Chinese Embassy in The Hague wrote to the Dutch Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee asking it not to give CTA leader Penpa Tsering a platform, calling the CTA an unconstitutional 'separatist political organisation'; whether the committee meeting took place is unconfirmed
According to Tibet Express on November 6, 2026, while Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) President (Sikyong) Penpa Tsering was on an official visit to The Hague, having arrived on November 3, the Chinese Embassy in The Hague wrote on November 4 directly to members of the Dutch Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, expressing concern over his scheduled meeting with the committee and urging members not to provide Penpa Tsering with a platform; the letter labelled the CTA an unconstitutional 'separatist political organisation' pursuing 'Tibet independence', maintained that Tibet is strictly an 'internal matter' of China, and cited Beijing's infrastructure investments and economic growth while asserting that no country recognises Tibetan independence. Despite Beijing's objections, the Sikyong continued with his scheduled engagements: on November 4 he met with senior Dutch government officials on religious freedom and took part in a media roundtable with local journalists and China commentators, including former correspondent Garrie van Pinxteren; on November 5 he delivered a keynote address at the sixth annual summit of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), where 52 parliamentarians representing 30 countries gathered. In his address, Penpa Tsering reaffirmed the CTA's commitment to the Middle Way Approach, emphasising that pursuing dialogue with Beijing did not diminish Tibet's historical and legal rights, urged foreign governments to counter China's historical narrative through legislative measures, citing the United States' Resolve Tibet Act, and called for international opposition to Beijing's attempts to assert control over the selection and reincarnation of Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leaders, including the future reincarnation of the 14th Dalai Lama. During his visit he also held bilateral meetings with IPAC Co-Chair Jan Paternotte, Member of the European Parliament Miriam Lexmann, and delegations from Panama, Japan, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Romania and the Balkans. While the Dutch Parliament's official schedule listed a meeting between Penpa Tsering and the Committee on Foreign Affairs for November 5, reports published on Tibet.net had not, at the time of writing, confirmed whether the meeting took place following the Chinese Embassy's intervention. This record rests on a single news source; the letter's text has not been independently checked and the meeting's outcome is unconfirmed, hence under ongoing verification. [1]
Why it matters
This letter is worth recording for three reasons. First, the target of the pressure has shifted: the transnational repression this site has documented has targeted dissidents themselves — the Milan prosecutors' probe into the harassment of 'Teacher Li', the service of Chinese court documents on Gyal Lo in Canada, and the FBI arrest of Wanying Zhang in the United States; here an embassy wrote directly to a foreign parliament's committee asking it to cancel a scheduled meeting, with the intervention aimed at the foreign legislature's own agenda. Second, the letter's language is itself part of the record: an 'unconstitutional separatist political organisation', a strictly 'internal matter', 'no country recognises Tibetan independence' — Beijing handing its sovereignty vocabulary directly to foreign parliamentarians and asking them to act on it; this belongs to the same thread as the extraterritorial application of Article 63 of the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, which this site has recorded. Third, the outcome is genuinely ambiguous: the Sikyong's other engagements went ahead as planned — meetings with Dutch officials, the media roundtable, the IPAC keynote and a series of bilateral meetings — but whether the key committee meeting itself took place remains unconfirmed at the time of writing, and whether the intervention succeeded or failed is itself the follow-up question. [1]
Full report
According to Tibet Express on November 6: CTA President (Sikyong) Penpa Tsering arrived in The Hague on November 3 for an official visit to the Netherlands. On November 4, a day after his arrival, the Chinese Embassy in The Hague wrote directly to members of the Dutch Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, expressing concern over his scheduled meeting with the committee. The Embassy urged committee members not to provide Penpa Tsering with a platform, labelling the CTA an unconstitutional 'separatist political organisation' pursuing 'Tibet independence'. The letter maintained that Tibet is strictly an 'internal matter' of China, citing Beijing's infrastructure investments and economic growth while asserting that no country recognises Tibetan independence. Despite Beijing's objections to his parliamentary engagement, the Sikyong continued with his scheduled engagements in The Hague: after arriving on November 3, he met with senior Dutch government officials on religious freedom on November 4 and took part in a media roundtable with local journalists and China commentators, including former correspondent Garrie van Pinxteren. [1]
The visit's diplomatic programme also included a keynote address on November 5 at the sixth annual summit of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), where 52 parliamentarians representing 30 countries gathered. Penpa Tsering reaffirmed the CTA's commitment to the Middle Way Approach, emphasising that pursuing dialogue with Beijing did not diminish Tibet's historical and legal rights; he urged foreign governments to counter China's historical narrative through legislative measures, citing the United States' Resolve Tibet Act, and called for international opposition to Beijing's attempts to assert control over the selection and reincarnation of Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leaders, including the future reincarnation of the 14th Dalai Lama. During his visit he also held bilateral meetings with IPAC Co-Chair Jan Paternotte, Member of the European Parliament Miriam Lexmann, and delegations from Panama, Japan, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Romania and the Balkans. [1]
Verification note: the sole source for this record is Tibet Express's November 6 report; the embassy letter's full text has not been published and this site has not independently checked the wording of the letter, so the account of its contents follows Tibet Express. While the Dutch Parliament's official schedule listed a meeting between Penpa Tsering and the Committee on Foreign Affairs for November 5, Tibet.net had not, at the time of writing, confirmed whether the meeting took place following the Chinese Embassy's intervention, and this record draws no conclusion on that point; the meeting's outcome will be followed up. This site had not previously carried a case of a Chinese embassy writing to a foreign parliament to press it not to meet a Tibetan leader; it belongs with the October 30 Milan 'Teacher Li' case and the October 30 Gyal Lo case in Canada as a different form of the same transnational-repression theme. [1]
Links above point to the original publishers of the cited reports or articles. Their conclusions are attributed in the text and do not imply that this site has independently verified every factual claim.