Overview
In rare comments on Tibet, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday voiced his desire to build a prosperous, harmonious, and “new socialist Tibet” underpinned by unity and civility.
China’s state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the President as saying that Tibet “should step up efforts to promote high-quality development after overcoming centuries of extreme poverty.”
“People’s happiness is the ultimate human right, while development holds the key to delivering better lives to the people,” Xinhua cited Xi saying in a congratulatory letter to a forum in Beijing on Tibet’s development.
G7 Concerns, China’s Response
Xi’s comments come days after G7 nations expressed concern over human rights in the region during their summit in Hiroshima, Japan.
In a communique released after the G7 Hiroshima Summit over the weekend, the group said it will continue to voice its concerns about the human rights situation in China, including in Tibet.
The statement angered China, which slammed the group for “pointing fingers at China” on the issue of Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet and urged it to “take a hard look” at its own human rights record.
China has often been accused of stifling religious and cultural freedoms in a predominantly Buddhist region, an accusation which Beijing rejects.
Amid a series of related tensions on the issue earlier this month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused China of collecting human genomic data of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet as an additional form of control and surveillance, an allegation the Beijing has denied.