Blog

The defining moment came on September 21, 1987, when he addressed the US Congress on Capitol Hill and laid out his Five-Point Peace Plan. It called for turning Tibet into a zone of peace, ending China’s policy of moving its population into Tibet, respecting Tibetans’ human rights, protecting Tibet’s environment and halting nuclear activity there, and beginning serious negotiations on Tibet’s future. Beijing rejected it outright, reading it as a call for separation and branding him a separatist, even as demonstrations broke out in Lhasa. But the plan found an audience in Washington: on December 22, 1987, President Ronald Reagan signed the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which pressed China to respect Tibetan rights, answer the Dalai Lama’s peace overtures and free Tibetan political prisoners.