Youdon Aukatsang, Member of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile, Dharamsala speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.) on recent developments on Tibet | SAM Conversation
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00:00Welcome to SAM Conversation, a program of South Asia Monitor. To discuss some recent
00:18developments in Tibet, it is our pleasure to welcome Ms. Yudon Okotsan, Member of the
00:31Tibetan Parliament in Exile.
00:35Thank you, Colonel Pat. Thank you so much for having me.
00:40Pleasure. Recently, the Chinese government, the Chinese Communist Party, spokesperson,
00:54foreign ministry, made some very, not very surprising, but maybe questionable statements
01:03to Dalai Lama, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And they followed some other events like Nancy
01:17Pelosi and a delegation from the US visiting Dharamsala and meeting members of the Tibetan
01:28government in exile there. Something which, of course, the Chinese Communist Party is
01:36extremely irked about.
01:38Ms. Okotsan, we'd like to get the first-hand, you know, input from you about exactly what
01:55was said to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and what followed. Please.
02:01Thank you, Colonel Bhatt and South Asia Monitor for having me on your channel. I'm very happy
02:08to be talking about Tibet. We are actually, first of all, I'd like to share this great
02:15news that I heard just this yesterday that His Holiness the Dalai Lama had had a very
02:21successful knee surgery. And he's now resting, and we pray for his recovery soon. And his work
02:28and commitment, not just to Tibet, but to world peace and nonviolence is very crucial.
02:32So we are very happy with that news, and I want to share that news.
02:36And now that you're asking me about the US high-level delegation, I want to say that it is
02:42a very, very significant and important visit. And at the highest level, it is a bipartisan US
02:49Congress delegation that came to Dharamsala on June 18th and 19th, and was led by the House
02:58Foreign Relations Committee Chair, who's a Republican, Michael McCaul, and accompanied
03:03by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is a very staunch Tibet supporter, has been for a very long
03:10time, and also another very staunch Tibet supporter who's also an architect of many of the Tibet
03:16policies, along with Nancy Pelosi, Congressman Jim McGovern, and they also were accompanied
03:25by four other US congressmen. So we were very happy. The reason they came is also because that
03:31they were actually coming after the US Congress passed, with a huge majority, the Tibet Resolve
03:41Act, which actually is the third piece of legislation that the US House has passed.
03:50And this resolution, this act, which actually after Joe Biden, the President Joe Biden,
03:58signs will become a policy. It'll be like a US policy on Tibet. And I've read that if the
04:07President doesn't sign it in 15 days, then it's deemed to be signed. So we are now in
04:15the process of recognizing that this is a policy passed by the House, endorsed by the President,
04:21and some of the key provision is really that it actually challenges the historical claim of China
04:28on Tibet, and actually recognizes that there is a dispute between Tibet and China. Tibet is an
04:36occupied nation, and it recognizes that Tibet was never a part of China. But it urges China
04:44to enter into direct negotiation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his representatives,
04:49without any precondition. And one important thing also is that it authorizes the US State Department
04:56to use funds to counter Chinese disinformation about Tibet and Tibetan people. And not just
05:03US government, but they must engage in multilateral kind of, what do you call it,
05:11multilateral efforts with other like-minded, what do you call it, countries to put pressure
05:18on China to actually have a dialogue, a direct negotiation with Tibetan people,
05:25representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And one important thing, I also feel that it
05:30actually talks about the exact geographical location, the areas of Tibet, which China has
05:37actually cut it down into small size and called the Tibet Autonomous Region, and has incorporated
05:45into many other provinces of China, Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, Qinghai. So they are saying that, no,
05:52this is the exact geographical area which the Tibetan people have been propagating and
05:58advocating for the longest time. So this is a very key third piece legislation following
06:05the Tibet Policy Act of 2002 and Tibet Policy and Support Act of 2020. So I think this is,
06:13this has happened because of a lot of hard work by many Tibetan and Tibet supporters,
06:18and some of the key U.S. congresspersons. That's very, very important and very significant, yeah.
