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Written by: Aidan Jonah

While in rhetoric, Elon Musk, et. al have criticized the actions of the CIA-front National Endowment for Democracy and USAID, in fundamental action, the NED is still a relevant force in global politics. This has been helped by a firm secrecy enforced since soon after February 2022, when grants to Ukrainian organizations attracted heavy scrutiny. Canada, as explained in the previous article, has been a below-the-radar key target of the NED and the broader US administration, to successfully crater Canada-China relations for a few crucial years.

While the NED has dropped its blatant targeting of Canada, its funding still produces impacts on the discourse of some Canadian MPs.

The Central Tibetan Administration and the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile

The Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile (TPiE) is the legislature of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA).

The CTA was originally created in 1959 by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. The Dalai Lama received $186,000 USD per year by the CIA between 1959 to 1974, which - in 2004 - Canadian news outlet The Georgia Straight noted “was used to operate his exiled government's offices in Geneva and New York.”

From 1991 on, the US government financially supported (Pg. 7) the CTA through The Tibet Fund [WebArchive].

In 2005, “A short training about the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) grant management was given to the representatives of the grantees” in the CTA’s “Department of Information and International Relations(DIIR) hall” by “Brian Joseph, Senior Program Officer for Asia, and Wilson Lee, Assistant Program Officer for Asia”. The NED’s work was explained by founding member Allen Weinstein, who told the Washington Post in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

In 2020, the US modified its method of funding the CTA. That year, the CTA directly received nearly $1 million USD from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with the task given being to “strengthen the financial and cultural resilience of the Tibetan people and contribute towards a sustained resilience of the Tibetan people’s economic and cultural identity.”

In 2021, the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile was the beneficiary of a $300,000 grant to the NED’s National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), with the focus set “To strengthen the capacity of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile (TPiE) to conduct international advocacy”. In 2024, the NDI received another $300,000 grant specifically to assist this same ‘parliament’.

Over the following years after the change of US government policy in 2020, the CTA has directly received tens of millions in funding from the US government, continuing up until today.

In 2022, the CTA’s President, Sikyong Penpa Tsering, spoke at an NED event alongside NED President and CEO, Damon Wilson, and Vice-President of Programs at the NED. The title for the event was: “A NEW STRATEGY FOR THE TIBETAN DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT: A CONVERSATION WITH THE TIBETAN PRESIDENT”.

In 2024, Tsering received a Democracy Service Medal from the NED.

On March 6, 2026, the TPiE’s Speaker - Khenpo Sonam Tenphel - met with “Brian Joseph, Vice President of Programs at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and Pema Tulotsang, Senior Director and Program Officer at NED”.

The TPiE itself said their “Speaker spoke about the longstanding partnership between the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile and the National Endowment for Democracy”.

The CTA has repeatedly visited the Canadian parliament and met with supportive Members of Parliament (MPs). In 2023, this included four Cabinet Ministers, who met with Tsering. This June, with Canada having signed the Canada-China Strategic Partnership agreement back in January, there were no Cabinet Ministers meeting the CTA. However, MPs a step below, whose role is to assist a Cabinet Minister in conducting their duties [Parliamentary Secretary], help the Cabinet Minister regarding specific issues [Secretary of State], or are a Minister (not a Cabinet Minister), did meet with the CTA. These include:

Karim Bardeesy: “Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry (Parliamentary Secretary)”
Mona Fortier: “Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Parliamentary Secretary)”
Taleeb Noormohamed: “Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation (Parliamentary Secretary)”
John Zerucelli: “Secretary of State (Labour) (Secretary of State)”
Shafqat Ali: “President of the Treasury Board (Minister)”
Randeep Sarai: “Secretary of State (International Development) (Secretary of State)

Historical NED grantees continue influencing Canada’s parliament

By 2023, the NED-funded Tibet Action Institute (TAI) had been able to drive a Canadian parliament subcommittee to push a false claim, that China’s boarding schools in the Xizang Autonomous Region were really ‘colonial boarding schools’ trying to strip children away from Tibetan culture.

Their initial report attacking China’s boarding schools in the XAR came in 2021. They had received NED funding in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, totalling $163k USD.

Eventually, TAI’s efforts led to a “June 2024 parliamentary vote that was an open endorsement of Tibet separatism”.

In 2025, the NED gave an unnamed organization a $110,000 USD grant (lasting for 12 months), that among other work tasks committed the organization to “publish an updated colonial boarding school report, and conduct targeted global advocacy to amplify impact.”

There is no evidence that TAI was the recipient of this specific NED grant. The Canada Files is not claiming to know which organization received these funds from the NED.

Regardless, it still must be noted that, on May 28, 2025, the TAI launched a new report on the so-called ‘colonial boarding schools’ in China’s XAR focused on supposed major harms being perpetrated against young students, building on the initital 2021 report which made the ‘colonial boarding schools’ claim against the boarding schools.

In June 2026, TAI’s Executive Director, Lhadon Tethong, and a staffer, Dr. Gyal Lo, testified to the same Canadian parliament subcomittee. They both dedicated themselves to perpetrating false claims of rampant abuse and wanton stifling of cultural identity. Their focus was meant to evoke the horrific abuses that genuinely occurred in Canada’s former residential schools system.

Furthermore, Lo specifically sought to complain that Tibetan children in China’s XAR were being taught to see themselves as Chinese. Tethong, in a NED-posted video celebrating TAI receiving an NED Democracy Award in 2024, said [WebArchive]: “We [‘Tibet’] will be a nation and we will regain our rights, our freedom.”

Another organization which testified was Tibet Watch, through a senior researcher, Tenzin Choekyi. Tibet Watch received NED funding in 2020 and 2021, totalling $239k USD, tasked to ‘strengthen’ (2020) and ‘support’(2021) “information-gathering networks” to obtain information from within China’s XAR. During Choekyi’s testimony, he referred to China’s governance of its XAR as “over seven decades of Chinese colonization”.

International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) also testified to this subcommittee, through their President, Tencho Gyatso. Between 2005 to 2011 (WebArchive), ICT received a grant from the NED every single year.

Taking funds from the NED does not in itself prove that a group’s arguments or claims are incorrect. However, it is a clear indicator that, just as with any other claim made by political activists or journalists, evidence should be sought for claims they make, and their claims should be scrutinized properly when they cannot provide evidence and rely on anonymous sources.

What do the broader set of NED grants towards China in recent times indicate?

The legacy of NED funding to ‘Tibetan’ dissident activist, journalism and research organizations has continued to be allowed to have an impact on the views of some Canadian MPs towards China’s handling of its affairs in its Xizang Autonomous Region (XAR).

The grants highlighted by this author aren’t the only ones targeted towards China’s Xizang Uygur Autonomous Region in 2024 and 2025. Other grants focus on “Strengthening Independent Exile Media”, “Strengthening Movement Resilience and Capacity”, support for “Shortwave Radio Programming” and much more.

It is clear that the US government-funded, CIA-front NED continues to have no respect for China’s sovereignty. Contrary to overly optimistic claims in the early days of Donald Trump’s second term as US President, the NED has not been cracked down upon but only had a culture of blatant deep secrecy installed into it since 2022.

Aidan Jonah is the Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files, an independent news outlet covering Canadian foreign policy with a strong focus on Canada-China relations. Jonah wrote a report for the 48th session of the UN Human Rights Council, held in September 2021.

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