Press Releases

Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi joined other Members of the Congressional Delegation for a press conference yesterday to talk about their historic visit to China and Tibet last week. This trip marks the first time a U.S. Congressional Delegation has visited Tibet since the anti-government unrest in 2008. Click here to read more about the trip. Click here for the full transcript of the press conference.

McGovern has been a leading voice in Congress calling for human rights reforms in China. When President Obama met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in September, McGovern partnered with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) to host a bipartisan “stateless breakfast” to give voice to Tibetan human rights activists who have been subject to crackdowns by the Chinese government.

Press Conference Video: Click here for video of Congressman McGovern’s opening statement. Click here for video of his responses to reporter questions.

Congressman McGovern’s Opening Statement:

“Thank you. I want to thank Leader Pelosi for organizing this trip, and for allowing me to be part of it. Everywhere that Leader Pelosi or the delegation and I went in Tibet and Beijing, we talked about Tibet; we talked about His Holiness the Dalai Lama; we talked about human rights and the importance of respect for people’s culture and religion.

“We had a very good exchange with Chinese officials and, especially, with university students, both in Tibet and Beijing. I saw this trip, and especially the delegation’s visit to Tibet, as an important gesture by the Chinese government. I think we were the first Members of Congress to be granted a visa to travel to Tibet in many years. So this is an important gesture.  

“But more needs to be done.  And we must find ways to build on this visit, and make the reforms needed for meaningful change, such as: one, allowing the United States to open a consulate in Lhasa, Tibet; two, allowing more Members of Congress, more journalists, more members of parliament from other nations, and more people in general – including Members of the Tibetan community here in the United States – to travel freely to Tibet; and three, renewing the dialogue with the Dalai Lama to resolve longstanding issues of Tibetan autonomy, religious practice, culture and heritage.  

“I believe that His Holiness the Dalai Lama is part of the solution, not the problem, to resolving the issues confronting Tibetan autonomy.  You know, one of the things that concerned me – we heard too often from some, not all, but some Chinese officials, we heard language and characterizations of Tibet and the Dalai Lama showing that people’s minds and imaginations are stuck in the past, in old prejudices.  The issue is not the past.  The issue is the future of Tibet and its people.

“Renewing dialogue must be genuine and productive, and it cannot be just another guise for wasting time or going through the motions – but a dialogue based on good faith and the mutual need to resolve outstanding issues in a way that is acceptable to all parties. Undertaking such initiatives would be a positive reflection on the capacity of Chinese authorities to engage in constructive dialogue, and increase confidence that the government is committed to reconciliation and ending abuses in Tibet. The Chinese government has invested a great deal in Tibet, and that was very clear to us.  

“But that investment should not come at the price of an entire culture. You cannot confine a people’s culture and heritage – their very sense of identity – to a museum or a market of handicrafts. The human rights of the Tibetan people must be strengthened and protected, and I will continue to work with my colleagues in Congress, with Leader Pelosi, to push for the reforms needed to achieve this. Again, I view this trip as a very productive step, and a very important first step towards resolving some of these important issues.”

Congressman McGovern’s Responses to Reporter Questions Are Below:

Also included are some comments from Leader Pelosi.

Q:  Congresswoman Pelosi, did you get a sense from the trip that china could reduce restrictions in Tibet and possibly even start talking to the Dalai Lama?  And secondly, the Tibetan Daily quotes you as praising the Chinese government for its actions in Tibet and protecting religious freedoms.  Doesn’t sound like you would say that.

Leader Pelosi.  I’ll let my colleague, Congressman McGovern, speak to that. Congressman McGovern? 

Congressman McGovern.  As I said – I’ll just repeat it.  We continue to be concerned about the human rights situation in Tibet and about religious freedom issues and about people’s abilities to be able to live a life that they want.  We had some very heated exchanges with Chinese government officials over a whole range of issues involving Tibet, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  Some were more heated than others.  Some drew a line in the sand.  Some discussions I felt there was an openness to constructive dialogue.  And I think that’s how we come to this issue at this point.  Is that we can’t – we went, we learned, we appreciate the opportunity to be granted the opportunity to visit, but we want to move beyond the past, and we want to see whether or not the Chinese government is willing to engage in some constructive dialogue that can help promote reconciliation that can help resolve some of the issues that have torn families apart for many, many years. 

I can’t tell you with certainty that the Chinese government will agree to doing ‘x,y and z,’ but I don’t think any of us came away feeling that the door was entirely closed on anything.  And so our challenge is to work with our colleagues in a bipartisan way to see what can be done.  And we are hopeful.  And we’re hopeful, as I said, we can open up a consulate in Tibet which I think would be an important step.  We’re hopeful that they’ll allow others to visit.  And we’re hopeful that we’ll begin a more formal dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama to resolve a whole range of issues. 

