At the end of January, JAPAN Striker met with Dr Tsewang Gyalpo Arya, the representative of the Liaison Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama for Japan and East Asia. Dr. Arya appeared in JAPAN Striker‘s front pages, and is also affiliated with the Tibet Central Administration in Dharamshala, India.
Our interview covered many topics. The upcoming Beijing Olympics in 2022 were the most pressing at the moment. Dr Arya expressed deep concern over the Chinese Communist Party’s opportunity to host the Olympics amid China’s continued human rights abuses.
Excerpts from the interview with Dr. Arya follow.
Earning the Sacred Olympic Flame
His Holiness the Dalai Lama supported the People’s Republic of China’s bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics. Why are you now opposing the 2022 Games in the PRC?
the Central Tibetan Administration, and especially His Holiness the Dalai Lama, yearn for peace. In 2008, there was still hope that the Olympic Games would help guide the People’s Republic of China on the path to world peace. This is why His Holiness supported the organization of the Olympic Games in China in 2008. The American government too, and many others in the world, also had high hopes.
A year earlier, in 2007, the Chinese Communist Party assumed authority to endorse the next Dalai Lama. And, in 2008, the Panchen LamaGedhun Choekyi Nyima, who had been kidnapped with his family by the PRC in 1995, remains missing, as it does to this day.
Despite all this, however, we Tibetans still believed that the Olympics would help straighten the course of the PRC by exerting a positive overall influence on the government in Beijing.
We believed in the promises made by the Chinese government. We wanted to see peace and hoped the Olympics would bring peace to China and the world.
Today, in 2022, we have to admit that our hopes were unfounded. The Olympics did not cause the PRC to stop violating the human rights of Tibetans, for one thing. And we now know that the PRC is committing genocide against the Uyghurs in East Turkestan. Since 2008, Hong Kong has been invaded by the PRC despite promises to respect democracy there.
The PRC is now encroaching on Taiwan and Japan, especially around the Senkaku Islands. In the South China Sea, other broken promises – the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, are all threatened by Beijing.
In December 2021, the Japanese translation of 100 CCP Atrocities in Tibet (in Japanese, Asuka Shinsha Co.) was released. The book was recommended by free speech and human rights advocate Yoshiko Sakurai. I invite the world to read 100 CCP Atrocities in Tibet (English version) and decide if we did the right thing by giving Beijing another chance to host the Olympic Games.
A true successor to Mao Zedong
What role do you think the current Chinese President, Xi Jinpingplayed to prevent the People’s Republic of China from being dragged by the 2008 Olympics on the road to peace and democracy?
I think it’s important to make a distinction here: the Chinese people have also suffered greatly because of the actions of the Chinese Communist Party. The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and many other horrors wrought by the Chinese Communist Party hurt the chinese people terribly.
Xi Jinping continues the CCP’s policy of contempt for the Chinese people. Xi Jinping also doesn’t care about anyone else in the world. And he doesn’t care about things that are dear to the rest of the world, like democracy, freedom, peace and the rule of law.
Like Chinese dictator Mao Zedong before him, Xi only cares about his own power and will do anything to keep it.
The world is now in a very dangerous situation. The events of the past year in Afghanistan and now in Ukraine show that the world order is changing rapidly. In Asia, China is causing great unrest. PRC threatens India’s borders, appears to back military junta that took control of Burma in one February coup, and destabilizes the maritime order in Asia, as mentioned earlier. Xi Jinping militarized Tibet and is now trying to crush religion and language of the Tibetan people.
The whole world falls under the shadow of Beijing, so the whole world must tell Xi Jinping that what he is doing is wrong. I therefore support a complete boycott of the Beijing 2022 Olympics – athletes, diplomats and spectators. All freedom and the values of humanity are at stake.
I understand athletes have trained hard, but we can’t let humanity die in the name of individual achievement. The 2022 Olympics are not about competition between peaceful athletes, but about the struggle between democracy and dictatorship, between human rights and a dark future controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
If we let Xi Jinping stage the Olympics as planned, then he will feel empowered to continue his dictatorial rule over China and the world. We will attend a resurgence of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
Save humanity from China
What can people do to participate in the struggle for human rights in Asia?
On February 4, a group of Tibetans, Uyghurs, Southern Mongols and other will demonstrate in front of the PRC Embassy in Tokyo.
We must support those who fight for human rights and protest against Beijing’s co-option of the Olympics.
China conquers us. We begin to be afraid to speak. The world joins the Chinese people in their fear of the Chinese Communist Party.
If this continues, the CCP’s value system – intimidation, bullying, invasion, brutal repression – will invade the international community. There will be no peace in the world.
China is also trying to twist the Olympics now. We all need to raise our voices and say emphatically, “NO, I will not support the PRC’s takeover of the Olympics. I will not let Beijing turn the sacred Olympics into a celebration of a bloody dictatorship.
We cannot allow China to desecrate the sacred spirit of the Olympics and the universal values for which our ancestors fought so hard.
One day, our children will look back and wonder, “Why did our parents entrust the sacred torch of the Olympics to the party that is bent on destroying the spirit of the Olympics?”
Author: Jason Morgan
