Threatened by Tibetan Identity, China Ramps Up Its Suppression Campaign

China's high-handedness in expunging Tibetan Buddhists' cultural and spiritual legacy has once again taken a brutal toll. On December 24, 2024, a wave of shock hit the world when it was reported that a Tibetan village head named Gonpo Namgyal, who was in his 40s, had succumbed to horrific injuries.

Namgyal was detained in Darlag County by Chinese authorities for about seven months, according to reports. The county is in Golog, the so-called Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) of China. He passed away on December 18, 2024, just days after his release from detention.

Gonpo Namgyal, along with 20 other Tibetans, was arrested in a crackdown by Chinese authorities in May 2024 for participating in a "pure mother tongue" campaign to preserve the Tibetan language. Their initiative countered Beijing's thrust of the Mandarin language on all in the TAR. As per media reports, Namgyal was subjected to frequent beatings and electrocution during his detention.

International Condemnation Rebuffed

The incident took place at a time when the UN Human Rights Council and other international bodies had expressed concern about the deteriorating human rights conditions of Tibetans, Mongolians, Uyghurs, and other minorities in China. However, Beijing, which refers to Tibet as Xizang, has always rebuffed such concerns, dismissing them as "interference" in the internal affairs of China.

"Xizang affairs are China's internal affairs which brook no interference by any external forces. [And] Xizang today enjoys social stability and harmony, with sound economic performance and people's well-being well protected," China's Foreign Ministry said.

However, the recent incident of Gonpo Namgyal's torture and death has confirmed Beijing's unbridled ambition to eliminate its minorities' cultural and other fundamental rights.

In 2021, China launched a campaign to make Mandarin the country's national language. It set a target of 85% of its citizens using Mandarin as the primary language by 2025. Along with this, Beijing has advocated for making Mandarin nearly universal by 2035, including people who live in rural areas and ethnic minorities.

Assimilation at All Costs

Behind this move is China's cultural insecurity. It justifies these measures by saying they will help safeguard China's unity, stop ethnic separatism, and ensure national security. Yet, it should not be forgotten that the process of Sinicization of Tibet and its culture, traditions, and way of life has only accelerated since Xi Jinping became the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) General Secretary in 2013.

In September 2020, when China and entire parts of the world were grappling with the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, Xi Jinping attended the seventh central symposium on Tibet. The event is considered to be China's highest-level meeting on Tibet. There, he proposed three goals for the complete assimilation of Tibetans into Chinese mainstream life.

The first goal included strengthening political and ideological education in Tibetan schools by replacing religious texts with the CCP rulebook. Second, the Chinese President emphasized strengthening border defense and frontier security in Tibet by crushing any dissent. Finally, the third goal included replacing Tibetan scripts with Chinese characters.

*Chinese police patrol in front of the Potala Palace in Tibet’s capital Lhasa in a file photo. (Radio Free Asia via Central Tibetan Administration)*

The Impact on Tibetan Children

As a result of these proposals, China separated around one million Tibetan children from their families. It forcibly placed them into Chinese state-run boarding schools. This was part of Beijing's efforts to assimilate them "culturally, religiously, and linguistically into the dominant Han Chinese culture," as Time Magazine reported.

The American news magazine was quoting a 2023 UN report, which further stated that Tibetan children from rural areas were placed in residential schools. At the schools, lessons were "conducted solely in Mandarin Chinese with scant reference to Tibetan history, religion, and certainly not exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama."

In the name of maintaining long-term peace and stability, monasteries in the Tibetan region are subjected to monitoring. Monks and nuns are harassed and often persecuted by Chinese authorities. Furthermore, large-scale data on Tibetans is being collected through DNA extraction, iris scans, and facial recognition in the name of so-called social management.

Intensification of Crackdowns

Beijing's campaign received a boost when Chen Wenqing, China's top intelligence officer addressed a group of provincial security chiefs in Gannan in Gansu province on August 27, 2023.

Chen is a member of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee and is also the Secretary of the CCPCentral Political and Legal Affairs Commission. In his speech, he called for taking a clear stand to safeguard the unity of China, oppose ethnic separatism, and ensure national security.

State-backed Xinhua news quoted Chen Wenqing as further saying that the provincial security chiefs "must take the initiative to prevent and control risks and resolutely maintain the long-term peace and stability of not only the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) but also of prefectures with Tibetan majorities in the surrounding four provinces."

This statement clearly shows the lack of confidence among Chinese authorities regarding national security. To overcome it, they often resort to torture and killings of Tibetans and other minorities in the country.

Beijing's crackdown on Tibetan people for participating in the "pure mother tongue" campaign, as well as the detention, torture, and death of Gonpo Namgyal, clearly demonstrates this mindset of Chinese officials.

A Disguise for Oppression

But the question remains: Has China's forced cultural assimilation of Tibetans yielded any positive outcomes for the country? Not at all. Rather, it has brought disrepute to China. A recent report by Human Rights Watch revealed that since 2016, Chinese authorities have relocated 500 villages in Tibet, affecting 140,000 residents, in violation of international law.

In its 70-page report, the HRW cites China's official data which suggests that more than 930,000 Tibetans in rural areas have been relocated since 2000. Approximately 76% of these relocations have taken place since 2016.

To make Tibetans comply with their relocation order, Chinese authorities have used coercive measures. These include repeated home visits and threats of punishment, the HRW report said. However, China has justified the relocation of Tibetans by claiming that it has been undertaken to "eradicate absolute poverty and to "protect the ecological environment." This fits into China's usual practice of denouncing the truth.

Author: Pema Gyalpo Visiting Professor, Takushoku University and Emeritus Professor, Gifu Women's University