John Kerry

Secretary of State
US State Department
2201 C St. NW
Washington, DC 20520
17 May 2016, via email
Dear Secretary Kerry
I am writing to you from Free Tibet, a London-based international organisation campaigning for Tibetans
to be able to determine their own future and for the rights of the Tibetan people to be respected. May I
first say that Free Tibet appreciates your personal support for human rights in Tibet and that of the US
government. It is, therefore, with concern and urgency that I am contacting you now about the
reported Heinz family trust shareholding in Tibet Water Resources Ltd (previously Tibet Water Holdings
Ltd) i, a Chinese-owned company producing bottled water in the most repressed region of Tibet. I urge
you to ensure that this investment comes to an end.
The most recent State Department reports on human rights and religious freedom in Tibet have again
made clear how deep a problem human rights abuse in Tibet is. As you know, Chinas human rights
abuses in Tibet stem largely from Tibetan opposition to Chinese rule and policies - including Chinese
exploitation of Tibets resources and damage caused to its environment by Chinese companies. The
bottled water industry in Tibet threatens its environment, as well as being fraught with political,
commercial and regulatory risks.
As the attached report establishes, Tibets environment and water resources are under severe threat
from a range of environmental factors, including pollution, climate change and the effects of massive
damming and diversion projects undertaken by the Chinese government. Far from being a low-impact,
green business responsibly commercialising a renewable resource, water bottling in Tibet is
contributing to the destruction of Tibets environment and the depletion of its water resources.
Tibet Water Resources Ltd itself produces the Tibet 5100 brand, which has been bottled inside the Tibet
Autonomous Region since 2006. The Tibet Autonomous Region was at the centre of the Tibetan
Uprising of 2008 and has been the most intensely repressed part of Tibet ever since. According to
Chinese dissident website Boxun, the company has complicated origins with strong links to the
Communist Party of China and the Chinese government.ii Just a year after launching, it became the
official drinking water of the 2007 National Congress of the Communist Party of China and was
granted the same honour at the 18th Party Congress in 2012.
The company has also been associated with corruption: when its longstanding contract with China
Railway Express, a state-owned transportation company, was cancelled in 2015, Chinese news website
Sina reported an anonymous source saying halting the commercial partnership between 5100 and
Railway is an action carried out to limit the corruption within the railway system. [] In the current
atmosphere of repressing corruption in China, this kind of action was to be expected.iii The relationship
was key to Tibet 5100s success - by 2013, the company was buying 90% of Tibet 5100s output. (Free
Tibet is unable to corroborate the corruption link and has no further information about the episode.)
Tibet 5100s impact on the local community is another cause for concern. The company states it has
created a 60 square kilometre water protection zone around its bottling plantiv. As you may be aware,
Tibetan pastoralists have been relocated from their traditional areas in their millions, often leading to
Free Tibet
28 Charles Square, London N1 6HT
Tel: 44 (0)20 7324 4605 E-mail: mail@freetibet.org Web: www.freetibet.org

impoverishment and social problems - the State Departments most recent Country Report for China
notes the negative impact of forced resettlement. A consequence of Tibetan pastoralists being removed
from their land is that it becomes available for commercial exploitation. No information is available
about how the protection area was created and is enforced but in the context of the negative impact of
resettlement and the enthusiasm of local authorities to develop the water bottling industry in the TAR,
there is a clear risk that water protection has come at a cost to local Tibetans.
Free Tibet has recently contacted all other investors in Tibet 5100 that we can identify. None, however,
has your public position or standing. We recognise and value your commitment to supporting human
rights in Tibet. When Tibetan dissident writer Tsering Woeser was given a Woman of Courage award by
the State Department in 2013, you personally spoke eloquently in honour of all her efforts to highlight
the plight of Tibet. In her writings, Woeser has frequently addressed concerns over damage to Tibets
environment and increasing global awareness of environmental threats in Tibet has been driven in part
by the Dalai Lama, for whom this has become a talismanic issue. We entirely understand that you will
have had no knowledge of the negative impacts of this investment when it was made. In light of this
information, however, and also of your wife Teresas decades of work in support of human rights, health
and environmental sustainability, I hope you will now recognise that any investment in this company is
inappropriate and counterproductive. On behalf of Free Tibet and our supporters, I urge you to ensure
that the Heinz Family Trust divests its shares in Tibet Water Resources Ltd.
Thank you for your consideration of this request. If we can be of any further help in this matter, please
get in touch. I can be contacted at the address below or at Eleanor@freetibet.org and I look forward to
your reply.
Yours sincerely

Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren
Director

Daily Caller 5 April 2016 http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/04/kerry-and-wife-invested-in-chinese-company-thatexploits-represses-tibet/

ii
Boxun http://www.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2015/07/201507290207.shtml#.Vua5pfmLTcs, accessed 11 May
2016
iii
Sina.com http://finance.sina.com.cn/chanjing/gsnews/20150727/105822799679.shtml, accessed 11 May 2016
iv
Tibet Water Resources Ltd website http://twr1115.net/pages/our_environment, accessed 11 May 2016

Free Tibet
28 Charles Square, London N1 6HT
Tel: 44 (0)20 7324 4605 E-mail: mail@freetibet.org Web: www.freetibet.org