Chinese Writer Sends Message to her Tibetan “Brothers and Sisters”

By Daisy Hughes / July 31, 2014;

Rose Tang (second from left) at the Tibetan Uprising Day march in New York, March 2014
Photo: Facebook

A Chinese writer, Rose Tang, has published an “Open Letter to Tibetan Brothers and Sisters” on her Facebook page. In the letter, she expresses solidarity with the Tibetan cause and stresses the importance of Chinese and Tibetan people working together. “United we stand, divided we fall”, she says.

She comments on the worrying ignorance of Chinese people about the situation in Tibet, saying that while many are supportive of the Tibetan people this voice remains small “because most Chinese don’t know much about what happened in Tibet.”

To support her message of solidarity, Tang quotes Teng Biao, a prominent Chinese human rights lawyer, saying: “The hearts and spirits of Tibetan and Han people who pursue freedom are connected.”

She references her own struggle with “25 years of confusion and depression after surviving [the] Tiananmen Massacre” and urges her “Tibetan brothers and sisters” never to give up their own struggles as although freedoms have been taken away, “now more and more people are fighting to reclaim these rights.”

Tang criticises the “divide and conquer” approach she says the Chinese government have taken, saying, “we need to work together to destroy the walls that the Chinese Communist Party erected among us and around us.”

She argues that “truth and compassion” are the “weapons” available to those wanting to achieve freedom, and criticises the leaders of other nations who “have so many vested interests that they allow China to bully their countries.”

Tang also apologises to the Tibetan people “for the colonisation, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the destruction of the Tibetan Buddhism, culture, language and the environment that China has committed in Tibet.” She then goes on to ask that they might educate Chinese people “with the truth of Tibet” and guide them on how to demonstrate effectively.

The letter concludes with a plea to “work together” and the statement: “A free Tibet goes hand in hand with a free China, as well as a free East Turkistan, a free Southern Mongolia, a free Hong Kong and a truly independent Taiwan.”

The letter has since been translated into Tibetan and published in the Tibet Times.