From its headquarters in Washington, DC, the International Campaign for Tibet had helped lead the advocacy push for the Tibetan Policy Act of 2002, the most important law laying out US policy on Tibet.

Almost a decade later, ICT informed the Central Tibetan Administration—which is based in Dharamsala, India and provides democratic representation in exile for the Tibetan people—that it was seeking to update the Tibetan Policy Act. ICT stayed in contact with the CTA on further developments thereafter.

Tibetan Americans and Tibet supporters from across the United States visited the US Congress for the fourth annual Tibet Lobby Day, which ICT coordinated. Included among the participants’ asks to members of Congress was the following:

“Update the Tibetan Policy Act of 2002 to respond to new developments in Tibet and within the Tibetan exile community.”

Just two days after the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday, members of the US House of Representatives passed House Resolution 337, titled, “Calling for substantive dialogue, without preconditions, in order to address Tibetan grievances and secure a negotiated agreement for the Tibetan people.”

Among other provisions, the resolution called on the US government to “underscore that government interference in the Tibetan reincarnation process is a violation of the internationally recognized right to religious freedom, and that matters related to reincarnations in Tibetan Buddhism are of keen interest to Tibetan Buddhist populations worldwide.”

The idea for the TPSA began at a strategy session in Speaker Pelosi’s office in 2019. This photo is from another strategy session a year later with ICT international staff and board members, Tibetan leaders, the speaker and her bipartisan Congressional colleagues.

When the leaders of the International Campaign for Tibet worked with the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to hold the fifth annual strategy session for Tibet on Capitol Hill, they were riding a wave of momentum. At the end of 2018, Congress had passed the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act, which took direct aim at China’s unfair policy of restricting Americans’ access to Tibet—which China annexed about 60 years earlier—even though Chinese citizens are free to travel throughout the US.

RATA was the most important Tibet-related legislation in more than a decade. But almost two decades had gone by since Congress passed the Tibetan Policy Act of 2002, the most important law establishing US policy on Tibet. It was time for an update. And at the meeting in Pelosi’s office, the attendees began to discuss a new bill that would dramatically increase US support for Tibetans, including on the crucial issue of protecting the Dalai Lama’s succession from interference by the Chinese government.

Just a few days after its introduction in the House, the TPSA made its way to the Senate when Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., introduced the legislation alongside Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Lindsey Graham, R-SC, and Ed Markey, D-Mass.

Rubio, the co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, described the TPSA as “much needed” amid “new challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party against Tibetans.” “We must continue to shine a bright light on the Chinese government’s repression of the Tibetan people,” he said, “and explore new tools to protect their religion, language, and culture, both inside and outside China.”

Although Tibetan Americans are a small community, they are devoted to the Tibetan cause. At ICT’s mini-Tibet Lobby Day, members of Tibetan associations around the country came out in force to visit the district offices of their senators and representatives to ask them to cosponsor the TPSA. In Washington, DC, Tibetan Americans and Tibet supporters joined ICT to meet with the offices of about 75 legislators on Capitol Hill.

These efforts appeared to bear fruit, as the TPSA quickly gained an additional seven cosponsors in the House and two new cosponsors in the Senate.

The speaker of the House, the sister of the Dalai Lama and the chairman of ICT sat on a stage together in San Francisco, telling the crowd of about 300—plus many more online—why Tibet matters in today’s world. Nancy Pelosi, Jetsun Pema and Richard Gere were the stars of ICT’s “Why Tibet Matters” event, which helped raise awareness through a discussion between two extraordinary women from different backgrounds, moderated by a world famous actor, social activist and philanthropist.

Toward the end of the discussion, Pelosi said the TPSA has “bipartisan support in both houses” of Congress, but warned that the Chinese government would “rear its head in Washington, DC” to try to stop the bill’s passage. Gere added that the TPSA was ICT’s “number one priority.” The Dalai Lama, he said, has “made it very, very clear, and he’s been steadfast, he will not be reborn in a Chinese-controlled area. So that’s it. Final.”

The TPSA was on the fast track to passing the House. The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the bill unanimously at a markup hearing, clearing the way for it to get a vote on the House floor.

“With this bill, we send a clear message: If Chinese officials infringe on the religious freedom of the Tibetan people, we will hold them accountable,” Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-NY, said. Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ, added that, “The policies of the Chinese government have severely degraded Tibetan religion and culture, language, livelihood and the natural environment.”

