History of Tibet (1950–present)

The period of Tibet since 1950 was heralded by the invasion of Tibet by the People's Liberation Army in 1950-51.

Tibet declared independence from China in 1913, after which the Dalai Lama continued to act as both the religious head of Tibetan’s Buddhist populace and as the political head of this de facto independent nation. A distinctive characteristic of Tibet was the intertwining of religion and politics in the country’s history since the introduction of Buddhism in the 7th century CE.

With such a weaving of politics and religion, a significant change in one necessarily will alter the other and in turn, the culture as a whole. This connection is evident with the People’s Liberation Army’s invasion of Tibet in 1950 and the subsequent rule of Tibet by the People’s Republic of China which maintains control of the area today. Historical claims to the land of Tibet aside, it has become apparent that since this latest invasion major cultural shifts are occurring in the area.

Chinese sources generally claim progress towards a prosperous and free society in Tibet, with its pillars being economic development, legal advancement, and peasant emancipation. These claims, however, have been disputed by independent human rights organisations, the Tibet Government-in-Exile and some indigenous Tibetans, who charge the Chinese government with genocide in Tibet, and make comparisons to Nazi Germany. The official doctrine of the PRC classifies Tibetans as one of its 56 recognized ethnic groups and part of the greater Zhonghua Minzu or multi-ethnic Chinese nation. Warren Smith, an independent scholar and a broadcaster with the Tibetan Service of Radio Free Asia, whose work became focused on Tibetan history and politics after spending five months in Tibet in 1982, portrays the Chinese as chauvinists who believe they are superior to the Tibetans, and claims that the Chinese use torture, coercion and starvation to control the Tibetans.

Tibet under the People's Republic of China

In 1949, seeing that the Communists were gaining control of China, the Kashag expelled all Chinese connected with the Chinese government, over the protests of both the Kuomingtang and the Communists. Neither the Republic of China nor the People's Republic of China has ever renounced China's claim to sovereignty over Tibet.

Further information: Invasion of Tibet (1950–1951)

The Chinese Communist government led by Mao Zedong, which came to power in October, lost little time in asserting a new Chinese presence in Tibet. In June 1950 the UK Government in the House of Commons stated that His Majesty's Government "have always been prepared to recognise Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, but only on the understanding that Tibet is regarded as autonomous" On 7 October 1950, the People's Liberation Army invaded the Tibetan area of Chamdo. The large number of units of the PLA quickly surrounded the outnumbered Tibetan forces, and by October 19 1950, 5,000 Tibetan troops had surrendered. In 1951, representatives of Tibetan authority, with the Dalai Lama's authorization, participated in negotiations with the Chinese government in Beijing. This resulted in a Seventeen Point Agreement which affirmed China's sovereignty over Tibet. The agreement was ratified in Lhasa a few months later. According to this forced agreement between the Tibetan and Chinese central governments, the Dalai Lama-ruled Tibetan area was supposed to be a highly autonomous area of China.

From the beginning, it was obvious that incorporating Tibet into Communist China would bring two opposite social systems face-to-face. In western Tibet, however, the Chinese Communists opted not to make social reform an immediate priority. On the contrary, from 1951 to 1959, traditional Tibetan society with its lords and manorial estates continued to function unchanged. Despite the presence of twenty thousand PLA troops in Central Tibet, the Dalai Lama's government was permitted to maintain important symbols from its de facto independence period.

However, Eastern Kham and Amdo (Qinghai) were considered by the Chinese to be outside the administration of the government of Tibet in Lhasa, and were thus treated like any other Chinese province with land redistribution implemented in full. Most lands were taken away from noblemen and monasteries and re-distributed to serfs. The Tibetan region of Eastern Kham, previously Xikang province, was incorporated into the province of Sichuan. Western Kham was put under the Chamdo Military Committee. In these areas, land reform was implemented. This involved communist agitators designating "landlords" — sometimes arbitrarily chosen — for public humiliation in so-called "struggle sessions", torture, maiming, and even death. It was only after 1959 that China began bring the same practices to Central Tibet.

The Chinese built highways that reached Lhasa, and then extended them to the Indian, Nepalese and Pakistani borders. The traditional Tibetan aristocracy and government remained in place and were subsidized by the Chinese government..

Rebellion in the 1950s

By 1956 there was unrest in eastern Kham and Amdo, where land reform had been implemented in full. Rebellions erupted and eventually spread into western Kham and Ü-Tsang. In some parts of the country Chinese Communists tried to establish rural communes, as they were in the whole of China.

A rebellion against the Chinese occupation was led by noblemen and monasteries and broke out in Amdo and eastern Kham in June 1956. The insurrection, supported by the American CIA, eventually spread to Lhasa.

The Tibetan resistance movement began with isolated resistance to PRC control in the late 1950s. Initially there was considerable success and with CIA support and aid much of southern Tibet fell into Tibetan hands. During this campaign, tens of thousands of Tibetans were killed.

In 1959, China's military crackdown on rebels in Kham and Amdo led to the "Lhasa Uprising." Full-scale resistance spread throughout Tibet. Fearing capture of the Dalai Lama, unarmed Tibetans surrounded his residence, at which point the Dalai Lama fled with the help of the CIA to India. The Chinese set the Panchen Lama (who was virtually their prisoner) as a figurehead in Lhasa, claiming that he headed the legitimate Government of Tibet in the absence of the Dalai Lama, the traditional ruler of Tibet.

