Act of desperation in last-chance saloon: China Daily editorial

A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry has stressed that if the United States does not take practical actions to abide by its commitments to recognize "Tibet" as a part of China and not support "Tibet independence", Beijing will be left with no recourse but to take resolute and strong measures to firmly defend China's sovereignty, security and development interests.

The Chinese side's urging that the US not go its own sweet way came after the US introduced the "Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act", or "Resolve Tibet Act". An amended edition of the "Tibetan Policy Act of 2002", it was approved by the US House of Representatives on Friday local time and then signed into law by US President Joe Biden. While the modifications might seem anything but sensational, put in perspective with other recent China-related developments in Washington, the legislation gives further impetus to a trend of unfathomably damaging potential.

The Act is a last-minute attempt to exploit the Dalai Lama clique, but it includes not only clauses that violate both US obligations under bilateral agreements and international laws and conventions, but also the seeds of greater troubles going forward.

Anything could happen on Capitol Hill going forward, and with anxiety over perceived challenges from China inexorably growing in Washington, the Act is of concern as it provides a handy tool for those seeking to compromise Chinese territorial and sovereign integrity. Upon signing, Biden said the Act "does not change" the US policy that recognizes the Xizang autonomous region and other Tibetan areas of China as part of the People's Republic of China. Yet from its official title on, the legislation shows an explicit intention to do the opposite. The so-called "Tibet-China dispute" is a US Congress invention rather than a real-world issue. The "Tibet" of the US narrative, whether it refers to the present-day Xizang autonomous region or the autonomous region along with other Tibetan inhabited areas in China, is a part of China. This is an internationally accepted reality, which the US president also acknowledged in his statement.

There is no dispute between the central government and local governments in the Xizang autonomous region and other Tibetan areas. The so-called Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharamshala, India, has no international recognition as a representative of the real Xizang. Even those behind the US Act know it has no validity for that role. Simply put, there is no jurisprudential basis for Dharamshala to speak or act in the name of "Tibet". The legislation's central claim that "the conflict between Tibet and the People's Republic of China is unresolved" is therefore nothing but a falsehood fabricated by Washington to serve the aim of destabilizing China.

The legislation's drafters worked hard, enlisting multiple Cold War-era US legislations that misrepresent Xizang, to muddy the water on its status as part of China. The Act seeks to portray the autonomous region as "an occupied country under the established principles of international law", in open disregard of the fact that the region has been and remains in international law a part of China, which no country in the world identifies as a "country". Contrary to this truth, the drafters present the lie that "the legal status of Tibet remains to be determined in accordance with international law".

There are well-documented records that suffice to discredit that proposition, showing that Tibet officially came under Chinese jurisdiction during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), which was more than 700 years ago. That might be hard for the lawmakers in Washington to grasp as that is long before the US was founded as a country. And, as everyone knows, for those in Washington anything that occurred before the Big Bang of the US' existence is some kind of primitive myth.

Yet, provocative as it is, disruptive as it may be, the US legislation will hardly inflict the kind of damage on China that its backers hope for, simply because it is inherently so blatantly weaponized as a means to attack China that no one can mistake it otherwise.