Tenzin Nyidon
DHARAMSHALA, Sept. 19: Zhang Yadi, known online by the alias Tara, a 22-year-old international student and outspoken advocate for Tibetan culture, has been missing inside China for 49 days.
Originally from Changsha, Hunan, Zhang had been studying in France and was due to begin a Master’s program in Anthropology at SOAS, University of London, in September 2025 after being awarded a prestigious scholarship. She returned to China on July 5 to visit her family, but all contact with friends and colleagues abruptly ceased on July 30 while she was in Shangri-La, Yunnan.
Multiple sources suggest that Zhang was subsequently taken back to Changsha by state security authorities under suspicion of “endangering national security,” a vague and routinely misused charge employed by Beijing to silence academics, students, and rights defenders.
Prior to her disappearance, Zhang remained in consistent communication with both friends and family. Since late July, however, her sudden silence, coupled with irregular statements from her mother and unusual activity on her WeChat account, has raised serious concerns about her well-being and her family’s freedom.
The situation deepened on September 16, when prominent human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong, entrusted by friends to assist Zhang’s mother, Ms. Zhou, was himself forcibly taken away by unidentified individuals during a meeting with her in Changsha. Jiang’s whereabouts remained unknown for some time, though he has since been released, according to an updated statement from the London-based rights group Free Tibet.
Zhang is fluent in Chinese, Tibetan, English, and French, and previously served as an editor for Chinese Youth Stand 4 Tibet, a platform established after China’s 2022 White Paper Movement, when citizens used blank sheets of paper to protest censorship and harsh COVID-19 controls.
Raising alarm over her case, Free Tibet stated, “Her disappearance is not only an attack on a young woman’s freedom; it is part of a wider pattern of transnational repression—silencing students, academics, and activists even when they are based abroad, and punishing them when they return.”
The group further warned that by targeting an individual committed to fostering understanding between Tibetans and Han Chinese, the Chinese authorities are actively undermining efforts toward dialogue and reconciliation.
Free Tibet, amplifying the voices of Chinese Youth Stand 4 Tibet, has called on Beijing to immediately and unconditionally release Zhang Yadi and disclose her current status, guarantee her right to a fair judicial process and protection from mistreatment, end harassment and restrictions on her family’s freedom of communication, and release Jiang Tianyong and respect his right to provide legitimate legal assistance to Ms. Zhou.
2 Responses
Just like what happened in Nepal recently by the Gen-Z protest, we could go that route and topple the CCP in Tibet. CPP is lucky that we are not following that route due to HH advises. The world is behind us, most likely they would shoot us as long as the world and UN is behind us.
Today, the greatest danger to peace in the world is communist China’s expansionist and militarist misadventure. It has been seeking to overthrow the US since its inception. It has kept its people poor while all the money is spent on military built up. It’s propaganda of “uplifting millions” is a lie. It did not uplift anybody except it took all the money from the people in the form of taxes. First, it made the people very, very poor with its disastrous policies such as “the Great Leap Forward” which is considered as one of the most devastating famines in human history that killed an estimated 50 million people from 1959 to 1961!!! Those who survived the famine worked in their fields and gradually improved their livelihood. The CCP only ruined their lives and did not contribute to their well-being! The west bought the CCP propaganda and peddled that the CCP “uplifted millions” which is a lie! During the thirty years economic growth, it spend most of the CCP coffers for military modernisation in order to catch up with the west and gradually take over the US. It has to be said that with Mr Trump taking the reigns of US administration, the Chinese dream of taking over the US is burnished, much to the discomfort to the rest of the democratic world! If Mr Trump doesn’t come back to his senses and built the traditional allies both in Europe and Asia, America and the rest of the world will plunge into a dark abyss of totalitarian hegemony that will deprive us of all the freedoms that people have enjoyed until now. The CCP is the modern version of Nazi Germany which invaded neighbouring countries to subjugate them and enslave them. Tibet has been enslaved since 1949/50 and Taiwan is CCP’s next mission to conquer which will open the flood gates of Chinese expansion into Okinawa, Senkaku islands, Guam, Hawaii and South Pacific nations. It is therefore time to once again recalibrate US policy of containing communist China from gaining hegemony across the world. Where ever the CCP touches it all turns to dust! The pristine nation of Tibet has been wrecked by unchecked Chinese mining and poisoning of the Tibet’s rivers. Communist China has caused massive environmental degradation through mineral extraction and dam building for hydro-electrical power for the Chinese in China while the Tibetans are made the suffer the consequences of eco-vandalism and environmental degradation. This is repeated all across Africa where in Zambia, the rivers which are lifeline of the people has been poisoned with cyanid and arsenic! It’s the same story in Angola where the Chinese are now being expelled from that country. The CCP will bring only disaster for every country it conquers such as Tibet and every country where it seeks to participate in the Chinese colonial project of Belt and Road connectivity!
