(TibetanReview.net, Nov13’26) – The executive head of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), Sikyong Penpa Tsering, has expressed disappointment that the human rights situation in Tibet appeared to have escaped US President Donald Trump’s attention in his dealings with China thus far. His focus solely on trade and business risked emboldening Beijing, he has said in a Reuters interview reported Nov 12, echoing a complaint routinely voiced by many human rights organizations.
The Tibetan Sikyong has also said that US support for Tibet remained broadly stable under the Trump administration. “But Tibet was not on the agenda at the presidential level as Washington focuses on trade, security and other priorities with China,” he has said.
“(Trump) has never mentioned Tibet, he has never mentioned human rights,” he said during a visit to the US Capital, Washington, DC.
Nevertheless, Penpa Tsering has said, the US remained the Tibetan exile movement’s most important international partner and Tibet enjoyed strong bipartisan backing in Congress.
He has also said the CTA continues to engage with the State Department and noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was a long-time champion of Tibet-related legislation when he was a senator.
On the State Department’s foreign assistance cuts, which halved money for Tibet last year under its general cost-cutting and efficiency-boosting measure, the Tibetan Sikyong has expressed optimism that full funding would be restored later this year.
He has also taken note of the fact that the current Trump administration appointed a special coordinator for Tibetan issues in its second year, compared with the fourth year during Trump’s previous term.
Still, given Trump’s transactional preoccupation in his dealings with China, Penpa Tsering does not expect Tibet to feature in his planned meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at next week’s APEC summit, or at the G20 summit in Florida next month.
But, on the flip side, not raising issues like Tibet and human rights also means China will not be able to use them as a bargaining chip to gain unfair advantages, he has said.
The Tibetan Sikyong has also said Western governments had become overly focused on trade and economic ties with China while neglecting rights concerns, strengthening China’s power in the process. “Knowing that the dragon is biting at you, if you still keep feeding (it), then whose fault is it,” he has sought to ask.
“We should be talking more on balancing trade… with human rights and other things, which is not happening so much these days, unfortunately, even people who accuse America of backsliding on democracy still suck up to China.”
Referring then to the seriousness and urgency of the situation in Tibet today, the Tibetan Skyong has highlighted China’s recently implemented “ethnic unity and progress promotion” policies, which according to him were aimed at weakening Tibetan identity, language, religion and culture.
What is more, Chinese authorities are now becoming more open about assimilation policies and faced little international pushback, he has noted.
The CTA has for decades called for genuine autonomy for Tibet in exchange for giving up its demand for the restoration of Tibet’s independence. Beijing has, after holding discussions with envoys of His Holiness the Dalai Lama – Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader – over 2002-2020, condemned this demand as just another way to seek Tibet’s independence.