Photo: Tibetan Monk, by Juliette Morschl
Tibetan Monk
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Dalai Lama Says He Could Reincarnate in India
Since 2014, the aging Dalai Lama has repeatedly suggested that he could be the last incarnation in a centuries old spiritual tradition that until recent years also included an explicit political role. Citing imperial precedent, Beijing has countered the Dalai Lama’s warnings by repeatedly asserting its right to name his successor. Sixty years after the Dalai Lama fled Tibet for India, the 83-year-old spiritual leader and Nobel peace laureate told Reuters’ Krishna N. Das and Sunil Kataria that his future reincarnation–if born at all–could be found in India, and warned that any successor named by Beijing would not be respected:
[…] “China considers Dalai Lama’s reincarnation as something very important. They have more concern about the next Dalai Lama than me,” said the Dalai Lama, swathed in his traditional red robes and yellow scarf.
“In future, in case you see two Dalai Lamas come, one from here, in free country, one chosen by Chinese, then nobody will trust, nobody will respect (the one chosen by China). So that’s an additional problem for the Chinese! It’s possible, it can happen,” he added, laughing.
[…] He said the role of the Dalai Lama after his death, including whether to keep it, could be discussed during a meeting of Tibetan Buddhists in India later this year.
[…] If the majority of (Tibetan people) really want to keep this institution, then this institution will remain,” he said. “Then comes the question of the reincarnation of the 15th Dalai Lama.”
If there is one, he would still have “ no political responsibility”, said the Dalai Lama, who gave up his political duties in 2001, developing a democratic system for the up to 100,000 Tibetans living in India. [Source]
Beijing’s intervention in Tibetan Buddhist affairs—a right it claims to have inherited from its imperial predecessors—has been noted to be exacerbating tensions in Tibetan regions of China. Since 2009, 155 Tibetans have self-immolated in protest of Beijing’s policies.
The Chinese government considers the Dalai Lama a separatist despite his decades of advocacy not for an independent Tibet, but for genuine autonomy within China. In 2011, the Dalai Lama ceded political power over the exiled Central Tibetan Authority to a democratically elected Sikyong, but has continued to be the highest spiritual leader in the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as the de facto world ambassador of Buddhism–a religion that continues to grow in global popularity. In a cover story and interview with the Dalai Lama at TIME this month, Charlie Campbell describes Beijing’s attempt to re-brand Buddhism as a Chinese religion, a campaign that could be reinforced by the potential recognition of a 15th Dalai Lama on Chinese soil:
In the six decades since [fleeing from China], the leader of the world’s most secluded people has become the most recognizable face of a religion practiced by nearly 500 million people worldwide. But his prominence extends beyond the borders of his own faith, with many practices endorsed by Buddhists, like mindfulness and meditation, permeating the lives of millions more around the world. What’s more, the lowly farmer’s son named as a “God-King” in his childhood has been embraced by the West since his exile. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and was heralded in Martin Scorcese’s 1997 biopic. The cause of Tibetan self-rule remains alive in Western minds thanks to admirers ranging from Richard Gere to the Beastie Boys to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who calls him a “messenger of hope for millions of people around the world.”
Yet as old age makes travel more difficult, and as China’s political clout has grown, the Dalai Lama’s influence has waned. Today the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that drove him out of Tibet is working to co-opt Buddhist principles — as well as the succession process itself. Officially atheist, the party has proved as adaptive to religion as it is to capitalism, claiming a home for faith in the nationalism Beijing has activated under Xi Jinping. In January, the CCP announced it would “Sinicize” Buddhism over the next five years, completing a multimillion-dollar rebranding of the faith as an ancient Chinese religion.
From Pakistan to Myanmar, Chinese money has rejuvenated ancient Buddhist sites and promoted Buddhist studies. Beijing has spent $3 billion transforming the Nepalese town of Lumbini, birthplace of Lord Buddha, into a luxury pilgrimage site, boasting an airport, hotels, convention center, temples and a university. China has hosted World Buddhist Forums since 2006, inviting monks from all over the world.
