TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – China is accelerating forced urbanization of Tibetan villagers and nomads, Human Rights Watch says, assimilating rural Tibetans through control of language and traditional Buddhism. The state government said in a wide-ranging report that it will add to the independent report. culture.
International human rights groups cited numerous internal Chinese reports that contradicted official statements that all Tibetans whose previous homes were destroyed and forcibly relocated during the evacuation moved voluntarily.
The move comes in the western and northern territories, which include millions of Tibetans, Xinjiang Uighurs, Mongolians and other ethnic minorities, who have adopted Mandarin as their national language and are loyal to the ruling Communist Party. It fits a pattern of often violent demands for people to swear.
China claims Tibet has been part of its territory for centuries, but it only established tight control over the Himalayan region after the Communist Party took power during the 1949 civil war. .
“These coercive tactics stem from pressure exerted by senior officials on local authorities, who have consistently portrayed the relocation plans as non-negotiable, politically significant policies handed down directly from the capital, Beijing, and the regional capital, Lhasa,” HRW said in the report. “This gives local authorities no flexibility in implementation at the local level, and any relocations require 100 percent consent from affected villagers.”
The report says that according to official statistics, by the end of 2025, more than 930,000 rural Tibetans will have been relocated to urban centers, where they will be deprived of their traditional sources of income and find it difficult to find work. He said it would be. Lhasa and other large cities have experienced a large influx of immigrants from China’s dominant Han ethnic group, which dominates politics and the economy.
According to the report, more than 3 million of the more than 4.5 million Tibetans living in rural areas have been forced to build housing and abandon their traditional nomadic lifestyle based on yak herding and agriculture. . Along with the official Tibetan Autonomous Region, Tibetans also form communities in the neighboring provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, and Qinghai.
“These rural resettlements are eroding or severely damaging Tibetan culture and way of life. In particular, most resettlement schemes in Tibet require former farmers and pastoralists to return to their previous livelihoods. “Wage workers in non-farm industries,” HRW said.
China has consistently maintained that its Tibet policy will bring stability and development to the strategically important border region. The last anti-government demonstrations in the region occurred in 2008, leading to a large-scale crackdown by the military. Foreigners must apply for special permission to visit, and journalists are largely prohibited, except for those working for Chinese state media.
China has consistently maintained that allegations of human rights violations in the Tibetan region are baseless accusations aimed at tarnishing China’s image. In August last year, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the human rights situation in Tibet was the “best in history.”
“For many years, the region has enjoyed a prosperous economy, a harmonious and stable society, and effective protection and promotion of cultural heritage,” Wang said at the time. “The rights and freedoms of all ethnic groups, including freedom of religious belief and the freedom to use and develop the spoken and written languages of ethnic groups, are fully guaranteed.”
China, with a population of 1.4 billion, claims to have eradicated extreme poverty primarily by relocating isolated homes and small villages to larger communities with better access to transportation, electricity, health care and education. There is. These claims have not been independently verified.
Despite Chinese industries such as electric cars and mobile phones gaining market share overseas, China’s economic growth has slowed significantly due to an aging population and rising youth unemployment.
HRW recommended that the UN Human Rights Council launch an independent investigation into human rights violations committed by the Chinese government in Tibet and elsewhere.
