World attention has been riveted on the Greek economic turmoil in the last few weeks, but some Tibetans have probably been paying more attention to a comparatively larger but less discussed crisis – the stock market collapse in China. The New York Times reported last Monday that “about $2.7 trillion (latest figure $3.2 trillion) in value has evaporated since the Chinese stock market peaked on June 12th. That is six times Greece’s entire foreign debt, or 11 years of Greece’s economic output.” But Chinese speculators have been making a mockery of the government’s desperate efforts to halt the steep slide in share prices, essentially defying President Xi Jinping, and betting that the market would keep on falling still further.
The effects are already being felt in homes across China. 80% of all China’s stocks are owned by individual share-holders, a far higher percentage than in Western markets where institutional investments predominate. To make matters worse many families have borrowed money from banks, finance companies, neighbors and others to play the market. Often with interest rates as high as 20%. This raises the question of how China’s financial system can absorb another round of bad loans when it is already burdened with a huge amount of lending to state-owned enterprises and local governments than can barely meet monthly interest payments.
Yet most articles and financial reports made no mention of another looming financial catastrophe inextricably tied to the stock-market collapse, which has been on-going for many years and where far greater government lending has been involved. Mind-boggling sums of money and resources have been squandered on the construction boom of recent decades, to build unneeded housing, shopping malls, industrial parks, office buildings, power plants, futuristic airports, high speed trains, multiple lane highways, and other infrastructure in a country already bursting with overpopulated, polluted mega-cities. Cities and provinces compete to build cloud-piercing skyscrapers even if they have no prospective tenants for them.
Since the 1980s, China has built enough new housing to re-house the entire population but the construction boom has become a self-sustaining, perpetual engine of construction for the sake of construction – supply with no demand. And there are not just miles of empty apartment blocks but entire “ghost cities” complete with office towers, hospitals, schools, futuristic airports, museums, universities, libraries, theaters, sports fields, and miles and miles of apartment towers and subdivisions of McMansions — but almost no people. (And “they are building 12 to 24 such cities every single year” according to HK financial analyst, Gillem Tulloch.) Economists have warned that what China is really building is the biggest real estate bubble in history.
The above observations on China’s real-estate crisis have been excerpted from a much longer analysis of China’s multiple, wide-ranging and entirely self-inflicted disasters. An academic friend who recently passed this report “China’s Communist-Capitalist Ecological Apocalypse,” on to me, added a brief message: “You’ll love this. A real tour de force, very much worth reading all the way to the end.” It is a long article but Tibetans should study it a few times to fully absorb the irrevocability of the prognosis on China’s future.
For those not inclined to poring over long scholarly treatises there is a convenient video tutorial on China’s property crisis, CBS 60 Minutes “China’s Real Estate Bubble” (March 03, 2013) hosted by Lesley Stahl. In the program she interviews Wang Shi, CEO of China Vanke, China’s biggest homebuilder. Wang Shi is an interesting guy. He’s open, vocal and wryly self-depreciating. When Stahl asks “Are you the biggest homebuilder in the world, he replies “Maybe” and laughingly adds “ … but only in quantity, not in quality.” He also tells Lesley Stahl that the building boom could not last. “This is a bubble, for sure.” When it bursts, “it will be a disaster, a disaster.”
I am no financial expert, but I can claim (for what its worth) to have lived in the center of one of the biggest real-estate bubbles, just before it popped. I worked in Tokyo in 1989 at the high water mark of Japan’s economic miracle. The Tokyo Securities and Stock Exchange was then the world’s greatest stock exchange, accounting for over 60% of the world’s stock market capitalization (by far the world’s largest). It was the only country in the world that had high-speed bullet trains. And Tokyo by night was this amazing science fiction city — “Blade Runner” territory. Anthony Bourdain claims that experiencing Tokyo was like an acid trip, it was so transformative.
Japanese companies were buying up the world’s great art treasures, especially impressionists. An insurance company bought Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” then the most expensive artwork in the world. The biggest department store in Tokyo, Isetan, if I remember correctly, paid an impoverished China to haul out the “Treasures of the Potala” for a major exhibition in the city; the first time that such a thing had ever happened.
After Sony acquired Columbia Studios and Tri-Star, there was some knee-jerk backlash in the US. Michael Crichton came out with his novel, Rising Sun, essentially a diatribe on why America should wage economic war against Japan. The fact that Japanese buyers were snapping up property in Times Square might have contributed to the hysteria. One reason for Japan’s buying spree in America and elsewhere (whiskey distilleries in Scotland) might have had to do with real-estate in Japan, especially in Tokyo, being ridiculously overvalued. The world’s most expensive piece of property was the Ginza – US $1.5 million per square meter. Of course the whole thing was a bubble but no one saw it. Not a hint of it appeared in any paper or magazine. Japan, in everyone’s estimation, not least the Japanese themselves, was a country that didn’t make mistakes. It was “the wave of the future.”
The “Japanese Asset Price Bubble” (バブル景気 baburu keiki lit. “bubble economy”) came about because of the hyper inflation of stock market and real-estate prices, created by the easy credit extended by Japan’s banks which according to Paul Krugman “… helped inflate the bubble economy to grotesque proportions.” When the bubble burst it took down Japan from its number one position in the world economy, and even after twenty years (“The Lost Decades”) it has never fully recovered.