Although not, of course, the world’s most famous. Beijing still sees the Dalai Lama as a dangerous threat and swiftly rebukes any nation that entertains him. That appears to be working too. Once the toast of capitals around the world, the Dalai Lama has not met a world leader since 2016. Even India, which has granted asylum to him as well as to about 100,000 other Tibetans, is not sending senior representatives to the diaspora’s commemoration of his 60th year in exile, citing a “very sensitive time” for bilateral relations with Beijing. Every U.S. President since George H.W. Bush has made a point of meeting the Dalai Lama until Donald Trump, who is in negotiations with China over reforming its state-controlled economy. [Source]
Read more about Beijing’s sustained application of diplomatic pressure to discourage foreign leaders from meeting with the Dalai Lama, or about the ongoing campaign to “Sinicize” religion in China, via CDT.
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Experts Renew Call for Probe Into Death of Cao Shunli
On March 14, 2014, lawyer and rights activist Cao Shunli died after being denied medical treatment while in detention for participating in a sit-in outside of the Foreign Ministry in Beijing to call for public participation in a U.N. human rights review. She had initially been detained on September 14, 2013 at the Beijing airport while attempting to travel to Geneva for training ahead of China’s second Universal Periodic Review (UPR) by the U.N. Human Rights Council, and was formally arrested a month later for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” Her lawyers made repeated requests for her release and medical treatment, as she was suffering from several life-threatening diseases. Beijing later was criticized in Geneva for her death.
Five years after the death of Cao Shunli, U.N. experts have renewed a call for Beijing to launch an independent investigation into the case. At Radio Free Asia, Lin Ping reports:
“Cao Shunli’s case is emblematic of the struggle that many human rights defenders in China face,” the experts said in a statement on Thursday.
They said Cao, who was detained as she set out for Switzerland to take part in a U.N. Human Rights Council review in September 2013, had “paid the ultimate price” for her activism.
[…] “Today, on the fifth anniversary of her death, we renew our call for an independent, impartial, and comprehensive investigation into her death, with a view to bringing those responsible to justice,” the U.N. experts said. […] [Source]
“The UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders’ website relays further details from experts’ renewed call.
The renewal comes as Beijing is facing increased pressure in Geneva following its third UPR late last year. China initially rejected 62 of 346 UPR recommendations as “politically biased,” and has since been facing increased pressure in Geneva to address the human rights crisis in Xinjiang, were an estimated 1.5 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities are being held in a series of internment camps.
Ahead of the March 15 debate session and adoption of the UPR report, Chinese Human Rights Defenders recalled the many other prisoners of conscience who have died due to medical deprivation and torture in recent years. On the fifth death anniversary of Cao yesterday, March 14, Chinese Human Rights Defenders’ Frances Eve published a memorial essay, in which she called on U.N. member states to stand up to Beijing and also reminded readers of Beijing’s many other recent and ongoing rights abuses. From The Guardian:
This week is an opportunity to pay tribute to Cao Shunli, but also importantly, for the international community to speak up and remind the Chinese government of its obligations to safeguard human rights. On March 15, the UNHRC will be meeting to adopt a final report on recommendations made in November during China’s third Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The UPR is a peer review process of a country’s human rights record that happens every four years. While it can be political, all states must submit themselves equally to scrutiny by fellow governments.
[…] States can use Friday’s meeting to speak out and pay tribute to Cao Shunli and all those who have died under Chinese police custody, reject China’s denials made during the UPR over its rights abuses in Xinjiang, and build momentum towards passing a resolution on the human rights situation in China.
[…] The Chinese government under Xi Jinping has so far faced no meaningful repercussions internationally for the deaths in custody of prisoners of conscience. Domestically, state agents have enjoyed total impunity while family members, lawyers, friends, and supporters have been threatened, disappeared, detained, or tortured.
