For 60 years he served US imperialism, operating from Indian soil, playing havoc with India-China Relations
The 14th Dalai Lama, born as Lhamo Thondup on 6 July 1935, turns 85 today and 60 years of that he served US imperialism,operating from Indian soil. He presided over a so-called Tibet Government -in-Exile (CTA), against all cannons of Panch Sheel and international law, ironically from a place called Dharamshala (Place of Justice or Law),in Himachal Pradesh.
This played and continues to play havoc with India-China Relations as can be anticipated, as we shall see later. Hence this story.
India should play Tibet card , or Dalai Lama card to counter China, should give up its One China Policy… Such are the policy prescriptions that are coming, once again, from Indian Hawks, both within and without the ruling Sangh parivar dispensation, in the current national and international scenario
Many experts warned against it :Why playing the Tibet card may backfire on India, wrote former foreign secretary Shyam Saran, in January 2017:
Given Chinese sensitivity to anything to do with Tibet — and the fact that in the 1950s it was the Tibet issue which led to the deterioration of India-China relations and the border war in 1962 — India should be particularly careful in not triggering a Chinese reaction which it may not be able to handle,’ says former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
That has been the official policy for years, including of Modi regime. Is that going to be revised by a hawkish policy framework, by a NEW Forward Policy?
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Modi’s Ladakh visit was marked by contradictory statements
PM Modi visited on July3 Ladakh, a surprise visit, that replaced a proposed a visit by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh that was put off in the last minute.
Modi’s Ladakh visit was marked by contradictory statements of peace and belligerence, of flute and Sudarshan Chakra.
The visit was after a mutual agreement, it was officially reported, on de-escalation and de-induction of troops, which process began and would go on iin a phased manner.
It was marked by contradictory statements. How to understand and interpret it was being discussed across the board.
The 20 Indian fatalities on the disputed LAC, were the first in over 45 years. There were casualties on Chinese side too, unofficially put as 40 by Indian agencies and authorities. They were in a clash that did not see use of fire arms. There is no other boundary in the world as peaceful as this for so long, said an expert.
PM Modi in the All Party Meet (APM), on June 19,2020, held after 20 Indian soldiers died on June 15 had said :
“Neither is anyone sitting inside our borders nor is any post been captured… Modi said, categorically rejecting suggestions that the Chinese had intruded and were sitting on Indian territory.
“There was no intelligence failure”…“There are no intrusions. They are not on our territory.The LAC is not marked on the ground, there is no agreement on it”, said Gen VK Singh, Chief of Indian Army.
Given the above, where was the need for Modi to rush there un-announced? It was intriguing to see Modi’s remarks in Ladakh, to say the least. And given the above why did he say what he said?
For the first time in decades, an Indian PM used the word expansionism; and used the word enemy referring to China though not naming it explicitly. Modi who refuted reports of any intrusion spoke of expansionism!
It was only in October last Modi and Xi Jinping had agreed, in Mahabalipuram, Chennai summit, that differences should not be allowed to turn into disputes, and signed scores of MOUs on business. Even after Corona, both had mutual help, exports.
How to read this ? Has it a wider strategic meaning?
Even as PM Modi visited Ladakh on July3, this Dalai Lama card was repeated. Questions were raised whether the visit was meant to vent off the built-up feelings or to inflame emotions, even as a de-escalation and de-induction of troops was agreed upon at military level talks. And that after calls from some quarters about reversing aOne China policy. They were ominous after the following developments.
Bill Introduced in US Congress…for Tibet as a separate country
US official website says: Bill Introduced , H.R.6948 – To authorize the President to recognize the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China as a separate, independent country, and for other purposes.116th Congress (2019-2020).
It was welcomed by certain forces in India and by followers of Dalai Lama. Calls were made, ominously, including by those in Sangh parivar, that One China Policy must be given up, citing Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong etc. Tibet card was revived.
(See for more on thse issues : Indian Hawks Join Hands With US Vultures Against China, June 16, 2020.
https://countercurrents.org/2020/06/indian-hawks-join-hands-with-us-vultures-against-china/)
Was it all a part of preparations of Defence of borders, or an impending offensive ? Defence of ruling BJP, down with a economic slump, unemployment, aggravated by Corona and migrant labor crises? Or is it also part of preparations for Bihar election?
This Tibet card, even a talk of it, would serve the interests of hegemonists, global and regional. It would further US imperialism and its global and regional strategic goals, and harm the cause of peace and development.