Getting back to China and the stock market plunge. By the end of this week draconian Chinese government intervention prevented the stock market from collapsing altogether. A principal feature of this intervention was the injection of large sums of money into the market through margin lending. Quite a few financial experts in the West pointed out that such aggressive lending by the government had triggered the Stock Market frenzy (“bordering of the insane”) and collapse in the first place. So what might now appear to be a recovery is more likely just a phase in a volatile and vicious cycle; a cycle which must inevitably grind to a halt when the money runs out. The Financial Time quoted a Beijing-based diplomat on this point: “Their (the Chinese government) approach is more state control and to throw more money at the problem. But even in China funds are not unlimited.”
Speaking of “not unlimited” funds, lets take a final look at “the biggest real-estate bubble in history” where earlier, so much Chinese government lending had disappeared. The political consequences of this thing bursting was succinctly pointed out by property mogul, Wang Shi, at the conclusion of the 60 Minutes interview. Lesley Stahl, discussing the social unrest that had erupted after the collapse of real estate prices, asked what would happen when that bubble finally burst. Wang Shi replied, Who knows what will happen. Maybe, maybe ‘Arabic’ Spring.”
(Part 2. How potential social unrest and political disruption in China will likely play out in Tibet and East Turkestan, and what Tibetans must do to bring about a “Rangzen Spring” moment in their history. )
As a Tibetan, as much as I disliked China, I leisurely anguished that China succeeds economically, although I wanted to see India do better. Instead of China spiraling into debts, I think it is a closer summit for us in witnessing His Holiness back at Potala if China succeeds economically. And, yes there is a Tibetan flag flying atop Potala.
We all know that China has the ambition to be a top dog on this planet, and I think there are two main criteria to get there; be economically sound fortunately or unfortunately and have world’s respect.
If China fails economically, I have a feeling that they will abandon their ambition altogether, and they will further neglect the Tibet issue.
Lets say, if they succeed economically, they surely will chase for the world’s respect, because it is an obvious reality that no one likes bully including Chinese themselves. So, to earn the respect, there is no away around it but to face the Tibet’s issue.
I have zero doubt that whether the world is making it verbally or not, they all are asking “What are you going to do with Tibet?” every single time when they hear the word “China”.
Bhod-Gyalo
The chinese economic is failling…and thats for sure is a good thing for Tibet issue, China long time is using its money as a drug to the world, to do whatever it want and silence the world on whatever illegal activities its doing
China even is using its money to “Buy” wherever refugees is escaping from its hell..such as the 100 Uyghur who have been forcefully taken from Thailand, unfortunatly Thailand has accipted that money as other countries
Some people such as Dalai Lama are so naive to understand this thing, and thinking the Chinese money could help Tibet..and dreaming with booming Chinese economy, Tibet under so called fictional middle way will flourish a long side China…this is the joke the producer of Tibetan politics believe in
I used to get into it with Fifty Cent Party types over at Huff Post when I still bothered with that site, which I no longer do. This report vindicates everything I ever said to them about their their economically and environmentally unsustainable and disastrous country(not to mention their appalling human rights record). I absolutely do not understand HHDL’s “Middle Way” policy of wanting – or at least finding it “acceptable” – to be part of this psychotic train-wreck of a country “as long as Tibetans can be Tibetans” and have “real autonomy” (yeah, like the Chinese would ever go for THAT in the first place).
JN -la,
At a look at this site and do write an expose.
http so://oig.state.gov/reports
Sorry the site is : https://oig.state.gov/reports
https://oig.state.gov/system/files/aud-fm-ib-15-24.pdf
In Henry the VIII, when the Earl of Surrey, Henry Howard, heard something bad befell his enemy, he snarled, “SIR, I SHOULD BE GLAD TO HEAR SUCH NEWS AS THIS ONCE EVERY HOUR!!!”
A wild bull can only be tamed by bashing. This is exactly what will become of China if the rest of the free world dare take on China. Now may be the time. There is so much undeclared hate for China, especially its inhuman dealing in Tibet an East Turkistan, and to its own people, and to some extend in Taiwan and Hong Kong….
When will the exile Tibetans acknowledge that its defeatist mentality shown by the Dalai Lama’s promise of a semi-deliverance for the Tibetan people under the yoke of the Middle Way Approach (MWP)which, by the way, is going no where but stuck and suffocating and crying for survival.
Why is the His Holiness refusing the acknowledge the irrefutable wish of the self-immolations, now over 140,for His return to Tibet as its rightful leader. Tell me if I am wrong. Did any of those who gave their lives utter a word, in their written will, about the MWP? Call for Rangzen (independence) is/was the declared demand of most of them.
Dharamsala is intoxicated with a browed life by the largesse of India and the rest of the sympathetic world, including the USA which is keeping the Tibet’s issue alive. His Holiness is the messenger, and not the message. This is the hard fact the world should realize.
His Holiness and the Sikyong should learn to keep the rudimentary distance demanded by the abrupt separation between Gagen Phodrang and the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). The dilly-dallying between the two is confusing not only the simple politically uninitiated Tibetan populace, but the pro-Dalai lama sympathetic outside world community so eager to help the Tibetan cause in some way.
It is time for Holiness to acknowledge the Tibetan people under the Chinese rule that he had given up on Rangzen for good. That might deliver them from hope against hope that he will be deliver them from Communist china’s ruthless rule.