06:26Very good to hear that. When you say that other like-minded nations, I suppose
06:33India should feature quite prominently in that.
06:37Definitely. India actually is the top for me before even U.S. is India, because for us,
06:43a very survival as a Tibetan government in exile is thanks to the support that India government is,
06:50Indian government has given us. All the successive Indian governments, without any change, it's like
06:56how U.S. has a bipartisan attitude. India is cross-party, Indian government, whoever has been
07:04in India since independence, I think, has been very, very supportive of Tibet. And we are existing
07:11here, we are flourishing here. Our culture, our identity, our political work is all here. India is
07:19the hub, is the hub, you know. Even this high-level delegation cannot happen if Indian government did
07:24not facilitate this meeting. And, you know, they have, I think, Indian government, even if you
07:30read the news, Modi government, also Modi, the Prime Minister, Shri Modi Ji, also met with the
07:36high-level U.S. delegation after His Holiness's meeting and after they went down to Delhi from
07:41Dharamsala. So without Indian government support, we cannot do anything. We are extremely grateful
07:48to the Indian government. And after Indian government, I would say it's the U.S. government
07:53who comes next in support and in advocacy for Tibet. Yeah, I was going to talk about how,
08:00you know, the threat of China is so looming that the world has totally woken up to it,
08:10you know, post-Covid also, right? Well, that's one aspect which India is very, very, very,
08:17very aware about. India has always been aware of China because India, since the Tibet's invasion
08:23by China, India has had many border skirmishes, border disputes. India has had to spend a lot on
08:31defending the borders because of China's invasion of Tibet, you know. So India knows it. U.S. also
08:38knows it, but now knows it even more convinced of the threat of China, not just in every relations,
08:48whether it's economic, social, cultural, but also in the sense of, you know, ideology as well,
08:55because India and U.S. are the largest democracies in the world, right? What China is, is a threat to
09:02democracy, to freedom, to liberty, to equality, to human rights. And not just Tibetans in Tibet,
09:08or Uyghurs, or the Hong Kongers, or all the people that are suffering under China
09:14because of Chinese aggression, but also the world outside China is facing infiltration,
09:21espionage. You read about it all the time in the newspapers now. Oh yes, oh yes. Not just Tibetans,
09:27Chinese, who are Indian-Tibetans, or American-Chinese, or American-Tibetans, or European-Tibetans.
09:35They all are facing the threats, harassment, surveillance, coercion. No, whatever I'm saying,
09:43under China, in Tibet. In Tibet, Tibetans are going through huge surveillance, and we have over
09:502,000 reported non-Tibetan political prisoners in Tibet. But outside also, it's pouring out. China,
09:58because of its might, sheer might, economic power, and military power, they are really flexing their
10:04muscles, and they're trying to reach out. And we call it, we didn't know this term before,
10:08transnational repression, across the border also. Within their borders, we don't even know what's
10:13happening, because the flow of information is so bad. We get to know that somebody died,
10:19or got arrested and tortured, four, five years after that person has, you know, is no more,
10:25right? But outside of China also, there's huge transnational repression, where families of
10:32Tibetans are being threatened. They're saying that if you talk against China, if you try to
10:37criticize the Chinese government, your families will be arrested. Even recently, you know, even Chinese,
10:44you must have read just yesterday, there was a New York Times article about this writer,
10:49a very famous Chinese writer, then Yuan, who is a prominent Chinese writer based in the US.
10:55He is constantly being criticized, but not just him. His teenage daughter actually got threatened
11:00on social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and all these, you know. So Tibetans have been
11:06going through this forever, and we didn't know that just recently. It's a recent term that they
11:10have come up with, you know, transnational repression. But we always faced it, since the
11:15Chinese occupied us and we've come to exile. Tibetans with families inside. Till the 80s, we
11:20didn't have connection also, but once the connections happened, there was some kind of communication
11:25back and forth. And now with the social media, people are able to send back and forth photos and,
11:30you know, messages. But you have to be so careful. We have a very famous, one of the recent
11:37Tibetans who have come, Dr. Gallo. He says that he cannot, he feels unsafe to contact his family because
11:43his family has been, you know, messaging him saying that, you know, please stop criticizing
11:48the Chinese government in foreign media. Because he's giving, you know, he's actually giving
11:52testimonies about how he was, you know, what happened inside Tibet and what happened to him.
