To the kind attention of H.E. Y.C. Huang

Ambassador of Taiwan

Taiwan Representative Office

Avenue des Arts 41

1040 Brussels

Brussels, September 25, 2000

Dear Ambassador,

Last July the European Parliament have adopted a resolution in which it:

"calls on the Council, the Commission and the Member States to do all they can to start up negotiations between the Government of the Peoples Republic of China and the Dalai Lama on a new status for Tibet which guarantees full Tibetan autonomy in all areas of political, economic, social and cultural life, the only exceptions being defense and foreign policy;"

and

"calls on the governments of the Member States to seriously take into consideration the possibility of recognizing the Tibetan government in exile as the legitimate representative of Tibet if, within three years, the Beijing authorities and the Tibetan government in exile have not, through negotiations organised under the aegis of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, signed an agreement on a new Statute for Tibet".

On the basis of this resolution we are planning a worldwide campaign directed to the parliaments of the democratic countries aiming to see them passing resolutions in which they call on their own government to adopte such a position.

We will of course propose such a text before the parliaments of the Member States of the European Union. We have already begun to work in that direction with three of them.

But we think that a special interest could be found in those 30 countries who have recognized your country. We have no doubts that such an action in those countries could be strongly reinforced with an involvement of your government.

We are, of course, not underestimating the delicate aspects of such a campaign both for your country and for the Tibetan government in exile. In our view and at this stage the main question would be to find in those parliaments and governments trustable people that we could convince to take the lead in this campaign.

In that perspective, I'm wondering if the forthcoming visit in Taiwan of Mr Paolo Atzori, responsabile for foreign affairs of the radical delegation in the European Parliament, could be useful to have some personal contacts with responsibles of the Tibet desk of the Taiwanese Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Thanking you again for your kind invitation to discuss this initiative in a more detailled way,

Best regards,

Olivier Dupuis