Where the Tibet movement gets funds

Who funds the Dalai Lama and his government-in-exile?

It is an interesting question raised by an article in Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper, which implies that U.S. financing of Tibetan exile groups amounts to support for a “color revolution” in Tibet. (Sorry, the article is behind a pay wall.)

The color revolutions are what happened in Ukraine, Georgia and other places. In Tibet’s case, it would be a “crimson revolution,” based on the color of the monks’ robes. 

The article, citing author William Engdahl, suggests that Washington is fanning the flames of Tibetan destabilization through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an agency that gets nearly all its funding from Congress.

“… The NED has supported five major Tibetan exile groups: the Gu-Chu-Sum (ex-political prisoners' association) Movement of Tibet; the International Campaign for Tibet; the Tibetan Women's Association; the Longsho Youth Movement of Tibet; and the Voice of Tibet.

These groups tried to organize a protest march by Tibetans in India back to their homeland, and had a hand in organizing the recent riots in Tibet. The NED's funding comes almost entirely from the US government.”

That some of the groups funded by NED, and grouped in the Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement, seek independence for Tibet is beyond doubt. But the levels of funding are very low. What I find more interesting are the roles of foundations and other non-governmental organizations in providing money to the Tibetan cause.

The article cites U.S. groups such as Freedom House and the Trace Foundation, which is linked to financier George Soros, as well as the Albert Einstein Institution (again, apparently linked to Soros) and the New York-based Tibet Fund.  It also lists Germany’s Friedrich Naumann Foundation, a think tank linked to the German Free Democratic Party.

I also know that the Tibetan House Trust in London is a significant source of funding.

Here are some of the NED funding figures for 2006, the latest I could easily get. Just scan through it. The money barely covers office expenses. If a nation’s political system can be toppled by this kind of money, then it’s going to have a lot of potential enemies.

Gu-Chu-Sum Movement of Tibet -- $40,000 -- To document the situation of political prisoners in Tibet and provide support for   political prisoners in Tibet and former political prisoners in exile.

International Campaign for Tibet -- $53,000 -- To increase understanding between Tibetans and Chinese by providing greater access to information about Tibet. The organization will facilitate interaction between Tibetan and Chinese officials, academics, and the public through conferences, and the publication of a Chinese-language newsletter and website.

Khawa Karpo Tibet Cultural Centre Charitable Trust -- $20,000 -- To provide news and analysis to the Tibetan public and promote greater discussion and debate on current issues related to Tibet and Tibetans. Khawa Karpo will publish the Tibetan-language newspaper, Bo-Kyi-Bang-Chen (Tibet Express), three times per month.

Longsho Youth Movement of Tibet -- $15,000 -- To build leadership skills, promote cultural and political awareness of Tibet, and encourage greater civic engagement among Tibetan youth.

Tibet Museum -- $15,500 -- To preserve and present material related to modern Tibetan history and to educate visitors about the Tibetan culture and people.

Tibetan Literacy Society -- $28,500 -- To provide the Tibetan public accurate information on developments in Tibet and in the exile community, and to promote open discussion among intellectuals and a general readership on civic issues, including human rights and democracy.

Tibetan Parliamentary and Policy Research Centre -- $20,000 -- To strengthen local Tibetan assemblies, the first level government of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Tibetan Review -- $26,000 -- To promote freedom of press and understanding of democratic concepts in the Tibetan exile community. Tibetan Review, a monthly English-language news magazine, will provide Tibet-related news and insightful opinion pieces and editorials.

Tibetan Women's Association -- $30,000 -- To promote the social, political, and economic empowerment of Tibetan refugee women and raise awareness of human rights violations against women in Tibet.

Tibetan Writers Abroad PEN Center -- $10,000 -- To preserve Tibetan literature and culture and protect and support Tibetan writers in Tibet. The Tibetan PEN Center will translate essays and other written materials into Tibetan, much of it originally published in Chinese.

