Chinese embassy threatened House lawmakers, urged them to ‘cancel’ Dalai Lama visit
China’s embassy to the US sent a threatening letter to lawmakers who visited the Dalai Lama in Tibet this week urging them to “cancel” the trip, according to a copy of the missive exclusively reviewed by The Post.
“I am writing to express deep concern on the HFAC congressional delegation’s visit to Dharamshala,” Minister-Counselor Zhou Zheng wrote to aides of House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and ranking member Gregory Meeks (D-NY).
“The visit interferes with China’s internal affairs, violates China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. China firmly deplores it,” Zheng said, referring to Tibet as “Xizang … an integral part of Chinese territory since [the] Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century.”
“We strongly urge the Congress to cancel related activities, so as to help maintain the current stabilizing momentum of China-US relations, rather than the opposite,” he added.
The bipartisan House delegation met Wednesday with the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, in northern India — despite Beijing’s warnings against US association with the leader of “anti-China separatist activities under the guise of religion.”
“Just this week our delegation received a letter from the Chinese Communist Party, warning us not to come here,” McCaul said during the meeting, “but we did not let the CCP intimidate us, for we are here today.”
“Communist China’s oppression of the Tibetan people, bullying of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and warnings to those of us who visited Tibetans living in exile in India are inappropriate and all the more reason why the United States and the international community must work together to counter Chinese misinformation about Tibet’s history, advocate for the Tibetan people’s self-determination and encourage a continuity plan for the Dalai Lama’s successor,” Staten Island GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, who was also on the trip, told The Post Friday.
McCaul, Meeks, Malliotakis, House Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other House members greeted officials from the Tibetan government-in-exile, which has had no relations with Beijing since 2010.
The Dalai Lama, 88, fled to Dharamshala after a failed uprising against China in 1959.
He has dismissed allegations of fueling separatism in Tibet and claimed he stands only for the protection of its native Buddhist culture.
“The human rights conditions in Xizang are better than ever, as witnessed by the international community,” the letter to the congressional delegation from the Chinese embassy claimed — contradicting reports of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan farmers being forced into labor camps to correct their “backward thinking.”
The House lawmakers told a crowd of hundreds gathered outside a monastery in the hillside town, some of whom waved American flags, that the visit underscored the successful passage by Congress of the Resolve Tibet Act, which among other provisions calls on the State Department to “counter disinformation” spread by Beijing — including the idea that the region has been part of China for centuries.
Pelosi called the legislation “a message to the Chinese government that we have clarity in our thinking and our understanding of this issue of the freedom of Tibet.”
President Biden has not yet signed the bill into law after it passed Congress last week.
“The President is going to do what he thinks is best on behalf of the American people, that’s what I can tell you,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in a Tuesday press briefing.
Lin Jian, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said the same day that the White House “must not sign the bill into law,” or China will take as yet unrevealed but “resolute measures.”
The visit marked the second time Pelosi has disregarded Chinese warnings of US involvement in the Far East, following an August 2022 visit to Taiwan.
The Dalai Lama was expected to fly to the US on Thursday for medical treatment on his knees. It’s unclear whether he met with any other officials while on American soil.
