Opinions

That was the year when China’s emperor Deng Xiaoping proclaimed his infamous decree for Tibet—except independence anything can be discussed. That was the year, in other words, when we started giving up on our struggle for freedom.

Kalon Tripa Lobsang Sangay’s recent trip to Australia -- his first to the Land Down Under since his August 2011 inauguration – saw the Tibetan exile leader continue his efforts to raise the global profile of the Tibetan struggle and the Tibetan leadership.

One June 3, 2012, the Tibetan Government-in-Exile (TGIE) announced that Kalon Tripa Lobsang Sangay had accepted the resignations of Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen as the envoys for His Holiness the Dalai Lama in negotiations with the Chinese authorities.

The spate of self-immolations inside Tibet is not only mind-boggling but also extremely complex and it challenges us to look at it in new ways. It calls for a whole new discourse on Tibet.

The Beijing-based Tibetan writer Woser has written a sharp critique touching on the future course of Tibetan democracy. The context of her article is the controversy sparked by Woser’s criticism of the new Kalon Tripa, Lobsang Sangay,

In March 2012, reported the Chinese-sponsored Tibet Daily, Hu Jintao encouraged a Tibetan delegation to promote the “old Tibetan spirit” when it met the President during the annual National People’s Conference.

The bargain that the Obama administration thought it had made with China, regarding the fate of blind human rights legal advocate Chen Guangcheng, has now fallen apart. The New York Times reports that American officials admit to “bungling” the case.

You know that I have been leading the Tibetan delegation for the dialogue with the Chinese government for the last many years. But I am not here today to give you a report on my progress because there is nothing new to say on that front. My last meeting with my counterparts in Beijing was in January 2010.

How many more lives should be sacrificed? This is the painful question in the mind of all Tibetans. Millions of Tibetans have died for freedom. Every Tibetan family has been affected and in many ways suffered as a direct consequence of China’s continued occupation of Tibet.

When the Tibetan monk Tapey self-immolated in 2009, and then when, beginning in March 2011, a number of Tibetans began to immolate themselves one by one, this new form of resistance in Tibet, the ultimate act of sacrifice, took everyone by surprise. In the beginning, even within the Tibetan community in exile, some