Jonathan Mirsky

The neighbour from hell

Beijing’s pressure on world leaders to ignore Tibet is now overwhelming. Even No. 10 declares: ‘We have turned the page on the Dalai Lama’

issue 30 June 2018

Blessings from Beijing will inform readers who know little about Tibet, and those who know a great deal will discover more. Both groups will be surprised. The newcomers especially will be disabused of any belief that Tibetans were always non-violent, deeply spiritual and unworldly.

Tibetanists and advanced students will learn that, decades after the Chinese conquest of Tibet in 1950 and the escape of the Dalai Lama in 1959, the diaspora of about 130,000 Tibetan refugees, battered by decades of Chinese oppression and ‘soft’ propaganda, is riven by confusion.

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