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This article on this occasion is Part-4 of the series of articles on India-China relations, written after the face-off of June 15.This deals with a basic cause for the strained India-China relations. And the series will deal with so-called Tibet or Dalai Lama card, being advocated once again by hawks for which this is important.
Indian Hawks Join Hands With US Vultures Against China, published on June 16, 2020, just as the earliest reports of face-off on June 15 night were just coming in was a fore-runner to the second series:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 were published on June 27, June 28, and July 1 respectively. (may please be linked up).
Is it PM’s surrender to China ? Or is it subservience to US Strategy of Congress and others? of June 28,2020, and
Blaming Modi For The Deaths Of 20 Soldiers Is Part Of Jingoism, Of July 1,2020 are important in the second series.
There was another series of four articles on the subject written before the face-off of June 15, published on June 5, June 8, June 9, June 16. (may please be linked up).
India- China Border Tensions: A New Forward Policy? ofJune 9, is important in this series, and raised the crucial question: What are the implications of a new Forward Policy ? Is this policy drawing India into the cold war by US against China?
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Dalai Lama and the story his links with imperialism and CIA
Dalai Lama’s is a story that impacted vital questions of our foreign and defence policies, whose result is that an India lagging in most parameters of HDI Rankings in the world… an impoverished India spends around Rs. 4 to 5 lakh crore every year on defence. And media celebrates it, and War Business circles want more. Make in India is being linked with that, as Defence Minister reiterated, even as orders are pressed for expedited import of war equipment worth upto Rs 40000 crore.
It is an important story of great interest to Indians, even sensational from TRP point of view, but little of that is told not only by the Big Media, sub-serving imperialist interests, but even by social media, again in the grip of the same interests, with few honorable exceptions:
Tibet , Dalai Lama and USA, an article by this author and published by countercurrents.org, April 30, 2019, brought out much about him and his US-CIA links. It was a bold and independent editor who dared to publish the article with authentic sources. A foreign admirer of Dalai Lama who had met the Lama had then commented it is “very interesting. This is the most detail I have seen in explaining the U.S. connection to the Tibetan ‘revolution’ and the Dalai Lama… Having met the Dalai Lama, I want to think that the analysis of his interest in climate change is more cynical than mine…” ( more about it later.)
A little came out of Wikileaks a few years ago, and some of it was reported by the Indian media, but not those leaks and documents about this sordid story of the monk that continues to play havoc with India-China relations. Its Founder, Julian Assange has been hunted, harassed, and imprisoned by imperialists. But Indian media, touted as “free and democratic” remained shameless, and covered up the whole story despite it having even a sensational value. Such is the vice grip of imperialism and its junior partners on the media.
When the Dalai Lama left the White House,after meeting Obama, Feb 19, 2010, he was ushered out of the back door, “ where a mound of trash awaited him”, reported Christian Science Monior. That sums up how, despite his announcements of retirement from politics, he was always used by hegemonists, through back-door methods.
Early this year a seminal biography (see cover page bellow) of the monk was published by Harper Collins India,The Dalai Lama: An Extraordinary Life, by Alexander Norman.This is the first authoritative biography of the Dalai Lama.It acknowledges his US-CIA links, but even then, the media mostly ignored it, or covered up this nefarious part. Indian readers are dished up with spicy biographies of cinema stars and cricketers, but not this serious one.
The author, who lives in the UK, is not ill-disposed to the Lama. He has collaborated with the Dalai Lama on several of his bestselling books, including the autobiography Freedom in Exile, and Beyond Religion. He is the author of a critically acclaimed history of the Dalai Lamas, Holder of the White Lotus. He has known him personally for over 30 years. He regularly gives lectures on Tibetan history and culture.
‘Impressive in its clarity this biography is the most detailed and accurate to date. Written in an engaging prose, it ends with an insightful prediction of the legacy of the fourteenth Dalai Lama, and a clear-eyed assessment of the challenges that the fifteenth will face’ – wrote The New York Times.
Here is a Buddhist monk rewarded with the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize but who never condemned USA, and its Allies, who have been, over the decades, killing millions of civilians of several countries. Never condemned when tens of thousands of civilians were killed, admitted even by Home Minister Amit Shaw in parliament in August 2010, in Kashmir by Indian armed forces. The same applies to thousands of poor peasants and adivasis killed or fighting for land, he never condemned; and when thousands of Rohingyas were killed by Myanmar and its Buddhists.(Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’d “Democracy” leader, is another Nobel Peace Awardee who was one with him in this.) The Buddhist monk was associated with armed guerrilla battles against China, both overtly and covertly. And perhaps he was rewarded with the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for these contributions.
