USA Today, March 13, 1997

By Richard Gere

In occupied Tibet, one of the last ancient spiritual cultures on earth, Chinese soldiers rape nuns with cattle prods, routinely imprison monks and interfere with almost every aspect of Tibetan life. I have seen evidence of these abuses during my own travels in Tibet, and I have wept with these simple and deeply religious people whose inner strength persists miraculously in the face of cultural extinction.

We can only hope that the transition of power from the late Deng Xiaoping, who was the architect of China's Tibet policy, to Jian Zemin will herald a new opening in the history of China-Tibet relations and will present Bill Clinton with a new chance to get his China policy right.

Until now, China's brutal disregard for the most basic human freedoms seems a matter of scant importance to Clinton and his appointees. Furthermore, recent revelations that the Chinese Embassy may have been involved in illegal campaign contributions to the Democratic Party raise a disturbing possibility that the president's U-turn in addressing China's abysmal human rights record may not be due merely to lack of moral steadfastness or a result of shortsighted advice.

The roster of recent visitors to the White House, which includes despots guilty of the most despicable acts of brutality, bagmen bearing gifts on behalf of dubious interests, international arms dealers and other sinister characters, should further increase our concern about Clinton's place in history. The president's own State Department recently reported that the values and freedoms that lie at the core of the American national identity and for which many Americans have laid down their lives are all but nonexistent in China, where nearly every champion of freedom and democracy is today a political prisoner or in exile.

China invaded Tibet in 1949 and has occupied the country ever since. The popular and rightful leader of the Tibetan people is the Dalai Lama, who along with 80,000 of his countrymen narrowly escaped into India in 1959, where he established the democratic Tibetan government in exile. In 1989, he received the Nobel Prize for Peace.

In light of what Tibet has endured in its four decades of Chinese military occupation, what is extraordinary is the modesty of the Dalai Lama's demands. He wants no vengeance. He wants no prosecutions. He harbors no malice. He doesn't even demand the return of political sovereignty. What he asks for is an honest and sincere exchange with China's rulers directed at the cultural and spiritual survival of the Tibetan nation. He wants for his people the right to pray in peace, to express their cultural identity, to develop economically and spiritually, and to continue existing as a distinct and extraordinary people.

I saw the Dalai Lama recently on an International Campaign for Tibet-sponsored congressional delegation to India. Typically, he urged us not to worry so much about the cold shoulder he is given by the White House. Not having this Nobel Peace Prize winner's equanimity, though, I am left with the question: Why is this man's message of peace and conciliation one that Clinton is unwilling to hear?

Tibet may become the litmus test of American moral strength abroad as the new century dawns, a measure of what we value as a people and how we ourselves will be judged by history. Already, more and more Americans are rising to this challenge and demands for action on Tibet are growing. Hollywood, both America's most sensitive barometer of public trends and its most potent communications engine, is embracing the issue of Tibet with a number of feature films.

Among these efforts are two movies focusing on the personage of the Dalai Lama himself - Kundun, directed by Martin Scorsese, and Seven Years in Tibet, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. It is noteworthy that Kundun's producer, Disney, was pressured by Beijing to drop the project but refused to back down. China was shocked by the clarity of Disney's response and quickly backpedaled. The president should take note: Clarity and decisiveness are respected and responded to by China, and world opinion has an enormous effect there.

China is right to be concerned. As public sentiment builds, as the simple and compelling message of the Tibetan people finds a sympathetic ear among moral, freedom-loving Americans, politicians will be able to ignore this issue only at their peril.

So Clinton's challenge is twofold: to prove to all of us that U.S. foreign policy is not for sale to the highest bidder, and to exercise world-class moral leadership on behalf of the Tibetans and oppressed peoples everywhere.

As American Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists or whatever, we all know deep in our hearts that a threat to religious freedom anywhere is a threat everywhere, a blight on the human condition. It is our defining challenge to respond and our leaders' defining challenge to champion our cause.

Richard Gere is a film actor and the co-chair of the International Campaign for Tibet.