Voice of Tibet -- $35,000 -- To encourage and sustain independent public opinion inside Tibet and to familiarize Tibetans with the ideals of democracy and human rights. The Voice of Tibet, an independent, Tibetan-language shortwave radio station, will broadcast regular news about Tibet, the Tibetan exile community, and the Tibetan government-in-exile to listeners in Tibet and in exile in neighboring countries.

My off-the-cuff analysis of this is that those who are looking at these groups as Trojan Horses for a secret Western plot to destabilize China are looking at the wrong issue.

The real power of the Tibet issue is in its appeal to masses of Westerners. The Dalai Lama fills stadiums in the West. Tickets sell out in a flash. He may well be the best known figure from Greater China, better known than Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao, maybe even Mao himself. (Perhaps Yao Ming would give him a run for his money...) Hold up photos of Mao and the Dalai Lama in the streets of Peoria, Illinois, or Dusseldorf, Germany, and see who is more widely recognized. If the Dalai Lama even comes close, it means he has a lot of “soft power.” And I personally don’t think this is a creation of the media. It’s a sign that the Dalai Lama’s talks about compassion and non-violence – which most Chinese consider hypocritical – resonate strongly outside of China.

If this indeed is the case, then China is mistaken by being concerned about the $15,000 going to the Longsho Youth Movement of Tibet, and the like. It should be more concerned about a battle of ideas.

Comments

[A B]

Right on!

It is a battle of ideas.

Just as it is between Osama Bin Laden and the US / Europe.

The problem is, in this battle, the US is losing to Islam, and China is losing round after round to the Dai Lai Lama.

[Y]

Well, I think that's a lot of money. Enough to create tons of photos like the one you have cited in your post "Making mischief with bogus photos".

Even if only 0.1 percent of the people believe this specific picture is true, things add up to form a big idea.

Was Dalai awarded the Nobel prize for the same reason in 1989? I mean, the compassion?

If this is the case, human beings are really hopeless on this planet.

[Y]

"The Dalai Lama fills stadiums in the West. Tickets sell out in a flash"

By making the following comment, I have no intention to insult Dalai. I just do not know how to put it in the right way:

How about we try a giant panda show?

[Search4T]

"The real power of the Tibet issue is in its appeal to masses of Westerners."

This only further magnifies the sad irony of the situation. For whatever “soft power” and goodwill his holiness can command from his Western audience, they are only being used to prop up this gigantic self-licking ice cream cone known as the Free Tibet Movement rather than being invested to improve the lives of Tibetan people in Tibet. To borrow a phrase his holiness often used to describe China’s alleged cultural genocide, either intentionally or unintentionally, his holiness has allowed the mandate vested in him by his dual role as both the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people and the political leader of the exile Tibetan government to be hijacked by the radical elements of the exile Tibetan community as well as Western NGOs to further their own agendas. The 2008 Olympic would have been a prime opportunity for his holiness to extend an olive branch to the progressive elements in the Chinese government and constructively push for substantive dialogues in the “spirit of national unity” as propagated by the Chinese government. Instead, again either intentionally or unintentionally, his holiness allowed the movement to take a radically confrontational stance by directing external pressure from foreign government and NGOs upon China and stirring up false sense of empowerment among his Tibetan followers in China. It has become painfully obvious that all of the protests and unrests surrounding the Olympic and the ensuing crackdown have become a self-fulfilling prophecy of a dangerously regressing China in which the government has become increasingly hard lined and paranoid and its people become more and more ultra-nationalistic. This will not bode well for his holiness and his cause, because cultural genocide or not, his holiness should not want to see bad blood brewing between his people and 90% of the 1.3 billion.

