(TibetanReview.net, Dec15’22) – The House of Commons of the Canadian parliament has on Dec 14 adopted a motion which concurred with a report by the House’s standing committee on foreign affairs, urging dialogue between the Tibetan government in exile and the People’s Republic of China “with a view to enabling Tibet to exercise genuine autonomy within the framework of the Chinese constitution,” reported theglobeandmail.com Dec 15.
The motion is in keeping with the decades-long non-violent, “Middle Way” approach of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, as well as the position of the Tibetan administration in exile based in Dharamshala, India.
Earlier, while introducing the motion the day before, Conservative MP Mr Garnett Genuis, expressing his concerns over Tibet’s plight under the oppressive communist Chinese regime, persuaded the Canadian government and lawmakers to use their power to do the right thing for Tibetans by passing the motion to allow Tibetans their right to self-determination and autonomously shape their future.
He continued, “Tibetan leaders are not using this right of self-determination to seek full independence from China. Rather, they are seeking a middle way, genuine autonomy for Tibet within the framework of the Chinese Constitution”.
Calling it a well-defined matter of moral principle and of international law, he called on the House to recognize and support the Tibetan people’s aspiration for genuine autonomy as an expression of national self-determination.
He called the Tibetan people’s striving for their Middle Way Approach a realistic and effective resistance that has been sustained over the last 60 years despite numerous efforts of the Chinese Communist Party to wipe out Tibetan identity.
“We will not rest until dialogue between China and Tibet has resumed and concluded with the establishment of genuine autonomy for Tibet that gives Tibetans freedom, democracy, human rights and self-determination,” Genuis said.
Following the passage of the motion, as well as a legislation that would block foreigners from entering Canada if they were involved in organ trafficking – an accusation levelled at China by United Nations experts in 2021 – Genuis has said Canadian MPs had send a message to China’s rulers.
By supporting the Middle Way and criminalizing organ harvesting and trafficking and previously, by recognizing the Uyghur genocide and calling for a stronger response to foreign interference, “many parliamentarians have shown a willingness to stand up to the Chinese Communist Party,” Genuis has said.
“These votes today give hope to all of the victims of Chinese Communist Party violence.”