It is time that CTA should reign in and deliver a truly consensus rule in exile, and not take refugee in its inability to govern without the blessing the Gaden Phodrang. As long as the two are in tangle, the Tibetan people only wish that their common cry of Rangzen will be heeded.
How sad: When the common citizenry is calling for a united front against China, the two are having a hard time challenging the Dorjee Shugden Inferno. What is sadder: Even the Tibetan Youth Congress and the Students for a Free Tibet, two entities that until now united the Tibetan fight against are now caught in this tragic internal discord. Remember the story of how the mighty elephants and the ignoble ants.
If the current internal inferno goes unabated, any future looks bleak for the Tibetan people. I hearken future self-immolators to take this bitter pill, and sustain their samsaric live.
His Holiness might live for another half decades for all mother sentient beings. But let’s acknowledge none of us will be on earth then. Should we make the best of today, tomorrow, and the day after……?
Six million:what is that report about RFA talking about conflict of interest and lack of transparency in travel financial matters. I saw recently RFA chinese lady in California. Heard from related official that they met congressman Dana rorahbacher who previously slammed her action on firing NGABO la. We, patriotic tibetan friends in California are worried about her using Dalai Lama on her personal gain .Dalai Lama also had a private meeting with congressman and why she still has the power to use our Kundun. Kalden Lodoe might be still ciOoking and in the end one day she will drag our HHDL soon.
Random Thoughts from the New York Tibetan Gathering for His Holiness
As an attend at the North American Tibetan Association Tenshug (Long Live Supplication) to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, I couldn’t resist penning the following:
Long before the event, I mused, and many shared the view that the Tibetan community in North America, and especially those in New York area will receive a much due and deserving reprimand
from His Holiness for the March 10th event and related fiasco which has permanently marred all good collective Tibetan cause work done by the various Tibetan groups for over two decades. This unprecedented fiasco lead two of the city’s best know activists, Lhadon and Tenor, to declared this: ” Unfortunately, there seems to be a growing misperception that advocating independence is synonymous with endorsing violent separation of Tibet from China, opposing the Central Tibetan Administration, and even opposing His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, and we would like to address these dangerous myths here.” By the way they were in the crowd too.
For sure, most of people I talked to, and the new I know in the area, were prepared ahead of time to be reprimanded for and guidance for future as he does wherever he goes. New York Tibetans were among the first to be scorned by him for internal fights and related issues in the past. For sure they were prepared to face it again this time.
Surprisingly, none of that happened. Isn’t His Holiness to known for his fatherly lampooning upon rowdy juveniles. Many I happened to speak expressed why they were spared. “We deserve some
it,” one said.
Is Holiness overwhelmed by the over size Dorjee Shugden bill boards that appeared overnight
in front of the Javits Convention Center, the imposing site of the two-day extravagant 80th Birthday celebration an Tenshug (Long Live Offering) by over 13,000 Tibetans from North America and another 2000 from the Himalayan region plus a few hundred westerner, Americans mostly?
Thanks for unprecedented public pressure led by none other than the Students of a Free Tibet, based in New York, the local Tibetan Youth Congress,the unpleasant billboard were pulled down within hours it went up (Did the Atlantic Outdoor Advertising gets its full due?
Another sad episode is the lack of Tibetan protocol. Remember, president Obama’s senior advisor Valerie Jarrett and House Minority leader and avowed Tibet supporter Nancy Pelosi graced the occasion, and whey spoke gallantly in support of the Tibetan people while wishing His Holiness to long as has promised – to live upto 120.
Here is what I encountered after gathering. Several knowledgeable participants, including former employees and political students rambled about the lack of proper protocol in introducing the guests. Remember, Sikyong Lobsang Sanggey, while introducing the two VIP guests, read out a website generated bio of sorts – and calling them sisters (Achas). To call these two very senior high officials Achas is an affront to their dignity which shows the Sikyong utter lack of diplomatic protocol. I innocently tried to defend the Sikong’s good motivation, and that he meant well, even if it lacked consummate protocol, it is because of the Sikong’s lack of grounding in Tibetan culture, including basic Tibetan language and literature which we call know to well. They didn’t buy it.
Instead some of them ridiculed me as a diehard Sikyong supporter which I am not. They tutored me that you only call your real sister a sister. When you call someone a sister, you either don’t know her or she happens to look older than you. The point they shouted at me: Neither of the two VIPs are the Sikyong’s sister nor the are just some elder ladies you happen to meet or pass by. “It is utterly unappropriate,”they challenged me.
So, we agreed it was Sikong’s fault. He should have just introduced them by their designation, and left out reading the basic academic bio-data But then, this is the kin of things our Harvard alumni Sikyong always does. If he happens to read this, please learn to grow and know how to properly respect people. Don’t let us face the same debacle again please. Don’t think you are part and parcel of the Gaden Phodrang where everthing goes by. No rules apply there. You represent the future Tibet polity.
Finally, back home, I hear that the Sikyong asked the organizers to allow him to introduce the guests. If that is the truth, he must repent after reading this.
Maura Moynihan’s Birthday Gift to the Dalai Lama without comment.
