Tibetan protests have been a regular feature during any visit to India by top Chinese leaders for as long as one remembers. But the G20 meeting being hosted by India in New Delhi over Sep 9-10 might be an exception, according to India’s PTI news agency Sep 5. And it is because Chinese President Xi Jinping has decided to skip the event in his first absence from a G20 meeting in which China will be represented by Premier Li Qiang.

However, such protests are usually spearheaded also by campaign groups such as Tibetan Youth Congress and Students for a Free Tibet whereas the news report only quoted a member of Tibetan Parliament in Exile for this decision.

“We wanted to do some movement during the G20 meeting if Xi Jinping were to attend the summit. Now we have heard that he is not coming,” Dawa Tsering, a member of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile, has said.

“He (Xi) is torturing the Tibetan people and he did not allow small children to study their own language. If my son wants to become a monk, he does not allow it. It is a cultural genocide. He is worse than Mao Zedong,” he has said.

“We expect the Indian government to stand strongly against the Chinese expansionist policy that it adopts not only towards India but all South Asian countries. At the G20 meeting, the delegations from South Asian countries should stand against this Chinese policy.”

He has also called on Indian public to boycott goods from the Communist country.

“This has to start from the individual, then the family, then the community and then society. We should not wait for the government for everything,” he has said.

He has also sought to make the point that Tibet is demanding genuine autonomy, not independence.

“There is not a single country which recognises Tibet. Tibet was an independent country. We have to preserve our culture. If we lose our culture and identity and then get an independent land, we will be finished and it will be empty land to us. That’s why we want autonomy within the Chinese constitution. That is our government policy.”