All of the concerned humanitarians of the west that are enamored by his holiness’ charm seem to neglect to raise the one probing question. After 50 years in exile, has his holiness or the free Tibet movement under his leadership brought about any tangible positive changes to the lives of regular Tibetans living in China? It high time for his holiness to make a real difference in the remaining time of his life on earth by exerting his leadership to either reign in the radical elements or cut ties with them so he can show to the Chinese government and the world that he can and will be the one and only credible negotiating partner on Tibet. Unfortunately, it might already be too late.

[Y]

OK, I just read Dalai's 1989 Nobel lecture. It seems to me that what he proposed to do is to use about 1/3 of the chinese territoty (including Tibet) to establish a modern Garden of Eden.

He painted a very lovely picture about how it looks like.

This is REALY a great idea. Is this what some westerns buy into? But I think it an innocent joke, or day dreaming at the least. Of course, westerners like it because that would give them a perfect destination for a vacation or a place to go when they get a psychological problem.

I take back what I said earlier that "a meaningful autonomy for tibet might not be a bad idea".

[Y]

Another explanation why Dalai's idea is so popular to some westerners, especially politicians and activitists:

Human beings have screwed up too many good things on earth without knowing how to fix them, and we believe Dalai's idea may help all of us out. But again, why do you guys think it is China who should pay the bill?

[Kirk]

It seems more and more to be a battle of credibility, as well, clambering for information to distribute in support of either side's arguments.

[matteo]

i agree the sums pro-tibet movements receive from organizations linked to the U.S. government is not enough to justify the argument that the protest were driven by neo-cons.
And i agree that Dalai Lama has a huge appeal in front of western audiences, and that is because of his speeches about non-violence and compassion.
The problem is, how much this speeches are real and how much they are just propaganda.
How much Dalai is willing to go agains the indipendence movement that, after the boost given to them by western media, is becoming more and more stronger inside the government in exile.
Reading the documents and articles by prominent tibetan independence figures, it's clear they have an agenda of destabilization of China, and it's also clear the Dalai Lama talking about the middle way and the future guidelines for Tibet is quite ambiguos regarding the claims of the independence movement, despite Dalai daily claims of autonomy and not independence.
I think it is not possible to properly assess the responsabilities of the government in exile in the recent protests and violences in Tibet without analysing carefully the strategy and the statements of the independence movements, and its links with the government in exile headed by the Dalai lama.
If someone is interested about this arguments, a few days ago i've written a post about this on my blog, it has a lot of links to documents issued by the independence movement and i think it is useful to know this movement better.

http://cinasconosciuta.blogspot.com/2008/04/ripercorrere-le-tappe-della-crisi-in.html

the fact that the best friend of Dalai in the U.S. administration are Nancy Pelosi (who was even criticized by the Dui Hua foundation for her anti-china positions) and Paula Dobriansky (notorious neo-con war-monger) does not help fugate doubts about dalai lama's behind-the-scene manouvres.

[matteo]

by the way is someone is interested in reading the strait times article Tim is writing about, u can find it here:

http://www.howardwfrench.com/archives/2008/04/22/the_crimson_revolutions_true_colours/

p.s. my blog post about tibetan independence movement is more interesting ; )

[Will]

Blaming shadowy foreign financiers is a nice fig leaf that keeps you from needing to concede that your political adversary enjoys the kind of grass roots support that you can only dream of. After all, surely China could outspend that motley collection of donors in a second...

[cc]

"Grass root support", nice. Where does the grass grow?

[A B]

Just wait until Tibetan Buddhists do a World Trade Center Style attack on the US for betraying them and you will see how fast Western support can fade.

The precedent for a religion turning from great friends to the West (the mujahidin in Afghanistan fighting Soviets) to the root of evil (the Taliban supporting al-Qaeda) is well established.

Based on history, I don't have any doubt that the trend, if left unchecked, is for the Tibetan movement to resort to terrorism like Sikhs did.

The world will wake up one day to something like the Air India bombing before it realize the monster it created.

