Lhasa Braces For Air-Raid Drill as China Responds to India’s Purchase of French Jets
2020-09-18
Chinese authorities in Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa will conduct an air-raid drill on Saturday as China calls for combat readiness amid rising tensions along its undefined Himalayan border with India in the mountainous region of Ladakh.
The drill, running from 12:00 noon to 12:15, follows India’s deployment on the border this week of five French-made Rafale jet fighters, and will be held “in order to improve the general public’s national defense concept and civil air defense awareness,” Chinese state media said on Tuesday.
“Citizens, government agencies, enterprises, institutions, and social organization personnel” are being urged to pay close attention to alarms, China’s People’s Daily newspaper said on Tuesday, adding that the scheduled drill is not expected to disrupt the city’s normal life and activities.
A clash between Indian and Chinese security forces in the Galwan Valley in northwestern India’s region of Ladakh in June left dozens of soldiers dead on both sides, with both India and China saying that troops from the other side had crossed into their territory.
The governments of both countries meanwhile continue to accuse each other’s militaries of making provocative maneuvers along the Line of Actual Control, their de-facto Himalayan border.
India had ordered and received the French-made jet fighters at the end of July “as it moves to upgrade its air force amid a spike in tensions with China,” Tsewang Dorjee—a researcher at the Dharamsala, India-based Tibet Policy Institute—told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“The air drill in Lhasa is aimed at strengthening combat readiness for [China’s] People’s Liberation Army in the event of an air strike in Lhasa or other Tibetan areas. This is a worrying and frightening situation for everyone, not only for Tibetans living in Tibet,” Dorjee said.
China had already been holding air raid drills in other major cities in September to mark China’s annual National Defense Education Day, retired Indian Army colonel and satellite imagery analyst Vinayak Bhat said in a written response to questions from RFA.
“But the timing of this drill has raised many eyebrows, as the last time such an exercise was carried out in Lhasa was in 2009,” he said.
“In the current situation of the ongoing border standoff between China and India, this looks like a tactic of psychological warfare by Beijing to create a climate of fear among Tibetans,” he added.
Dual-purpose airports
Five airports are now in operation in the Tibet Autonomous Region: the Lhasa Gonggar Airport, Nyingchi Mainling Airport, Shigatse Peace Airport, Chamdo Bangda Airport, and Ngari Gunsa Airport. Three others—Lhuntze in Lhokha; Tingri in Shigatse county; and Burang in Ngari near the border with India—are being built.
Tsewang Dorjee noted that the airport at Burang will pose a particular threat to India’s security due to its proximity to the border. “The Burang airport will play a key role in the speedy deployment of weapons and military reinforcements in the wake of any military confrontation with India,” Dorjee said.
China’s airports in Tibet are dual-purpose and can quickly be deployed for military use, with civilian air control staff trained to work with China’s air force in cases of emergency, Vinayak Bhat said. “There are also a number of radar sites, and they have integrated air defense which is quite good.”
As many as 16 air-defense sites using surface-to-air (SAM) missiles have recently been established along the border with Tibet, with one set up in the politically sensitive area of Lake Manasarovar near Mount Kailash in Burang, Bhat said.
“They are well aware that Manasarovar is a holy place for India, and yet they are trying to make a battlefield out of it. That is just not acceptable.”
“But the Indian air force is a very mature air force,” Bhat said. “I am sure they will be monitoring these things very closely, and they will take care of these sites very well.”
Reported by Urgen Tenzin and Lobe Socktsang for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Tenzin Phakdon and Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Tibet’s Exile Government Slams Call by China’s Xi Jinping to ‘Sinicize’ Tibetan Buddhism
2020-08-31
Tibet’s India-based exile government hit back this week at a call by China’s President Xi Jinping to Sinicize the Tibetan people’s Buddhist religion, describing the move as an attempt by China’s ruling Communist Party to destroy Tibet’s unique national identity.
“Tibetan Buddhism should be guided in adapting to [China’s] socialist society and should be developed in the Chinese context,” President Xi said on Aug. 29 at the 7th Central Symposium on Tibet held in Beijing.
