Tsering Dhundup
DHARAMSHALA, Aug 7: As China prepares for high-profile celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the so-called “Tibet Autonomous Region” (TAR), a province-level administrative division in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) which encompasses merely half of traditional Tibet on September 9, a leading advocacy group has accused Beijing of decades of deception, repression, and cultural destruction in Tibet.
In a statement issued on August 6, the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said the anniversary is no cause for celebration for Tibetans living under Chinese rule, who continue to endure religious restrictions, language suppression, and forced assimilation.
“For our brothers and sisters in Tibet, the last sixty years have lurched from one calamity to another,” said Tencho Gyatso, ICT’s president. “Instead of forcing Tibetans to put on a performance of gratitude, China must change course and put the interests of the Tibetan people ahead of their own compulsive need for power and control.”
The so-called Tibet Autonomous Region, officially established by the People’s Republic of China in 1965, comprises less than half of Tibet’s historical and cultural territory, which includes the traditional province of U-Tsang and a part of Kham.
Following China’s 1950 military entry into Tibet and the signing of the 17-Point Agreement under duress in 1951, the Chinese Communist Party pledged to respect Tibetan autonomy, protect religious freedom, and preserve the Tibetan language and culture. However, ICT asserts that these commitments were swiftly violated.
In 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India, and the Chinese government dissolved the traditional Tibetan government. The establishment of the so-called TAR in 1965 formalised central rule under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Since its inception, no Tibetan has held the position of Communist Party Secretary, the highest-ranking official in the TAR. The position has consistently been held by Han Chinese officials, including Chen Quanguo, who was later appointed to East Turkestan and sanctioned by the U.S. for human rights abuses, and Wu Yingjie, who was reported by Chinese media in 2024 to have been investigated and sentenced for accepting over 343 million yuan in bribes.
Tibetans are also prohibited from publicly venerating the Dalai Lama, and in recent years, ideological education has expanded, including the promotion of Xi Jinping Thought in monasteries and schools.
The 11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, recognised by the Dalai Lama in 1995, was detained by Chinese authorities shortly after his recognition. He has not been seen publicly since, and his whereabouts remain unknown. He is considered one of the longest-held political prisoners in the world by rights groups.
Mandarin Chinese has increasingly replaced Tibetan as the medium of instruction in schools. A 2023 Human Rights Watch report and multiple UN special rapporteurs have raised concerns about the forced assimilation of Tibetan children through state-run boarding schools, where Tibetan language and culture are marginalised.
Court proceedings in the so-called TAR and other Tibetan areas are primarily conducted in Mandarin, and legal reforms have not restored Tibetan as a working language, despite constitutional protections for ethnic languages.
Since the 2000s, tens of thousands of Tibetan nomads have been relocated, often forcibly, under ecological migration and urbanisation policies. The Chinese government says these policies are designed to protect the environment, but researchers and rights organisations argue they have led to loss of livelihoods and cultural disintegration.
The Tibetan plateau is a major source of Asia’s rivers, and its fragile ecosystem has come under threat from mining and dam construction, often without consultation or consent from local communities.
Tibet remains one of the least free places in the world, according to international watchdogs. Freedom House assigns Tibet a score of 0 out of 100 in its annual Freedom in the World report. The U.S. State Department, United Nations, and European Union have all repeatedly voiced concern over the PRC’s treatment of Tibetans.
ICT reiterated that the current situation in Tibet contradicts the principles of regional autonomy outlined in China’s own constitution and called on Beijing to reconsider the Middle Way Approach proposed by the Dalai Lama, which seeks genuine autonomy for Tibet within the framework of the PRC.
“This is clearly not the will of the Tibetan people. The Tibetans did not choose to destroy their monasteries and temples, nor to send the Dalai Lama into exile and disappear the Panchen Lama, nor to devalue the Tibetan language and start teaching it as a secondary language.” ICT said. “They did not choose to be brutally ruled over by a string of corrupt and abusive Chinese cadres who are hostile to their language, religion and culture.”
