Category: South Asia

Tibetan exile leader Penpa Tsering has wrapped up his first official visit to Washington D.C. with a meeting on Thursday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders and public talks scheduled for Friday evening. Tsering — the Sikyong or elected head of Tibet’s India-based exile government the Central Tibetan Administration — began his visit on Tuesday with talks held with Uzra Zeya, the State Department’s Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues. The Department also hosted a lunch for Tsering attended by ambassadors from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries. Participating in Tsering’s meeting on Thursday with Pelosi were International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) board chairman Richard Gere and acting president Bhuchung Tsering; Zeegyab Rinpoche, abbot of the India-based branch of Tibet’s Tashilhunpo monastery; U.S. congressman Jim McGovern; and Namgyal Choedup, representative of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. Speaking to RFA after the meeting, Choedup noted this week’s visit to Washington was the first by Tsering, a former speaker of Tibet’s exile parliament in Dharamsala, India, who won a closely fought April 11, 2021 election to become Sikyong held in Tibetan communities worldwide. Choedup described Thursday’s talks as “decisive and constructive,” calling Tibetans grateful for Pelosi’s continued support. “The meeting also discussed collective decisions on future courses of action regarding how to resolve the Sino-Tibetan conflict,” Choedup said. Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago, and Tibetans frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity. U.S. congressman Michael McCaul, ICT board chairman Richard Gere, and Sikyong Penpa Tsering are shown left to right. Photo: RFA “We are trying to burst the myths or narratives that the Chinese government has been presenting for many decades about Tibet being a part of China, which is not true,” said ICT board chairman Richard Gere, also speaking to RFA on Thursday. “And we are trying to push for a genuine dialogue [between China] and His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” Gere added. The Dalai Lama and Tibet’s India-based exile government the Central Tibetan Administration have proposed a “Middle Way” approach to talks with Beijing that now accepts Tibet’s status as a part of China but urges greater freedoms for Tibetan language, religious, and cultural rights. Nine rounds of talks were previously held between envoys of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and high-level Chinese officials beginning in 2002, but stalled in 2010 and were never resumed. Congressional supporters of the Dalai Lama “would love to have the Dalai Lama address a joint session of the U.S. Congress by video,” said representative from Texas Michael McCaul, a ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. ”The American people stand with the Tibetan people and with the Dalai Lama, who is one of the greatest spiritual leaders of our time,” McCaul said. Penpa Tsering ends his Washington visit Friday evening with a panel discussion held at George Washington University on the Tibet-China dialogue and a public talk with the D.C.-area Tibetan community. He will then visit Tibet communities in Philadelphia and New York before moving on to meetings in Canada. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Four people, including three Chinese nationals, have died in a suicide bomb attack on a Confucius Institute in Pakistan thought to be linked to Beijing’s Belt and Road projects in the country. Tuesday‘s attack near the Confucius Institute at the University of Karachi in southern Pakistan left four people dead, including the director, Huang Guiping, and teachers Ding Mupeng and Chen Sai. Another Chinese national, Wang Yuqing, was injured alongside several local people. CCTV footage of the blast showed a person in a burqa walking towards a van, which then exploded, covering the surrounding area in thick smoke. News photos from the aftermath of the blast showed the Confucius Institute building with shattered windows. Pakistani military personnel and police cordoned off the area, with news photos showing the remains of a charred, white Toyota van near the gate of the Confucius Institute on the Karachi University campus. The van, according to local media reports, had been carrying several teachers to the Institute when it was attacked, escorted by several motorcycles. The injured Chinese national was rushed to a local hospital for treatment, along with several injured security personnel and other staff. The Chinese Consulate General in Karachi confirmed that the three deceased were staff of the Confucius Institute at the University of Karachi. Rangers stand guard nearby the blast site a day after a suicide attack on a van near the Confucius institute which is the cultural programme that China operates at universities around the world at the Karachi University in Karachi, April 27, 2022. Credit: AFP. Security alert raised It said the “terrorist attack” took place at around 2.20 p.m. local time on April 26, and that the