After this, resistance forces operated from Nepal. Operations continued from the semi-independent Kingdom of Mustang with a force of 2000 rebels, many of them trained at Camp Hale near Leadville, Colorado, USA Guerrilla warfare continued in other parts of the country for several years.

On 5 June 1959 Purshottam Trikamdas, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India, presented a report on Tibet, suggesting that genocide was taking place, to the International Commission of Jurists (an NGO).

In 1969, on the eve of Kissinger's overtures to China, American support was withdrawn and the Nepalese government dismantled the operation.

1960s

Mao's Great Leap Forward (1959–62) led to famine in Tibet. "In some places, whole families have perished and the death rate is very high," according to a confidential report by the Panchen Lama sent to Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1962. "In the past Tibet lived in a dark barbaric feudalism but there was never such a shortage of food, especially after Buddhism had spread....In Tibet from 1959 to 1961, for two years almost all animal husbandry and farming stopped. The nomads have no grain to eat and the farmers have no meat, butter or salt," the report continued.

The Central Tibetan Administration states that the number that have died of starvation, violence, or other indirect causes since 1950 is approximately 1.2 million. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) denies this. Its official toll of deaths recorded for the whole of China for the years of the Great Leap Forward is 14 million, but scholars have estimated the number of the famine victims to be between 20 and 43 million. According to Patrick French, former director of the Free Tibet Campaign, the estimate of 1.2 million in Tibet is not reliable because Tibetans were not able to process the data well enough to produce a credible total. There were, however, many casualties, with a figure of 400,000 extrapolated from a calculation Warren W. Smith, a broadcaster of Radio Free Asia, made from census reports of Tibet which show 200,000 "missing" from Tibet.

In spite of claims by the Chinese that most of the damage to Tibet's institutions occurred subsequently during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), it is well established that the destruction of most of Tibet's more than 6,000 monasteries happened between 1959 and 1961. During the mid-1960s, the monastic estates were broken up and secular education introduced. During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards, which included Tibetan members, inflicted a campaign of organized vandalism against cultural sites in the entire PRC, including Tibet's Buddhist heritage. According to at least one Chinese source, only a handful of the most important monasteries remained without major damage, and thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns were killed, tortured or imprisoned.

In 1965, the area that had been under the control of the Dalai Lama's government from the 1910s to 1959 (Ü-Tsang and western Kham) was renamed the Tibet Autonomous Region or TAR. Autonomy provided that head of government would be an ethnic Tibetan; however, actual power in the TAR is held by the First Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, who has never been a Tibetan. The role of ethnic Tibetans in the higher levels of the TAR Communist Party remains very limited.

The Cultural Revolution launched in 1966 was a catastrophe for Tibet, as it was for the rest of the PRC. Large numbers of Tibetans died violent deaths due to it, and the number of intact monasteries in Tibet was reduced from thousands to less than ten. Tibetan resentment towards the Chinese deepened. Tibetans participated in the destruction, but it is not clear how many of them actually embraced the Communist ideology and how many participated out of fear of becoming targets themselves. Resistors against the Cultural Revolution included Thrinley Chodron, a nun from Nyemo, who led an armed rebellion that spread through eighteen xians (counties) of the TAR, targeting Chinese Party officials and Tibetan collaborators, that was ultimately suppressed by the PLA. Citing Tibetan Buddhist symbols which the rebels invoked, Shakya calls this 1969 revolt "a millenarian uprising, an insurgency characterized by a passionate desire to be rid of the oppressor."

More recent history

Following Mao's death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping launched initiatives of rapprochement with the exiled Tibetan leaders, hoping to persuade them to come to live in China. Ren Rong, who was Communist Party Secretary in Tibet, thought that Tibetans in Tibet were happy under Chinese Communist rule and that they shared the Chinese Communist views of the pre-Communist Tibetan rulers as oppressive despots. So, when delegations from the Tibetan government in exile visited Tibet in 1979-80, Chinese officials expected to impress the Tibetan exiles with the progress that had occurred since 1950 and with the contentment of the Tibetan populace. Ren even organized meetings in Lhasa to urge Tibetans to restrain their animosity towards the coming representatives of an old, oppressive regime. The Chinese, then, were astonished and embarrassed at the massive, tearful expressions of devotion which Tibetans made to the visiting Tibetan exiles. Thousands of Tibetans cried, prostrated, offered scarves to the visitors, and strove for a chance to touch the Dalai Lama's brother. In this way, the Tibetans in exile learned that Chinese claims of progress in Tibet were unfounded.

These events also prompted Party Secretary Hu Yaobang and Vice Premier Wan Li to visit Tibet, where they were dismayed by the conditions they found. Hu announced a reform program intended to improve economic standards for Tibetans and to foster some freedom for Tibetans to practice ethnic and cultural traditions. In some ways, this was a return from the hard line authoritarianism and assimilation policies of the 1960s to Mao's more ethnically accommodating policies of the 1950s, with the major difference that there would be no separate Tibetan government as there had been in the 1950s. New meetings between Chinese officials and exiled leaders took place in 1981-4, but no agreements could be reached.

