torsdag 25. april 2024

From China’s Past: The Panchen Lama’s Letter to Premier Zhou Enlai

The 70,000 Character Petition is a report, dated 18 May 1962, written by the Tenth Panchen Lama and addressed to the Chinese government, denouncing abusive policies and actions of the People's Republic of China in Tibet. It remains the "most detailed and informed attack on China's policies in Tibet that would ever be written."

For decades, the content of this report remained hidden from all but the very highest levels of the Chinese leadership, until one copy was obtained by the Tibet Information Network (TIN) in 1996. The report was based in part on research undertaken in Amdo by an assistant, the 6th Tseten Zhabdrung, Jigme Rigpai Lodro, after China's brutal retaliation and reforms which followed a massive anti-communist uprising in 1958.

In January 1998 upon the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the birth of the 10th Panchen Lama, a translation by Tibetologist Robert Barnett entitled A Poisoned Arrow: The Secret Report of the 10th Panchen Lama[ was published by Tibet Information Network.

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