Despite all the orchestrated sympathy across the media world, the fact is not a single country recognizes the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA),also called as Tibet Government-in-Exile, was founded on April 28, 1959 by Dalai Lama. No USA, nor any power in the West, nor India officially recognize it, but fund it, aid and abet it to harass China. Not only now, but never was it recognized by any country, nor by UNO. Thus it is not love for Tibetans but meant to harass China.
President Trump “ signed the ‘Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019’ on 15 February which sanctioned the fiscal year 2019 funding for several government departments through September 30, 2019…meant to aid CTA and Tibetans against China; there are also other similar Tibetan programs from the US government.
India is co-ordinating with US strategy, fears China, and that is at the oot of the trouble, not just a border dispute that did not come in the way of India’s ties with China for decades.
This Commemoration on September 10, 2010 was the first time that US had officially acknowledged the CIA operation with the Tibetans against China. After President Nixon made up with China, it was officially stopped by mid-1970s, though covert work went on. US in recent past activated it again, Trump though was initially wary, is now again at it and is trying to rope in Nepal into its Indo-Pacific Strategy with India’s cooperation. Efforts to manipulate and change regimes in Nepal are also part of these efforts.
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Untold stories from the Dalai Lama’s first India visit
Edited excerpts from the book by Norman were published by livemint.com, 22 Feb 2020.
They including a vivid account of his first visit to India on Jawaharlal Nehru’s invitation. It exposes how China did not hound him out; in fact China’s Premier had met him in India. The young Lama was in two minds, considered going back or elsewhere, as other reports also indicate, but manipulations were made and he was persuaded to stay in asylum.
While he was in Delhi, the Dalai Lama met with Zhou Enlai, the Chinese premier, who was en route to a number of other Asian countries…
Besides telling the Tibetan leader of Mao’s recent decision to delay reforms indefinitely in the Tibet Autonomous Region, Zhou assured him that if the Dalai Lama would care to accompany him back to Beijing, Chairman Mao would be glad to see the Precious Protector again and to allay in person any fears he might have.
As for Gyalo Thondup and Jigme Norbu (both of whom Zhou clearly suspected of agitating for the Dalai Lama to seek asylum abroad)…
( We may add : Other accounts show how they were funded, armed, trained and handled by CIA.They were there in India before Dalai Lama arrived in 1959.)
These encounters with Zhou surrounded a critical meeting with Nehru at which the Precious Protector sought to determine the prime minister’s attitude toward a formal request for asylum. The Indian leader made clear his determination not to make any commitments that would harm India’s relationship with China.
Indeed, so fully was his mind made up that he barely attended to what the Precious Protector had to say: “At first he listened and nodded politely. But…after a while he appeared to lose concentration as if he were about to [fall asleep].”
The Dalai Lama explained that he had done all in his power to make the relationship with China work, but that he was now beginning to think it might be better to remain in India rather than return to Tibet. This evidently brought Nehru to his senses.
He understood what the Tibetan was saying, he assured him, “but you must realise…that India cannot support you.”His advice was rather that the Dalai Lama should hold the Chinese to the terms of the Seventeen Point Agreement and speak out forcefully when they failed to do so.
(We may add : he monk was made to repudiate and walk out of the Agreement he had signed with China led by Mao. He was made China’s (not merely Tibet’s) Vice President, to represent ethnic Tibetans. See for more details countercurrents.org story of 2019.)
At his subsequent meetings with Zhou, the Dalai Lama gave no indication that he was considering applying for political asylum…
He (Zhou) cautioned the Dalai Lama that, if he stayed in India, he would be in political exile. “At first when you say something bad against us as strongly as possible, you will get some money. The second and third time, when you do not have much to say against us, you will get small sums of money, and in the end they will not have money to give you.”
Prominent among these refugees was Gyalo Thondup (GT), who had by now come to terms with John Hoskins, the 29 year-old head of the CIA’s Far East Division. America was by now very interested in Tibet as a way to cause trouble for the Chinese Communists…(but NOT to recognize the so-called Tibetan govt).
