Chinese Communist Party has implemented more hard-line policies on Tibet during the last weeks ahead of the birthday of the Dalai Lama. This has happened despite rumours which suggested that the cult to the figure of Tibetan spiritual leader had been allowed in some areas and the invitation by a Chinese religious group to visit Hong Kong in September, as well as the latest statement by Chinese scholar Jin Wei, who suggested that talks with Dalai Lama's representatives should be resumed after more than two years of stallement and even claimed that China should invite him to visit Hong Kong or Macau and eventually allow him to come back to Tibet only on the role of Buddhist leader with no voice on political affairs.
After tightening the surveillance on Tibetans and the plans to vanish the ancient heritage of Lhasa by creating a comertial area across the Barkhor area (a road that circumvalates Jokhang temple, one of the holiest in the city), the last move by Chinese authorities in Tibet has been the re-launchment of calls for "absolute fight" against the Dalai Lama, as Yu Zhengsheng stated during a meeting with local officials and religious leaders in Gansu province. At the same time, Chinese police shot several people who were celebrating the birthday of Tenzin Gyatso in Tawu county, Kham (Ch.: Daofu County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan). According to some reports emerging from exile, at least two monks (Tashi Sonam and Ugyen Tashi) were shot in the head whilst several others were injured due to the shooting and the use of teargas. In addition, a report by Human Rights Watch has highlighted recently that nearly a third of Tibetans (approximately 2 million people) have been moved away from their homes and grasslands and transferred to the so-called New Socialist Villages, being barred from continuing with their traditional way of life. Therefore, many nomads have been forcibly sedentarized and condemned to alcoholism and margination. The video below gives the background and key features for this issue.
The situation has worsened since Xi Jinping became president of the country and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, with a spike on surveillance on non-Han people, including Tibetans and Uyghurs (a Turkic ethnic group living in Xinjiang). Several measures of control have been implemented on minorities, such as monitoring of phone and internet communications, house-to-house searchings and arbitrary detentions or a tightening control on religious activities among others. Moreover, the increased control on minorities and "separatism" is not an isolated fact but an attempt to reassure its current boundaries by controlling some strategic points. In the case of Tibet, the plateau is the source of some of major rivers in East and Southeast Asia like Mekong, Yangtze, Brahmaputra or Salween. In addition, both Tibet and Inner Mongolia are rich in mineral resources crucial to the development of China whilst Xinjiang is rich in petrol, agricultural resources and livestock. So that, the Communist Party of China is not interested in loosing its control on them. Furthermore, both Tibet and Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia are territories which share its borders with several countries, thus a heavy military presence is deployed there.
On the other hand, current policies towards Tibet or other "separatist" regions coincide with an increasing assertiveness towards some territories which are considered by China as its own. China's claims include not only the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, an archipielago situated in the East China Sea (they are a disputed territory by both China and Japan) but also other islands and continental territories like Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state which shares its boundaries with Tibet, Bhutan and Myanmar and claimed by China as a territory called Southern Tibet. But the region which has suffered more attacks to its sovereignty is the territory of Ladakh, a valley situated in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, which shares borders with the Tibetan region of Ngari and Aksai Chin, currently part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In fact, the last one has been repeatedly invaded by patrols of the People's Liberation Army during the last year, with some incursions into the area like the ones which took place in April or May this year and have not resulted in violent clashes between both armies, the last of them taking place only four or five days ago. However, India's reaction has been lukewarm since it has not broken any diplomatic conflict between the two countries. For instance, there have been some high-level meetings between important politicians from both countries, including Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang's visit to India in which both countries scheduled diplomatic meetings to discuss the ways to end the rows.
Unlike some scholars who seem surprised by the continuity of hard-line policies on Tibet at a scale that reminds the years of the Cultural Revolution and the impunity that China is enjoying, the last change on the leadership in the country and the CCP has made a variation on policies towards the region unlikely. Instead, some Western countries turn a blind-eye on the precarious situation of human rights in the country by intensifying their economic ties with China or making some political agreements with the Communist Party, like the Memorandum of Understanding between the CCP and the People's Party, the ruling party in Spain. Moreover, the concerns that different governments like the United States have raised over Tibet have not prompted any response by Chinese authorities, which repeatedly claim that Tibetans enjoy more freedom than ever. Thus China enjoys great freedom to address the situation in Tibet at its convenience, despite the damages that the repression on Tibetans could cause to this ethnic group and even to the whole country.
On the other hand, current policies towards Tibet or other "separatist" regions coincide with an increasing assertiveness towards some territories which are considered by China as its own. China's claims include not only the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, an archipielago situated in the East China Sea (they are a disputed territory by both China and Japan) but also other islands and continental territories like Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state which shares its boundaries with Tibet, Bhutan and Myanmar and claimed by China as a territory called Southern Tibet. But the region which has suffered more attacks to its sovereignty is the territory of Ladakh, a valley situated in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, which shares borders with the Tibetan region of Ngari and Aksai Chin, currently part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In fact, the last one has been repeatedly invaded by patrols of the People's Liberation Army during the last year, with some incursions into the area like the ones which took place in April or May this year and have not resulted in violent clashes between both armies, the last of them taking place only four or five days ago. However, India's reaction has been lukewarm since it has not broken any diplomatic conflict between the two countries. For instance, there have been some high-level meetings between important politicians from both countries, including Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang's visit to India in which both countries scheduled diplomatic meetings to discuss the ways to end the rows.
Unlike some scholars who seem surprised by the continuity of hard-line policies on Tibet at a scale that reminds the years of the Cultural Revolution and the impunity that China is enjoying, the last change on the leadership in the country and the CCP has made a variation on policies towards the region unlikely. Instead, some Western countries turn a blind-eye on the precarious situation of human rights in the country by intensifying their economic ties with China or making some political agreements with the Communist Party, like the Memorandum of Understanding between the CCP and the People's Party, the ruling party in Spain. Moreover, the concerns that different governments like the United States have raised over Tibet have not prompted any response by Chinese authorities, which repeatedly claim that Tibetans enjoy more freedom than ever. Thus China enjoys great freedom to address the situation in Tibet at its convenience, despite the damages that the repression on Tibetans could cause to this ethnic group and even to the whole country.
