Tenzin Nyidon
DHARAMSHALA, Feb. 15: China has further tightened its grip on Tibetan Buddhism through revised regulations that embed political mandates into religious administration, according to the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). The new Measures for the Administration of Tibetan Buddhist Temples, issued by China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs on December 1, 2024, were adopted in September and took effect on January 1, 2025.
A major revision in Article 4 requires Tibetan monasteries and clergy to pledge allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), compelling them to “love the motherland, support CCP leadership, uphold socialism, and promote the adaptation of Tibetan Buddhism to socialist society.” This mandate enforces political loyalty, pressuring Tibetan Buddhists to conform to state ideology.
Further tightening control, Article 10 mandates that monastic administrators be CCP loyalists, while Article 11 expands their responsibilities to include conducting political education for monks. These measures institutionalise ideological indoctrination in Tibetan monastic communities, aligning with President Xi Jinping’s directives on religion and ethnicity.
Additionally, Article 15 imposes strict quotas on the number of monks allowed in monasteries, granting the Buddhist Association of China (BAC) broad authority over the Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism. Article 30 further restricts religious education by requiring bureaucratic approval for monks and nuns seeking to study outside their monasteries, limiting access to non-state-sanctioned teachings.
The Dharamshala based research group highlighted that these revised measures systematically entrench CCP control over Tibetan Buddhism, contradicting China’s own legal framework. Article 36 of the Chinese Constitution guarantees citizens the right to religious freedom, while Article 11 of the Regional National Autonomy Law promises self-governance in cultural and religious affairs—both of which are undermined by these new restrictions.
“The Chinese government has significantly escalated its suppression of religious freedom in Tibet,” said Dawa Tashi, a researcher at the TCHRD. “Through coercive ‘patriotic education’ campaigns designed to instill loyalty, strict control over monastic institutions, and widespread arbitrary arrests and detentions, authorities have tightened their grip. Today, religion in Tibet is not just regulated—it is ruled with an iron fist.”
One Response
Communists regard religion as opium of the people! The Chinese communists are more anti- religion in Tibet than in China! The Chinese communists are first and foremost Han chauvinists! IT IS EQUIVALENT OF KKK or THE PROUD BOYS IN AMERICA. A concoction of Han supremest and anti- religion is the most deadly and lethal mix that drove the Chinese communists to murder Tibetan Lama’s like the Nazi’s did to the Jews! The Lamas were made to dig their own graves and then made to stand near it and short dead! These are horror tales, Tibetan monks who escaped into exile in the 1980s brought into exile! All the monks in the thousands, from many monasteries were forcibly removed to be sent to concentration camps where they were made to work from morning till late night to break their spirit! Some of them were locked in houses and starved to death by telling them, “now your Buddhas will feed you”! Being a Buddhist nation, Tibet had a huge population of monks and nuns. According to western estimate, out of ten Tibetans, one was a monk or nun! The target of the Chinese communists were the monks, nuns and their monasteries. They saw them as the power base of the Tibetan people and wanted to crush them! Except the old and infirm monks and nuns, every monk and nun was either imprisoned or sent to gulags to be reformed through labour under substance ration! Most of them were murdered through this policy of mass starvation, exhaustion and physical abuse, such beatings and torture! All monk officials were either executed or imprisoned who mostly died in prison such as Geshe Lobsang Wangchuk, Yukon Dawa Tsering and many others! High Lamas and eminent Geshes were deliberately humiliated by making them night soil removers or jamadars as we call them in India. It was a deliberate attempt to humiliate the followers of the Buddha who in the eyes of the anti- religious Chinese communists were the symbol of “backwardness, superstition and feudalism!” They also resorted to forcible disrobing of young monks by telling the monks that they will provide each monk with a woman and they must live with the woman. If they refuse to do so, they can’t predict the consequences! Such was the coercive policies of the evil regime. So, the monks were left with no other choice than disrobe and they did the same to the young nuns! As if this was not enough, under guise of punishment for refusing to comply Chinese coercive policies, monks and nuns were forced to copulate in public! Many of the atrocities committed by the Chinese communists were exposed by the Panchen Lama in his 7000 words petition which Mao saw as a poisoned chalice! The Panchen Lama was imprisoned for his apparent insolence in exposing the crimes of the CCP and forced to eat human faeces! Today, most of the resistance in Tibet is put up by the Tibetan monks and nuns! That’s why the incarceration of Tibetans in Chinese jails are mostly monks and nuns! The highest number of self-immolation against Chinese occupation of Tibet is carried out by monks and nuns or ex-monks! The Chinese communists see Tibetan Buddhism as the source of TIBETAN NATIONALISM which it sees as a “threat” to what it calls “national stability and ethnic unity”. As it were, it is DETERMINED TO COMPLETELY IRRADICATE TIBETAN BUDDHISM FOR GOOD! Therefore, there is no possibility of the survival of Tibetan Buddhism in occupied Tibet! Gradually, they will put more and more restrictions to become monks and the ones who are in the monastery will be force fed with communist ideology that slowly will morph into pseudo-Buddhism which has shed all the psychological training to become good compassionate human beings into a gross Chinese communist ideology of blood thirsty, human hating creatures that worships the CCP as the “liberator” and only “refuge” for their happiness! The holy Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will be replaced by blood thirsty demons like Mao, Deng, Jang Ziemen, Hu Juntao and Xi Jinping! If you notice the Chinese shills who are propagating CCP propaganda from Lhasa, you can already see the portraits of the blood thirsty tyrants ensconced with the Lord Buddha on the alters of all Tibetan monasteries and the blood soaked CCP red rag hanging from not only ordinary people’s homes but from monasteries including the Potala! This is the future prospect of Buddhism in occupied Tibet!