11:58But they are messaging him and calling him because I'm sure it's being under Chinese pressure.
12:02So he cannot talk. He's saying he feels for the safety. So Tibetans who have escaped from Tibet,
12:09post 80s, 90s and recently, they are very, very scared. So they have to be, sometimes we have to
12:15cover their faces with fake names and all kinds of things, you know, because we can't give out
12:20names now. Moment you give out names, their families there are being tortured, questioned,
12:26harassed. So it's really, and then not just Tibetans, like I said, I don't know India,
12:33how much of a research we are doing. I'm sure when the U.S. and Canada and Australia are talking
12:39about how Chinese have entered their system, cyber security. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And China is waging
12:47war. Through technology, through artificial intelligence also, AI also, you know. The
12:54Communist Party and the PLA are waging war in every way except by firing, you know, bullets,
13:03but every other way they are waging war. And they are throwing money on influencers,
13:09whether they are media people, whether they are social media influencers, opinion makers,
13:15even in the West and in India to kind of advance their narrative, their fake narrative.
13:22Yeah, that is one of the things that the report Tibet has, you know, it says
13:26we need to counter the Chinese disinformation and fake news, you know, all that.
13:32Gray warfare, gray zone warfare. That's what they are practicing, not only on India,
13:37but on a number of other nations also.
13:40And in Tibet, it's unimaginable. Inside Tibet, it's unimaginable because they have done
13:48everything at a mass scale, whether it is assimilation of Tibetan children into Chinese
13:55culture, because you have read in all the various reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International,
14:01even the UN has expressed concern over this mass Tibetan, Tibetans kind of being forced
14:09into Chinese boarding schools, you know, whether they are actually only exposed to Chinese culture,
14:18Chinese thought, Chinese language, you know, and at the same time, they are doing this mass DNA.
14:24It's like forcing a cultural change.
14:26Yes, forcing assimilation into Chinese. So the so-called they want to make one China
14:34because they don't want this Tibet and, you know, other voices. They just want to
14:38have one China, one system that is communist China. So we really have to work in solidarity
14:45because the very fabric of democracy, freedom, equality, human rights is threatened.
14:52And you must have read about recent how they are also, you know, bullying in Philippines,
14:58also in the neighboring, you know, Philippines, Vietnam, all are suffering. So we really need to
15:04make sure that China does not kind of. And it's not only there. You've seen countries like
15:12countries which are neighbors of India. Yeah. Sri Lanka, Nepal.
15:21You don't want to tell me Nepal is all is hand in glove because they are such a small country.
15:27So there's so much money thrown into Nepal and Nepal is so much in debt to China that I hear
15:35that Chinese army walk in Chinese uniforms in Nepal. It's almost like a proxy China, you know.
15:43It's happening, you know, and you'll see when you go to Nepal, you'll see Chinese signs.
15:50India is very strong. In Nepal, you will see Chinese signs everywhere also. It almost looks
15:55like a Chinese town now, you know. And not to mention Pakistan, where they have a very,
16:03very major presence. That's right. Pakistan, China is doing that to counter India also.
16:12They know that India is one of their biggest rivals, you know, so they're trying to also
16:17trying to weaponize. You know, with India ever since 1967. In 1962, whatever happened is that
16:27history. But in 1967, there were some skirmishes in Nathula and Chola and Sikkim. And they lost
16:36about 400 soldiers. The people's liberation army. I know because my father also served the 22 SFN.
16:43Oh, okay. He was the first Dapun actually. I think we'll have to wind up now. But anyway,
16:55thank you very much for some very important inputs that have come to the fore. Thank you.
17:02Thank you so much. Look forward on some exchanges again. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.