Continued obfuscation of Tibetan minorities by China through its latest white paper on Tibet
Share

The Chinese government on 10th November 2023 released a white paper on the progress it has achieved in Tibet and was titled “CPC Policies on the Governance of Xizang in the New Era: Approach and Achievements”. The white paper is the 19th edition on the subject and is “supposed” to be an honest appreciation of the policies instituted, results achieved and the reasons behind it. However it is a narrative and data heavy report, highlighting the monetary allocation and expenditure on implementing these policies. What has been left out are the views of the stake holders especially the ethnic Tibetan population who are the intended beneficiaries of these policies. The couching of lack of religious, cultural and social freedoms and choices are measured against the increased number of buildings and other infrastructure built. In the entire report there is no mention of the numbers of ethnic Tibetan population to which the benefits have been provided versus the Han population which has been incentivised to settle in the Tibetan plateau to marginalise the local population. The trend line with Chinese white papers on varied subjects is data intensive with minimal impact and feed back of the policy and infrastructure implemented on the local minority population as well by it. This is the case with Xinjiang and Taiwan white papers also.
The most obvious intent in the narrative building attempt by the Chinese in the white paper has been to change the name of Tibet to Xizang. All the previous reports had Tibet and hence the name change is an attempt to provide historical legitimacy to its control of the province. The use of the name of Tibet predates that of the use of Xizang by almost 1000 years. The Chinese Party aim in using the term is two fold, the first one is to restrict the geographical dimension of the political struggle of Tibetans to the western half of the original Tibet which additionally had the Kham and Amdo areas, which were merged into the adjoining Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu by Mao in 1965. So with a stroke of a pen the political struggle of the Tibetans is now twice removed first by physical disaggregation of the Tibet nation and secondly by the name change. The second reasons is again to provide an interruption in the narrative of the struggle in the internation public arena by disassociating the widely recognised “Tibet” name with a Chinese name and the third reason is the domestic political market in which nationalism is key ingredient more so in these trying economic times for China.
The lack of authenticity of the report by the Chinese authorities can be understood by the indictment by UN experts in a press release on 06 February 2023 which brought out that “We are very disturbed that in recent years the residential school system for Tibetan children appears to act as a mandatory large-scale programme intended to assimilate Tibetans into majority Han culture, contrary to international human rights standards,” it further went on to highlight that in residential schools, the educational content and environment is built around majority Han culture, with textbook content reflecting almost solely the lived experience of Han students. Children of the Tibetan minority are forced to complete a ‘compulsory education’ curriculum in Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua) without access to traditional or culturally relevant learning. The Putonghua language governmental schools do not provide a substantive study of Tibetan minority’s language, history and culture. As a result, Tibetan children are losing their facility with their native language and the ability to communicate easily with their parents and grandparents in the Tibetan language, which contributes to their assimilation and erosion of their identity. While on the Chinese national level the percentage of boarding students is more than 20%, information received point to the vast majority of Tibetan children in residential schools, almost one million children in total. Thus the approach of the Chinese state is to place the interests of the Han Chinese nation above all else.
US state department in a report to the US congress in June 2023 stated that it remains concerned by the lack of meaningful autonomy for Tibetans within the PRC, ongoing abuses of the human rights of Tibetans in the PRC, and efforts by PRC authorities to eliminate the distinct religious, linguistic, and cultural identity of Tibetans.
These changes should not be a surprise to the followers of the Chinese approach of double speak i.e write one thing and do another. The recent Chinese cartographic aggression in August 2023 is a case in point in which borders with 15 countries and the South China Sea were altered and incorporated into the Chinese sovereignty fold. Changes in names of places such as the Japanese Senkaku Islands, renaming of the two major archipelagos of the Spratly Islands and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea and its fourth name change exercise of cities, rivers and mountains in Arunachal Pradesh in India.
The constant naming of places by the Chinese is for reasons of stating claim to it even if it is not accepted by others at that point of time. The marking of place and name and subsequently incrementally forcefully defending it through armed police, militia or the armed forces or psychological warfare legitimises its claim in its eyes. While simultaneously it creates decision dilemmas on the affected countries and population and with the Chinese hoping it provides acceptance and legitimacy of its claims over time. These actions have been amply captured in its three warfares (legal, psychological and public opinion) strategy enunciated by the Chinese themselves. It is amply clear that the white paper released on Tibet(Xizang) in November 2023 and by the cartographic aggression in Aug 2023 by the Chinese government is a continuation of a trend of using the medium of the press and its government institutions to further their agenda of building a false narrative on the ground to use it to further strengthen their illegitimate approaches to its own population and to countries in the neighbourhood.