In 1986-1987, the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala launched a new drive to win international support for their cause as a human rights issue. In response, the United States House of Representatives in June 1987 passed a resolution in support of Tibetan human rights. Between October 1987 and March 1989, thousands of Tibetans rioted four times in Lhasa against Chinese rule, which appeared to support Dharamsala's contentions that Tibetans were suffering and abhorred Chinese rule. American Tibetologist Melvyn Goldstein considered the riots to be spontaneous mass expressions of Tibetan resentment towards a rule that the Tibetans considered oppressive and alien, sparked in part by hope that the United States would soon provide support or pressure enabling Tibet to become independent again. The United States passed a 1988-89 Foreign Relations Act which expressed support for Tibetan human rights. The riots ironically discredited Hu's more liberal Tibetan policies and brought about a return to hard-line policies; Beijing even imposed martial law in Tibet in 1989. Emphasis on economic development brought increasing numbers of non-Tibetans to Lhasa, and the economy in Tibet became increasingly dominated by Han. Lhasa became a city where non-Tibetans equalled or outnumbered Tibetans.

Hu Jintao became the Party Chief of the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1988. In 1989, the 10th Panchen Lama died. Many Tibetans believe that Hu was involved in his unexpected death. A few months later, according to Tang Daxian, a dissident journalist, the police in Lhasa received orders from General Li Lianxiu to provoke an incident. Peaceful demonstrations lead to the death of 450 Tibetans that year.

The captive Gedhun Choekyi Nyima recognised as the 11th Panchen Lama by the Dalai Lama and most Tibetan Buddhists

In 1995, the Dalai Lama named 6 year old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th Panchen Lama without the approval of the government of China, while the PRC named another child, Gyancain Norbu in conflict with the Dalai Lama's choice. Gyancain Norbu was raised in Beijing and has appeared occasionally on state media. The PRC-selected Panchen Lama is rejected by exiled Tibetans and anti-China groups who commonly refer to him as the "Panchen Zuma" (literally "fake Panchen Lama"). Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and his family have gone missing. Amnesty International claims that they are imprisoned, while Beijing contends that they are living under a secret identity for protection and privacy.

The Dalai Lama is now seventy-three years old and, by tradition, when he dies a new child Dalai Lama will have to be found. In 1997, the 14th Dalai Lama indicated that his future reincarnation "will definitely not come under Chinese control; it will be outside, in the free world." On November 25, 2007, the Dalai Lama made a public statement that the next Dalai Lama might be elected democratically by the Tibetan people. However, since traditionally a Dalai Lama needs the recognition from the Panchan Lama to be legitimate (and vice versa), it is not known yet whether this reform will be accepted by the Tibetans.

Unrest in the 21st century

Widespread protests against Chinese rule flared up again in 2008. The Chinese government reacted strongly, imposing curfews and expelling journalists from Tibetan areas. The international response was likewise immediate and robust, with a number of leaders condemning the crackdown and large protests (including some in support of China's actions) in many major cities.

Economic development

A rail attendant for the service from Xining to Lhasa

Projects that the PRC government claims have benefited Tibet as part of the China Western Development economic plan, such as the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, have roused fears of facilitating military mobilisation and Han migration. Robert Barnett reports that the economic stimulus was used by hardliners to stimulate Han migration to Tibet as a control mechanism, and that 66% of official posts in Tibet are held by Han. There is still an ethnic imbalance in appointments and promotions to the civil and judicial services in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, with disproportionately few ethnic Tibetans appointed to these posts.

The PRC government claims that its rule over Tibet is an unalloyed improvement, and that the China Western Development plan is a massive, benevolent, and patriotic undertaking by the wealthier eastern coast to help the western parts of China, including Tibet, catch up in prosperity and living standards. Nevertheless, foreign organizations continue to make occasional protests about aspects of CCP rule in Tibet because of frequent reports by groups such as Human Rights Watch of human rights violations in Tibet. The government of the PRC maintains that the Tibetan Government did almost nothing to improve the Tibetans' material and political standard of life during its rule from 1913–59, and that they opposed any reforms proposed by the Chinese government. According to the Chinese government, this is the reason for the tension that grew between some central government officials and the local Tibetan government in 1959.

The government of the PRC also rejects claims that the lives of Tibetans have deteriorated, and states that the lives of Tibetans have been improved immensely compared to self rule before 1950. Despite these claims, some 3,000 Tibetans brave hardship and danger to flee into exile every year.

See also: [[:Nangpa La shootings]]

These claims are, however, disputed by many Tibetans. In 1989, the Panchen Lama, finally allowed to return to Shigatse, addressed a crowd of 30,000 and described what he saw as the suffering of Tibet and the harm being done to his country in the name of socialist reform under the rule of the PRC in terms reminiscent of the petition he had presented to Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1962.

Human rights

During 2008-2009 the Communist Party strengthened the policies and measures that frustrated Tibetans before the series of Tibetan protests that began in March 2008. This included: refusing to engage the Dalai Lama in meaningful talks; amplifying the scope and hostility of the anti-Dalai campaign; increasing the repression and control of religious freedom for Tibetans; poor implementation of the PRC Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law; and strengthening economic development initiatives that will increase further the influx of non-Tibetans into the Tibetan autonomous areas of China.

