The Dalai Lama is Tibet's spiritual leader. (Photo : Getty Images)
The leader-in-exile of the Tibetan government hopes that the new president of the U.S., Donald Trump, will help facilitate talks with China.
Lobsang Sangay is hoping that support from the U.S. will be in a form of a dialogue as it was supported by other American presidents.
He also said that "it matters what the United States does and says."
The exiled prime minister asked Tibetans to remain hopeful.
The leaders of Tibet have remained in exile since the failed uprising in 1959. China considers Tibet as part of its territory and has not recognized the region as an independent state.
The Dalai Lama and the exiled government have been living in India since 2010. The Chinese government continues to assert that Tibet is an annex of China.
One spokesperson from Beijing said, "'Is Tibet, after all, a part of China?' History says it is."
On the other hand, America has recognized the One China policy but still engages in facilitating talks for reconciliation between the two countries.
Rex Tillerson, the U.S. Secretary of State, said that he will support the dialogue between Tibet and China. He said that he is willing to meet the Dalai Lama.
According to a paper published by the East-West Center in Washington, the Chinese-Tibet conflict is based on different historical accounts from both countries.
The misleading accounts are from both sides.
Elliot Sperling, the author of the paper, "The Tibet-China Conflict: History and Polemics," wrote: "It will show that positions on the Tibet issue said to be reflective of centuries of popular consensus are actually very recent constructions often at variance with the history on which they claim to be based."
He added, "In some areas, critical aspects of history have been misconstrued by both sides."
Sperling wrote that Tibetans claim that they were invaded by China in 1949, but many parts of Tibet were already controlled before that.
"Indeed, for quite some time after Tibet was incorporated into the PRC, Chinese narratives of that process were often vague and beset by contradictory chronologies," he wrote.