Efforts to make Tibet’s centuries-old faith comply with China’s culture and political goals are misguided and unrealistic, though, Lobsang Sangay—political leader, or Sikyong, of Tibet’s exile Central Tibetan Administration—said in a response issued by the CTA this week.
“For Tibetans, Buddhism is more important than Communism,” Sangay said, calling Beijing’s attempt to raise China’s political system over the Tibetan people’s faith “a violation of international religious freedom.”
“[The] Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism is never going to work,” Sangay said. “The last 60 years of Chinese rule in Tibet is a testament to that fact.”
“The root cause of instability in Tibet is not the Tibetan people’s faith, but the repressive and failed policies of the Chinese government. The continuation of these hard-line policies and repression is only going to make matters worse,” Sangay said.
Chinese police and surveillance teams now regularly monitor life in Tibetan monasteries for signs of opposition to China’s rule, source in the region say. Meanwhile, authorities interfere with Tibet’s traditional recognition of senior Buddhist monks and other religious leaders in order to install politically compliant figures of their own choosing.
“Yet the determination of the Tibetan people inside Tibet is still strong, and [they remain] faithfully devoted to His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” Sangay said.
Regarded by Chinese leaders as a separatist, the present Dalai Lama fled Tibet into exile in India in the midst of a failed 1959 Tibetan national uprising against rule by China, which marched into the formerly independent Himalayan country in 1950.
Fear of losing control
China’s continuing attacks on the Dalai Lama meanwhile “show that Tibet is very important to the Chinese government, and also reflect Chinese officials’ fear of losing control,” Ngodup Tsering—the Dalai Lama’s representative in the Washington-D.C. based Office of Tibet—told RFA’s Tibetan Service in an interview this week.
It has been more than a decade since the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s traditional ruler, handed his political authority over to Tibetan exile political leaders now chosen by popular vote, Tsering said. “But China’s continued denunciations of His Holiness the Dalai Lama show that they are still deeply afraid.”
President Xi’s speech signals a “doubling down” of China’s current hard-line and repressive policy in Tibet, said Pema Jungney, speaker of Tibet’s India-based exile parliament, adding, “I can’t interpret it any other way.”
“They are determined to wipe Tibet’s history from the face of the earth.”
China is now establishing Communist Party structures in all areas of Tibet “to strengthen their command, policies, and power, thus suppressing all the freedoms of Tibetans in the spheres of faith and belief, politics, the economy, and culture,” Boston-based Tibet analyst and former assistant director of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy Jampel Monlam said, also speaking to RFA.
“If these policies of China’s continue much longer, I worry about what will happen to Tibet,” Monlam said.
Reported by Lobe Socktsang and Rigdhen Dolma for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Rigdhen Dolma and Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

US Presidential Candidate Joe Biden Vows Strong Policy Supporting Tibet
2020-09-04
Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden said he would take a strong stand against China’s human rights abuses in Tibet, and take measures to support Tibetans’ cultural and religious rights, including meeting exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
“As President, I’ll put values back at the center of American foreign policy,” Biden said in a Sept. 3 statement.
“I’ll meet with [exiled Tibetan spiritual leader] His Holiness the Dalai Lama, appoint a new Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, and insist that the Chinese government restore access to Tibet for U.S. citizens, including our diplomats and journalists,” Biden said.
“My administration will [also] sanction Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses in Tibet, and step up support for the Tibetan people, including by expanding Tibetan language services at Radio Free Asia and Voice of America to get information from the outside world into Tibet,” Biden said.
Biden also pledged to work with U.S. allies to press Beijing to return to talks with “representatives of the Tibetan people” to achieve greater freedoms and autonomy in the formerly independent Himalayan country, which China took over by force nearly 70 years ago.
Nine rounds of talks were held between envoys of the Dalai Lama and high-level Chinese officials beginning in 2002, but stalled in 2010 and were never resumed.
The Dalai Lama has met with the last four U.S. presidents, sometimes in unofficial drop-by encounters during scheduled meetings with other senior U.S. government figures, but has not yet met with Donald Trump, who has not invited him to the White House, media sources say.