After the 2008 unrest, Tibetan-populated areas of China remained tightly sealed off from outside scrutiny, according to Amnesty International. While Chinese authorities announced after the protests that over 1,000 individuals detained had been released, overseas Tibetan organizations claimed that at least several hundred remained in detention by the start of 2009. Following the detentions were reports of torture and other ill-treatment in detention, some cases resulting in death.

Religious repression included locking down major monasteries and nunneries, and a propaganda campaign where local authorities renewed “Patriotic Education,” which required Tibetans to participate in criticism sessions of the Dalai Lama and sign written denunciations of him, according to Amnesty's 2009 China report. Tibetan members of the Chinese Communist Party were also targeted, including being made to remove their children from Tibet exile community schools where they would be receive a religious education.

Relations with the outside

Relations with Tibetans in exile

The Dalai Lama has stated his willingness to negotiate with the PRC government for genuine autonomy, but some groups, such as the Tibetan Youth Congress, still call for full Tibetan independence. The Tibetan government in exile sees the millions of government-imported Han immigrants and preferential socioeconomic policies as presenting an urgent threat to the Tibetan nation and culture. Tibetan exile groups say that despite recent attempts to restore the appearance of original Tibetan culture to attract tourism, the traditional Tibetan way of life is now irrevocably changed. Tashi Wangdi, the Representative of the Dalai Lama, stated in an interview that China's Western China Development program "is providing facilities for the resettlement of Han Chinese in Tibet."

In 2001 representatives of Tibet succeeded in gaining accreditation at a United Nations-sponsored meeting of non-governmental organizations. On 29 August Jampal Chosang, the head of the Tibetan coalition, stated that China had introduced "a new form of apartheid" in Tibet because "Tibetan culture, religion, and national identity are considered a threat" to China.

In 2005, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered to hold talks with the 14th Dalai Lama on the Tibet issue, provided he dropped the demand for independence. The Dalai Lama said in an interview with the South China Morning Post, "We are willing to be part of the People's Republic of China, to have it govern and guarantee to preserve our Tibetan culture, spirituality and our environment." This statement was seen as a renewed diplomatic initiative by the Tibetan government-in-exile. He had already said he would accept Chinese sovereignty over Tibet but insisted on real autonomy over its religious and cultural life. The Tibetan government-in-exile called on the Chinese government to respond. Beijing has repeatedly rebuffed this offer, insisting that the Dalai Lama is intent on complete independence, or the splitting apart of China itself.

In January 2007 the Dalai Lama, in an interview on a private television channel, said, "what we demand from the Chinese authority is more autonomy for Tibetans to protect their culture". He added that he had told the Tibetan people not to think in terms of history and to accept Tibet as a part of China.

Talks between representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government began again in May 2008 and again in July, but with few results. The two sides agreed to meet again in October.

Relations with Taiwan

The Republic of China (Taiwan) considers Tibet a part of mainland China, and continues to claim all of mainland China part of the territory of the ROC in its Constitution.

Evaluation by the Tibetan exile community

The Chairman of the Cabinet of the CTA, Samdhong Rinpoche

In 1991 the Dalai Lama stated that Chinese settlers in Tibet were creating "Chinese Apartheid," stating, "The new Chinese settlers have created an alternate society: a Chinese apartheid which, denying Tibetans equal social and economic status in our own land, threatens to finally overwhelm and absorb us." The Central Tibetan Administration states that the number that have died in the Great Leap Forward of violence, or other indirect causes since 1950 is approximately 1.2 million. According to Patrick French, the former director of the London-based Free Tibet Campaign and a supporter of the Tibetan cause who was able to view the data and calculations, the estimate is not reliable because the Tibetans were not able to process the data well enough to produce a credible total. French says this total was based on refugee interviews, but prevented outsider access to the data. French, who did gain access, found no names, but "the insertion of seemingly random figures into each section, and constant, unchecked duplication." Furthermore, he found that of the 1.1 million dead listed, only 23,364 were female (implying that 1.07 million of the total Tibetan male population of 1.25 million had died). Sinologist Tom Grunfeld also finds that the figure is "without documentary evidence." There were, however, many casualties, perhaps as many as 400,000. Warren W. Smith, calculating from census reports of Tibet, shows 144,000 to 160,000 "missing" from Tibet". Courtois et al. forward a figure of 800,000 deaths and allege that as many as 10% of the Tibetan populace were interned, with few survivors. Chinese demographers have estimated that 90,000 of the 300,000 "missing" Tibetans fled the region.

The Dalai Lama has stated his willingness to negotiate with China for genuine autonomy. According to the government in exile and Tibetan independence groups, most Tibetans still call for full Tibetan independence. Tibetan exile groups say that despite recent attempts to restore the appearance of original Tibetan culture to attract tourism, the traditional Tibetan way of life is now irrevocably changed. Tashi Wangdi, the Representative of the Dalai Lama, stated in an interview that China's Western China Development program "is providing facilities for the resettlement of Han Chinese in Tibet. At every point of development, and any casual visitor such as a tourist can see it, all the development is in Chinese towns and cities. The local people have become more and more marginalized."

