WASHINGTON: Westerners have turned a "deaf ear" to the reality of Tibet, which is a legacy of the "Cold War mentality", China's top Tibetologist said on Tuesday.

Hao Shiyuan, director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who is leading a group of Chinese Tibetologists on a visit to the US capital, said: "Whenever the topic of Tibet's history is discussed, Westerners get an attack of amnesia."

Hao's group is the second Chinese delegation to the US with Tibet as its agenda in a week.