Much has been made in the last few weeks (especially on Tibetan websites and blogs) about a parenthetical remark by Dr. Lobsang Sangay during a panel discussion at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars (WWICS), in Washington DC on 27th October, 2008. That day, after having spoken on the topic “China’s Tibet Policy in the Aftermath of Last Spring’s Unrest”, and as an answer to a question from a member of the audience, Dr. Sangay came up with the following light-hearted banter:
“...Jiang Zemin said that their treatment of Tibetans is better than the American treatment of African-Americans. Then I nominate myself as the next president of China. At least I have a credential. Obama is from...Harvard Law School, and I also graduated from Harvard Law School, you know, so we have si[milarities].”
When his good-humored pun was recently brought to our knowledge by Jamyang Norbu la through his thoroughly incisive opinion piece: “Some Thoughts on the Upcoming Kalon Tripa Elections”, Dr. Sangay’s detractors went berserk, condemning him for harboring duplicitous ambitions of becoming a “Chinese Obama”. Jamyang la himself wrote:
“It makes you wonder if he doesn’t see the kalon-tripa election as a stepping stone to a larger political arena. But maybe I am being cynical here. The statement might be construed as Walter Mitty like blossoming of previous (though less ambitious) expressions by our leaders about their desire to be citizens of the PRC.”