A Tibetan refugee market in Ladakh, India.

The Chinese government says that when Hu Yaobang, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, visited Lhasa in 1980 he was unhappy when he found out the region was lacking autonomy and was lagging behind neighbouring provinces. Policies were changed, including the revitalization of Tibetan culture and religion and language. However, in 1998 three monks and five nuns died while in Drapchi prison, after suffering beatings and torture for having shouted slogans supporting the Dalai Lama and Tibetan independence. Projects that the PRC claims to have benefited Tibet as part of the China Western Development economic plan, such as the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, have roused fears of facilitating military mobilisation and Han migration. There is still ethnic imbalance in appointments and promotions to the civil and judicial services in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, with disproportionately few ethnic Tibetans appointed to these posts.

Evaluation by the Chinese Government

The government of the PRC maintains that the Tibetan Government did almost nothing to improve the Tibetans' material and political standard of life during its rule from 1913–59, and that they opposed any reforms proposed by the Chinese government. According to the Chinese government, this is the reason for the tension that grew between some Chinese government officials and the Tibetan government in 1959. The government of the PRC also rejects claims that the lives of Tibetans have deteriorated, and stated that the lives of Tibetans have been improved immensely compared to self rule before 1950.

The PRC claims that: From 1951 to 2007, the Tibetan population in Lhasa administered Tibet has increased from 1.2 million to almost 3 million. The GDP of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) today is thirty times that of before 1950. Workers in Tibet have the second highest wages in China. The TAR has 22,500 km of highways, as opposed to none in 1950. All secular education in the TAR was created after the revolution. The TAR now has 25 scientific research institutes as opposed to none in 1950. Infant mortality has dropped from 43% in 1950 to 0.661% in 2000. (The United Nations reports an infant mortality rate of 35.3 per thousand in 2000.) Life expectancy has risen from 35.5 years in 1950 to 67 in 2000. It points to the collection and publishing of the traditional Epic of King Gesar, which is the longest epic poem in the world and had only been handed down orally before. It also highlights the allocation of 300 million Renminbi since the 1980s for the maintenance and protection of Tibetan monasteries. The Cultural Revolution and the cultural damage it wrought upon the entire PRC is generally condemned as a nationwide catastrophe, whose main instigators, in the PRC's view, the Gang of Four, have been brought to justice. The China Western Development plan is viewed by the PRC as a massive, benevolent, and patriotic undertaking by the wealthier eastern coast to help the western parts of China, including Tibet, catch up in prosperity and living standards.

In 2008 the Chinese government "launched a 570-million-yuan (81.43 million U.S. dollars) project to preserve 22 historical and cultural heritage sites in Tibet, including the Zhaxi Lhunbo Lamasery, the Jokhang, Ramogia, Sanyai and Samgya-Goutog monasteries."

Centralization of Government

"Police Attention: No distributing any unhealthy thoughts or objects." Nyalam Town, Tibet, 1993.

Lhasa, now the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), has been the ostensible capital of Tibet through most of its history. But before the modern era, this rule was tenuous at best. Most of Tibet was controlled by local rulers who wielded questionable and fleeting power. This lax system of rule in Tibet allowed for the creation and fruition of shamanic traditions, tantric practices, and the importance of the lama. Under Chinese control, which has been capable of maintaining a strict central government, this interplay of local traditions and their loose affiliations is removed, lessening the influence of lamas and raising skepticism towards tantric practices.

Language

Use of the Tibetan language is still a part of compulsory education in the Tibetan Autonomous Areas (most of Greater Tibet), but maintaining its relevance is still an issue for some Tibetan spiritual leaders. The 10th Panchen Lama, for example, advocated official use of the Tibetan language, but this never came into being. In government offices and in the public sphere, the official language in Tibet is Mandarin Chinese. The majority of meetings held at the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences, the University of Tibet, and at schools and city halls, are conducted in Chinese. According to Nicolas Tournadre, the Tibetan language is often considered a negligible patois, and Tibetan CCP officials are not even permitted to sign official documents in Tibetan - they must sign with Chinese characters.

According to Barry Sautman,

92-94% of ethnic Tibetans speak Tibetan. The only exception is places in Qinghai and Amdo where the Tibetan population is very small compared with the broader population. Instruction in primary school is pretty universally in Tibetan. Chinese is bilingual from secondary school onward. All middle schools in the TAR also teach Tibetan. In Lhasa there are about equal time given to Chinese, Tibetan, and English.

In contrast, Barry Sautman said,

Tibetan exile leaders in India used English as the sole language until 1994 and only became bilingual in 1994. Schools in Tibet promote the Tibetan language more than Indian schools do in ethnic Tibetan areas - in Ladakh, India, instruction is in Urdu, with a high dropout rate from Tibetans, but India is never accused of cultural genocide against Tibetans.

According to Jamyang Norbu, the facts are often presented only partially by Barry Sautman.

