By Tenzin Monlam
DHARAMSHALA, FEB 6: Following protests from various Chinese student groups against the decision of the Dalai Lama as commencement speaker at University of California, San Diego, Global Times, a state-run Chinese daily in English, has urged the institution to correct the ‘misconception on history of Tibet’.
The university last week announced its decision of inviting the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to deliver the commencement address on June 17.
“We are honored to host the Dalai Lama at UC San Diego and thankful that he will share messages of global compassion with our graduates and their families, as well as with a broad public audience,” Chancellor Pradeep Khosla said in his announcement, which was met by a strong reaction, mainly from the students from the mainland China.
A student at the university, Eric Zhao, in his comment on Facebook said, “It is so embarrassing to see this ‘spiritual leader’ who wants to split China is going to make a speech at commencement in front of hundreds of Chinese students. I am also disappointed with the fact that our school actually invites a political figure while ignoring the controversy behind him.”
Subsequently, the Chinese daily warned that dealing with ‘raising China’ is a critical task and inappropriate knowledge on Chinese history would hurt future dealings.
“The storyline of historical events in Tibet in Western textbooks differs greatly from the truth of Tibet. Nonetheless, it is not easy to correct Western misconceptions about the region,” it said.
The student associations may have contested, but few were skeptical about the whole development. A first year Chinese student suggesting a level of skepticism told the Triton, a student-run news outlet for the university, that she and her generation have grown up with these propagandas.
“I’m not saying that I know a lot about Dalai Lama, but I don’t trust the Communist Party of China. I love the nation, but I don’t love the Party. I think it’s important to distinguish between loving the country and loving a Party. Nowadays lots of Chinese can’t distinguish,” she said on condition of anonymity.
The Dalai Lama will also be giving public talk June 16 at UC San Diego’s RIMAC Field.