Tibet & China at the same Washington lobbyist by Maura Moynihan, Washington Post, July 10, 2015
Americans are reeling from the alarming disclosure of a massive theft of US government data, linked to Chinese government cyber warriors. China is hardly contrite; plans to honor President Xi Jingping at a White House State dinner this fall will proceed as planned, emboldening China to rattle sabers in the South China Sea and ramp up attacks on the Dalai Lama, who celebrated his 80th birthday on July 6th in Los Angeles. But many US officials in national security and Congress are demanding a reexamination of US–China policy, which should include taking a hard look at how China may be spreading its influence over the Tibet movement.
Many American supporters of the Tibetan people’s freedom struggle are concerned about abrupt changes made by the Office of Tibet, which is registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) as the official representative of the Tibetan Government in Exile. The Office of Tibet and the Tibet Fund shared a building in Manhattan from the 1980’s, but in 2014, Mr. Lobsang Sangay, the newly elected Tibetan exile leader, uprooted the Office of Tibet from New York and moved it to Washington. Sangay also replaced the acting head of the Office of Tibet and installed his right-hand man, Kaydor Aukatsang, whose chief qualification is absolute loyalty to Sangay. Sangay and his team wanted to sell the New York building, which had appreciated over the years to over $4 million, but met with resistance from the board of the non-profit Tibet Fund.
Sangay also found sufficient financial resources to sideline ICT and hire Sconset Strategies, a Washington lobbying firm whose biggest client is Benjamin Wey, the Chinese born multi-millionaire, recently embroiled in a sexual harassment lawsuit in New York City- a Federal Court ordered him to pay $18 million in damages – which provided salacious fodder for international tabloids with lurid tales of Wey’s sexual aggression and his proclivity for sending racist-pornographic images in emails. This is not Wey’s first brush with the law: prior to his reputation as the “Horndog of Wall Street” Wey promoted himself as an expert in American-Chinese relations, with a specialty: “how to best invest in China-based American-listed companies.” Wey’s firm, New York Global Group, was investigated in 2012 by the FBI, for its shady practice of purchasing defunct American shell companies to create “backdoor listings” for Chinese companies, who gain a foothold in the US markets and siphon billions of investors dollars (and strengthen the Chinese economy) in the process. In 2005 Mr. Wey agreed to be censured for misleading investors in Oklahoma and failing to disclose information on his firm.
When Sangay hired Sconset Strategies in 2011, some questioned that small lobbying firm’s ability to honestly and effectively represent the interests of the Tibetan people, when its top client of long standing is Benjamin Wey, an avowed Chinese nationalist who aggressively pushes the financial interests of the Chinese Communist Party. Sconset Strategies‘ website lists its few other clients, which include Aristeia Capital, a hedge fund owned by the husband of one of Lobsang Sangay’s top supporters.
The Office of Tibet’s logo appeared next to Wey’s NY Global Group on Sconset’s website until 2014, when the firm’s relationship with the Office of Tibet was apparently terminated, around the same time the Office of Tibet shifted to Washington DC. Lobsang Sangay has never disclosed any of this information, leading many to ask why has there been so little transparency on lobbying, and why would the Tibetan Government in Exile hire a small lobbying firm that also promotes Chinese interests? Is overlooking this conflict of interest mere incompetence, or signs of something worse?
While studying at Harvard Law School, Sangay made a very public alliance with Ms. Hu Xiaojiang, whom intelligence sources identify as a Chinese Ministry of State Security co-optee. Ms. Hu helped arrange Sangay’s 2005 trip to Beijing and Shanghai. Indian intelligence officials have expressed concerns over Sangay’s willingness to declare himself a Chinese “overseas national” while continuing to hold a Tibetan refugee identity card issued by the Indian government. Sangay denied that he made his 2005 trip on Chinese papers until he was confronted with irrefutable evidence in 2011.
Sangay also refuses to explain how, just four years after buying a house near Boston, he managed to pay off a $227,000 mortgage on July 29, 2011; he became the Tibetan exile Prime Minister just one week later. His mortgage documents are here, laying out all the facts except the continuing mystery of where the money came from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/110372514/lobsangsangay-mortgages
The Office of Tibet’s FARA statements reveal that they aren’t doing much lobbying, despite having an expensive new property in the nation’s capitol. According to FARA filings from October 2013 to March 2015, the Office of Tibet reported $900,000 in income, mostly through donations by Tibetan groups around the U.S. and Canada. The office spent $550,000, including $75,000 spent on travel, and more than $30,000 on “Chinese outreach” and entertainment expenses.
Meanwhile, Lobsang Sangay is working the lecture circuit, and turning heads with his pro-Beijing statements. In a May 2013 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Sangay stated that the Tibetan movement had abandoned democracy as a goal, accepted Chinese Communist rule in Tibet, and acceded to China’s full “discretion” in militarizing the Tibetan plateau. Sangay’s disturbing use of Chinese Communist propaganda code-words to describe Tibet can be found in his published papers, in which he refers to pre-1959 Tibet as a “feudal realm” that was “shackled to feudalism,” with “monks and grandees” displaying “reactionary” attitudes.
The Office of Tibet now has a $1.7 million office around the corner from ICT’s $2.7 million townhouse near Dupont Circle, which begs the question: how is a penniless refugee community of 150,000 people scattered across India and Nepal served by all this fancy real estate in Washington? Who is the legitimate representative of the Tibetan people? The next time Lobsang Sangay heads to Capitol Hill, let’s hope someone pulls up his bio and asks this ambitious Tibetan politician what drives his rejection of democracy and embrace of Communist Chinese rule, how he explains being in bed with Benjamin Wey, and who paid for his mortgage and his spanking new Washington office.
