U.S. Special Coordinator on Tibet Uzra Zeya met with the ‘Sikyong’ or leader of the self-styled Central Tibetan Administration Penpa Tsering and other officials and representatives of the Tibetan community on a public visit to Dharamshala by an American official for the first time in three years on Wednesday. The visit is being seen as a strong message from the Modi government to China as well, which protests what it calls “meddling” in Tibet, as the visit was facilitated by New Delhi.
In the past few years, while Tibetan officials and the Dalai Lama had visited Washington, no senior U.S. official has visited the Himachal town where the “government-in-exile” is based. In 2017, a U.S. congressional delegation led by former American Speaker Nancy Pelosi had visited Dharamshala, as did U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Juster in 2018 and U.S. Ambassador on religious freedom Sam Brownback in 2019. During a visit to Delhi, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had met representatives of the CTA and the Dalai Lama in 2021. At the time, the Chinese government had issued a stern statement against the meeting, calling “any form of contact between the U.S. side and the Dalai clique” a violation of previous American commitments on a “One China” policy.
Ms. Zeya is expected to meet with the Dalai Lama on Thursday, his office said, and will travel next to Nepal, which also has a large community of Tibetan refugees.