In fact, after Cao’s death, the UN general assembly re-elected China to the UN human rights council in 2016 by a greater number of votes than in 2013. Chinese Communist party mouthpiece the People’s Daily proudly heralded it as proof that China’s human rights progress had “received widespread approval from the international community”.
[…] Cao Shunli said before her death: “Our impact may be large, may be small, and may be nothing. But we must try. It is our duty to the dispossessed and it is the right of civil society.” States should remember her spirit and not be afraid to speak truth to power. [Source]
On Twitter the International Service for Human Rights’ Sarah Brooks similarly called on rights council members to remember Cao’s case:
At the UPR adoption, Human Rights Watch successfully called for a moment of silence for Cao, a move that was celebrated by rights defenders, and condemned by China’s deputy minister of foreign affairs during the session:
The U.N. Human Rights Council today adopted the UPR outcome, and China offered its official response. Despite a surplus of critique from experts and rights organizations in the report, the parallel commendation of Beijing’s progress from several council members and from China’s own foreign ministry vice minister offered low-hanging fruit for China’s external propaganda machine. Several rights organizations this week noted the continued damage that Chinese influence operations are having on the work of the U.N. Human Rights Council.
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At U.N., West Criticizes Xinjiang Crisis
Following reports of forced labor, political indoctrination, abuse, and deaths within Xinjiang’s internment camps, the U.S. co-hosted a U.N. Human Rights Council side event on Xinjiang alongside Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.K. This comes in the wake of Uyghurs around the world increasingly pressuring Beijing to reveal details about their disappeared loved ones, and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s second request to gain access to the region. The New York Times’ Nick Cumming-Bruce covers diplomats’ remarks, and how Beijing pressured countries to stay silent:
China’s oppression of religious and ethnic minorities is well known. “What’s new is the breadth of the repression and how the Chinese government is using breakthroughs in technology to increase its effectiveness,” Kelley Currie, a senior United States diplomat, told a meeting on the sidelines of the council in Geneva.
The United States would consider targeted measures against Xinjiang officials to promote accountability for violations there, said Ms. Currie, who serves with the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice. She urged China to reverse its policies and allow access to the region by United Nations experts.
[…] The United States called Wednesday’s meeting an effort to draw global attention to China’s extreme measures in detaining upward of a million people in re-education and detention centers and to build momentum for action by countries that are members of the Human Rights Council.
The meeting also highlighted an escalating effort by China to counter international criticism. China is scheduled to appear at the council on Thursday for the last round of a formal review of its human rights performance.
[…] China’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva organized four meetings and a photo exhibition to reinforce that narrative. Diplomats and human rights activists reported that it also lobbied hard to dissuade other countries from attending the United States event on Wednesday, warning it would view participation as a hostile act. [Source]
Ambassador Currie’s remarks can be read in full on the U.S. mission’s website. The mission also posted a video of her remarks:
U.K. and German representatives also raised strong concern:
Adrian Zenz, a prominent Xinjiang scholar who teaches at the European School of Culture and Theology, presented revised figures at the U.N. gathering, where he increased his estimate of the number of internees from one million to 1.5 million. Other estimates have ranged between 800,000 and two million. For Reuters, Stephanie Nebehay reports:
Adrian Zenz, an independent German researcher, said that his new estimate was based on satellite images, public spending on detention facilities and witness accounts of overcrowded facilities and missing family members.
“Although it is speculative it seems appropriate to estimate that up to 1.5 million ethnic minorities – equivalent to just under 1 in 6 adult members of a predominantly Muslim minority group in Xinjiang – are or have been interned in any of these detention, internment and re-education facilities, excluding formal prisons,” Zenz said at an event organized by the U.S. mission in Geneva, home of United Nations human rights bodies.
“The Chinese state’s present attempt to eradicate independent and free expressions of the distinct ethnic and religious identities in Xinjiang is nothing less than a systematic campaign of cultural genocide and should be treated as such,” Zenz added. [Source]
Meanwhile, alongside the State Department’s annual release of its human rights report, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo roundly criticized China, saying it was “in a league of its own when it comes to human rights violations.” For The Independent, Chris Baynes cites U.S. officials’ remarks:
“For me, you haven’t seen things like this since the 1930s,” said Michael Kozak, the head of the State Department’s human rights and democracy bureau, in an apparent reference to Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union.