The data that Sautman cleverly fails to include is that Ladakh (unlike Tibet) has traditionally had a mixed population of Buddhists and Muslims, and that education in Urdu is a legacy of Moghul rule, continued by the British, and since independence by the Muslim majority state of Kashmir, of which Ladakh is a region. In point of fact Tibetan language education has actually undergone a resurgence in Ladakh in recent times, especially since 1995 with the formation of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, whereby much of the actual administration of the region including language and education has been effectively placed in the hand of elected local leaders.

In addition, in India, Tibetans in exile are free to send their children to Tibetan Children's Villages.

Tibetologist Elliot Sperling has also noted that

within certain limits the PRC does make efforts to accommodate Tibetan cultural expression (and) the cultural activity taking place all over the Tibetan plateau cannot be ignored.

However, since Mandarin Chinese, the official language of China, is the language of government and many of the businesses, Tibetans who do not speak it are finding it increasingly difficult to compete in the market place.

Currently, "cultural Tibet" boasts three Tibetan-language television channels, one for each of the three main dialects spoken in China's Tibetan areas. The Tibet Autonomous Region possesses a 24-hour Central Tibetan-language TV channel (launched in 1999). For speakers of Amdo Tibetan, there is an Amdo Tibetan-language TV channel in Qinghai and for speakers of Khams Tibetan a recently launched TV satellite channel in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan.

Populace

The issue of the proportion of the Han Chinese population in Tibet is a politically sensitive one and is disputed. The Central Tibetan Administration, an exile group, says that the PRC has actively swamped Tibet with Han Chinese migrants in order to alter Tibet's demographic makeup.

View of the Tibetan exile community

Between the 1960s and 1980s, many political prisoners from other parts of China (over 1 million, according to Harry Wu) were sent to "reform through labor" camps in Qinghai. Furthermore, an official report sent by the Panchen Lama to Premier Zhou Enlai in 1962 details an "evident and severe reduction in the present-day Tibetan population" due to deaths from battle, imprisonment, and starvation. In 1987, the Panchen Lama delivered a speech estimating the number of prison deaths in Qinghai at approximately 5 percent of the total population in the area.

Since the 1980s, increasing economic liberalization and internal mobility has also resulted in the influx of many Han Chinese into Tibet for work or settlement, though the actual number of this floating population remains disputed.

The Government of Tibet in Exile claims that non-ethnic Tibetans (including Han Chinese and Hui Muslims) outnumber ethnic Tibetans in the Tibetan region. This statistic is in dispute primarily based on the distinction between Greater Tibet, in which ethnic Tibetans are no longer a majority, and the Tibet Autonomous Region, in which ethnic Tibetans retain a majority. The Government of Tibet in Exile also disputes most demographic statistics released by the PRC government since they do not include members of the People's Liberation Army garrisoned in Tibet, or the large floating population of unregistered migrants. As a result, the Government of Tibet in Exile claims that this changing demographic situation is a result of an active policy of swamping the Tibetan people and further diminishing any chances of Tibetan political independence.

Referencing the population figures of Lhasa, the Dalai Lama has recently accused China of "demographic aggression" while stating that the Tibetans had been reduced to a minority "in his homeland". Exiled Tibetans have also expressed concern that the Qinghai-Tibet Railway (Xining to Lhasa) is intended to further facilitate the influx of Chinese migrants.

The Government of Tibet in Exile quotes an issue of People's Daily published in 1959 to claim that the Tibetan population has dropped significantly since 1959. According to the article, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics of the PRC show that the autonomous region of Tibet was populated by 1,273,969 persons. In the Tibetan sectors of Kham, 3,381,064 Tibetans were counted. In Qinghai and other Tibetan sectors that are incorporated in Gansu, 1,675,534 Tibetans were counted. According to the total of these three numbers, the Tibetan population attained 6,330,567 in 1959.

In 2000, the number of Tibetans as a whole of these regions was about 5,400,000 according to National Bureau of Statistics.

The Government of Tibet in Exile claims that a comparison of these statistics originating from National Bureau of Statistics shows that between 1959 and 2000, the Tibetan population decreased by about one million, a 15% decline. During the same period, the Chinese population doubled, and the worldwide population increased by 3-fold. This analysis gives an additional argument concerning the estimation of the number of Tibetan deaths during the period between 1959 and 1979. It also suggests the existence of a demographic deficit of the Tibetan population and the precise time course and causes must be specified.

Traditional Kham houses

The accuracy of this 1959 Tibetan population estimate quoted by the Government of Tibet in Exile is in conflict with the findings of the 1954 Chinese census report. The census states that the total population of the autonomous region of Tibet was 1,273,969; the total population of Kham was 3,381,064; and the total population of Qinghai was 1,675,534. These numbers were taken by the Government of Tibet in Exile as the population of Tibetans in each province. However, in all of these provinces, Tibetans were not the only traditional ethnic group. This is held to be so especially in Qinghai, which has a historical mixture of different groups of ethnics. In 1949, Han Chinese made up 48.3% of the population, the rest of the ethnic groups make up 51.7% of the 1.5 million total population. As of today, Han Chinese account for 54% of the total population of Qinghai, which is slightly higher than in 1949. Tibetans make up around 20% of the population of Qinghai.

