Nancy Pelosi
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Ms. Nancy Pelosi will depart shortly for China, returning on May 31, could a less publicized part of her climate and trade mission, involve an attempt to try and revitalize negotiations between the communist Chinese authorities and the exiled Tibetan government? The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is close to the exiled Tibetan leadership and one wonders if she has volunteered to impress upon China, that the Dalai Lama is committed and sincere, when insisting that he seeks a “minimal autonomy”, in accord with the constitution of communist China, and that he now concedes that Tibetans are not a seperate and distinct people but a Chinese minority group?
As she flies into Beijing will she give a thought to the political aspirations of Tibetans inside Tibet, who are struggling for an outcome very different to that hoped for by their exiled Administration. Perhaps she will have sufficient time upon the flight to realise that the issue of Tibet is not about the Dalai Lama, or her other Tibetan friend, Samdhong Rinpoche. It concerns, as formerly recognized by the Tibetan leader, the political wishes of the Tibetan people, whose courage, sacrifices and ongoing resistance against Chinese occupation has one common goal, independence for Tibet. When facing her smiling Chinese hosts will Nancy be able to promote a message that betrays that hope?
