By Khedroob Thondup

For decades, Tibetans in exile have lived with the knowledge that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seeks not only to control our homeland but also to police our voices abroad. I have experienced this firsthand. In one of the more cynical manoeuvres, the Chinese government attempted to enlist His Holiness the Dalai Lama to rein in my public advocacy for Tibetan independence. Their request was not only misguided—it revealed the CCP’s fundamental misunderstanding of democracy and freedom of thought.

The Attempt to Control. The CCP’s logic was simple but flawed: if His Holiness could be persuaded to silence me, then the broader Tibetan movement could be weakened. They assumed that our community functions like their own authoritarian system, where one directive from the top can extinguish dissent. They failed to grasp that Tibetan democracy in exile i...