Contact is taking a holiday!

Photo: CTA

Tibetan Representative Tashi Phuntsok of the Bureau du Tibet, Brussels, met members of the French Senate Tibet Support Group, including its President Eustache-Brinon, on January 18, as France has assumed its rotating presidency of the European Union from this month. Tashi Phuntsok requested the group to confront China and to state their position on the issue of the succession of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He also urged them to work on the issue of reciprocal access and travel to Tibet, saying that Chinese diplomats, students and tourists enjoy visiting the west and that it will help the Tibetan cause if the current situation of Tibetans living inside Tibet under the Chinese dictatorship is highlighted.

Agreeing to the request, President Senator Eustche-Brino said, “the Tibetan struggle is far more deep rooted and complex and historically resilient than other issues that confront China”. She added that “as a diaspora, Tibetan communities in the West are becoming larger, there was a need to strengthen and robustly support them”.

Representative Tashi Phuntsok also brought up the issue of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s importance as a world leader, particularly for the Buddhist world, and the institution of the Dalai Lama which protects the legacies of all the Dalai Lamas. He requested the group to urge France to state their position on the succession of the Dalai Lama. He informed the group of the situation inside Tibet, saying it is effectively a large prison under Chinese rule. He said that the situation of Tibetans inside Tibet under Chinese leadership can best be imagined when Tibetans say that “it is easier to go to heaven than to obtain a passport to travel outside Tibet”. He then updated the group, saying that His Holiness the Dalai Lama is in good health and expressed gratitude by recalling the long association of the group with Tibet since their inception in 1988.

Tashi Phuntsok added, “France should lead the EU in the promotion of European culture and projection of democracies as mentioned in President Macron’s priorities. Chinese encroachments on these areas in Europe are substantive and aggressive and the very fibre of the EU is threatened”. He requested that Tibet issues be “stridently brought out in the EU-China annual summits and human rights dialogues with China”.

The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) and the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama are both represented in France, and in most EU countries. With the large numbers of Tibetans migrating to the west, France has now become one of the countries where many of them are seeking asylum.