Amidst the world’s many grave crises — from Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine to Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza, from the genocide of Uyghurs in China to the human rights and humanitarian crises in Myanmar and North Korea — there is one long-running tragedy which must not be forgotten: Tibet.
Last Sunday, I joined hundreds of exiled Tibetans and their supporters in London for a protest, followed by a community gathering, to mark the 65th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day.
This was the day, on March 10, 1959, when people in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, revolted against the Chinese occupation of their country. The brutal crackdown by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that followed led to His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s escape into exile.
He has lived in Dharamsala, India, ever since.
China’s PLA troops first invaded Tibet in October 1950, and the occupation was secured by what became known as the Seventeen-Point Agreement signed under duress by Tibetan representatives, with Chinese officials, in May 1951. It was ratified by the Dalai Lama on Oct. 24 that year.
In subsequent months, Chinese troops paraded through Lhasa’s streets carrying portraits of Mao Zedong, and from then on Tibet’s fate was sealed.
Although in the first nine years of Tibet’s occupation, the Dalai Lama remained in Lhasa and engaged in negotiations with China, including meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong himself multiple times to try to seek a mutually beneficial solution, the occupation became ever-more repressive and brutal.
Appalling human rights atrocities were inflicted on the Tibetan people and a particularly intense assault on Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns.
“For the past 65 years, especially, it has been the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s laboratory of repression”
The Tibetans had had enough. Two days after the March 10 uprising, Tibetan women gathered in large numbers outside the Potala Palace in Lhasa, led by Pamo Kusang, which is why this day is specifically commemorated as Tibetan Women’s Uprising Day. Many women were arrested or executed that day 65 years ago.
Later in 1959, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) published a report, which concluded that China had illegally invaded and occupied Tibet and that there was a prima facie case of genocide.
In their more recent Tibet Brief 20/20 two international law experts, Michael van Walt van Praag and Mike Boltjes are unequivocal in their conclusion that China’s annexation of Tibet is “unlawful.”
Before the invasion Tibet was, they argue, “an independent state de facto and de jure.” Contrary to Beijing’s propaganda, Tibet — they add — was “never a part of China … Tibet is an occupied country, and the PRC does not possess sovereignty over it. This calls for an immediate course correction to bring government policies in compliance with international law.”
Yet for almost 75 years, Tibet has endured this illegal occupation, and for the past 65 years, especially, it has been the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s laboratory of repression.
Why does Tibet matter?
In addition to the moral outrage that its annexation and brutal occupation should provoke in any human being with a conscience, it matters because what the CCP has done in Tibet for over 65 years is what it has gone on to do in subsequent years in every other area of its control.
The surveillance state that has been rolled out in the Uyghur region of Xinjiang, the dismantling of autonomy and freedom in Hong Kong, and the forced cultural, linguistic and political assimilation of non-Han Chinese — particularly in Xinjiang (which Uyghurs prefer to call East Turkistan), Hong Kong and Southern Mongolia — have all been tried out in Tibet first.
“During the Cultural Revolution, more than 6,000 monasteries and ancient manuscripts were destroyed”
In his memoir Freedom In Exile, the Dalai Lama recalls Mao telling him: “Religion is poison. Firstly, it reduces the population, because monks and nuns must stay celibate, and secondly, it neglects material progress.”
His Holiness writes how he “felt a violent burning sensation all over my face and I was suddenly very afraid. ‘So,’ I thought, ‘you are the destroyer of the Dharma after all’ … Fear and amazement gave way to confusion. How could he have misjudged me so? How could he have thought that I was not religious to the core of my being?”
Just two days ago, I attended a meeting in the British Parliament at which a new report on Freedom of Religion or Belief in Tibet was launched by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief. It details the arrests of dozens of Tibetans in recent years for practicing their Buddhist faith, as well as the destruction of religious sites, monasteries, Buddhist schools, ancient manuscripts, prayer wheels and statues.
