Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a statement Wednesday (May 5) that he and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), in a letter to Secretary of State Blinken, applauded the State Department’s recently released annual human rights report for removing language about the U.S. recognizing the Tibet Autonomous Region and Tibetan counties as part of the People’s Republic of China. In a letter to Secretary of State Blinken, Patrick Leahy expressed appreciation for the State Department’s recently released annual human rights report’s removal of “unnecessary” language regarding U.S. recognition of the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Tibetan counties as part of the People’s Republic of China.
In a letter to Secretary Blinken, Senators Rubio of Florida and Leahy of Vermont, authors of the Tibet Policy and Support Act of 2019, said that previously, the State Department’s human rights reports always began the section on Tibet in the China section with the phrase “The Tibet Autonomous Region and the Tibetan autonomous states and counties in the provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai, Yunnan, and Gansu. Tibetan autonomous regions and counties in the provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai, Yunnan, and Gansu are part of the People’s Republic of China.
We should not allow the Chinese Communist Party to define the terms of our interaction with them or the people living in China, nor should we uncritically accept the Communist Party’s description of the situation on the ground, past or present,” the senators wrote in the letter, dated May 4. “The CCP distorts history and in some cases even completely rewrites it to fit its own political goals. Experience has taught us that the CCP’s insistence on the ‘correct’ understanding of history that others must accept is incomplete or incorrect in some important respects.”
“The promotion of human rights and democracy must remain a core element of our foreign policy, and we are prepared to work with you to ensure that these issues are not marginalized in the pursuit of other interests with the PRC government,” Leahy and Rubio concluded.
Leahy, a Democrat, is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and president pro tempore of the Senate. Rubio, a Republican, is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has contested presidential candidacies within the Republican Party.
When President Trump signed the Tibet Policy and Support Act into law in 2020, China objected to it at the time and demanded that the U.S. stop interfering in China’s internal affairs.
The State Department is required by law to submit annual reports to Congress on the human rights situation in various countries for members to consider when considering legislation, approving foreign aid and making other decisions. The State Department under the new Biden administration released its 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights in March of this year.
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