Washington decided the CIA should support the training, equipping, and insertion of an initial eight (later reduced to six) Tibetan agents. Hoskins gave Gyalo Thondup the task of recruiting the men, and he in turn involved his elder brother, Jigme Norbu. The six recruits were all Khampas, of whom four were ex-monks, one of these former ecclesiastics an especially fiery character by the name of Wangdu, who in his youth had shot a man dead for that age-old crime of “disrespect.”
The agency’s estimation of GT changed over time. When eventually the CIA program came to an end, its then operations director requested that Gyalo Thondup “please arrange for your next incarnation to be Prime Minister of a country where we can do more to help you! ” noting that he had been extraordinarily successful in obtaining both material and political support from the United States.” …
Nor was it certain that the United States would recognize a Tibetan government in exile. ( It never did till now. Nor any other country.)
It was only later in 1951 that Tibet had signed a 17-point Agreement with new China, the PRC (that emerged in 1949 October) re-affirming China’s sovereignty over Tibet. Dalai Lama was party to this. The National Assembly of Tibet asked the Govt to accept that agreement, under which TAR (Tibet Autonomous Region) was an autonomous part of China. PRC conducted census in 1954 that included TAR and its population of 12.7 lakh people.
The Agreement was repudiated by the faction led by Dalai Lama in 1959, even as he left Tibet to be accommodated in India.
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Behind Dalai Lama’s holy cloak
This is the title of an article, May 23, 2007, by an Australian journalist, Michael Backman, who knew the Lama well. He was one of the few who probed into CTA and its funding. He studied how the Monk’s parivar controls things, its nepotism etc and wrote:
Rarely do journalists challenge the Dalai Lama.He is a head of their government-in-Exile. So why not hold him accountable as a political figure?…
It was a state apparatus run by aristocratic, nepotistic monks that collected taxes, jailed and tortured dissenters and engaged in all the usual political intrigues.
(The Dalai Lama’s own father was almost certainly murdered in 1946, the consequence of a coup plot.)
The Dalai Lama himself was on the CIA’s payroll from the late 1950s until 1974, reportedly receiving $US15,000 a month ($US180,000 a year).
(Note it was in those days, we may add, based on other reports. And there are several other sources and donations, including from Indian Govt. )
The funds were paid to him personally, but he used all or most of them for Tibetan government-in-exile activities, principally to fund offices in New York and Geneva, and to lobby internationally.
The money was to pay for guerilla operations against the Chinese, notwithstanding the Dalai Lama’s public stance in support of non-violence, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
The government was involved in running 24 businesses in all, but decided in 2003 that it would withdraw from these because such commercial involvement was not appropriate…
It is not clear how donations enter its budgeting. These are likely to run to many millions annually, but the Dalai Lama’s Department of Finance provided no explicit acknowledgment of them or of their sources.
Certainly, there are plenty of rumours among expatriate Tibetans of endemic corruption and misuse of monies collected in the name of the Dalai Lama.
Many donations are channelled through the New York-based Tibet Fund, set up in 1981 by Tibetan refugees and US citizens. It has grown into a multimillion-dollar organisation that disburses $US3 million each year to its various programs.
Part of its funding comes from the US State Department’s Bureau for Refugee Programs.
The Monk’s Parivar and nepotism
Like many Asian politicians, the Dalai Lama has been remarkably nepotistic, appointing members of his family to many positions of prominence.
In recent years, three of the six members of the Kashag, or cabinet, the highest executive branch of the Tibetan government-in-exile, have been close relatives of the Dalai Lama.
An older brother served as chairman of the Kashag and as the minister of security. He also headed the CIA-backed Tibetan contra movement in the 1960s.
A sister-in-law served as head of the government-in-exile’s planning council and its Department of Health.
A younger sister served as health and education minister and her husband served as head of the government-in-exile’s Department of Information and International Relations.
Their daughter was made a member of the Tibetan parliament in exile. A younger brother has served as a senior member of the private office of the Dalai Lama and his wife has served as education minister.
The second wife of a brother-in-law serves as the representative of the Tibetan government-in-exile for northern Europe and head of international relations for the government-in-exile.
All these positions give the Dalai Lama’s family access to millions of dollars collected on behalf of the government-in-exile.
The Dalai Lama might now be well-known but few really know much about him.
For example, contrary to widespread belief, he is not a vegetarian. He eats meat. He has done so (he claims) on a doctor’s advice following liver complications from hepatitis. I have checked with several doctors but none agrees that meat consumption is necessary or even desirable for a damaged liver.