Reached for comment, Karma Choeying—a spokesperson for the Central Tibetan Administration, Tibet’s India-based government in exile—welcomed Biden’s statement, noting that successive U.S. administrations and the U.S. Congress have “continuously supported the just cause of Tibet.”
“Today, the U.S. Democratic Presidential Candidate is promising to do the same, and we welcome his statement,” Choeying said.
“Whether it is religious freedom in Tibet, human rights, the preservation of culture and protection of the Tibetan people’s values, or expansion of the Radio Free Asia and Voice of America Tibetan language services—all of these agendas listed in Joe Biden’s statement are needed and good,” added Pema Jungney, Speaker of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile in Dharamsala, India.
“If he wins, I hope he will do what he’s promised,” Pema Jungney said.
“For now, [Biden] is a candidate and not yet elected,” Nima Dorjee, a Tibetan resident of Dharamsala, said. “And the words of a presidential candidate and a sitting president have different weight. If he wins and stays true to his words, this would be good news.”
Visas for Chinese officials restricted
Tibet policy initiatives of the Trump administration have drawn support from the India-based CTA and the Washington-based Tibetan advocacy group the International Campaign for Tibet.
On July 7, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo announced U.S. visa restrictions on selected Chinese officials deemed responsible for policies restricting access for foreigners to Tibetan areas of China, pursuant to the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act signed into law by President Trump in December 2018.
The law also requires the State Department to provide to the Congress each year a list of U.S. citizens denied entry into Tibet.
Washington has long complained that Chinese diplomats, scholars, and journalists enjoy unrestricted travel in the United States, while China tightly restricts the access of U.S. counterparts to Tibet and other areas.
A formerly independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force nearly 70 years ago, following which the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers fled into exile in India and other countries around the world.
Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of ethnic and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings.
Reported by Ugyen Tenzin for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Rigdhen Dolma. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Thousands of Tibetans Driven From Their Homes by China to Make Way For National Park
2020-09-09
Plans by China to build a national park in Tibetan-populated areas of Qinghai province are forcing thousands of nomads from their ancestral land, with final removal of the herders scheduled by the end of this year, Tibetan sources say.
The evictions will clear the way for the creation of the Mount Qilian National Park, a 50,200 square kilometer parkland and wild animal preserve straddling parts of Qinghai and neighboring Gansu, with the greater part lying in Gansu.
Around 4,000 Tibetan farmers and herders living in Themchen county’s Muru township and Suru and Drugkhyung villages have now been ordered off their land and told to move to Golmud city in Qinghai by the of 2020, one local resident told RFA’s Tibetan Service this week.
“The relocation project is in full swing right now, and the forced displacement of Tibetan nomads from their homes has become a matter of great concern for the local people,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The nomads from these areas are not willing to part from their ancestral land, but who is really able to defy China’s policies?” the source said.
On Sept. 3, Themchen county authorities held a meeting led by county governor Sengdrug in which Tibetan residents were pressured to comply with government orders to move, with officials adding that establishment of the national park was in line with Chinese president Xi Jinping’s concern for environmental conservation.
The official website of the Themchen county government on Sept. 3 confirmed the meeting had been held, saying it was “convened to appraise the local Tibetan nomads that the relocation project has to be completely carried out by the end of the year.”
Illegal mining had been carried on for many years at Mount Qilian, RFA’s source said.
“And now, in the name of environmental conservation and protection, Tibetan nomads must leave and move to Golmud. Local Chinese authorities have carried out a campaign to collect signatures and have held ‘awareness training sessions’ urging the nomads to willingly accept the project and their orders to move,” he said.
Also speaking to RFA, Tsering Dhondup—a former Tibetan political prisoner now living in Australia and a native of Bongtak Themchen, one of the affected areas—said that any Tibetan speaking out against China’s policy of displacement would face serious political consequences.
“In reality, in the name of environmental protection, the Tibetan people and their lives are being completely upended,” Dhondup said.
Resettlement schemes in Tibetan areas of China in recent years have driven thousands of Tibetans from their homes and into urban areas where they often live in crowded conditions with large families piled into single dwellings and opportunities for employment cut off, sources say.
According to the International Campaign for Tibet, Chinese authorities announced in 2017 in a policy criticized by Tibetans that “vast areas of Tibet will be turned into ‘national parks’ – contingent upon the removal of Tibetans from their ancestral lands.”
