On 17 March the Meeting entitled "Overseas Chinese in UK Discussing the Question of Tibet" hosted by China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification was held in London's Chinatown. Around 30 people including leaders of overseas Chinese groups and Chinese students attended the meeting. Minister Counselor Zhang Lirong and Consul General Lu Xu were also there.
Participants watched the documentary "Tibet Past and Present" and talked about their experience and feelings. They thought that the feudal serfdom in Tibet before 1959 was extremely rotten and backward and that the serfs led a miserable life and could not guarantee their basic right to existence since they were cruelly oppressed politically and exploited economically. Democratic reform changed their life. In the past 50 years Tibet saw great development with the care of the Central Government and generous support of the people throughout China. Anyone that was not biased towards China and Tibet would be able to draw this objective conclusion. History tolerated no distortion. It was with ulterior motive that Dalai Lama has been calling white black by spreading rumors and slandering the Chinese Government. Their lies paled before facts. The question of Tibet was never about ethnicity, religion and human rights but rather to have unification or separation, progression or regression. The independence of Tibet was not popular and was doomed. Tibet was an integral part of China, which was a fact recognized by the international community.
Participants said that overseas Chinese and students were linked with the motherland though they were living abroad. They were duty bound to safeguard the reunification of the motherland. They stood firmly for the country's unification and allowed no separation of Tibet from the motherland. Minister Counselor Zhang Lirong introduced the great changes in Tibet since its democratic reform 50 years ago, his two experience of traveling to Tibet and the history of the so-called question of Tibet. He also analyzed the essence of the so-called "middle way" of Dalai Lama. He thanked the overseas Chinese and students for their efforts to safeguard the national reunification and hoped that they would continue to care about the motherland and Tibet and introduce Tibet.
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