As Chinese authorities prepare for state-sponsored events in Lhasa and other so called TAR cities to mark the 60th anniversary, rights groups say these celebrations whitewash a painful legacy for Tibetans.
2 Responses
Chinese belong to China , Tibetans belong to Tibet, as simple as that. BHOD GYALO !
The Tibetan people in occupied Tibet are hostages of the evil Chinese communist imperialists! They have no freedom to speak up against the brutality of the regime. They have no right to practise their religion including worshipping the Dalai Lama, no right to speak their language and retain their identity. They are totally denied all basic human rights and are totally enslaved by the most imperialistic and vicious regime on earth. Tibetans have lost their country, their religion, their livelihood and their hearth and home! They are reduced to being slaves of the evil communist regime. Today, they are forced to propagate Chinese occupation of their country as “liberation” and demonstrate “gratitude” to the evil CCP for dismantling of their legitimate Government for centuries and truncating and dismembering of their country!!! Ever since, Tibet was brutally and illegally occupied by communist China, it murdered 1.2 million Tibetans (one sixth of the population). More than 6000 Tibetan monasteries, the repository of Tibet’s ancient heritage have been systematically destroyed and the monks and nuns murdered or forced to defrock by forcing them to copulate in public! The 10th Panchen Lama was forced to eat human faeces to denigrate and humiliate him! TIBET’S RICH RESOURCES HAVE BEEN PLUNDERED AND THE TIBETANS, WHO ARE THE CUSTODIANS OF THE LAND AND ITS RESOURCES ARE LEFT HIGH AND DRY! ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY TIBETANS HAVE SELF-IMMOLATED IN PROTEST AGAINST CHINESE OPPRESSION AND BRUTAL MILITARY OCCUPATION!!! YET THE CCP RECOILS AT ANY CRITICISM OF ITS BRUTALITY, ITS RUTHLESS EXTRACTION OF TIBET’S RICH RESOURCES AND JACKBOOT OCCUPATION OF TIBET. NOW THE CCP IS TRYING TO STEAL OUR LAMA AS WELL! In short, the Chinese communist party has totally pillaged, vandalised and committed genocide in occupied Tibet and Tibetans are forced to swallow the humiliation, psychological trauma and irreparable loss of one’s own country and its heritage and “feel grateful” for this unforgivable carnage is an affront to our morality!!! Communist China’s attempt to legitimise the illegal occupation of our country is not helped by the policy of Tibetan Government in exile! THIS POLICY MAKES THE TIBETANS APOLOGISTS OF THE OCCUPATION OF OUR OWN COUNTRY! IT HAS ONLY WORKED IN FAVOUR OF THE OCCUPIER WHO HAS USED ALL THEIR DIPLOMATIC MANOEUVRING TO LEGITIMISE THEIR ILLEGAL OCCUPATION. IF THE TIBETANS STOOD OUR GROUND IN CASTIGATING THE EVIL OCCUPATION, WE WOULD HAVE GAINED MUCH MORE LEGITIMACY IN REJECTING OUTRIGHT CHINESE ILLEGAL CLAIMS OVER THE DALAI LAMA REINCARNATION ISSUE. TIBET HAS GAINED NO BENEFIT FROM THIS POLICY WHILE THE CCP HAS GAINED THE AUDACITY TO FEEL, IT CAN IMPOSE ITS THUGGERY CONCERNING THE REINCARNATION OF THE DALAI LAMA! Unlike the times, when India played second fiddle to the Chinese communist regime, Indians are mastering the courage to speak and act on behalf of Tibet! There is a growing interest on Tibet in India owing to the threat posed by communist China on the Indo-Tibet border crises and the nefarious joint activities of the Chinese communist regime and arch enemy Pakistan against India! The cloud of obfuscation created by Chinese propaganda is gradually wearing thin and many Indians are coming to the realisation that Tibet has been hard done by communist China and that Tibet was indeed an independent nation historically with the Dalai Lama as the undisputed Temporal and Spiritual leader. Indians are especially incensed by Chinese claims over Arunachal and therefore QUESTIONS THE VERY LEGITIMACY OF CHINESE OCCUPATION OF TIBET!