Reported by Thaklha Gyal. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Tibetan School Year Begins Under New Restrictions, Mandarin-only Instruction
2020-09-12
The school year for children living in Tibetan areas of China has started under harsh new restrictions, with children in one Qinghai county ordered by authorities out of their homes and into Chinese boarding schools, and the language of classroom instruction in another county switched from Tibetan to Chinese, Tibetan sources say.
In several towns in Qinghai’s Rebgong (in Chinese, Tongren) county, local primary schools have been closed by government order, and Tibetan children are being forced against their parents’ wishes into boarding schools in areas far away, a local source told RFA’s Tibetan Service this week.
“The Tibetan parents have appealed to Chinese authorities not to separate their children from them by sending them off to other regions for schooling,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “And when the authorities did not heed their request, some of them staged a protest.”
The parents’ protest quickly triggered a crackdown by police, with police vehicles and blaring sirens responding quickly to the protest scene, and one male protester was taken into custody, the source said.
“Several children at the protest were so frightened by all the commotion that they fainted,” the source said, adding that the children’s parents were finally forced to send their children away to the Chinese government-designated boarding schools.
The single protester taken into custody was later released, he said.
Classes taught only in Chinese
In Qinghai’s Themchen (in Chinese, Tianjun) county, two middle schools in the Bongtak area were meanwhile merged, forcing Tibetan schoolchildren into classes taught only in Chinese and following a similar merger of nearby primary schools, another local source told RFA.
“Previously, Tibetan parents had a choice of sending their children to a Tibetan-language or a Mandarin-language school, and the Tibetans would send their children to the Tibetan schools,” RFA’s source said, also speaking on condition his name not be used.
“But now most of these schools have been merged, creating ethnically mixed classes, which is a huge concern for us,” the source said.
“The Tibetan language itself is now the only subject taught in Tibetan, leaving Mandarin as the medium of instruction for all the other subjects taught in school,” the source said, adding that the move appears aimed at implementing China’s new policy of eroding language rights to destroy minority cultures.
The enactment of similar policies in China’s Inner Mongolia region have led in recent weeks to widespread protests and boycotts of the schools, with hundreds of ethnic Mongolians arrested or forced to resign from public office after they resisted the changes to the curriculum, which were kept under wraps until the start of the new semester at the end of August.
China’s Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law says that agencies in ethnic autonomous areas have the right to make decisions about education, including the language used in classroom instruction, said U.S.-based China analyst Ganze Kyab Lama.
“But many restrictive policies have now gained momentum under the leadership of Chinese president Xin Jinping as local officials look after their own political advantage and gain,” Kyab said.
Language rights have become a particular focus for Tibetan efforts to assert national identity in recent years, with informally organized language courses in the monasteries and towns typically deemed “illegal associations” and teachers subject to detention and arrest, sources say.
Reported by Chakmo Tso and Dorjee Tso for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

It is time India gave its policy on Tibet some strategic coherence
September 16, 2020
Beijing is in a strong position but New Delhi should resist China’s efforts to consolidate its current hold on Tibetan politics
In a development that attracted relatively little international attention, Xi Jinping unveiled the Communist Party of China’s (CPC’s) new policy towards Tibet at a conclave in late August. As my colleague Manoj Kewalramani explained in the Hindustan Times last week, Xi’s new strategy “entails a mix of persuasion, development, connectivity, indoctrination and coercion”. Beijing intends to construct an “ironclad shield to safeguard stability” against separatists and hostile foreign interests by sinicizing Tibetan Buddhism, stepping up ideological education, manufacturing a favourable historical narrative, strengthening border defence, deepening surveillance and enhancing connectivity to neighbouring Chinese provinces. The new policy continues to betray the CPC’s insecurities vis-a-vis Tibet, but it also indicates that Xi believes Beijing occupies the dominating heights of its relationship with Tibet.
