The legacy of The Dalai Lama “will live forever” and nobody will give Chinese President Xi Jinping any credit, former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday after meeting the Tibetan spiritual leader in Himachal Pradesh’s Dharamshala.
In a strongly-worded statement on the Chinese President, Pelosi — who is part of a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress — said that the former “will be gone and nobody will give him any credit”.
The delegation is led by US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul and has members including Pelosi, who is now Speaker Emerita, and prominent US Congressional members — Mariannette Miller, Gregory Meeks, Nicole Malliotakis, Jim McGovern, and Ami Bera.
Even though The Dalai Lama meets foreign diplomats and visitors, this delegation is one of the most high-powered delegations from the US in recent years. Pelosi has been at the forefront of challenging Beijing, as she had visited Taiwan in August 2022.
Pelosi, while addressing Tibetans in Dharamsala, said, “His Holiness Dalai Lama, with his message of knowledge, tradition, compassion, purity of soul and love, will live a long time and his legacy will live forever. But you, the President of China, you’ll be gone and nobody will give you credit for anything.”
She also said that the Dalai Lama would not approve of her comments against the Chinese. “When I criticize the Chinese government, he says, let’s pray for Nancy to rid her of her negative attitudes.” Meanwhile, US Representative Congressman Gregory Meeks said, “China can express unhappiness if it wants to. We are going to stand for what is right. What is right is to make sure that Tibetans have freedom. They are able to return to their native land and they are able to keep their culture and history…That’s what is important.”
Last week, the US Congress passed a bill urging Beijing to re-engage with The Dalai Lama and other Tibetan leaders to peacefully resolve their dispute over the status and governance of Tibet.
The US House of Representatives passed the Bill ‘Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act’, also known as the ‘Resolve Tibet Act’, and it now heads to President Joe Biden for a signature to become law.
“You heard our colleagues talk about this legislation that was passed last week. We had been fighting this for a long time and in the spirituality of His Holiness, with manoeuvring inside the Congress, we made progress. But it is different now with the passage of this Bill (Resolve Tibet Act) because this Bill is a message to the Chinese Government that we have clarity in our thinking and our understanding of this issue of the freedom of Tibet,” Pelosi said.
“This Bill says to the Chinese government: Things have changed now, get ready for that,” she said. McCaul, the Republican representative, said it reaffirmed American support for the Tibetan right to self-determination.
“Just this week our delegation received a letter from the Chinese Communist Party, warning us not to come here… but we did not let the CCP intimidate us for we are here today,” he said.
The Chinese Embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday had reacted sharply to the delegation’s visit and “urged” the US side to “adhere to its commitments of recognizing Xizang as part of China .
China officially refers to Tibet as Xizang. “China will take resolute measures to firmly defend its sovereignty, security and development interests,” the Chinese Embassy Spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said, “It’s known by all that the 14th #DalaiLama is not a pure religious figure, but a political exile engaged in anti-China separatist activities … We urge the US side to fully recognize the anti-China separatist nature of the Dalai group, honor the commitments the US has made to China on issues related to Xizang…”