What has the Dalai Lama actually achieved for Tibetans inside Tibet?
If his goal has been independence for Tibet or, more recently, greater autonomy, then he has been a miserable failure.
He has kept Tibet on the front pages around the world, but to what end? The main achievement seems to have been to become a celebrity. Possibly, had he stayed quiet, fewer Tibetans might have been tortured, killed and generally suppressed by China.
https://www.theage.com.au/business/behind-dalai-lamas-holy-cloak-20070523-ge4yfk.html
He lives in India. Why no Indian reports about him in this country that boasts of a free media? It is a kept press.
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Tibet , Dalai Lama and USA, is quite a long article by this author and published by countercurrents.org, April 30, 2019. The article among other things pointed out:
It is a brazen violation of international law, and of Panch Sheel, that India hosts and sustains a so-called Government in Exile, CTA, for 60 years and media is full of stories based on falsehood. This is a case of post-truth that began 60 years ago.
It is formally claimed that Dalai Lama the monk etc are given asylum on condition that they should not indulge in any political activity. However, the CTA is complete with a Cabinet including Lobsang Sangay – Sikyong , President, and Ministers for Home, Finance, Education, Security, Information & International Relations, Health etc. They have their official print and electronic media. All this, brazenly operating from Indian soil, even while mouthing Panch Sheel.
It brings out several aspects of the US conspiracy against China in which India has been a junior partner. India’s intelligence services, later RAW, were no less than CIA in their anti-China activities from Indian soil as also from its smaller neighbors, so-called Indian protectorates, whose foreign and Defence policies it controlled through unequal, colonial treaties. And that is a major factor behind India’s clash with China, it is not merely a border dispute.
The curious case of Establishment 22
“Wikileaks brought out many skeletons in the US cup-board, and sections of Indian media reported them too. But little was published with respect to Tibet-Dalai lama-CIA-India nexus. A rare report is : The curious case of Establishment 22 , published in the Hindustan Times dated Nov 15, 2009.
How the Indian state worked with CIA , from the days of progressive, secular Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi to Rightist Hindutva vadis Vajpayee and Modi can be understood from the Report. Also can be seen how the Indian state used these dubious armed forces to suppress domestic dissent in India…
The story of this still-secret regiment, (Establishment 22 ) however, reads like a set of Catch 22 situations. Though it was raised to fight the Chinese army in Tibet, it has fought in several theatres of war except that one. It’s so classified a set-up that even the army may not know what it’s up to — it reports directly to the prime minister via the directorate general of security in the cabinet secretariat…all school-passing Tibetan children not making a certain grade are still expected to join it.( ie, conscription of children into armed forces.)
Jawaharlal Nehru took the decision to raise the force on his birthday in 1962. It was also the day the war with China resumed on the eastern front after a brief lull. On the advice of Intelligence Bureau founder-director Bhola Nath Mullick and World War II veteran Biju Patnaik, Nehru ordered the raising of a Tibetan guerrilla force that could engage the Chinese in the uber-tough terrains of the Himalayas.
Since then, the regiment — also called the Special Frontier Force (SFF) — has participated with exemplary skill in Operation Eagle (securing Chittagong hills during the Bangladesh War of 1971…Operation Bluestar (clearing Amritsar’s Golden Temple in 1984), Operation Meghdoot (securing the Siachen glacier in 1984) and Operation Vijay (war with Pakistan at Kargil in 1999). Some reports later claimed that SFF’s mandate had been changed to include anti-terrorist operations. ( though officially denied.ITBP is regularly used to suppress adivasi struggles in Bastar and elsewhere.)
A document which is a MUST-READ for anyone who thinks they know, or would like to know, the truth about the Dalai Lama is the US State Department publication ‘Foreign Relations of the United States 1964 – 1968 Volume XXX’. Part of it is document 342, a memorandum from the CIA to the 303 committee from 26 January 1968 (See image below).. There are such reports aplenty, brought out by Wikileaks, and those de-classified by USA.
The Tibetan paramilitary unit, a remnant of the 1959 resistance force, is dispersed in 15 camps. The Tibetan leadership views the force as the paramilitary arm of its “government-in-exile”. The CIA, together with its Indian equivalent the RAW…. formed ‘Establishment 22’ in 1962. There can be no doubt that it is ‘Establishment 22’ that the CIA are here referring to as the ‘paramilitary arm of the Tibetan Government in Exile’.