Maura Moynihan, daughter of the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has been a longtime supporter and activist for the Tibet cause.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/10/maura-moynihan-tibet-china-same-washington-lobbyis/#ixzz3gB1MtzyD
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
Yes, I want to see “Rangzen spring” now and Chinese economy in their self-centered greedy Black hole!!!!
China is growing at a 7% clip. This is hardly the sign of a collapsing economy. To take things in perspective, China’s stock markets have crashed once, in 2006 and that year, the economy grew 13%. Only 15% of China’s population invests in stocks, so a collapse will not affect the general Chinese economy. Also, China has something like 4 trillion in foreign currency reserves, so the country has the financial muscle to prop up the markets and burn short sellers.
The Chinese are very shrewd. They don’t call them Asian Jews for nothing. The Government has been dumping US treasury bonds to buy Gold on the cheap. China will never give up Tibet, for obvious reasons.
India’s economy is not as rosy as Modi would like to paint. India is cooking growth figures. China’s economy is something 7 times the size of India’s. India will never catch up.
11. Dorjee is a Chinese pretending to be Tibetan. Same old, same old.
Its not the size of Chinese economy or its military might but the spirit of Tibetans whether we want to fight for our rights and freedom.
In the past its was blamed on the collective karma of Tibetan people for the Chinese invasion and occupation. Then global community was blamed for not supporting Tibet as the world should fight to liberate Tibet.
Now economy is to blamed as Chinese have grown rich so we must not blahhhh.
After lost decades in Mao’s poverty stricken communism the country is in a craze to catch up.
The result can end up like the Tuenchedung photo
Great juxtaposition I think…..
China’s Communist capitalist Ecological APOCALYPSE is a must read indeed
The imp point point is ECOLOGICAL….
Need a surgical mask while reading….
Prestige , keeping face & what’s there for ME—Exuberance. – china’s version of roaring 20s/ jazz age…
dorjee @ 13
http://www.businessinsider.com/theres-a-dead-giveaway-that-chinas-growth-numbers-are-fake-2015-7
Loosers need all the hope and excuses
.
Why nobody is talking about Tenzin Delek Rinpoche here? Last week I went to protest in front of Chinese Embassy for his death in prison. The Protest was organized by SFT. I am a MWA advocate but I respect everybody who is for Tibet.
Tibetans in exile should go back home, home in China. China is your home.
@21 You are confusing Tibet with China. Tibetans exile do not wish to return to China but to Tibet.
@20: If Tibetans put half as much effort to Rangzen or Tibet as they put efforts towards Buddhism – we Tibetans could have made significant lead.
We drain all our resources towards religious rituals.
Tibetan exiles will never will and never want to return because they are went astray so far and rooted somewhere else. Their grandparents genuinely wanted to return because they were uprooted from their land either willing or unwilling depending when they left the country. The newer generations outside are more like hippie and late night comedy show. They don’t have courage to do the real fight, neither they have resources nor they want to sacrifice comfort. They want to see a bloody scene that suffice their ideology in the Tibet. They want to see a deadly confrontation between Chinese and Tibetan for their belief in ideology yet they themselves don’t want to shed a single drop of blood. However, I acknowledge they have kind of sentimental attachment to their ancestral home which is too murky for them to know fully or to live and adapt. For sentimental reasons, they will protest for some years too come, then that’s about it, that’s rangzen spring. The real story will be decided by course of nature where real humans will be agent of change. Exile protest and crocodile tears are like vapor from boiling water.
NG
Radio Free Asia finances criticized in OIG report
Radio Free Asia’s finances were sharply criticized in a report by the Office of the Inspector General released last week, which received little attention in the media. You can read the entire report at https://oig.state.gov/system/files/aud-fm-ib-15-24.pdf Here are some highlights: “RFA did not fully comply with Federal procurement requirements for grantees or its own internal procurement process. Specifically, OIG identified instances of noncompliance with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) conflict-of-interest requirements… OIG found that RFA entered into 14 contracts, totaling $4.0 million…with organizations that had some affiliation with either RFA officials or members of the OTF Advisory Council [emphasis added]. Further, of six RFA contracts tested, OIG found that none of the contracts fully complied with other Federal procurement requirements for grantees. Specifically, none of the six contracts were competed, and RFA did not have adequate justification for the lack of competition… Specifically, OIG identified four RFA officials who had some affiliation with two organizations that were awarded a total of seven contracts during FYs 2012 and 2013.”
One of the conflicts involves a foundation started by RFA’s president: “The President of RFA established the Freedom2Connect Foundation (Foundation) in 2011 as a private non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. In addition, RFA employees serve as the Secretary and Treasurer of Freedom2Connect… RFA awarded two contracts, totaling $1.2 million, to the Foundation for anti-censorship projects. The RFA President informed OIG that she disassociated herself from the Foundation
after it was established. However, on her conflict-of-interest form for 2012, she lists herself as a Freedom2Connect advisor.” In addition, “the Foundation’s address and suite number are the same as RFA’s address and suite number, and RFA is the registered agent for the Foundation.” [emphasis added]
The foundation then gave the funds “as an unrestricted gift” [emphasis added] to the University of California at Berkeley, prompting the OIG to note that RFA “did not comply with OMB guidance that prohibits grantees from using Government funds for donations or contributions.” And Berkeley was cited in the report as one of the “organizations affiliated with Advisory Council Members,” which the OIG indicated raised a question of conflict of interest. RFA’s defense was that the two-step transfer of funds eliminated the federal ban on donations: “RFA officials indicated that since RFA did not gift the funds directly to Berkeley but through the Foundation, RFA complied with the OMB requirement. The RFA General Counsel also stated that she believed that the OMB guidance restricting the use of grant funds did not extend beyond the transfer of funds to the Foundation.”
