The hearing will come to order. I want to welcome our new Special Coordinator Tibet, Ms. Julia Taft. We have worked with her through her many incarnations at the State Department and Interaction and we look forward to continuing our warm and productive relationship. I also want to welcome in the audience Mr. Pema Chhinjor, a Cabinet Member of the Dalai Lama's government in exile and Mr. Dawa Tsering, the Dalai Lama's representative to the United States in New York.

Yesterday, the 40th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising and the Dalai Lama's flight into exile was a solemn occasion for all of us. It has been almost 50 years since China invaded Tibet in 1949. During that time the world has witnessed the sad and almost total destruction of Tibet's unique culture and religion, and has done precious little to end the extraordinary repression.

Beijing's final solution is its current policy of population transfer that has resulted in Tibetans becoming a minority in their own country. Despite bi-partisan Congressional concern stretching over several Administrations, right to the present day, legislation and resolutions have only slightly tempered the State Department's misguided China policy.

In 1990, the Congress directed the Director of the United States Information Agency to provide Voice of America Tibetan language programming to the people of Tibet. In 1991, the Congress adopted a resolution expressing the sense of Congress that Tibet is an occupied country whose true representative is the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. In 1997, under Congressional pressure, the State Department named a Special Coordinator for Tibet.

As a result of this and many other Congressional actions, and the overwhelming support of the American public, the issue of Tibet was discussed last summer at the meeting in Beijing between President Clinton and the leaders of China, and a signal was sent to the Dalai Lama that negotiations were possible. Regrettably, even though His Holiness has met Beijing's demand to state that Tibet is a part of China, as far as Members of this Committee know, very little has occurred in the form of negotiations.

What is now missing among senior American foreign policy makers is an understanding that the issue of Tibet is not only one of immense human rights violations; Tibet is also of great strategic concern to us. It is a country the size of westerd Europe that covers most of India's nothern border.

China's occupation of Tibet makes it in Beijing's interest to stoke the flames between India and Pakistan by supplying Pakistan, on India's western border, with nuclear and ballistic weapons technology. Beijing's unwavering support for Pakistan was one significant reason that India tested nuclear weapons.

Resolving the crisis facing Tibet will not only serve to ease the repression and save a unique people and their religion and culture, it also will have ramifications for half of the world's population by helping to defuse a possible nuclear conflict in the region.

Last Saturday, the New York Times reported that China stole nuclear weapons technology from the United States. Last year it was reported that, with the help of U.S. communications companies, China obtained ballistic missile technology that will enable the People's Liberation Army to fit a number of small nuclear warheads on a single missile.

The Administration's emphasis on trade, to the exclusion of other important issues, has contributed to this undermining of American security. But its trade policy with China has been no more successful. It has led to the loss of thousands of American jobs and a trade deficit that is now around S60 billion a year. Moreover, and regrettably, the Administration's human rights policy towards China has created serious questions about U.S. moral authority.

Today the House votes on a measure adopted by our Committee urging the Administration to sponsor a resolution at the UN criticizing Beijing's human rights violations in China and Tibet. If the Administration does sponsor a resolution in Geneva, it would give the American people some hope that perhaps it has started to rethink a China policy that has been misguided and has been a disaster.

It would also answer some of the prayers of those brave Chinese and Tibetan democracy advocates who are struggling against the brutal dictatorship in Beijing.

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Last updated: 22-Mar-99