View of the People's Republic of China

The PRC also does not recognize Greater Tibet as claimed by the government of Tibet in Exile. The PRC government claims that the ethnically Tibetan areas outside the TAR were not controlled by the Tibetan government before 1959 in the first place, having been administered instead by other surrounding provinces for centuries. It further alleges that the idea of "Greater Tibet" was originally engineered by foreign imperialists in order to divide China amongst themselves (Mongolia being a striking precedent, gaining independence with Soviet backing and subsequently aligning itself with the Soviet Union).

The PRC gives the number of Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region as 2.4 million, as opposed to 190,000 non-Tibetans, and the number of Tibetans in all Tibetan autonomous entities combined (slightly smaller than the Greater Tibet claimed by exiled Tibetans) as 5.0 million, as opposed to 2.3 million non-Tibetans. In the TAR itself, much of the Han population is to be found in Lhasa. Population control policies like the one-child policy only apply to Han Chinese, not to minorities such as Tibetans.

Jampa Phuntsok, chairman of the TAR, has also said that the central government has no policy of migration into Tibet due to its harsh high-altitude conditions, that the 6% Han in the TAR is a very fluid group mainly doing business or working, and that there is no immigration problem. (This report includes both permanent and temporary residences in Tibet, but excludes Tibetans studying or working outside of the TAR). By 2006, 3% of the permanent residences in Tibet were of Han ethnic, according to National Bureau of Statistics of China.

With regards to the historical population of ethnic Tibetans, the Chinese government claims that according to the First National Census conducted in 1954, there were 2,770,000 ethnic Tibetans in China, including 1,270,000 in the TAR; whereas in the Fourth National Census conducted in 1990, there were 4,590,000 ethnic Tibetans in China, including 2,090,000 in the TAR. These figures are used to advance the claim that the Tibetan population has doubled since 1951.

The TAR has the lowest population density among China's province-level administrative regions, mostly due to its mountainous and harsh geographical features. As of 2000, 92.8% of the population were ethnic Tibetans, while Han Chinese comprised 6.1% of the population. In Lhasa, the capital of TAR, Hans made up 17%, far less than what many activists have claimed.

Major ethnic groups in Greater Tibet by region, 2000 census.
	Total	Tibetans		Han Chinese		others
Tibet Autonomous Region:	2,616,329	2,427,168	92.8%	158,570	6.1%	30,591	1.2%
- Lhasa PLC	474,499	387,124	81.6%	80,584	17.0%	6,791	1.4%
- Qamdo Prefecture	586,152	563,831	96.2%	19,673	3.4%	2,648	0.5%
- Shannan Prefecture	318,106	305,709	96.1%	10,968	3.4%	1,429	0.4%
- Xigazê Prefecture	634,962	618,270	97.4%	12,500	2.0%	4,192	0.7%
- Nagqu Prefecture	366,710	357,673	97.5%	7,510	2.0%	1,527	0.4%
- Ngari Prefecture	77,253	73,111	94.6%	3,543	4.6%	599	0.8%
- Nyingchi Prefecture	158,647	121,450	76.6%	23,792	15.0%	13,405	8.4%
Qinghai Province:	4,822,963	1,086,592	22.5%	2,606,050	54.0%	1,130,321	23.4%
- Xining PLC	1,849,713	96,091	5.2%	1,375,013	74.3%	378,609	20.5%
- Haidong Prefecture	1,391,565	128,025	9.2%	783,893	56.3%	479,647	34.5%
- Haibei AP	258,922	62,520	24.1%	94,841	36.6%	101,561	39.2%
- Huangnan AP	214,642	142,360	66.3%	16,194	7.5%	56,088	26.1%
- Hainan AP	375,426	235,663	62.8%	105,337	28.1%	34,426	9.2%
- Golog AP	137,940	126,395	91.6%	9,096	6.6%	2,449	1.8%
- Gyêgu AP	262,661	255,167	97.1%	5,970	2.3%	1,524	0.6%
- Haixi AP	332,094	40,371	12.2%	215,706	65.0%	76,017	22.9%
Tibetan areas in Sichuan province
- Ngawa AP	847,468	455,238	53.7%	209,270	24.7%	182,960	21.6%
- Garzê AP	897,239	703,168	78.4%	163,648	18.2%	30,423	3.4%
- Muli AC	124,462	60,679	48.8%	27,199	21.9%	36,584	29.4%
Tibetan areas in Yunnan province
- Dêqên AP	353,518	117,099	33.1%	57,928	16.4%	178,491	50.5%
Tibetan areas in Gansu province
- Gannan AP	640,106	329,278	51.4%	267,260	41.8%	43,568	6.8%
- Tianzhu AC	221,347	66,125	29.9%	139,190	62.9%	16,032	7.2%
Total for Greater Tibet:
With Xining and Haidong	10,523,432	5,245,347	49.8%	3,629,115	34.5%	1,648,970	15.7%
Without Xining and Haidong	7,282,154	5,021,231	69.0%	1,470,209	20.2%	790,714	10.9%

This table includes all Tibetan autonomous entities in the People's Republic of China, plus Xining PLC and Haidong P. The latter two are included to complete the figures for Qinghai province, and also because they are claimed as parts of Greater Tibet by the Government of Tibet in exile.