“Rounding up, in some estimations … Millions of people, putting them into camps, and torturing them, abusing them, and trying to basically erase their culture and their religion and so on from their DNA. It’s just remarkably awful.”
[…] At least we’re starting to make them realise there is a lot of international scrutiny on this,” Mr Kozak said. ”It is one of the most serious human rights violations in the world today.”
Donald Trump has been accused of failing to take “meaningful action” over China’s repressive policies, with a cross-party group of politicians writing to Mr. Pompeo earlier this month urging the government to “stand up for the oppressed”.
Mr Trump’s administration has weighed sanctions against senior Chinese officials in Xinjiang, including the region’s Communist Party leader, but Beijing has warned of retaliation. [Source]
As in the past, Beijing issued a lengthy rebuke of the State Department’s annual report, calling on the U.S. to “take care of its own affairs” first. Deutsche Welle, citing other news agencies, details Beijing’s criticisms:
The human rights situation in China has “never been better,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing on Thursday, a day after the US issued a report criticizing human rights violations in the Asian country.
“We hope the US will remove the colored lenses and discard the Cold War mentality,” Lu said, adding that he hoped Washington would “stop interfering in China’s internal affairs with human rights as a pretext.”
[…] China’s State Council also issued a 12,000-word annual rebuttal of the US report in which it pointed to high rates of gun violence in the US, as well racism, sexism, and lack of media freedom in the US.
The last charge is sure to raise some eyebrows in Washington, as Reporters Without Borders ranked the US 45th and China 176th on its 180-country press freedom rating.
Even so, Chinese officials maintained that press freedom in the US had “come under unprecedented attack” as the government accuses media of creating “fake news.” [Source]
Xinjiang’s governor Shohrat Zakir, who earlier presented the camps as pleasant vocational centers and compared them to boarding schools, dismissed reports on camp conditions as “pure fabrications,” and claimed that the camps will disappear when “society does not need” them. Al Jazeera further cites Zakir’s remarks:
Zakir, the Xinjiang governor, said the camps do not target any particular faith, though religious activities are banned in the camps.
Former detainees say the overwhelming majority of those in the camps are Muslim.
“We fully ensure freedom of religion,” including accommodating Muslim “trainees'” desire for halal food, Zakir said, adding that they can request time off and go home on weekends, “like many boarding schools.”
[…] Zakir repeated China’s claim that there have been no violent incidents in Xinjiang for more than two years.
He added, however, that there remains a “long fight” ahead for efforts to defeat “extremism”. [Source]
After China faced its third Universal Periodic Review late last year, Human Rights Watch’s China Director Sophie Richardson details how Beijing has rejected scores of government recommendations, while clearly not implementing recommendations it has agreed to:
“Inconsistent with China’s national conditions, contradictory with Chinese laws, politically biased or untruthful.” In this manner China rejected dozens of recommendations from other governments during its Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
[…] China claims to have accepted or is already implementing 284 of the 346 recommendations made by states. It asserts it is combating torture in detention, respecting the rights of detainees, protecting religious freedom for ethnic minorities, upholding citizens’ freedom of speech, including that of human rights defenders, and cooperating with UN human rights mechanisms. In each case, recent Human Rights Watch research clearly shows otherwise.
China pushed back hardest against more than a dozen recommendations calling for urgent access by independent or UN observers to Xinjiang—the northwest region where roughly a million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims are being arbitrarily detained for “political education.” It sought to dismiss the concerns raised with its long-discredited mantra: “China firmly opposes interference in its sovereignty and internal affairs under any pretext.”
[…] It’s not too late for those governments to speak this week with a common voice on behalf of people under grave threat—the question is whether they will do so. [Source]
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