“RFA did not return all unused unobligated funds to BBG at the end of FY 2013 as required by the grant agreement… RFA’s practice was to keep funds received from BBG for 5 years and, at the end of the 5-year period, request permission to use the unused funds for other purposes.”
“RFA’s personnel-related costs were not in technical compliance with Federal law and grant requirements. Specifically, maximum salary levels for four of seven RFA positions OIG reviewed were higher than the maximum salary levels of comparable BBG [Broadcasting Board of Governors] positions. In addition, 4 of 11 benefits reviewed exceeded the benefits provided to Federal employees.”
The report also criticized BBG for failing to supervise RFA properly.
“BBG did not have a well-defined structure for overseeing RFA or its other grantees. Specifically, no single individual or office had primary responsibility for monitoring grantees. … Even within an office, no single individual had primary responsibility for grantee oversight. For example, one individual responsible for monitoring the performance of BBG grants stated that she viewed her responsibilities as performance planning and reporting and not as monitoring. This employee indicated that she had never read the RFA grant agreement.” Further, “the BBG employee who monitored RFA’s financial performance stated that he was not aware of the [BBG] Grantee Handbook until the financial statement auditors asked him about it in FY 2013. The BBG employee who oversees the performance portion of the RFA grant also said that she was not familiar with the Handbook.”
“One BBG official stated…that some officials believed that oversight was not needed because funds were basically ‘passed through’ BBG to RFA.”
The report included 21 recommendations for improved BBG oversight. BBG agreed with all 21 recommendations.
@23
thats true, however, Buddhism isn’t a hindurance for rangzen..I believe HHDL has made that thing, not Buddhism
@ 20 white,
My question is did the CTA and Gaden phodrang do poojas for Tulku Tenzin Delek? That is most important for family and also the deceased because they are very religious. I’m just asking because i dont know. if already done then good.
That Tulku tenzin delek shouldn’t be accorded more respect on the mere ground that he was a tulku. that stinks of borgeoise. yes he had done his bit for tibet. but so has lots of ordinary tibetans, including those who went thousand miles more than the cleric, by offering their body in flames! Tibetans won’t get anywhere because they are struck in the time warp of mediaval times when monks and nobles are revered when all they do is exploit the working class. This is the real heat of darkness of the tibetan psyche.
Not sure if Tulku Tenzin Delek was accorded “more respect on the mere ground that he was a tulku”. His is a special case of CCP barbarity, if the news are to be believed. He was killed by China, then they burned his body without the presence nor the consent of his immediate family. Creepier still, the Chinese even refuses to turn over the ashes to the grieving family.
The latest news has it that the ashes were then shipped off to Chinatown, there to be sold under the label, ” Aphrodisiac: Powered Tiger Testicles”.
Basically, China killed and ate Tulku Tenzin Delek.
I also remember Woeser la’s hubby writing a big piece on Tulku Tenzin Delek which just goes to show that not all tulkus are alike. The people in Tibet seem to love this tulku, so maybe he deserved the respect.
Well, why the exiles don’t seem to be making the same fuss about 100 odd self immolators , who are undeniably no less of a martyr in all sense of the word ? Of course all lamas aren’t alike , but I can’t believe Tibetans considered the individual merit of Tenzin delek independent of the class he belonged to. That is, an ordinary Tibetan is likely to be sadder at the death of a lama, any lama, than an average joe. This mentality really deserve some reform.
@ 31
I thought comment by what dreams may come would suffice to get through to your one track mind. But not so. So i’m saying again. It is so very obvious that Tulku Tenzin Delek was targeted viciously by CCP who perceived him as close to CTA and HH Dalai Lama, depriving him of even the most basic minimum treatment allowed to other prisoners. I’m not talking about merit or gauging who is more of a martyr.No!
@13 Dorjee is correct after digging some numbers on world economy. And @14 Passang is calling Dorjee fake Tibetan, instead of calling name, well I will do the work for you budy.
China had 7 plus % GDP 2014, and doing around same this year as well. India also did 5 plus % 2014 as well, not bad. The Hindu newspaper [1] is projecting that India will catch up with China by 2040. And I repeat 2040. But to me Tibet is a moral issue not an economic one to China.
These Chinese want to pollute our culture and make our kids forget our language. This can’t be an economic issue. Lets say if we had factories, they would not have destroyed them. But they did to those monasteries and the libraries.
We should not be scared if they grow 7% or 14%. Whole world knows it is a moral issue. Even if they are the richest they still would be hated by others. US is an okay country, look how many people still hating them. And China, everybody know they have killed and bullied millions of Tibetans.
Jamyang Norbu la, our struggle can’t be tied wholly to the Chinese economic. There may be some ties, but can’t be the whole. I truly believe Tibet is a moral issue to China.