He is not wrong in thinking so. Over the past two decades, Beijing has used its growing power to limit the Dalai Lama’s global outreach, severely constrain protests in Tibet, and change the demography of the region. Transforming the Tibetan landscape and economy, it has created vested interests in favour of Beijing’s rule among Tibetans and Han Chinese alike. It has found numerous ways to put pressure on New Delhi to limit formal interactions with the Dharamsala-based Central Tibetan Administration. Even as the PLA has increased transgressions across the length of the India-Tibet border, Beijing has become more forceful in pressing its claims to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which it claims as “South Tibet”.
There is one major inescapable event that stands in the way of China having its way—that of identifying the next Dalai Lama once the ageing Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, passes away. Beijing’s plan to manage this is by invoking the so-called Golden Urn process—a bureaucratic device used by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty to manage the politics of reincarnation in the late-18th century by drawing lots. Just in case the lottery doesn’t go the way Beijing wants it to, it has declared that all reincarnations require the approval of the Chinese government. With the Panchen Lama, who by tradition is the preceptor of the Dalai Lama, already under Chinese control, Beijing has decided to wait out the Dalai Lama rather than negotiate with him. If things go by China’s plan, its problem with the institution of the Dalai Lama will end with Tenzin Gyatso’s departure.
Once it has Tibet completely in its bag, there is nothing to stop Beijing from asserting territorial claims all along the Himalayas, from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh. It is in this context that we must see Xi’s desire to shape a historical narrative that retrospectively legitimises the People Republic of China’s (PRC) annexation of Tibet. There was a time when Zhou Enlai and even Deng Xiaoping were amenable to a settlement where Beijing would accept Arunachal Pradesh as part of India were New Delhi to surrender claims to Aksai Chin. Now, and presumably in the future, with the balance of power shifting massively in favour of China, Beijing believes it can realize its claims without conceding anything to India, Nepal, Bhutan or Pakistan.
It is for this unsentimental reason that it is in India’s interests to ensure that China does not consolidate its hold over Tibet. To the extent that Beijing is insecure about the loyalties of ethnic Tibetans under its rule and about the external legitimacy of its annexation, it will find it harder to actively pursue territorial ambitions in the Himalayas. India’s interests with regard to Tibet are thus subtler than mere support for Tibetan aspirations for autonomy or freedom from Chinese rule. The Kautilyan logic of the rajamandala, after all, is structural.
There is no doubt that China is in as strong a position in Tibet than it ever was. It does not mean that the future it desires is a foregone conclusion. Beijing still does not control two important factors: how the Tibetan people conduct politics; and the existence of credible, legitimate spiritual and political leadership outside China’s control. India’s Tibet policy should concern itself with shaping these to our advantage. On the latter, New Delhi should ensure that senior lamas of all sects of Tibetan Buddhism, including the Dalai and Karmapa, remain free to pursue their religion and politics. With India hosting the largest population of ethnic Tibetans outside their homeland, there is no reason why the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama cannot be from, say, Karnataka.
The Indian government must neither accept the legitimacy of the Golden Urn process nor Beijing’s self-arrogated authority to recognize religious reincarnations. Even if the patron-priest relationship that Chinese emperors had with Tibetan high lamas might sometimes have given them privileges in religious matters, by no stretch of imagination can the atheist leaders of today’s PRC claim any.
India’s own policy on Tibet suffered a lack of focus over the past decade because New Delhi did not want to offend Beijing. This led to a degree of incoherence in the way different government departments and political actors approached the matter. There have been periodic, isolated acts of symbolism. However, unless backed by purposeful policy and substantive actions, symbolism alone is dangerous and can be counterproductive. The time has come for India to review its approach towards Tibet.
Nitin Pai is co-founder and director of The Takshashila Institution, an independent centre for research and education in public policy

Hollywood Censors Films for Content ‘Offensive’ to China, Fearing Loss of Business There
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/censors-08172020170532.html
Fearing loss of market share in China, Hollywood studios are now removing from their films any content related to Tibet or other human rights issues considered politically sensitive by Beijing, according to a U.S.-based media freedoms group. “As U.S. film studios compete for the opportunity to access Chinese audiences, many are making difficult and troubling compromises on free expression,” PEN America says in a recent report, “Made in Hollywood, Censored by Beijing.” Film content is now frequently changed even for American audiences, while studios provide censored versions of films specifically for Chinese audiences and sometimes invite Chinese censors onto film sets to advise them on how to avoid “tripping the censors’ wires,” PEN America said. Studios’ decisions on casting, plot, dialogue, and settings are now made “based on a desire to avoid antagonizing Chinese officials who control whether their films gain access to the booming Chinese market,” PEN America said, adding that these decisions are carefully made “behind closed doors” and out of public view.