During the Cultural Revolution, more than 6,000 monasteries and ancient manuscripts were destroyed. The CCP’s barbarity in Tibet is illustrated by three examples — though there are countless others to cite.
First, the disappearance of the Panchen Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s second most revered leader after the Dalai Lama. On 14 May 1995, six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was recognized as the 11th Panchen Lama. Three days later, he was kidnapped and forcibly disappeared by CCP agents. He has not been heard from since and his whereabouts are unknown.
Second, the establishment of colonial boarding schools in Tibet aimed at destroying the Tibetan language, religion and cultural identity. Almost 78 percent of Tibetan children aged between 6 and 18 are coerced away from their families to attend Chinese state-run boarding schools. They are banned from speaking Tibetan or practicing Tibetan Buddhism, forced to speak Mandarin Chinese and learn CCP propaganda, and cut off from their parents, families and communities. It is the forcible Sinicization of the next generation of Tibetans. The United Nations has rightly condemned this, and the international community must do more to bring this horror to an end.
Third, dissent is suppressed harshly and cruelly. Just last month, more than 1,000 monks and protesters were arrested and beaten up by the Chinese security forces for demonstrating against government plans to build a hydro-electric dam which would have meant the demolition of two villages and six monasteries and the displacement of thousands of people. Such crackdowns are typical of the CCP across China, but the draconian repression in Tibet is emblematic of the regime’s inhumanity.
Tibet matters for another reason too: climate change.
“Temperatures across the Third Pole Region are rising at a rate of between two and four times the global average”
The Tibetan Plateau, referred to by Tibetans as the Third Pole, is the largest site of glaciers and permanent ice outside the North and South Pole. It is responsible for providing water to 30 percent of the world’s population. But it is melting.
According to a report by the University of Aberdeen and the Scottish Centre for Himalayan Research, at least 1.9 billion people live within the watersheds of ten major rivers — the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Sutlej, Indus and Tarim — and depend upon them directly for fresh water supplies, while 4.1 billion people are fed by agriculture and industry dependent on these supplies.
Yet temperatures across the Third Pole Region are rising at a rate of between two and four times the global average. Glaciers are shrinking, permafrost is melting, snowfall is turning to rain — and unless this changes, the region will face even more severe flooding, desertification, and loss of freshwater supplies.
Beijing ignores this, and due to its occupation of Tibet it is able to marginalise and exclude from global climate change conferences the voices of Tibetan researchers sounding the alarm.
For these reasons, we must not allow Tibet to be forgotten.
In the course of writing my book The China Nexus, published in October 2022 (and now out in Chinese), I interviewed brave, inspiring Tibetans who told their story of escape or of growing up in exile. I had the privilege of interviewing His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and then last year meeting him in an audience when I traveled to Dharamsala.
Rarely have I encountered a people as gentle, beautiful, hospitable, and yet determined, persistent, wise and courageous as the Tibetans. They have a rich, vibrant, colorful culture, which in exile they try to preserve even as the CCP tries to eradicate it in their homeland. They have endured their struggle for freedom for 65 intense years — and almost 75 years in total — and they show no signs of giving up.
We who enjoy freedom should not give up on them either: we should stand with them, support them and work to free Tibet.
We must increase pressure on Beijing to release Tibetan political prisoners and end the religious persecution of Tibetan Buddhists.
We must demand the closure of colonial boarding schools, which are tools of forced assimilation and the destruction of cultural identity.
We must constantly ask Xi Jinping: where is the Panchen Lama?
And while we hope His Holiness lives as long as possible, we must insist that Tibetan Buddhists have the right to identify his successor according to their traditions and customs, making it clear that no candidate chosen by the CCP would be acceptable.
When I spoke to the Tibetan community on Sunday, I wore a T-shirt with the words “Free Tibet” on it. But as I said to them, those words are not simply a slogan on a T-shirt. They are a belief deeply engraved on my heart. Let us always support this cause, until Tibet is free.
*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.
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