consulate has activated its emergency plan, raising the security alert level for all Chinese institutions, projects and personnel in Pakistan. A consulate employee who answered the phone declined to comment when contacted by RFA on Wednesday. “This isn’t my responsibility,” the staff member said. “I don’t know the specific details of the situation.” “It’s not that I don’t want to answer your query; I really don’t know. You need to contact the embassy,” the staff member said. Repeated calls to the Chinese embassy rang unanswered during office hours on Wednesday. “First of all, from a political point of view, Chinese people are a very big target and an influential target that can make the Pakistani government pay a high level of attention,” a Chinese national living in Pakistan told RFA. “The Chinese government will also always pay a high level of attention to security issues,” said the person, who asked to remain anonymous. “So these are some of the reasons for this terrorist attack against the Chinese.” The separatist group the Baloch Liberation Army, which has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Confucius Institute, said more deadly attacks on Chinese targets could follow. Mining and energy projects The group is one of several fighting for independence in Pakistan’s biggest province, where Chinese companies are involved in lucrative mining and energy projects under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative. “Hundreds of highly trained male and female members of the Baloch Liberation Army’s Majeed Brigade are ready to carry out deadly attacks in any part of Balochistan and Pakistan,” spokesman Jeeyand Baloch said in a statement on Wednesday reported by Agence France-Presse. He called on China to halt its “exploitation projects” in Balochistan and its “occupying of the Pakistani state.” The group named the bomber as Shaari Baloch, a 30-year-old mother of two who had been studying for a master’s degree. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on Pakistan to take steps to guarantee the safety of all Chinese citizens and interests in the country and to launch a full investigation into the blast, warning Chinese nationals not to go out unless necessary, and to take “the strictest precautions.” The Prime Minister’s Office issued a message of condolence, and vowed to eliminate terrorists, while Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif paid a visit to the Chinese embassy to express condolences, condemnation, and to promise a full investigation. Taiwan strategic analyst Shih Chien-yu said the Karachi Confucius Institute was a relatively easy target for terrorist attacks. “Confucius Institutes are particularly vulnerable and don’t have very strong security,” Shih told RFA. “A lot of the infrastructure and engineering projects along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor employ various private security guards and even the Pakistani army [for protection], so it’s not easy to carry out an attack.” “Confucius Institutes are relatively vulnerable … so it’s not surprising it was the target of a suicide attack,” he said. Debt and resentment Shih said the attack came amid growing resentment over the presence of Chinese companies involved in Belt and Road projects. “People in Balochistan, the ethnic groups in the upper and lower reaches, have always felt that they are a neglected and bullied minority … who have received no benefits from the construction projects of the Belt and Road.” The attacks are a fresh blow for Belt and Road in Pakistan, following a Bloomberg report in 2021 that the planned flagship port and airport development at Gwadar, the last stop in the China-Pakistan Corridor and terminus for dozens of planned roads, railways and pipelines, was semi-moribund. Many infrastructure projects in Pakistan are still heavily indebted to China, while incoming Chinese investment has been falling year-on-year. In October, Pakistan was forced to borrow U.S.$6 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to meet its immediate needs. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Monday vowed to boost his nuclear weapons program and said the weapons could be used “in any situations of warfare” as he observed a massive military parade that showed off Pyongyang’s intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), state media reported. Kim Jong Un emphasized the need to strengthen the North Korea’s military capabilities, with an emphasis on nuclear development, in a speech before the parade that analysts in Seoul and Washington said were troubling. “In particular, the nuclear forces, the symbol of our national strength and the core of our military power, should be strengthened in terms of both quality and scale, so that they can perform nuclear combat capabilities in any situations of warfare, according to purposes and missions of different operations and by various means,” the state-run Korea Central News Agency reported him as saying. The event commemorated the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army (KPRA), which under the country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, waged guerilla attacks against the Japanese