After making two films in 1997—Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet–depicting China’s conquest of Tibet,  two major studios were banned from doing business in China for the next five years, and Hollywood quickly got the message, with Disney CEO Michael Eisner going to Beijing to apologize for his company’s production of Kundun and its sympathetic treatment of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. Seven Years in Tibet, starring Brad Pitt, was also supportive of Tibet and would never be made again today, Emily Jashinsky—Cultural Editor at The Federalist—told RFA’s Tibetan Service in an interview. “Seven Years in Tibet is a great example of a film that would never be made in today’s Hollywood, and this is because everybody in the industry is absolutely petrified of being blacklisted by the Chinese Communist Party,” Jashinsky said. “Hollywood would be terrified even if they made that movie just for viewing in the United States and elsewhere, and not to be shown in China,” Jashinsky said, adding that movies with sympathetic treatments of Tibet are “politically against what the CCP wants their narrative to be.”
An invisible phenomenon
As an industry, Hollywood should develop a mechanism for disclosure that would reveal censorship requests made to it by foreign governments and say how studios responded, said James Tager, PEN Deputy Director of Free Expression Research and Policy. “Ultimately, self-censorship flourishes in obscurity or in invisibility. So if we want to tackle this issue, we have to start discussing this more honestly and address the fact that this is largely an invisible phenomenon.” China’s influence over Hollywood reflects the country’s growing success in forcing foreign corporate compliance with Beijing’s propaganda goals, with international companies as diverse as Mercedes-Benz and Marriott giving in to Chinese censorship demands, PEN America said in its report.
Meanwhile, the media freedoms group said, Hollywood films reach billions, and “help to shape the way people think.”  In a statement sent to RFA, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz said that one way Beijing attempts to advance its preferred narrative about Tibet and other issues sensitive to China is by “coercing Americans into self-censorship—especially in Hollywood.” “That’s why I have introduced the SCRIPT Act, which would cut off Hollywood studios from assistance they receive from the U.S. Government if those studios censor their films for screening in China,” Cruz said, calling the proposed legislation a “wake-up call” for Hollywood. “I remain committed to protecting our national security and ensuring that the Chinese Communist Party is held accountable for their censorship, human rights abuses, propaganda campaigns, and espionage operations,” Cruz said.

UN experts write to China on Panchen Lama, reincarnation rules
August 4, 2020
Five UN human rights experts and expert bodies have raised concerns with the Chinese government about Tibet’s “disappeared” Panchen Lama and Beijing’s reincarnation rules, citing fears about Chinese interference in the succession of the Dalai Lama.
In a statement to the Chinese government, the experts “express grave concern at the continued refusal by the Government of China to disclose precisely the whereabouts of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima,” the 11th Panchen Lama, and call for an independent monitor to visit him.
The Panchen Lama, one of the most important figures in Tibetan Buddhism, has been missing since the Chinese government kidnapped him and his family in 1995 just days after the Dalai Lama identified him as the reincarnation of the previous Panchen Lama. Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was only six years old at the time.
The Chinese government’s rules on the appointment of Tibetan Buddhist leaders “may interfere and possibly undermine[s], in a discriminatory way, the religious traditions and practices of the Tibetan Buddhist minority,” the statement from the UN experts says.
The experts appeal to the Chinese government “to ensure that Tibetan Buddhists are able to freely practice their religion, traditions and cultures without interference,” as freedom of religion includes the right of Tibetan Buddhists “to determine their clergy and religious leaders in accordance with their own religious traditions and practices.”
The statement was made public on August 1 and submitted by the mandates of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights; the Special Rapporteur on minority issues; and the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief.
