(TibetanReview.net, Apr28’22) – China has reacted with anger over the Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky’s meeting with Mr Penpa Tsering, the executive head of the exile Tibetan administration at Dharamsala, India, on Apr 26. Both were in the US for separate visits – Lipavsky to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Tsering on an invitation from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In a statement on Twitter, Lipavsky re-tweeted Tsering’s remark linking the Tibetan and Czech experience of “living under oppression” — and referenced the eastern European nation’s experience under Soviet domination.
The Czech Republic “also experienced what it was like to live under the influence of a superpower and to be deprived of human rights,” Lipavsky said, drawing a direct line to the Chinese Communist Party’s seven-decade control over Tibet.
The Chinese reaction came from its embassy in Prague which issued a statement, calling Lipavsky’s encounter with Tsering a “serious breach in relations with Beijing,” and saying the Czechs had sent “a consequentially wrong message to the Tibetan separatist movement.”
Lipavsky has been vocal in accusing China of supporting Russia’s rationale for the invasion of Ukraine – and has followed a tradition of Czech politicians seeking ties with Taiwan, an issue that has roiled relations between Beijing and Prague, noted the Bloomberg.com Apr 27.
