel there is a lot of insecurity on the part of China. They are belligerent against India. They're keeping the hot spots going on in Taiwan and the South China Sea. I try to analyze the situation and understand the geopolitical and geostrategic issues as much as possible, but

Foreign Affairs committee  It's very difficult to predict when it's going to happen, but as Buddhists we believe in impermanence. As westerners say, “Change is the only constant.” The question is, when is the change going to come? We are watching the situation, and whenever there's an opportunity we should

Foreign Affairs committee  Within the Chinese leadership also, we know that there are the hardliners and the soft-liners. I think former president Hu Jintao also is now concerned. We understand that he regrets that they appointed Xi Jinping as his successor, but it's too late in the day. Let's see what h

Foreign Affairs committee  In India...?

Foreign Affairs committee  India has been very kind to us. If not for India, we would not be where we are today. We are very thankful to the government and the people of India for their support, and we have a very transparent relationship with India.

Foreign Affairs committee  Pakistan used to have better relations with the United States. When we sent our first CIA trainees to be trained in Saigon, Camp Peary and Colorado, we used to send Tibetans from Bangladesh, East Pakistan—