6 Aug 2017, 7:28 p.m.<\/p>\n
He demanded China allow Tibetans to vote for their Chinese leaders. <\/p>\n
The president of the Tibetan government-in-exile called on the Australian government to lobby for full Tibetan autonomy in China. <\/p>\n
Dr Lobsang Sangay is set to make a speech at the National Press Club in Canberra on Tuesday on the back of a Sydney Opera House talk on Saturday. <\/p>\n
Speaking to Fairfax Media, Mr Sangay called for the Chinese government to embrace the 'Middle Way' approach, allowing Tibetan people to vote for their representatives in China. <\/p>\n
\"If the Chinese government ends the oppression and gives genuine autonomy as per Chinese laws, then we will not seek separation from China,\" Mr Sangay said. <\/p>\n
\"We welcome the support and appeal to the Australian government.\" <\/p>\n
Mr Sangay said no Australian government officials had offered to meet him while he was in the country. <\/p>\n
Officially, Tibet is a province of China headed by a Communist Party-appointed administrator. <\/p>\n
\"He is a Chinese person ruling over Tibetan people and I am a Tibetan who has the mandate of the Tibetan people,\" Mr Sangay said. <\/p>\n
Tibet's famous Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, announced in 2011 he wished to hand his political functions to an elected official. <\/p>\n
\"So the Tibetan movement will be taken forward by the Tibetan people and not be dependent on a single person,\" Mr Sangay said. <\/p>\n
Exiled Tibetans have twice voted Mr Sangay as sikyong-or president-of the India-based Central Tibetan Administration. <\/p>\n
Mr Sangay said the Australian government feared to formally recognise his position out of fear of upsetting China, one of the nation's leading trading partners. <\/p>\n
\"That's why we say it's a double standard, the exile status is not the reason but who you are dealing with is the reason,\" he said. <\/p>\n
Mr Sangay pointed to the international community's embrace of the exiled Syrian government as contradictory despite his government's embrace of non-violence. <\/p>\n
\"We use non-violence as a means and dialogue as a process,\" he said. <\/p>\n
Mr Sangay added that heavy industrialisation of the Tibetan plateau due to an influx of Chinese migrants and Chinese state-sponsored mining in the region was damaging the local environment. <\/p>\n
The degradation is endangering the \"water tower of Asia\" for 1.4 billion people who rely on water flowing from the plateau. <\/p>\n
\"The first casualty will be China and the Chinese people,\" Mr Sangay said. <\/p>\n
Mr Sangay himself has never been to Tibet. His father fled Tibet at the same time as the Dalai Lama in 1959. Mr Sangay was born in a refugee camp in India in 1968. <\/p>\n
Ultimately, Mr Sangay hoped to see the Dalai Lama return to his \"rightful place\" in Lhasa, Tibet's capital and he thanked Australians for their support. <\/p>\n
\"Continue to be with us for this march of justice, which will be resolved sooner than later.\" <\/p>\n
The story 'Double standard': Exiled Tibetan president calls for support first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald. <\/p>\n
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'Double standard': Exiled Tibetan president calls for support - Warrnambool Standard<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 6 Aug 2017, 7:28 p.m. Continue reading