[A B]

On the subject of occupied territories... suppose ethnic Mexicans and Indians in New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, Hawaii, etc. started organizing governments in exile and began to demand protection for their culture, language and independence from the United States.....

Got to line up some funding for these indigenous people!

[A B]

"Blaming shadowy foreign financiers is a nice fig leaf that keeps you from needing to concede that your political adversary enjoys the kind of grass roots support that you can only dream of."

Tell that to the United States fighting Muslims.

[Lindel]

The amount of funding listed makes for a rather lame argument.

For the sake of comparison it would interesting to compare the amounts to how much money the US contributes to organizations considered pro-China.

Heck how about the lieberman act a couple of years ago to increase chinese culture and language instruction in US schools.
I bet the US government spends millions of dollars subsidizing chinese language instruction in the US.

How much money is the west through the world bank is investing in China?

[A B]

To call US funding for education in the Chinese language a subsidy for China is a pretty good joke --- no doubt the likes of Lindel's kind will count that as part of the US Official Development Assistance to China.

Other people might view American funding for Chinese language and culture programs in the US as means to improve the supply of Americans with the capability to spy in China and steal knowhow, intellectual property, and military secrets. Alternatively, it is really a program to support Taiwan Independence activists?

World Bank funding is subject to tight controls and audit by staff from the bank as well as by member nations, such as China.

Let's subject funding for the "Tibetan Government in Exile" to the same controls including audit by the Chinese government!

For those who don't think small sums matter. The 9/11 commission estimated that the cost of carrying out the attack at about $400,000 to $500,000, not counting training in Afghanistan, and of course, the cost of the suicide teams.

Out of that sum, $270,000 was spent in the USA on flight training, travel, housing, vehicles.

Just ask Hamas how cheap it is to fund an occasional rocket barrage into Israel.

The cost of the Air India bombing (by Sikh separatists who want an independent Khalistan) is a fraction of the 9/11 attack cost.

Perhaps the question is how much has China invested in the USA by accepting US debt?

Last I checked, China just lost about 10% of the value of this debt when the US dollar plunged against the Yuan.

[Bill]

Adding up all the amounts gives me a feeling that supporting Tibet is a really inexpensive. With such a small amount of money to create a worldwide movement requires a great deal of skill and planning. I wish all US government programs are as effective as these.

[A B]

Talking about efficiency, $500k invested in 9/11 got the US to spend hundreds of Billions in upgrading security, changing the laws to strip American of their traditional rights and freedoms, and then served as justification for miring the US in two wars, one of which the US is steadily losing.

That is not counting the soft cost of the Federal Reserve pouring liquidity into the economy to hold off a post 9/11 financial downturn.

Not bad.... now that is high efficiency spending.

I swear that Osama is in cahoots with Chinese plotters to dethrone the US as a superpower.

[hey]

A good thing to know is what is the annual budget of these organizations and the funding they have been getting in other years besides 2006. This will give a fuller picture of the situation. Mr. Johnson, did you use "GuideStar" for your figures?

[Chinese to the world]

I have western friends telling me Dalai Lama is a great man, and then I asked him what has he really done except for just talking about"compassion" and "non-violence", I got no answer. Maybe Tim can do some some research to enlighten us

He appears to be a charismatic man, and he's the first celebrity monk out of Asia wh speaks good (but broken) English and knows how to communicate to a western audience. of course it also helps that in a materialistic world, his background of coming from a mysterious and definitely romanticized region, adds to his charm.

in the meantime consciously or inconsciously the western mass needs a convenient reason to vent their anger/suspicion towards China. partially this is related to ideology, and nobody in the west bothers to understand the root of Chinese communism - a weak nation's desperate need to search for something to rally the country and fight against western domination and bully 100 years ago. paritically this is economical. Nobody can deny that a lot of people in the west feel threatened that a rising China is bad for their economic future - of course a wrong perception towards globalization, but faned by sensational and populist western media who cares less about enlighteing the masses comapred to susbscription/viewership/ad $$$

it's sad that as a human race we haven't realyy gon far from the caves

I'm also very disppointed so far by Tim's articles so far - still painting the world as more or less black and white, wthout capturing the real complexity and the many shades of gray. I've long been disappointed by CNN, who have people like Jack Cafferty who tries to make a good living by appealing to the primitive emotions of his viewers - but Tim I thought you don't need any ad $$$?

