Dharamshala, 29th April: After a top Czech diplomat met with an exiled Tibetan leader, China reprimanded the Czech Republic, worsening already tense relations between the European Union and Beijing. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky met with Penpa Tsering, the leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile, during a visit to Washington on Tuesday. In a message on Twitter, Lipavsky shared Tsering’s comparison of the Tibetan and Czech experiences of “living under oppression,” citing the eastern European nation’s period under Soviet domination. Lipavsky referred to the Chinese Communist Party’s seven-decade control over Tibet, saying the Czech Republic “had experienced what it was like to live under the sway of a superpower and to be stripped of human rights.”

The Chinese embassy in Prague called Lipavsky’s encounter a “serious breakdown in relations with Beijing,” with the Czechs delivering “a consequentially erroneous message to the Tibetan separatist movement.” China has demonstrated its willingness to pick out EU members who infringe on its interests. The world’s second-largest economy cut its imports from Lithuania this year after Lithuania hosted a representative office from Taiwan, which Beijing considers to be part of China. Tibet and the Czech Republic have had a long-standing relationship. Vaclav Havel, the late Czech president, was a personal friend of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. The Czech government explicitly distanced itself at the time from a meeting between the country’s culture minister and the Dalai Lama in 2016.

Meanwhile, Sikyong Penpa Tsering arrived in Washington for talks

In the first of a series of meetings with US Congressional and government members this week, Penpa Tsering met with senior State Department official Uzra Zeya to discuss the state of the Himalayan region. Penpa Tsering will be in Washington until April 29 at the request of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then go to Canada and Germany the following week. Following Monday’s meeting with Uzra Zeya, Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, seven foreign ambassadors, including ambassadors from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Canada, and the United Kingdom, were invited to a lunch hosted by the State Department.

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