Bhod Gyalo
1. http://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/india-is-now-a-2trillion-economy-says-world-bank-data/article7380442.ece
“Tenzin Delek is also widely known for working to develop social, medical, educational and religious institutions for Tibetan nomads in eastern Tibet, as an advocate for environmental conservation in the face of indiscriminate logging and mining projects, and as a mediator between Tibetans and Chinese”-Wikipedia
Tenzin Delek Rinpoche gained respect from his people not just because he is a Rinpoche but what he did for his people and his country. I recently heard from somebody his sister is carrying on the mission who happen to be a nun. There is no doubt Rinpoche’s imprisonment is politically motivated. Rinpoche deserves to be one of the Tibetan heroes.
Readers of this block would like the indulgence of fearless pro-Tibet writer-advocates -a rare species – to feast on the Radio Free Asia OIG report (https://oig.state.gov/system/files/aud-fm-ib-15-24.pdf).
Suffice to lament that this report primarily deals with audit and finance shot comings. There is nothing about the shameful firing of its former director and the fiasco that followed- the promotion of one arrogant ex-monk, lost-wife sex ass (Libby ass licker), all of which cries for conflict-of-interest violation investigations of the highest order; but otherwise discredited by the Tibetan community Kalen Loedi; the humiliating demotion former Dy. director (Karma Dorji)who is also know for pushing personal agenda but somehow survived. The two are reportedly in the process of ‘Live an let leave’ therapy.
The crash was a warning but by means a economic catastrophe. Two days later the stock went up once again, a sharp rise into the green zone. The economy once again flourishing.
Waiting for China’s doomsday to activate Rangzen spring is once again a one sided concept. One must die for the other to live. China must be bad to prove Tibet good.
There must be a way to make both a win-win, rather than quarreling “you bad I good”.
Rap on demolishing of Communism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=61&v=xnWxFIH4_dE
Hi rikey,
Pls explain today’s crash. You said “The economy once again flourishing.” is it really? See link below. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-27/chinese-stocks-suffer-second-biggest-crash-history-1500-companies-halted-limit-down
We Tibetan Buddhist accord the assassination of Lang Dharma and subjugation and defeat of Bonpos as great achievement in Tibetan history.
In reality Tibet as empire and sovereign ceased to exist since the ascendency of Buddhism.
@39 you can’t put every Tibetan under “we Tibetan buddhist.” You cant assume that all Tibetans are Buddhist. I, for one , am a Tibetan , but not a Buddhist. Tibetans can be athiest, christian, muslim, agnostic , shugden adherant, hindi, bon and so on. And I find it bit odd when Tibetans readily make huge assumptions.
@40 I understand your point. 99% of Tibetans are Buddhist. There is small percentage of Muslims and still less Christians. Even the Muslims they want to be Kashmiri Indian.
I am not aware that there are Tibetan Hindus. You have to be born Hindus with to be Hindus.
Tibetan Buddhism is amalgam of Buddhism and Bon tradition.
Not for or against anyone..but I for one do not agree when % is being used to signify or discredit.even 0.1% of a million is significant number.
Isn’t number everything in this world.
Consciouness is our Buddha nature, our Christ Consciousness, Allah and Shakti.
All the labels – Buddhist/ Hindu/ Christian/ Muslim -just that.
Sonamtso…Buddha nature and Christ Consciousness are not the same. Erasing the names does not make all realization equal.
Here is an interesting Link for some of you to comment on….http://www.mikeldunham.blogs.com/mikeldunham/2015/07/china-bears-down-on-dalai-lama-by-re-writing-history-again.html
@ 45 Pema Kadag
Of course I was expecting a fellow Tibetan Buddhist to disagree. Can you tell me the difference please.
How can any body expect any hope of resolving tibet issue when the head leadership believe that only the abuser can solve it, and the vicitim can’t do anything except crying and beging for having mercy?
until this foolish thought and culture is changing, then real solution can come up. otherwise everything coming from such leadership is absured
Buddhist Outsider. While i would vigorously defend your right to have an opinion, I also feel I have the right to question your opinion.
Ghosts and deities influencing human affairs? Some all powerful being looking out just for you, out of uncounted billions that have lived and died? On this one measly planet? Is this really a part of Nature’s Law, or an Ego tripping out?
Consider how “absurd” the controversy would seem to a Tibetan who believes none of it?
If both side are so moral, so caring, then what about the atheist Tibetans who hate this retarded controversy and cant seem to get away from it?
WHAT DREAMS MAY COME
hmmm, may be you misunderstood my comment
I am saying in believing of the mercy of the abuser(China) is the only solution to tibet issue as believed by Tibetan head leadership
i havn’t mentioned buddhism actually
Sonamtso @ 47 No No No it doesn’t work that way. You defend your original statement that, I am paraphrasing, all paths lead to the same result.I can give you a hint though…that Buddhism does not recognize an external god or deity as the ultimate destination.
Lugar Jam stand for Sidkyong on Rangzen platform. listen to Vot.org news of August 3
@ 51 Pema Kadag
o.k I see where you coming from. I’m not talking about the organized religion of Christianity. I’m talking about Jesus who attained Light Body and became immortal just like Buddha. How his life and teachings became misinterpreted, misunderstood is a different matter altogether. Christ consciousness is not the same as the doctrine espoused by mainstream Christian religion. People are waking up to that truth.
