JOIN USAntony Blinken meets Dalai Lama's representative in India
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken met a representative of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in Exile based in India during his visit to New Delhi on Wednesday – sending out a message to China.
Blinken had a meeting with Ngodup Dongchung, the representative of the Dalai Lama in New Delhi, just before his meeting with his counterpart in the Government of India, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. Dongchung also serves as a representative of the Tibetan Government in Exile (TGiE) based at Dharamshala in India.
This is the first time a US Secretary of State publicly met a representative of the Dalai Lama or the TGiE while visiting India.
Blinken’s meeting with Dongchung came amid escalating tension between the US and China and the continuing military stand-off between the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
The Dalai Lama set up the TGiE – formally called Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) – on April 29, 1959, just a few weeks after he arrived in India following his escape from Tibet, which had been occupied by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in 1950-51. The CTA, which has its headquarters in Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh, calls itself the “continuation of the government of independent Tibet”.
Beijing, which calls the Dalai Lama a ‘splittist’, in the past pressed the Government of India hard to shut down the TGiE. New Delhi, however, has been allowing it to function, albeit without officially recognising it.
The US Congress late last year passed the Tibetan Policy and Support Act (TPSA) of 2020, acknowledging the legitimacy of both the Tibetan Parliament in Exile (TPiE) and the TGiE or the CTA. The TPSA 2020, which the then US President Donald Trump signed into law, acknowledged the Central Tibetan Administration as the “legitimate institution reflecting the aspirations” of the Tibetan Diaspora around the world with Sikyong as its President.
The US had hosted the then Sikyong of the TGiE Lobsang Sangay at the State Department and the White House in Washington D.C. in October and November last year. The US also acknowledged the legitimacy of the election of Penpa Tsering early this year as the successor of Sangay in a global poll which saw participation by exiled Tibetans around the world.