Contact is taking a holiday!

Contact is taking a break after 25 years of bringing you news of Tibet and Tibetan issues. We are celebrating our 25 years by bringing you the story of Contact and the people who have made it happen, and our archive is still there for you to access at any time, and below you can read the story of Contact, how it came into being and the wonderful reflections of the people who have made it happen over the years.

When and how Contact will re-emerge and evolve will be determined by those who become involved.

News From Other Sites

Censorship, Surveillance and Profits: A Hard Bargain for Apple in China

By Jack Nicas, Raymond Zhong and Daisuke Wakabayashi NY Times 17 May 2021 GUIYANG, China — On the outskirts of this city in a poor, mountainous province in southwestern China, men in hard hats recently put the finishing touches on a white building a quarter-mile long with few windows and a tall surrounding wall. read more →

Only an international effort can put an end to China’s crimes in Xinjiang

Jewher Ilham and Sophie Richardson for The Guardian China’s president, Xi Jinping, declared back in 2014 in a series of speeches delivered in private to officials that he intended to crack down harshly in Xinjiang, the north-western region of China where about 13 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims make up read more →

Why China’s Communist Party is inseparable from the state

Josephine Ma South China Mornin Post 17 May 2021 “Government, the military, society and schools, north, south, east and west – the party leads them all.” This was a line written into the Communist Party of China’s charter in 2017, reflecting President Xi Jinping’s philosophy that the party should lead read more →

Penpa Tsering to be next President of Tibetan government in exile; asks China to learn Buddhism

Sidhant Sibal WION 14 May 2021 Penpa Tsering will be the next President of the Tibetan govt in Exile (or Sikyong of Central Tibetan Administration) based out of Dharamshala. In his first comments after election victory to any media outlet, Penpa, speaking to WION diplomatic correspondent Sidhant Sibal said he read more →

INTERVIEW | Tibet Seeks Japan, U.S. Help as China Continues Persecution

By Takao Harakawa, Sankei Shimbun Japan Forward 13 May 2021 A senior official at a Japan-based organization that represents Tibet’s government-in-exile has told the Sankei Shimbun about the harsh reality of China’s crackdown in Tibet. Arya Tsewang Gyalpo of the Liaison Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama for Japan & read more →

PRESS CONFERENCE: What Next for Tibet? by Arya Tsewang Gyalpo, Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama for Japan

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan May 17th marks 26 years since Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama and second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism, was abducted by the Chinese government. Aged just six, the Panchen Lama was taken along with his family after the 14th Dalai Lama read more →

Japanese Legislators Affirm Support for Tibet’s Exiled Autonomous Government

By Dr. Monika Chansoria Japan Forward 10 May 2021 The six million Tibetans suffering Beijing’s relentless repression inside Tibet, and the Tibetans living in forced exile in India and across the world, led by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, have had but scant hope for preserving their identity. Yet, the read more →

Tibetans in Lhasa told to restrict religious practice during holy month

International Campaign for Tibet May 12, 2021 The Lhasa City Buddhist Association has circulated a notice dated May 9, 2021 urging Tibetan Buddhists in the Tibetan capital to restrict their traditional religious practice during the holy fourth month of the Tibetan calendar, which began on May 12. The notice states the reason read more →

MISSION: JOY – FINDING HAPPINESS IN TROUBLED TIMES

Tribecafilm Visit Tribecafilm.com for details Academy Award®-winning director Louie Psihoyos returns to Tribeca with his latest film, a profound and jubilant exploration of the remarkable friendship between Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Inspired by the international bestseller The Book of Joy, the documentary welcomes viewers into intimate conversations between two men whose resistance read more →

Doubts emerge over Chinese President Xi Jinping’s chances of securing a third term

12 May 2021, 08:28 AM IST Mint As Chinese President Xi Jinping’s hard-line policies beyond Chinese shores are squandering Beijing’s soft power, doubts are emerging over Xi securing an unprecedented third term. The G7 last week called on Xi on everything from actions on Taiwan, incursions in cyberspace, human-rights abuses, read more →

No Religion in Tibetan Schools, China Tells Parents

Reported by Lhuboom for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Richard Finney. Parents of Tibetan schoolchildren may no longer carry rosaries, prayer wheels, or other religious items onto school grounds, Chinese authorities in one Tibetan county say, as China continues to enact policies wearing away read more →

Tibet set for tough changes

Source: https://www.tribuneindia.com/ Tibet set for tough changes Infrastructure expansion and cultural assimilation plans to have consequences Jayadeva Ranade President, Centre for China Analysis and Strategy China’s recently concluded national-level meetings, held in Beijing in March every year, portend dramatic changes in the social, cultural and economic landscape of Tibet, along read more →

China deletes 2 million online posts for ‘historical nihilism’ as Communist Party centenary nears

Jun Mai SCMP 11 May 2021 China’s internet regulator has said it has overseen the deletion of more than 2 million posts containing “harmful” discussion of history, amid preparations to mark the Communist Party’s centenary in July. “For a while, some people have disseminated harmful information with historical nihilism on the internet, under read more →

Chinese military probed weaponising coronavirus in 2015, claim leaked documents

PTI | May 10, 2021 | Updated 00:51 IST Chinese military scientists allegedly investigated weaponising coronaviruses five years before the COVID-19 pandemic and may have predicted a World War III fought with biological weapons, according to media reports referring to documents obtained by the US State Department. According to ‘The Sun’ read more →

When Covid Hit, China Was Ready to Tell Its Version of the Story

By Ben Smith May 9, 2021  In the fall of 2019, just before global borders closed, an international journalists’ association decided to canvass its members about a subject that kept coming up in informal conversations: What is China doing? What it found was astonishing in its scope. Journalists from countries as tiny as read more →