Dalai Lama succession
The International Campaign for Tibet welcomes the statement by the UN experts. “The abduction of the Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, 25 years ago is an open wound in the hearts and minds of Tibetan Buddhists,” ICT said. “The Chinese government, after years of bluntly ignoring UN bodies and international criticism, must finally allow free access to him.”
The organization added: “The UN experts also underline that any state interference with the appointment of Tibetan Buddhist leaders stands in clear contravention of international human rights law. As they rightly acknowledge such fears, this would be the case with Beijing’s stated intention to appoint a future Dalai Lama. The international community should therefore double its efforts to safeguard the rights of the Tibetans to choose a future Dalai Lama without interference by the Chinese government.”
The Chinese government has repeatedly claimed the right to choose the successor to the current 14th Dalai Lama and has passed rules and regulations to support this claim, despite criticism by Tibetan Buddhists, especially the Dalai Lama himself.
Recently, the high representative of the European Union, Josep Borrell, stated that the “selection of religious leaders should happen without any government interference and in respect of religious norms. The implementation of any legal provision should take these principles into account. The Chinese revised regulations on Religious Affairs pose serious questions in this respect and it will be therefore important to monitor their implementation … China needed to respect the succession process of the Dalai Lama.”
Tibetan Policy and Support ActLast year, the US Congress introduced the bipartisan Tibetan Policy and Support Act, a comprehensive bill that will dramatically upgrade US support for Tibetans, including by making it official US policy that only Tibetan Buddhists can decide on the Dalai Lama’s succession.
If Chinese officials attempt to name their own Dalai Lama in the future, they will face sanctions under the act.
The House of Representatives passed the bill by an overwhelming majority in January. ICT is now working to get the bill passed by the Senate and signed into law by the president this year.

Tibetan Exiles Continue Experiment in Democracy as New Elections Near
2020-07-22
Tibetans living outside of their China-ruled homeland are now preparing for a new round of elections, the third since 2011, to seat a new political leader, or Sikyong, for their India-based government-in-exile as the current officeholder’s five-year term in office nears its end.
Lobsang Sangay, a Harvard-trained scholar of law, has now served two consecutive terms as Sikyong and will retire as president of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) when his present terms ends in May 2021.
No one has yet declared their candidacy to replace him in the post, though possible contenders include Gyari Dolma, former deputy speaker of Tibet’s exile parliament and former home minister in Sangay’s cabinet; Drongchung Ngodup, former CTA minister of security; Lobsang Nyandak, former finance minister in the government of Sangay’s predecessor Samdhong Rinpoche; and Acharya Yeshi Phuntsok, current deputy speaker of the exile parliament.
Some in the Tibetan exile community have meanwhile voiced concern over the possible impact of Covid-19 related restrictions on public gatherings on voting held in the many countries in Europe, North America, India, and elsewhere in Asia where Tibetans have made their home after fleeing China’s rule.
“We are hoping and planning that the Tibetan diaspora around the world can proceed for the general election vote to take place on time,” Tibetan exile Chief Election Commissioner Wangdue Tsering Pesur told RFA’s Tibetan Service in a July 20 interview.
“This will need to be done in compliance with the local situation and laws of the land” set up to block the spread of coronavirus, though, Pesur added.
Voting will be held first in preliminary and primary polls, with a previous gap of 90 days between these rounds now reduced to 45 days, and two candidates for a final election for Sikyong selected based on results from the preliminary round, sources say.
In the event of only one candidate for Sikyong emerging in the contest because of other candidates withdrawing in the early rounds, he or she must still gain at least 51 percent of the votes that are cast in order to be declared elected, however.
Regional, religious partisanship
Efforts have now been made to reduce the impact of partisanship based on Tibetan regional loyalties or religious affiliation, with Tibetan NGOs including regional associations and religious sects now barred from endorsing candidates.
“Voters and their candidates and the candidates’ supporters should uphold a sense of Tibetan unity in their campaigning and vetting processes,” said Pema Jungney, speaker of Tibet’s India-based Parliament in Exile, adding, “This should be an integral part of the candidates’ campaigns.”
The numbers of Tibetan exiles registered to vote have climbed in the last 10 years, with 82,818 signed up for the 2011 election, of whom 48,482 actually voted, and 90,877 registered for the election held in 2016, of whom 59,853 turned out to vote.
