China rolled out a fine example of its command of Orwellian language and logic on Wednesday, with the State Council Information Office’s release of a nearly 18,000-word white paper on the Dalai Lama and Tibet. Taiwan, and the rest of the world, should take note.
In the paper, Beijing declared that the exiled Tibetan leader must focus on seeking China’s forgiveness for his separatist activities. It also claimed that the Buddhist monk supports and incites the waves of self-immolations by Tibetans, and his calls for Beijing to stop its drive for more Han Chinese migration into Tibet are “tantamount to an ethnic cleansing of the [Tibetan] plateau,” adding: “The Dalai group’s logic is absurd and chilling, proposing to force tens of millions of people of other ethnic groups out of this region, where they have lived for generations.”