Richard Gere labels China 'the largest hypocrisy in the world'

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Meditations … Richard Gere (left) greets the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, at the Kalachakra Puja. Photograph: Jitendra Prakash/Reuters

The Pretty Woman actor, who is a Buddhist and Dalai Lama devotee, criticised the Asian nation for its occupation of Tibet
Ben Child
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 January 2012 08.00 EST

The actor Richard Gere has labelled China the world's "largest hypocrisy" and condemned the communist nation's continuing occupation of Tibet during a television interview at a religious event in India.

Gere, a Buddhist who is a devotee of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, spoke out during an extensive primetime interview on English-language news channel NDTV 24x7 last night. The actor, who is in India for the 10-day annual Kalachakra Puja Buddhist celebration, said China had failed to gauge the level of cultural idiosyncrasy in Tibet.

"China is a very difficult place to live if you are a free thinker, if you are an artist, if you are a religious person, but especially in Tibet," said Gere. "I think they (China) have so wrongly gauged the Tibetan people, thinking they could subvert the deep, deep, deep religious beliefs and make them true communists. It's never going to happen. Their whole lives have revolved around Buddhism, around their teachers, around their gurus ... the high ideals of Buddhism. They are not going to change that in a hundred years, two hundred years, a thousand years. That will never go away."

Gere added: "No matter how many roads [the Chinese] build, or how many skyscrapers, or how many – I think there's about six or seven million Chinese settlers, Han Chinese who have been brought to Tibet at this point – it is not going to change (Tibetan culture). (China) would have to kill every Tibetan to change it and they are not going to do that."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/jan/11/richard-gere-china-largest-hypocrisy-world?CMP=twt_gu