China Is Responsible For Incursions Along Indo-Tibet Border: Sikyong

Penpa Tsering, President of the Tibetan Government in Exile, said on Tuesday that all incursions along the Indo-Tibetan border have been one-sided and by China.

In an interview with the news agency PTI, the President, also known as Sikyong said that Tawang had been an integral part of India since the treaty of 1914 that established the border between his homeland and India along the McMohan line.

Tsering stated here that all incursions are coming from the Chinese side.

He was speaking in the context of recent clashes between the Indian Army and China's PLA in Tawang and Ladakh.

There was no border between India and China until 1959, it was with Tibet. We are signatories to the 1914 Simla agreement between British India and Tibet and we remain steadfast on the McMohan line as the legitimate border, he said.

We fully recognise Tawang as an integral part of India, said Tsering.

The Dalai Lama, the then-head of the Tibetan government, fled Lhasa for India in 1959, following a Tibetan uprising that China's People's Liberation Army brutally crushed.

Despite Communist China's invasion of Tibet in 1950, the Dalai Lama's government continued to function with its own army under an agreement with Beijing that designated Tibet as an autonomous region.

“China's belligerence is unprovoked by the Indian side,” the President said, adding that India's standing firm sends a strong message to China.

He claimed that China only values power.

Since Tibetan refugees fled the “roof of the world” in the aftermath of the Dalai Lama's escape from Lhasa to India, the Sikyong or President has been directly elected by the Tibetan diaspora living in various parts of the world.

Geographical disagreements with India arose following the Lama's escape with his followers when the Chinese contested the McMohan line through statements.

Tsering emphasised that China has disagreements with many Asian countries and has been unwilling to resolve them.

When it comes to US-China relations, they (the Chinese) complain that they are not treated equally, but they never treat other Asian countries equally, according to Tsering.

He claimed that China maintains hot spots such as Taiwan, the South China Sea and Tawang in order to divert attention away from its own failings.

He claimed that China had failed to maintain its economic momentum and had failed to control the domestic Covid situation.