The Tibetan diaspora is estimated to include about 150,000 people in 40 countries.
Disputes over Tibet’s status
Divisions meanwhile persist in the Tibetan exile community over how best to advance the rights and freedoms of Tibetans living in China, with some calling for a restoration of the independence lost when Chinese troops marched into Tibet in 1950.
The CTA and Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama have instead adopted a policy approach called the Middle Way, which accepts Tibet’s present status as a part of China but urges greater cultural and religious freedoms, including strengthened language rights, for Tibetans living under Beijing’s rule.
Speaking to RFA, Gonpo Dhondup—president of the exile Tibetan Youth Congress, which advocates for Tibet’s independence—said that his own organization struggles for Tibet’s complete independence “based on our moral rights and duties as an NGO functioning under a democratic administration.”
“This official policy of CTA may change if a majority of Tibetans want it to do so,” Dhondup said.
“Debates and discussions [around this issue] are constantly taking place in our exile community, as would happen in any other democratic country,” Dhondup said.
“There are some people who do challenge the Middle Way policy, and they are then attacked by certain other people for appearing to oppose His Holiness [the Dalai Lama], as if they lacked faith in His Holiness.”
“But I don’t think they lack faith in His Holiness. They just don’t trust the Chinese government,” Dhondup said.
Reported by Ugyen Tenzin and Dorjee Damdul for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Tibetan Monasteries Closed to Outside Visitors on Dalai Lama’s Birthday
2020-07-10
Chinese authorities fanned out across Tibetan areas of China over the weekend, warning Tibetan monasteries not to host “outside visitors” during the 85th birthday on July 6 of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, a source in exile said.
Areas covered by the prohibition included monasteries in western China’s Sichuan and Qinghai provinces, and parts of the Kanlho (in Chinese, Gannan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the northwestern province of Gansu, RFA’s source said, citing contacts in the region.
“While introducing Chinese policy and relevant laws to the monasteries, the officials emphasized that no outside visitors would be permitted to stay there,” the source said.
In Sichuan province’s Kardze (Ganzi) prefecture, a government group led by Wang Shu Yin, a Communist Party official and head of the local police department, entered Ganden Phuntsok Ling monastery in Rongdrag (Danba) county on July 5 to conduct inspections, the source said.
“During their tour, the Chinese officials urged the residents to become ‘exemplary and patriotic’ monks and watch out for any outside visitors in the area and in the monastery itself,” he said, adding, “The officials urged the monks to report any suspicious persons to the local government or police department.”
Strict prohibitions against overnight visitors to the monastery had already been in place since 2019 in an effort to deter protests on the occasion of politically sensitive anniversaries such as the March 10th anniversary of Tibetan national uprisings against Chinese rule and the July 6 birthday of the Dalai Lama, the source said.
Greetings and well wishes meanwhile poured in from around the world on Sunday, the Dalai Lama’s 85th birthday, with Tibetans in Tibet defying Chinese prohibitions on celebrations by offering prayers and posting images of the revered spiritual leader online – often using oblique symbols.
“Many devotees in different parts of Tibet have made ritual offerings of juniper smoke to celebrate the birthday of the Dalai Lama,” a source in Tibet said in an earlier report, adding that other Tibetans had gone online to post images of the Buddhist deity of compassion, Chenresig, with whom the Dalai Lama is identified.
Other Tibetan netizens posted poems in celebration, with one addressing the well-loved spiritual teacher as “the glorious sun,” and another writing, “As long as you are present, our hope remains unflinching. May you live as long as space endures.”
Regarded by Chinese leaders as a dangerous separatist, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet into exile in India in the midst of a failed 1959 Tibetan national uprising against rule by China, which marched into the formerly independent Himalayan country in 1950.
Displays by Tibetans of the Dalai Lama’s photo, public celebrations of his birthday, and the sharing of his teachings on mobile phones or other social medial are often harshly punished.
Chinese authorities meanwhile maintain a tight grip on Tibet and on Tibetan-populated regions of western China, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identities, and subjecting Tibetans to imprisonment, torture, and extrajudicial killings.
Reported by RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.