Earlier this month, a massive earthquake struck Tibet and severely damaged numerous monasteries and nunneries. Recent media articles since then have highlighted other ongoing threats to Tibetan culture from the Chinese government and how the struggle for its preservation is playing out in the region and around the world. At The New York Times, Chris Buckley analyzed hundreds of videos that Tibetan boarding schools posted to Chinese social media to show how the government separates hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children from their families and strips them of their Tibetan identity:
Across China’s west, the party is placing children in boarding schools in a drive to assimilate a generation of Tibetans into the national mainstream and mold them into citizens loyal to the Communist Party.
Tibetan rights activists, as well as experts working for the United Nations, have said that the party is systematically separating Tibetan children from their families to erase Tibetan identity and to deepen China’s control of a people who historically resisted Beijing’s rule. They have estimated that around three-quarters of Tibetan students age 6 and older — and others even younger — are in residential schools that teach largely in Mandarin, replacing the Tibetan language, culture and Buddhist beliefs that the children once absorbed at home and in village schools.
[…E]xtensive interviews and research by The New York Times show that Tibetan children appear to be singled out by the Chinese authorities for enrollment in residential schools. Their parents often have little or no choice but to send them, experts, parents, lawyers and human rights investigators said in interviews. Many parents do not see their children for long stretches.
[…] The Chinese government does not say how many Tibetan children are in boarding schools. The Tibet Action Institute, an international group that has campaigned to close the schools, estimates that among children aged 6 to 18, the figure is at least 800,000 — or three in every four Tibetan children. [Source]
Last week, the government of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) decided to incorporate about 400,000 square kilometers, or nearly a third of the TAR’s total land area, into a national park plan. Reporting on the decision, the Tibetan Review noted, “Such plans have led to large-scale forced relocation of Tibetan farmers and nomads who lost their traditional habitats and ways of life, greatly impoverishing them.” These plans also align with broader goals to market Tibet’s natural beauty to Han Chinese and develop the region’s tourism sector. For Foreign Policy this week, Judith Hertog described how the Chinese government’s success in turning Tibet into a tourist destination has allowed it to propagate nationalist narratives about the region’s historical and contemporary relationship to Beijing that displace Tibetan autonomy, both metaphorically and literally:
[The commodification of Gyalthang into “Shangri-La City”] was so successful, in fact, that Beijing exported this model throughout Tibet, turning the region into something of a theme park for the Chinese nation.
Large swaths of the Tibetan plateau—once grazing grounds to sheep and yak herders—were fenced off as “nature reserves” from which the original inhabitants have been removed. Formerly impassible mountain ranges were cut through with tunnels and highways promoted as “scenic routes” that now attract millions of Chinese motorists each year. Along these routes, “scenic towns” were developed from scratch to showcase “traditional” Tibetan culture and crafts. Monasteries were renovated as tourist attractions, and, along highways, fake nomad encampments were set up as photo ops.
[…] “Tibetan culture is being romanticized as pure, spiritual, and attuned to nature,” said [Researcher Emily Yeh from the University of Colorado Boulder]. “But at the same time, Tibetan people are being removed from the landscape because the Tibetan Plateau is expected to serve as an ecological resource that provides clean water and air to the Chinese nation.”
[…] One of the most heavily promoted tourist attractions in Lhasa, advertised as a “must-see” for anyone visiting the city, is a government-subsidized musical spectacle that tells the story of Chinese Princess Wencheng, who married a powerful Tibetan king in the seventh century. In reality, she was a minor character in Tibetan history, only one of the king’s diplomatic marriages at a time when the Tibetan Empire was so powerful that it briefly conquered parts of China. But Chinese propaganda has turned history on its head and seized upon Princess Wencheng’s story to argue, without evidence, that she introduced agriculture, Buddhism, and civilization to Tibet and that, therefore, China’s annexation of the region is justified. According to state media, more than 3 million tourists have attended this show since it premiered in 2013. [Source]
Another domain where these narrative struggles intersect is that of language, specifically debates over what to call the Tibetan territory. The Chinese government has increasingly pushed for Sinicizing the traditional name, “Tibet,” by replacing it with the Mandarin pinyin, “Xizang.” Various European museums have decided to employ the new terminology in recent exhibits, drawing fierce criticism from the Tibetan diaspora. At Inkstick last week, Victoria Jones described the political roles of museums in guarding historical narratives and shaping perceptions, in the words of Tibetan activists:
At the British Museum, both words were used alongside each other. Yet, Tibetan activists in London, like Tsering Passang, argue that the move is not objective. “The choice of terminology here is far from neutral; it is a political stance that dismisses the unique identity of Tibet and subtly reinforces China’s contested claim to Tibet as an inherent part of its territory.” Pointing to the efforts of initiatives like the Xizang International Communication Centre, he is concerned about how far Europe’s cultural institutions “are willing to bend to political pressure.”
[…] As Phuntsok Norbu, chairman of the Tibetan Community in Britain, explains, the [British Museum’s “Silk Roads” exhibit] example concerns “the museum’s role in shaping global understanding of a culture that is actively being suppressed.”
The word “Xizang” is largely unrecognized by international audiences, which is precisely to China’s benefit. Tibet carries with it a level of familiarity in popular culture and international discourse, drawing associations to the Dalai Lama and the struggle for autonomy and human rights — exactly what Beijing wants to avoid. By pushing Xizang into global discourse, the CCP aims to redefine Tibet’s identity as distinctly Chinese, erasing its unique history — and it will be up to foreign cultural institutions whether or not they are willing to accept this revisionism. [Source]
The erasure of Tibet can also be seen in the recent rollout of DeepSeek’s AI chatbot, which visibly “thinks” through its deliberative process before censoring answers deemed to contradict the Chinese government’s position. This is the case in questions about whether Tibet has a right to independence, or about the history of Tibetan self-immolation protests. On another note, the Dalai Lama is releasing a new book in March titled, “Voice for the Voiceless: Over Seven Decades of Struggle With China for My Land and My People,” which unlike his previous books delves extensively into politics and his efforts to preserve Tibet’s culture, religion, and language in the face of Chinese pressure.