New US Bill to counter China includes policies for Tibet, Xinjiang
The US Agency for Global media shall increase funding for Radio Free Asia's Mandarin, Tibetan, Uyghur and Cantonese language services to counter China's aggressive media investment in western countries.
The United States in its new Bill to counter China includes policies for Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, the problem areas of the People's Republic of China, where it aims to uphold democratic values against China's oppression. The 283-page bill, crafted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is designed to counter China's economic and geopolitical power.
China’s military has recently stepped up efforts to recruit more Tibetans. (Representative image/AP)
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Under Section 136 of the Bill, which deals with how the US will support independent media and counter disinformation, it says the US Agency for Global media shall increase funding for Radio Free Asia's Mandarin, Tibetan, Uyghur and Cantonese language services. It also said how China spends extensively on influence operations, even in western countries. For example, China spent $500,0000,000 on an advertising campaign to attract cable viewers in Australia, it said.
"The United States and European nations share serious concerns with the repressions being supported and executed by the government of China in Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjiang, the Bill said adding that the government should continue implementing measures to address China's specific abuses in these regions and should build joint mechanisms and programmes to prevent the export of China's authoritarian governance model to countries around the world," the Bill, unveiled early in April, says.
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When the US will conduct an annual review on the presence of Chinese companies in US capital markets, it will see whether the company has contributed to the repression of religious and ethnic minorities within China, including Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or Tibet Autonomous Regions, the Bill mentions.
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When the US will conduct an annual review on the presence of Chinese companies in US capital markets, it will see whether the company has contributed to the repression of religious and ethnic minorities within China, including Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or Tibet Autonomous Regions, the Bill mentions.
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In its regional strategies to counter the People's Republic of China, the United States lists Tibetan Buddhists among whom the US wants to promote the values of democracy and human rights.
The Bill also backs the resumption of normal relations with Taiwan, considered as a rebel province by China. Section 212 of the Bill says it is the policy of the United States to recognise Taiwan as a vital part of the United States Ino-pacific strategy. The policy is aimed at advancing the security of Taiwan and its democracy as key elements for the continued peace and stability of the greater Indo-Pacific region etc.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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