Q:  If I could just add onto that.  In your conversations, did the issue of the Uighurs in the Xinjiang region come up?  Because there are some concerns about that region…

Congressman McGovern.  Well we are concerned about the Uighurs and about – we talked about some of the lawyers that were arrested, women who were arrested for protesting and passing out leaflets involving domestic violence.  So we raised a whole range of human rights issues that go beyond just Tibet.  So the Chinese government knows that those issues are still very much of concern to all of us. 

Q:  Madam Speaker, I want to ask you about the visit to Tibet.  How do you understand the intention of President Xi or the Chinese Communist Party receiving your visit to the sensitive regions?  And did you feel any restrictions during your stay in China?

Leader Pelosi.  Would anyone like to speak to the restriction part and then I’ll go to the first part of the question?

Well, let me just say that our final visit before we came – we left China – was with the Premier of China, and it was a very positive meeting – again, respectful and with clarity of purpose and also with the recognition that the cooperation between America and China is really important, not only to our two countries but to the entire world.  I think they had a pretty good idea of what we accepted as freedom of movement and what we recognized as containment of our activities there.  But again, we were there, and we saw, and we made judgements.  We learned, we made judgements, and we will act upon them as we go forward in the most positive way.  

My colleagues, any comment on the restriction or anything?

Congressman McGovern.  I think it’s fair to say that I think the Chinese government wanted to control as much of our visit as they could.  And we saw what they wanted us to see.  We also saw things that they didn’t want us to see.  And I think what they didn’t count on was the tenacity of Leader Pelosi, who wanted to visit religious sites, who wanted to visit monasteries, and who insisted and insisted and kind of wore some of these officials down so that we were able to see what we wanted to see as well.  So, I felt like we got a wide perspective of life in Tibet.  And we went to the meetings that the Chinese government wanted us to go to.  We also visited places that we thought were important to the Tibetan people, to our constituents and to a lot of the people who have expressed concerns about human rights over the years.  I think we got a good exposure.

Leader Pelosi.  And right from the start with all this – I think 30 is probably a conservative estimate because there were people who – shall we say – had walkie talkies that may not have been identified as security who are part of the mass movement through the – down the path and through the old part of Tibet.  But, those same people, right from the start, kind of complained that there was too much ‘tashi delek’ going on between us and the people who were standing around.  They were like: ‘She wasn’t supposed to be doing that.’  ‘You weren’t supposed to be doing that.’  But, we did. 

Q:  Leader Pelosi, you were in Dharamsala in 2008, when there was a huge crackdown in Tibet, and we know what you said to Dalai Lama again.  You went to Dharamsala before Fasa as a victory.  Now my question is: how is China finally trying to make peace with Leader Pelosi?

Leader Pelosi.  We had planned in like November to be in India in March.  Actually, Tom Lantos was going to be a part of our trip, and then sadly, he was diagnosed and left us just around the time of the new year.  So, this was a long-planned trip.  It just so happened that we got to India and Dharamsala after the crackdown in Tibet.  So the Chinese thought we just up-and-flew there so that we could be there to protest what was happening.  We would’ve been protesting it wherever we were. 

But in fact, it was – a visit to the prime minister of India to – you know, it was part of a trip to India that we also had a priority to visit His Holiness.  So at that time, when we made our statements and we had a large bipartisan delegation visiting His Holiness, they thought that was all planned.  But if it were planned, we were really better at planning than we’ve ever been.  It was really more a coincidence, but it served a purpose.  So after that, they said to me, ‘We want to restart our relationship.  We invite you to China.’  So, I went to China the next year. 

Although we talked about human rights, we focused on climate change then and we are continuing that conversation because we believe that it is really important that our two nations are in sync on it.  And I do have to say that the fragility of the plateau – we were at the roof of the world, and it’s a very important place to the ecology of the entire world, and for that, as the gentleman indicated, I gave the Chinese credit for protecting the ecology, the environment as they are in the rest of China.  So that’s a place where we have a very constructive conversation going and have been for a number of years before this visit. 

Q:  You mentioned that journalists weren’t able to come with you on the trip.  Is that a condition of the Chinese government or how did that happen?  And how did that affect your thinking…

Leader Pelosi.  Well, we didn’t – until we landed in Tibet, we didn’t even know if we were going to be in Tibet.  Yeah.  So, that’s – in other words, we found out the day before we left that we had the visa to go to Tibet, but we – until we actually got there, that’s when we knew we would be there. 

Q:  What about the rest of the trip?  You said that journalists weren’t allowed to come with you.

Leader Pelosi.  No – well, we didn’t travel with journalists.  In other words, the Chinese press was covering the trip.  Now, I think – it’s specific, I mean, because there are many journalists in Beijing, but, you know, Tibet is a – Lhasa – it’s a different story, whether it’s opening an embassy, they talked about – I mean, a consulate.  They talked about exchange students – more exchange students between our two countries.  Well, that would speak to having a consulate there to address the needs of families visiting or students going there.  So we think there are some openings that could happen.  That would be very wholesome. 

I thank the President of China, the Premier of China, the officials who greeted us – because they – really, it was a giant step forward, and we are grateful for it.  Thank you all very much.

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