Exclusive – ‘Fake’ Tibetan Group Sponsors Event Featuring Genocide Olympics Promo with NYC Mayor Eric Adams

A Lunar New Year event in Chinatown, New York, this week boasted a giant banner advertising the Beijing Winter Olympics under another sign claiming a group called the “Tibetan Association of North America” had sponsored it. The president of the Tibetan Association of New York and New Jersey told Breitbart News the group appeared “definitely” fake.

The event, organized by a group called Better Chinatown USA, featured Mayor Eric Adams as a guest of honor and was a purely cultural event featuring dancing, a children’s chorus dressed as tigers (to ring in the new Year of the Tiger), and traditional fireworks.

Better Chinatown USA, the organization multiple news outlets identified as organizing Tuesday’s event, did not return a request for comment on the situation. The group also did not respond when asked for information, including contact information, for the “Tibetan Association of North America.”

Breitbart News attempted to reach out to the Tibetan Association of North America but could not find any contact information. It does not appear to have a website. A group with that name was incorporated in 2019 in New York and appears to have an office address, but no significant outreach or presence in the Tibetan community.

Adams gave a brief speech at the event vowing to support the Asian-American community in the city – which has endured a disproportionate amount of violent crime in the past two years – but did not mention the Olympics. No one speaking or performing to make note of the Olympics banner, even though it served as a backdrop for the entire event.

The event also appeared to feature exclusively Han Chinese cultural elements, with no significant Tibetan presence. Tibetans celebrate their own new year, Losar, in March.

The New York City mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment and clarification on Adams’ role in the event or his stance on the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Every major Tibetan group in the United States, and most internationally, have called for a boycott on the Beijing Olympics, set to begin on Friday. Tibet is an occupied territory that has endured severe communist repression for decades. The leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, lives in exile in India; Beijing condemns the leader, widely acknowledged as an icon of peace in the West, as a terrorist and Islamic State “sympathizer.” The Communist Party has largely outlawed the use of Tibetan language in Tibet and forcibly separated families to indoctrinate children into communism and raise them speaking Mandarin. The Party has also built an elaborate labor camp system estimated to have been imprisoning at least 500,000 people as of 2020 that appears to function similarly to the concentration camps in neighboring East Turkistan, where multiple governments have deemed China guilty of genocide.

As a result, Tibetans around the world have staged protests against the Olympic Games, arguing that they celebrate genocide and human rights abuses. Tibetan activists have been present in Greece, where the Communist Party received custody of the Olympic flame; Switzerland, where the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is headquartered; and throughout the United States, on Olympic training grounds and outside of NBC studios, which has exclusive rights to air the Games.

The greater context of the Tibetan community’s stance on the Olympics makes the endorsement of the Tibetan Association of North America to an event also promoting the Olympics bizarre – a potential rare sign of support for an event widely rejected by Tibetans.

The president of the Tibetan Association of New York and New Jersey, Lhawang Ngadup, told Breitbart News on Wednesday that a group with that name does not exist.

“We don’t have a Tibetan Association of North America as such, like an umbrella, we don’t have that. We have Tibetan associations all over North America, like about 20 to 30 Tibetan associations, including Canada,” Ngadup explained. “But we are all in different places and each Tibetan association has their own location, like the Tibetan Association of New York we call it the Tibetan Community of New York and New Jersey.”

“We don’t have one umbrella ‘Tibetan Association of North America,’ so it definitely looks like fake [sic],” Ngadup said.

When shown an image of the Tibetan Association of North America logo at the event, Ngadup said, “That’s not even our logo. Looks like a fake group.”

The Tibetan community leader added that he was very suspicious of the possibility that any Tibetan group would be comfortable with an event promoting the Olympics.

“Our Tibetan associations would never do that, would never support the Beijing Olympics, we are against it,” he explained. “We are against the Chinese human rights abuses and all of those things, and the Beijing Olympics – we do not support [it] because they don’t have the moral authority to do that.”

The name “Tibetan Association of North America” does appear on a petition to boycott the 2020 Beijing Olympics, but only as one of over 180 groups with no specific statements from the group. The little available publicly about the organization appears to be largely positive statements about the Communist Party in Chinese state media.

In 2015, China Daily, a government publication, covered a photo exhibit in New York praised by “Dechen Tulku, President of Tibetan Association of North America.”

“The photos will be the most convincing evidence to show the fact that Tibet belongs to China and Tibetans are members of the Chinese ethnic family,” Tulku is quoted as saying, a message totally at odds with every Tibetan association in North America.

Tulku surfaces again in state media in 2019, applauding the Communist Party for its 70th anniversary parade in Tiananmen Square.

“It made me feel so good. I’ve never watched a celebration that is so powerful and emotionally touching,” he was quoted as saying of the parade, which mostly consisted of pictures of Xi Jinping in various sizes.

That year, the collective Tibetan associations of North America issued a statement denouncing the “Tibetan Association of North America” and Tulku in particular. The occasion of the statement was the presence of the group in a Lunar New Year celebration in New York.

“On February 17th 2019, a Chinese government-supported parade was held in New York’s Chinatown as part of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration. Participating in this parade was Dechen Tulku and a few other Tibetans, all of whom are US residents and Shugden devotees,” the statement read. Shugden Buddhists are distinct from, and often at odds with, mainstream Tibetan Buddhism.

“Shugden followers such as Dechen Tulku frequently visit China without any issues as they have connections with the New York Chinese consulate. These people are not the elected representatives of North America-based Tibetans,” the statement read. “As such, any future activity that they carry out in the name of NATA [North America’s Tibetan Associations] will be firmly rejected by all 33 North American Tibetan associations.”

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) has listed the Tibetan Association of North America among several “astroturf” organizations, apparently with the backing of the Chinese regime, attempting to undermine the authentic Tibetan community in the region.

“The Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department is likely the organization behind these activities,” the International Campaign asserted.

ICT also accused the Chinese government of being behind a bizarre event in Toronto in which an alleged Tibetan group, the “Tibetan Association of Canada,” publicized a fake letter from leftist, pro-China Prime Minister Justin Trudeau supporting their efforts to thank China for “helping” Tibet. Trudeau’s office denied that he had signed any such letter.

“Several of the attendees were also spotted at an event for another organisation in New York in February, this time under the name Tibetan Association of North America – American Tibetan groups quickly declared that the association does not represent them,” the Tibet Post noted at the time.

Matteo Mecacci, the president of ICT, told the Tibet Post that the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department was likely organizing these events.