Folk artists stage a Tibetan opera performance near the Potala Palace in Lhasa, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, June 11, 2024. A five-day Tibetan opera show kicked off here on June 9. (Photo: Xinhua)

As the US passed a bill on Wednesday that will allow its officials to counter "disinformation" about China's Xizang region, Chinese experts said on Thursday that the US does not truly care about Xizang, but rather it aims to meddle in China's internal affairs, in an attempt to exploit the region as a means to undermine China's development.

The Xizang-related legislation will allow US State Department officials to counter "disinformation" about Xizang, and rejects the "false claims" that Xizang "has been part of China since ancient times," according to a statement released by some US lawmakers on Wednesday.

The US bill is not truly about showing care for the people of Xizang, but rather about meddling in China's internal affairs, with its underlying purpose being to exploit affairs related to Xizang as a means to undermine China's development, or potentially divide the country, Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Thursday.

The US is trying to use Xizang as a wedge to promote the "Balkanization" of China, in an attempt to split the country, and ultimately achieve the goal of eliminating what the US perceives as a strategic competitor, Li said.

When asked why the US is once again playing the "Xizang card," Li noted that the US feels pressure in the comparison of strengths between China and the US, believing that Beijing has a realistic possibility of comprehensively surpassing Washington. However, the US cannot tolerate the existence of an equal competitor and wants to maintain its global hegemonic status. Therefore, it will definitely use various issues to discredit China, and attempt to marginalize China in geopolitical competition, Li said.

The US' recent moves related to Xizang are actually another link in a series of high-intensity defamatory and confrontational policies against China, Li said.  He noted that those actions will certainly have a negative impact on China-US relations, and also indicate that Washington is not showing sincerity or goodwill in its relations with Beijing, but is full of malice and ill intentions.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in August 2023 that human rights conditions in Xizang are at their historical best, as witnessed by the international community. The rights and freedoms of all ethnic groups, including the freedom of religious belief and the freedom to use and develop their ethnic groups' spoken and written languages, are fully protected.

Xizang-related affairs are purely China's internal affairs that brook no foreign interference, and the US needs to respect facts, fulfill its commitment on Xizang, and stop using Xizang-related issues to meddle in China's internal affairs and undermine China's interests, a spokesperson from the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.

China should make every effort to objectively present the development of Xizang to the international community, providing an accurate portrayal of the region's true situation, so that the international community can see through the deceptive words put forward by the US, analysts said.