Lukar Jam, a former political prisoner in China, now contesting for the Sikyong chair. “I am the first candidate to stand for the elections with a clear manifesto to fight for independence of Tibet as opposed to others who advocate autonomy within China.”
Wasn’t Lukar Jam involved in a spat with CTA Election Commission over the vacant Domey constituency? Right now, CTA Election Commission accuses, “Mr. Tashi Wangdu, aspiring Sikyong candidacy, has made a false allegation.”
Just wondering, (no need to convene yet another press conference) henceforth, how much will the very controlling, very active, vocal; moral? EC end up effecting elections and outcomes?
Is this breed Lhasa Apso?
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=36315&article=Row+over+origin+of+a+%27Tibetan%27+canine+breed
Mr.Lukar Jam seems have a lots of supports
but I really doubt that CTA would allow rangzen supporter…they just seems only accept someone in complete agreement with Dalai Lama
I have every confidence in the Tibetan people, what with our bone-deep Buddhist sense of fairness and compassion; we will quite naturally bend backwards to accommodate Mr Lukar Jam’s political stance.
While most of us are dreaming on the banks, at least the intrepid Mr. Lukar Jam is getting his feet wet in the mind-blowing water that is the Middle Way. Said water is not salty like the ocean, nor fresh like Lake Tanganyika, yet any Goldilocks will tell you, this other-water is just right.
“‘Middle way’ the answer to Tibetan problem”, reaffirmed the Sikyong. Candidate Tashi Wangdu la even swears that his allegedly successful sustainability program in agriculture resulted utilizing the Middle Way concept. It would seem then, anything labelled “Middle Way” is the very definition of SUCCESS, or purported to be so by those Delphi oracles of Dharsa. Maybe they are right. Maybe since the MiddleWay catchphrase has become so successful, there are no more questions left to ask. Or maybe, Oedipus-like, the public is somehow misinformed. If we are, even a little bit, then, It’s the best part of democracy that a Rangzen Sphinx like Lukar Jam (or any Tibetan citizen) must be allowed, to ask questions, and expect honest answers.
Everyone must think Dr. Sangay will win, hence the state of ennui around here. I suspect all the other nominees thus far are too much like him to make any difference with the voters, of course, with the noted exception of Lukar Jam la. Who knows, could be, in the end, it will come down to these two lights: the Hirsute gentleman vs the nicely Coiffed. lol
is it real that Lobsang Sangay still the most popular candidate according to this site?
http://www.tenzinyeshi.com/2015/08/results-of-2016-sikyongs-candidate.html
in my opinion, he has done nothing during his terms for prime minister…its not clear why he still popular
Seems there was a pot/ kettle moment when “Miss Tibet” (Tsering Kyi) accused Tibetan Feminists of ‘apeing Western Culture’. She, like a good Bolsheviks, knows, there is no crime in Paradise. In our society, women are never abused, kids never raped in monasteries. “I know, you know good comrades, “crime” is a disease of the decadent West.”
Lukarjam, welcome to the murky politics of exile
Tibetans.
As the sole and the only candidate to take on the breathless Middle Way Approach (MWA)he is
likely to shed a much needed light on the vagaries of religious-cum-sectarian politics of survival and appeasement. I bet the two declared candidates – Tashi Wangdu an Pempa Tsering – cannot afford to distance from the Middle Way Approach (MWA), and the yet-to-declare officially incumbent Lobsang Sangay cannot but hide behind the cloak of the MWA.
My current take is this will be a close choice elections. Why? All the three presumptive candidates other than Mr. Lukhar will have to share and split the MWY votes where as Lukar will usurp the unto-now undeclared block of votes, especially the young educated voters.
And I dare to challenge the undecided voters to make a statement during the primary in October and rock the infant Tibetan democracy.
And don’t be surprised if more new and fresh plus some veterans join the fray to upend the results to one solid direction.
Constitutional Crisis? Tibetan National Congress founding resolution, mission statement promulgate Independence. So I am not getting why this supposed Rangzen org backing the Umeylam candidate Tashi Wangchu la, instead of Lukar Jam la?
http://www.tibetnc.org/tnc/founding-resolution/
TNC now seems to have deleted from their Facebook, any mention of Tashi Wangchu la. What does this portent?
Lobsang Sangay team is saying he will play ” I have Dalai Lama’s trust” card during Kalachakra in Bodh Gaya and making courtesy call to all high lamas letting them know ” now I need all your help” with votes .
It would be very wise of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to postpone Kalachakra teaching so that Incumbent Sikyong do not get to take undue electoral politics.
This information comes from people very close to Kalon Pema Chonjor.
If Pema Chhinjor has reportredy leaked Sikyong Sangay’s conspiracy to jumpstart his campaign in front of His Holiness during the upcoming Kalachakra platform in Bodh Gaya, Pema is in trouble. Would he show his Aro Khapa mantle or would he melt like ice under heat. Sangay doesn’t enjoy undivided confidence of his Kalons either. I am told that of lately, His Holiness has almost stopped pepping up Sangay at his international events. If true, it means a lot. But I doubt if innocent Tibetan can make sense of it!
@ 63
I’ve never understood how “innocent” Tibetans are so clueless about these manouverings when actually they are adepts at taking care of their little self interests.