While attention shifted to the US Senate, countries in Europe began to speak out against China’s interference in the Dalai Lama’s succession. In Germany, Niels Annen, minister of state at the Federal Foreign Office, responded to a question from Member of Parliament Margarete Bause by saying that, “The Federal Government is of the opinion that religious communities may regulate their affairs autonomously.” Annen added: “This includes the right to determine their religious leaders themselves.”

Earlier, Belgian Foreign Affairs and Defense Minister Philippe Goffin had said, “It is logically up to the Tibetan religious community to designate [the Dalai Lama’s] successor without interference from the temporal authorities.” And Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Stef Blok declared that, “The position of this cabinet is that it is up to the Tibetan religious community itself to appoint a future successor to the Dalai Lama.”

With COVID-19 continuing to make in-person gatherings impossible, ICT turned its Tibetan Youth Leadership Program into a virtual event featuring a discussion between McGovern, Brownback and young Tibetan Americans. The program streamed live as part of Tibet Talks, ICT’s new online discussion series launched during the pandemic.

During the event, McGovern told the youths their advocacy was making a difference, and that he expected the TPSA to pass before the end of 2020. “I am very hopeful that we will get this through the entire process this year,” he said. Brownback added that the State Department viewed Tibet legislation as “very helpful.”

The introduction of the TPSA and its passage in the House was part of a banner year for support of Tibet in the United States. But the presidential election was fast approaching, and Americans were debating intensely over which direction the country should take. To make sure the suffering of the Tibetan people stayed on the agenda no matter who was president the next four years, ICT launched its Tibet 2020 campaign to inform the candidates why Tibet mattered.

As part of the campaign, ICT members and other supporters of Tibet sent petitions to the Democratic and Republican parties, urging them to take action for Tibet. Their list of requests included asking both parties to include Tibetans’ religious freedom in their official platforms.

In 1995, the Dalai Lama recognized Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, a six-year-old living inside Tibet, as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, one of the most important Tibetan Buddhist leaders. Three days later, the Chinese government kidnapped the child and his family; none of them have been seen in public since. In Nyima’s place, China appointed its own, fake Panchen Lama, who now serves as a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party.

Fears are high that China will follow a similar pattern when the Dalai Lama eventually dies. So it was significant that five UN human rights experts and expert bodies wrote to the Chinese government to “express grave concern at the continued refusal by the Government of China to disclose precisely the whereabouts of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima.” The experts appealed to China “to ensure that Tibetan Buddhists are able to freely practice their religion,” noting that Tibetans’ religious freedom included the right “to determine their clergy and religious leaders in accordance with their own religious traditions and practices.”

ICT’s leadership, including ICT’s Chairman Richard Gere, had met with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2017 and raised a number of human rights violations with his office and those of key UN Special Rapporteurs. Kai Mueller, head of ICT’s UN Advocacy Team, has for years coordinated ICT’s work at the UN with such concrete results as the above mentioned.

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s hearing on “The Human Rights Situation in Tibet and the International Response” was another sign of Congress’ growing concerns about Tibet. And in his remarks, ICT President Matteo Mecacci laid out the US government’s growing actions to help Tibetans, from the State Department implementing the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act in July 2020 to the House passing the TPSA in January.

Mecacci said the Senate passing the TPSA “will be a powerful message of hope to the Tibetan people who are otherwise faced with daily oppressive policies by the Chinese authorities.” He added that China’s plan to select the next Dalai Lama was “an absurd claim that the international community needs to challenge decisively.”

House Resolution 697 promoted autonomy for the Tibetan people and offered them support on a number of issues. For one thing, it urged “the swift enactment” of the TPSA “to update United States policy toward Tibet, particularly on issues related to the succession or reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, water security and environmental concerns in the Tibetan plateau, and support for the Tibetan community, language, culture, and religion.”

The resolution passed by voice vote on the floor of the House after the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved it at a meeting on Oct. 1. Reps. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., Michael McCaul, R-Texas, James McGovern, D-Mass., and Chris Smith, R-NJ, introduced the bipartisan resolution in late 2019.

Jurisdiction over the TPSA had moved to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But in the run-up to the election, the committee had not convened any business meetings to pass legislation. So ICT members kept sending petitions to the committee leaders, urging them to take up the TPSA. In the end, ICT members and other Tibet supporters sent a total of 26,423 petitions to Congress in support of the TPSA.

ICT staff, especially President Matteo Mecacci, kept meeting with key House and Senate staffers to push for the bill. Ultimately, House and Senate leaders agreed to attach the TPSA to a government spending bill, so that the overwhelming support for the measures contained in the TPSA would not go to waste.

President Trump signed into law H.R. 133, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, which included the Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020.

With this, the TPSA officially became the law of the land in the United States.