[Chinese to the world]

the problem for many people is they see the world as hollywood movie, good vs. evil. in today's world, it's hard to say who is 100% good, and who is 100% evil, except for a very small minority. every government, regardless of whether it's deomocratically elected, or otherwise, in today's world, and in most countries, has to be answerable to its constituencies and the national interest (and of course their own interest). This is not so different whether we're talking about the US government, the UK government or the Chinese government

of course some governments have learnt overtime to be more sophisticated in this and others are still a bit clumsy. It takes time to learn

seeing today's world in black and white is either a sign of ignorance, or manipulation, either politically motivated, as in the case of nancy pelosi, or commercially motivated, as in the case of western media

[Chinese to the world]

also just to set the recrod straight, from what I heard, his holiness's definition of "autonomy" incudes the following in his negotiaiton with the Chinese government:

1) all other ethnicities, including Han Chinese and Mulim Hui must move out of the greater Tibetan region, despite of the fact that many of them have lived there for generaitons;

2) His definition of greater Tibertan region not only ncludes today's Tibet, but also large part of at least three neighboring provinces, and in total this would account for 1/6 of today's Chinese territories, despite of the fact that many of these areas have been separated from Tibet for centuries. if this is to be done, I guess the border sof many European countries will have to be re-drawn, and Europeans get out of North America and give back all land to native Americans?

3) all Chinese army out of Tibet

you tell me this is autonomy or independence, and this is not harming China's national interest?

someone is trying to tell me the territory issue is so disconnected with today's world in which only universal values matter. well if my memory serves me right, it's not ancient history that UK fought a bloody war with Argentina over a not so big island thousands of miles away from Europe...

It's applaudable to have universal values, but be careful when politicians and people n the media start talking about it. I'll be more convinced if it's some simple folks in the middle of Tennessee who talks about this

[A B]

Chinese,

The problem is, at no time did the Chinese Government played the demands of the Dai Lai Lama for all it is worth in propaganda value.

What the Dai Lai Lama is demanding is, in Western Language:

- The creation of a religion based Buddhist state that include Tibet and vast territories from China.

< immediate issue: Is he making the same demands of India? Nepal? and other neighboring states with Tibetan population?>

- He is demanding that the territories be ethnically cleansed so that only the religiously and racially pure may remain.

- He is demanding that China withdraw its military from this new Buddhist Republic of Tibet.

With cards like this, even a peasant farmer like me can play a PR game that will see the Dai Lai Lama sent on to be reincarnated!

The Chinese government got to play the game a lot better.

Oh... P.S. If China acceded to the Dai Lai Lama's demands in full, this new Buddhist Republic of Tibet will be independent for about 2 or 3 weeks before it is invaded by a neighboring country.

Most likely India.

Or Pakistan.

Holy Shit will be what the Dai Lai Lama be after the Indian or Pakistan army moves in.

Someone need to whisper in the ear of the Dai Lai Lama about what happened to the little places beside India like Goa, Pondicherry, and the princely states under Patel.

His Tibet would be so princely as a part of India.

[Chinese to the world]

AB, absolutely agree with yur point. I could be wrong about these demands, but anybody with more reliable facts?

[Pffefer]

Lindel,

Funding Chinese language education in the US is not necessarily a pro-China move. Accrding to the State Department the US badly needs people who speak Arabic, Farsi, Chinese, Korean etc. I am sure there are Farsi programs too. Is the US government pro-Iran?

Foreigners invest in China not to help the poor Chinese but to make money. Duh!