Singapore’s foreign minister George Yeo has backed China’s claim to the Tawang monastery in Arunachal Pradesh. The ancient monastery is one of the holiest shrines of Tibetan Buddhists as the sixth Dalai Lama was born there.
George Yeo, the minister, refers to Tawang as a “Tibetan area controlled by India and claimed by China”, in a recent piece he wrote for the Yale Centre for the Study of Globalisation. The article was published after Yeo became the first foreign dignitary to visit Tibet since last year’s March uprising and its brutal reprisal by the Chinese state machinery ahead of the Beijing Olympics. Yeo was in Tibet in August and obviously taken in by China’s claims.
Former foreign secretary Lalit Mansing was surprised at Yeo’s assertions on Tawang. “India must immediately bring to the notice of a friendly country like Singapore that Tawang has always been a part of India and emphasise that New Delhi does not expect its friends to take such a wrong position on the monastery, which was never a part of Tibet.”
Ironically, China’s claim to Tawang is on behalf of its Tibetan-Buddhist population, most of which is against Han Chinese domination of Tibet. The Dalai Lama, who has never said that Tawang is part of Tibet, will be at the monastery in November to inaugurate a hospital on the invitation of the Arunachal chief minister.
Yeo knows why the Chinese want the monastery desperately: “The 14th Dalai Lama is now 74 years old. In a recent TV interview, he said he was born to accomplish certain tasks, and as those tasks were not completed, it was ‘logical’ that he would be reincarnated outside China.
Many believe that ‘outside’ China means Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh where the sixth Dalai Lama came from and which is a Tibetan area controlled by India but claimed by China. This would greatly complicate the border demarcation between China and India.”