Tibetans are enslaved and our language, customs, religion, art, culture and identity are expunged and obliterated! TIBET IS GAZA WHERE THERE ARE CHECK POINTS EVERY TEN METERS AND TIBETANS CANNOT TRAVEL FREELY EVEN IN THEIR COUNTRY LET ALONE OUTSIDE OF IT! No Tibetan is issued Chinese passport except the Tibetan collaborators who are sent out to the west to sell Chinese propaganda about occupied Tibet! There are very few Chinese who sympathise with Tibet because the CCP never tells the Chinese people what it is doing in occupied Tibet! They only show Tibetans dancing merrily and tell the Chinese people that the CCP “liberated” the Tibetans from “feudalism” and “theocracy”. 99.99% of Chinese believe the CCP propaganda and look to Tibetans as being “ungrateful” when they see Tibetans ransacking Chinese shops in occupied Tibet! One Chinese living in Lhasa was so incensed that she called “all Tibetans to be expelled from Lhasa”! Just look at the Han chauvinistic arrogance! The Tibetans are the custodians of Tibet yet the Han chauvinists who have come from outside have the audacity to say such sacrilegious utterances! All across the western world, there is seething anger against immigration! Anti-immigration far right parties are gaining ground in their political fortunes. In occupied Tibet, Chinese colonisers are sent in the thousands every day and Tibet is being overwhelmed by Chinese Han colonisers! As we saw the 2008 Pan-Tibet protest against Chinese colonisation of Tibet, the CCP instead of rectifying the its policy by stopping massive Chinese Han population transfer to occupied Tibet, it insists on so called “ethnic unity”!!! Without even bothering to understand the strong resentment of Chinese Han colonisation of occupied Tibet, it tells the Tibetans you have to accept your country to be completely colonised by Chinese Han population in order to realise the CCP’s dream of legitimising Its rule and occupation of Tibet. Just like Europeans and Americans are feeling their countries are being overrun by foreign immigrants owing to high immigration, Tibetans both inside Tibet and outside of Tibet know that to accomodate millions of Chinese Han colonisers will gradually obliterate Tibetans as a people with their distinct culture, language and civilisation and will be consigned to the dustbin of history like the Manchus and Southern Mongolians! Therefore, to have young people like Zhang Yadi is a great asset to help the Chinese people understand the sinister nature of Chinese occupation of Tibet and its attempt to ERASE TIBET INCLUDING ITS NAME THROUGH STRANGULATING THE TIBETAN LANGUAGE, CULTURE, RELIGION AND CIVILISATION. COMMUNIST CHINA’S POLICY OF EXTERMINATING THE TIBETANS AS A PEOPLE IS A CARBON COPY OF ISRAELI POLICY OF ERADICATING THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE! IT IS GENOCIDE PLAIN AND SIMPLE!
The CCP hates Tibet sympathisers and she will be made an example to other Chinese to stay away from supporting Tibet. They have consistently coerced any Chinese artists from meeting the Dalai Lama! As every one knows, unless and until there is significant outcry for her detention, she will be kept in prison. This is the CCP’s tactic to silence dissent and Tibet supporters will be harshly treated. I will never forget what some Chinese told a Hong Kong Tibet supporter. “How can you be Chinese if you support Tibet?” That’s the Chinese attitude towards Tibet and Tibetans!