Tibet office in Taipei gets new representative

New Delhi, Dec. 4 (CNA) The Tibetan government in exile announced on Thursday that Kelsang Gyaltsen Bawa has been appointed as the new representative for the Office of Tibet, Taipei, and will assume office next month.

From Jan. 4, Gyaltsen, who currently serves as the Chinese liaison officer of the Office of Tibet, Canberra, will replace outgoing Dawa Tsering as chairman of the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama -- the de facto embassy of the exiled Tibetan government in Taiwan, it said in a statement.

Officials from the Tibetan government in exile told CNA that it is a regular personnel change and that Dawa will be assigned to new duties after having served for six years in the current post.

Born in Batang Zong in western Garzê of the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in China's Sichuan Province in 1966, Gyaltsen worked at the local United Front Work Department in Garzê after graduating from Sichuan Institute of Socialism, majoring in Chinese communist united front theory.

Inspired by Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 and later won the 1989 Nobel peace prize, he fled from China with five other Tibetans to India in 1999. He then joined the Dharamsala-based Tibetan government in exile, working under the Ministry for Security in charge of foreign relations and news information affairs.

Gyaltsen recalled in an interview that he decided to escape from China after witnessing the Tibetan revolt against the Chinese communists in Lhasa in 1988 and 1989.

The huge amounts of twisted and fabricated news reporting by China's media awoke in him the realization that he must stand up and fight against the rule of the Chinese communists, he said.

Gyaltsen was elected to the 14th and 15th Tibetan parliaments and moved to Australia in 2016. He was appointed as the Chinese liaison officer of the Office of Tibet in Canberra in 2017.