Published by: World Tibet Network News, Friday, July 12, 1996

The Dominion, Wellington. Editorial, Wednesday 10th July

Chinese growling over the proposed visit to New Zealand of the Dalai Lama does nothing but enforce doubts about the ability of China to behave as a responsible world citizen.

The Middle Kingdom alrady has a shabby record. It took firm action from the United States before the Chinese Government abandoned its convenient blindness to the large-scale thievery of intellectual property that proved so profitable to the Chinese economy. It is continuing its crackdown to extinguish freedom of expression internally. Its continued enthusiasm for nuclear testing as the rest of the world moves away from the nuclear abyss is another symtom of the arrogance of a nation which believes it is strong enough to make its own rules. So, too, was the ill-conceived attempt to intimidate Taiwan before the first democratic election there in March this year.

The lastest outbreak is an attempt to force the New Zealand Government to stop the September visit of the Dalai Lama or, at the very least, into not having any officials or ministers meet him.

Ambassador HUang Guifang lectures New Zealand that it will be "unacceptable to the Chinese Government for officials of any country to meet the Dalai Lama and his representatives in any form" and that his visit "can by no means be acceptable to us." Tibet, he offers, has been part of China since the mid-13th century and under the jurisdiction of China since then. The Dalai Lama is"not purely a religious personage but an exile who engages in policital activities aimed at splitting the motherland." The issue of Tibet, he says, is internal.

Once again, this illustrates the Chinese Government's inability to

come to terms with democracy and the right of free speeach. Some

critics maintain that the Chinese policy in Tibet comes close to

genocide. It is certainly the ultimate in doublespeak for a

Chinese diplomat to maintain it is the Dalai Lama who is splitting

the motherland, when it is the Tibetan people who are being

repressed and their monasteries devastated.

Terrorists, of those who advocate the use of terror to overthrow a

state should not be admitted to New Zealand. But no one, apart

from a Chinese diplomat, can seriously argue that the Dalai Lama,

the winer of the 1990 [sic] Nobel Peace Prize, falls into that

category.

Wellington already kowtows to Beijing over links with Taiwan,

maintaining the diplomatic fiction that the 12th biggest trading

nation in the world with the second largest foreign-exchange

reserves does not exist.

New Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui-democratically elected,

unlike Mr Huang's Beijing masters- has announced he will seek

visits by high-ranking Taiwanese officials to countries with which

it has no diplomatic relations. It would be a fitting response to

Mr Hunag's hectoring over the Dalai Lama of Wellington let it be

known it was now considering taking up the offer.

New Zealand need to treat China with respect, but that respect

cannot be allowed to drift into acceptance of Beijing bullying.