China warns pro-independence Tibetans not to enter Tibet
Updated
China has bolstered its security forces along its border with India and Nepal, on the fiftieth anniversary of a failed uprising in Tibet.
The Chinese government has warned that pro-independence Tibetans may try to enter Tibet, to destabilise Chinese rule. The Ministry of Public Security's Border Control Department says it's preparing to "fully protect the stability of Tibet's frontier region". Tibet itself is reportedly under a security clampdown, aimed at stifling protest against Chinese rule.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Stephen Smith, Australia's Foreign Minister
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SMITH: Well we continue to have concerns about the state of human rights in Tibet and we continue to make these points known to the Chinese authorities, and the most recent round of raising these issues was at the human rights dialogue which took place in Canberra on the 9th and 10th of February, and issues relating to Tibet and the Dalai Lama were raised on that occasion. As well on the 9th of February in Geneva for the first occasion China took part in the Human Rights Council's universal periodic review, which of course we welcome, and these points were also raised by Australian officials at the time. So we continue to have the concerns about human rights in Tibet that we've raised consistently since we came to office. And I think the best exposition of the raising of our concerns was Prime Minister Rudd in his speech to the students at Beijing University when he raised these points in Mandarin. We never have our meetings with the Chinese leadership without raising these points. So we raise these issues on a regular basis and we do that consistently.
LAM: And yet for the Tibetan diaspora out there, including many of our listeners, it would seem that such dialogue yield very little results given that not much has moved on the ground in Tibet and from all reports human rights abuses do occur there quite frequently?
SMITH: Well if we believed that human rights in Tibet, that the situation in Tibet had improved or was free from fault then we wouldn't raise these issues, but we do raise these issues and we raise them consistently as do other members of the international community. The fact that we continue to raise these issues reflects our ongoing concern. The alternative of course is to do nothing and that is not the approach or the position of the Australian government.