(countercurrents.org/2019/04/tibet-dalai-lama-and-usa-ramakrishnan/)
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Environmental issues are being used to rake up Tibet as against China in recent past.
It is part of a “broader shift in strategy to reframe the Tibet issue as an environmental concern”.
See this report by Jason Burke in Delhi, dated 16 Dec 2010 intheguardian.com titled :
WikiLeaks cables: Dalai Lama called for focus on climate, not politics, in Tibet. How environmental issues, like human rights, are made part of imperialist global strategy can also be seen in this.
“ The Dalai Lama told US diplomats last year that the international community should focus on climate change rather than politics in Tibet because environmental problems were more urgent, secret American cables reveal. The exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader told Timothy Roemer, the US ambassador to India, that the “political agenda should be sidelined for five to 10 years and the international community should shift its focus to climate change on the Tibetan plateau” during a meeting in Delhi last August…
“ Roemer speculated, in his cable to Washington reporting the meeting, that “the Dalai Lama’s message may signal a broader shift in strategy to reframe the Tibet issue as an environmental concern”. In their meeting, the ambassador reported, the Dalai Lama criticised China’s energy policy, saying dam construction in Tibet had displaced thousands of people and left temples and monasteries underwater….
“ The cables also reveal the desperate appeals made by the Dalai Lama for intervention by the US during unrest in Tibet during spring 2008. As a heavy crackdown followed demonstrations and rioting, he pleaded with US officials to take action that would “make an impact” in Beijing. …
(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/16/wikileaks-dalai-lama-climate-change)
Close associations with many Nazis
In recent past, Western and Indian media sought to damn Xi Jinping who was likened to Hitler. But reality is Dalai Lama had Nazi Connections:
“Throughout his life the Dalai Lama has had close associations with many Nazis, including Bruno Beger, who was convicted for his ‘scientific research’ at Auschwitz; and Miguel Serrano, head of the Nazi Party in Chile and the author of several books that elevate Hitler to a god-like status. As a child he was under the tutelage of Heinrich Harrer – a former sergeant in the SS, Hitler’s most loyal soldiers – who for some years in Tibet before the Chinese occupation taught the young Dalai Lama about the outside world….Heinrich Harrer … became the Western guru of Tibet’s young 14th Dalai Lama … The 85 year old Austrian has been confronted with a terrible secret from his past: that he was a member of Hitler’s SS.”
(http://transmissionsmedia.com/the-dark-side-of-dalai-lama/)
Arunachal Pradesh, an irritant with China, was NOT recognized by Dalai Lama for 50 years after he was given asylum.
Union Territory of Arunachal Pradesh, given the status of a State as late as 20 February 1987 is one of the areas disputed by China, and Indians complain about it. Dalai Lama did not recognize India’s sovereignty there for 50 years after he was given asylum and sheltered by India. As late as 2003, Dalai Lama was telling it is “ actually part of Tibet”. Only on 2008 June 4, reported Times of India, he “for the first time” said that Tawang, claimed by China, is part of India, and that by saying McMahon Line was recognized by Tibet and Britain in 1914.
Taiwan also does not recognize McMahon Line and thus Arunachal as part of India, even today. But India maintains relations with it. In a policy shift by Modi regime, two BJP MPs attended a virtual swearing in ceremony of the re-elected Taiwan President
Two BJP MPs (due to Covid-19) virtually attended swearing in of and greeted Taiwan’s President Ms. Tsai Ing-wen very recently in May 2020, and it was a tacit message by Modi to China that regards Taiwan as part of China and does not recognize it. In 2016, Modi had decided against greeting her in her First term, reported thePrint May 21, 2020.
But India carries on business with it, without bothering about the question of sovereignty on Arunachal. It is only as part of anti-China strategy,dove-tailed into America’s Indo-Pacific strategy that India does not press it.
Citizenship issue: Non-Indians are part of Indian armed forces
India made a fuss about the citizenship issue, directed against sections of India’s Muslims, but it is one of the few countries that has citizens of other countries, tens of thousands of them, in its Armed Forces. They include citizens of Nepal, not merely ethnic Gorkhas, and of Tibet.
(Tibet or Dalai Lama Card?Dalai Lama a “geo-strategic” asset ? More about it and its implications in the next part of this series.)
( The author is a journalist and political observer, who contributed to countercurrents.org.)
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