army in and around the Korean peninsula. The elder Kim is Kim Jong Un’s grandfather. Pyongyang has been actively testing short and long-range missiles to display its military power, with a more conservative administration about to take over the government in South Korea and talks with the U.S. over denuclearization stalled. Officials in Washington and Seoul have said that activity at North Korea’s nuclear testing site may indicate that Pyongyang is preparing to resume tests there. Kim said in the speech that the purpose of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal is to deter attacks, but also suggested that the weapons could be used for other purposes. “Our nukes can never be confined to the single mission of war deterrent even at a time when a situation we are not desirous of at all is created on this land,” Kim said. “If any forces try to violate the fundamental interests of our state, our nuclear forces will have to decisively accomplish its unexpected second mission.” The parade included the country’s largest known ICBM, the Hwasong-17, which Pyongyang claims to have successfully tested last month. South Korean officials have said that the Hwasong-17 exploded prematurely during the test and North Korea tested a less-advanced missile a few days later, claiming it was the Hwasong-17. State media made a point of showing Kim shaking hands with military officials as the Hwasong-17 rolled by them. People at a train station in Seoul, South Korea watch a TV screen showing a news program reporting about North Korea’s military parade, Tuesday, April 26, 2022. Photo: AP De-escalation urged Officials in South Korea urged the North to stop raising tensions on the peninsula. “The South Korean government, above all else, urges North Korea to immediately stop any actions that cause tensions on the Korean peninsula and in the region,” South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Choi Young-sam said. The presidential transition committee for South Korean President-elect Yoon Seok-yeol, who will assume office on May 10, said in a statement that close cooperation with the U.S. was necessary to deter North Korean threats. South Korean analysts said that Kim’s words signified a significant shift regarding North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. “North Korea’s supreme leader has explicitly stated that [nuclear weapons] are no longer a means of self-defense, but they are now for attack,” Kwak Gil Sup of Kookmin University in Seoul told RFA’s Korean Service. This increases the likelihood that North Korea would attempt to use nuclear weapons to resolve crises, Cho Han Bum of the Seoul-based Korea Institute of National Unification told RFA.  “By significantly expanding the scope of the use of nuclear weapons, it is possible to use nuclear weapons in such attempts as regime crises, internal crises and regime changes,” said Cho. Analysts in the U.S. meanwhile expressed doubts that the Hwasong-17 in the parade was real, but agreed that Kim Jong Un’s comments about his nuclear ambitions were troubling. “What we see in the parade may only be a mockup, [and] may not be a real missile, either,” David Maxwell, a former Army officer and now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told RFA. “I think it’s safe to say that Kim Jong Un is trying to show us advanced military capabilities, which on the one hand support his political warfare strategy and blackmail diplomacy to raise tensions to make threats. And they use these provocations to gain political and economic concessions,” Maxwell said. Bruce W. Bennett, a counterproliferation expert at the RAND Corporation, told RFA that Kim Jong Un’s comments about nuclear weapons were “worrisome.” “He’s trying to be scary and make it look like he’s capable. And then he says, ‘Hey, guys, bother me, and I’ll use nuclear weapons.’ You know, it’s a threat,” he said. “And especially given that he’s facing internal instability, [it] does make us wonder where things are going on the peninsula.” People at a train station in Seoul, South Korea watch a TV screen showing a news program reporting about North Korea’s military parade, Tuesday, April 26, 2022. Photo: AP The General Political Bureau of the People’s Army used the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the KPRA’s founding to issue a directive to soldiers that they have the responsibility of “protecting the system as the military of the supreme leader,” a military source in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service Monday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. But the source said that there was discontent brewing among the troops. “The soldiers and even military officials criticize their leaders for designating them as a ‘spearhead’ for protection of the [current political system], without treating them accordingly. … [The order] emphasizes protecting the system but does not say anything about improving the military supply situation, so many soldiers scoff at the directive,” the military source said. In North Pyongan province, in the northwest, another military source told RFA the directive included instructions to boost troop morale. “The [recent] test…