Open Letter To The City of London Corporation From Free Tibet

EMAIL SENT ON 20 JULY 2021 BY SAM WALTON, GEO OF FREE TIBET, TO WILLIAM RUSSELL AND CATHERINE MCGUINNESS OF THE CITY OF LONDON COUNCIL

Dear Lord Mayor and Chair of Policy,

I am writing to you on behalf of Free Tibet to urge the City of London Corporation to cease giving the Chinese government respectability, and thus to cease facilitating its gross abuses of human rights.

China has occupied Tibet for 70 years. Throughout that time it has brutally oppressed the Tibetan people. For more information, see https://freetibet.org.

Free Tibet is aware that the World Uyghur Congress and Hong Kong Watch have each urged the City Corporation to abandon its policy of appeasement of the Chinese government. Your replies to them do not withstand scrutiny.

Saying “we condemn all human rights abuses wherever they are found”, but refusing to name China because you don’t want to offend it, must be comforting to the regime. That statement also conceals the fact that China is unique among the UK’s largest trading partners because of its abuse of human rights on an industrial scale.

Saying “foreign policy is the responsibility of the UK Government and it is for them to take the lead on these issues” is disingenuous. The Lord Mayor spends a significant amount of his time promoting UK financial and professional services abroad. This is as much a part of foreign policy as defence and diplomacy. As for following the government’s lead, the City Corporation has not done so by naming China as an abuser of human rights. In any case, the Corporation should act in accordance with its self-professed moral ethos, as reflected in its motto “Domine dirige nos”.

Saying you support having “a constructive and calibrated approach to engage with China, including on climate change and being clear on the values that the UK holds” is also disingenuous. The Chinese government doesn’t share “the values that the UK holds”, and won’t pay attention to whatever the City Corporation says about climate change and those values. That is clear from the president’s speech on 1 July 2021 in which he threatened to “bash the heads” of foreign countries who weren’t friendly towards China.

Free Tibet is concerned that the City Corporation’s policy of accommodating China by turning a blind eye to its actions and threats will ultimately be harmful to everyone except those who undemocratically hold and abuse power in Beijing. We call on the Corporation to change course. Decency demands that life and liberty in Tibet and China should take priority over helping some of the Corporation’s commercial “stakeholders” to make profits from facilitating Chinese expansion, including in the City of London itself.

We ask that you respond to our specific points about your previous statements, rather than merely repeat those statements.

Your sincerely, Sam Walton, Chief Executive Officer, Free Tibet

The header shows Khampa warriors who fought the Chinese occupation of Tibet. There has been ongoing resistance to the authoritarian Beijing government’s repression, expropriations and primitive accumulation in Tibet since the 1950s.