P = Prefecture; AP = Autonomous prefecture; PLC = Prefecture-level city; AC = Autonomous county.

Excludes members of the People's Liberation Army in active service.

Han settlers in the cities have steadily increased since then. But a preliminary analysis of the 2005 mini-census shows only a modest increase in Han population in the TAR from 2000-2005 and little change in eastern Tibet. Barry Sautman accused pro-independence forces of wanting the Tibetan areas cleansed of Han and the Dalai Lama of consistently misrepresenting the present situation as one of a Han majority. The Tibetan countryside, where three-fourths of the population lives, has very few non-Tibetans.

Sautman also argued:

[The settlers] are not personally subsidized by the state; although like urban Tibetans, they are indirectly subsidized by infrastructure development that favors the towns. Some 85% of Han who migrate to Tibet to establish businesses fail; they generally leave within two to three years. Those who survive economically offer competition to local Tibetan business people, but a comprehensive study in Lhasa has shown that non-Tibetans have pioneered small and medium enterprise sectors that some Tibetans have later entered and made use of their local knowledge to prosper. Tibetans are not simply an underclass; there is a substantial Tibetan middle class, based in government service, tourism, commerce, and small-scale manufacturing/ transportation. There are also many unemployed or under-employed Tibetans, but almost no unemployed or underemployed Han because those who cannot find work leave.

Dalai Lama Succession

Another drastic change in Tibetan culture may come with the death of the 14th Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is seen as the highest lama of the Gelug order and the Panchen Lama as the penultimate lama. After the 10th Panchen Lama's death, monks from the Panchen Lama's monastery, along with the Dalai Lama, named a successor, Gendün Chökyi Nyima, who was not recognized by the Chinese government. Instead, after conducting a lottery by the Golden Urn which did not include Gendün Chökyi Nyima's name, the Chinese government supported another boy, Gyaincain Norbu, as the 11th Panchen Lama. The Panchen Lama often provides important consultation toward the finding of the reincarnated Dalai Lama. Recognizing that the Chinese government will likely involve itself in the search for his successor if that search is done in Tibet, the current Dalai Lama has said that he may instead choose to be reincarnated from within the Tibetan exile community in India.

In 2009, The Tibetan Children's Villages established the first Tibetan college in exile in Bangalore (India) which was named “The Dalai Lama Institute for Higher Education”. The goals of this college is to teach Tibetan language and Tibetan culture, but also science, arts, counseling and information technology to Tibetan students in exile.

Tibetan artists in contemporary China

In China, Tibetan singers are known for their strong vocal abilities, which many attribute to the high altitudes of the Tibetan Plateau. Tseten Dolma (Zh:才旦卓玛) rose to fame in the 1960s for her music-and-dance suite The East is Red (Zh:东方红). Kelsang Metok (格桑梅朵) is a popular singer who combines traditional Tibetan songs with elements of Chinese and Western pop. Phurbu Namgyal (Pubajia or 蒲巴甲) was the 2006 winner of Haonaner, the Chinese version of American Idol. In 2006, he starred in Sherwood Hu's Prince of the Himalayas, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, set in ancient Tibet and featuring an all-Tibetan cast.

However, when ethnomusicologist Ngawang Chophel came back to Tibet in 1995, after the exile of his family in India in 1968, to make a film on Tibetan music and traditional dance, he was arrested and sentenced to prison for 18 years on accusation of spying by the Chinese authorities. It was only in 2002 that he was released on medical parole.

The Tibetan singer Jamyang Kyi was arrested in April 2008. The reasons of her arrest were not stated but may be related to the 2008 protests in Tibet. She was released on bail on May 20, 2008.

Similarly, Drolmakyi, a popular singer, was arrested on March 30 2008 by authorities during the 2008 Tibetan unrest‎ period. She was released at the end of May after almost two months of detention on condition that she not disclose the reason for her arrest.

The 2004 film Kekexili: Mountain Patrol, made jointly by National Geographic and Chinese director Lu Chuan (陆川), is the story of a reporter in Tibet reporting issues involving the endangerment of the Tibetan Antelope. The film was highly acclaimed and won numerous awards at home and abroad.

See also

• Tibet
• Tibet (1912–1950)
• Tibetan diaspora
• 1987–1993 Tibetan unrest

References

• Craig, Mary. Tears of Blood: A Cry for Tibet (1992) INDUS an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Calcutta. Second impression, 1993. ISBN 0-00-627500-1
• Goldstein, Melvyn C. A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State (1989) University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520061408
• Goldstein, Melvyn C. The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama (1997) University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21951-1
• Goldstein, Melvyn C. A History of Modern Tibet, Volume 2: The Calm Before the Storm: 1951-1955 (2007) University of California Press. ISBN 9780520249417
• Laird, Thomas. The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama (2006) Grove Press. ISBN 0802118275
• Powers, John. History as Propaganda: Tibetan Exiles versus the People's Republic of China (2004) Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195174267
• Shakya, Tsering. The Dragon In The Land Of Snows (1999) Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-11814-7
• Smith, Warren W., Jr. Tibetan Nation: A History Of Tibetan Nationalism And Sino-tibetan Relations (1997) Westview press. ISBN 978-0813332802