China ‘bribes’ monks to spy on Dalai Lama

A Chinese national charged with money laundering by Indian authorites allegedly bribed monks to spy on the Dalai Lama.

Luo Sang is booked after his arrest on money laundering charges on August 12, 2020.

Indian authorities have tightened security around the 85-year-old Dalai Lama following the arrest of a Chinese citizen who they allege headed a multimillion-dollar money-laundering racket used to bribe Buddhist monks into spying on the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

The allegations come as the country’s bilateral relations with China have hit historic lows over an ongoing border dispute that led to the deaths of at least 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of People’s Liberation Army troops in June.

Luo Sang, 41, also known as Charlie Peng, was arrested last month after tax officials raided his New Delhi offices on information he was running a hawala network — an Islamic banking scheme that operates on an honour system — as a front for a $182m money- laundering scheme.

Indian tax officials say they believe Mr Luo was also using the now-banned Chinese messaging app WeChat to recruit and pay Buddhist monks to spy on the Dalai Lama, who has lived in northern India’s Dharamsala since his escape from Tibet in 1959 following a failed uprising there against Chinese rule.

Tsewang Gyalpo Arya, a spokesman for the Tibetan ­government-in-exile that is also based in Dharamsala, said at the weekend Mr Luo’s arrest was “a concerning development”.

“China should concentrate on containing the COVID-19 virus that originated in Wuhan rather than sending spies or intruding on borders,” he said.

“The good thing is that the government of India, the state government and Tibetan security are alert. We are in touch with security agencies in Dharamsala.”

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has been in lockdown since March and is interacting with only an inner circle of aides. Picture: AFP

Tempa Tsering, a spokesman for the Dalai Lama, told The Australian he would not comment on security matters but the spiritual leader had been in lockdown since March and was interacting with only a small inner circle of aides while conducting online events for hundreds of thousands of followers. “That lockdown will continue until this whole pandemic subsides,” Mr Tsering said.

“The Indian government is responsible for his holiness’s security and has been since 1959. They have been doing a very good job.

“It is up to them, and we leave it at that.”

Mr Luo would hardly be the first Chinese agent to have been dispatched to India to spy on the Dalai Lama. Pramit Pal Chaud­huri, a defence analyst and former member of the National Security Advisory Board, said Indian intelligence officers had long known that China frequently sent spies to Dharamsala. The question was, why had authorities acted now, given Mr Luo was first arrested, then released, two years ago?

“We can assume there is a fairly good chance this is all tied in with India’s overall retaliation policy against the Chinese, where we will keep hitting them with something or other until there is a resolution of the border crisis,” he said.

It would also not be the first time India has used the Dalai Lama to turn the screws on China.

Cynics suggest Delhi’s concern for the welfare of its most famous refugee waxes and wanes in direct proportion to the state of its ties with Beijing.

In 2009, when diplomatic relations between the two countries plummeted over a change to Beijing’s visa regime for Indian citizens of Kashmir, the Dalai Lama was given permission to visit Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian border region he crossed through when he fled Tibet but which China insists is part of its territory. The visit drew protests from Beijing over “serious damage” to the bilateral relationship.

India-China ties are at their lowest point in years and talks between the two countries have failed to resolve hostilities along the vast and partly-undemarcated Himalayan border.

Delhi accuses Beijing of provoking the conflict through PLA incursions over the Line of Actual Control which have changed the status quo. In retaliation, it has already banned Chinese social media platform TikTok, restricted Chinese imports and cancelled telecommunications giant Huawei’s participation in 5G trials.

Security analyst Deep Pal said the media-friendly arrest of Mr Luo appears to be a deliberate signalling to Beijing that “if it believes India does not know about its ‘spies’, that is not so, and in small and big ways, these kind of operations would not be allowed to go on like before”.