As preparations intensify for a possible summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Beijing, pressure is mounting in Washington for the United States to place Tibet back at the center of its China policy. Lawmakers, advocacy groups, and human rights organizations are warning that the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign inside Tibet has entered a new and more aggressive phase, one aimed not merely at controlling territory, but at dismantling Tibetan identity itself.
In recent months, bipartisan voices in the US Congress have renewed calls for stronger protections for Tibetan refugees living in Nepal, where roughly 10,000 Tibetans remain caught between growing Chinese influence and an increasingly restrictive political climate. American officials have raised concerns that many Tibetan refugees continue to lack basic legal protections, including access to education, banking, employment, and documentation. The issue gained renewed attention following discussions involving US officials and Nepali authorities earlier this year, amid fears that Beijing’s pressure on Kathmandu is shrinking the already limited civic and religious space available to Tibetans in the Himalayan region.
At the same time, lawmakers in Washington are urging the White House to confront what they describe as a systematic campaign of forced assimilation unfolding across Tibet under Xi Jinping’s rule. Reports from researchers, Tibetan exile organizations, and international rights groups point to the expansion of state-run boarding schools where Tibetan children are separated from their families and educated primarily in Mandarin Chinese. Critics argue these policies are designed to weaken the transmission of Tibetan language, religion, and cultural identity between generations.
Tibetan advocacy organizations have repeatedly compared the boarding school system to earlier assimilation campaigns carried out against Indigenous populations elsewhere in the world. Researchers estimate that hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children now spend most of the year inside highly controlled residential institutions where political education and loyalty to the Communist Party are heavily emphasized.
Washington’s concerns extend beyond education policy. US lawmakers and international observers have also condemned Beijing’s tightening control over Tibetan Buddhist institutions, including restrictions on monasteries, surveillance of monks and nuns, and growing state interference in the recognition of reincarnate lamas. The issue remains particularly sensitive as China continues signaling its intention to control the future succession process of 14th Dalai Lama, despite repeated objections from Tibetans and Buddhist communities worldwide.
The destruction and alteration of Tibetan-language signs, the closure of privately run Tibetan schools, and the demolition or “Sinicization” of monasteries have further fueled accusations that the CCP is pursuing cultural erasure under the banner of national unity and stability.
Human rights advocates argue that Beijing’s policies in Tibet mirror broader campaigns already seen in regions such as Xinjiang, where mass surveillance, ideological indoctrination, and coercive assimilation programs have drawn international condemnation.
For many in Washington, the upcoming Trump-Xi meeting is increasingly being viewed as a test of whether the United States is willing to directly challenge China over issues extending beyond trade and military competition. Several lawmakers have argued that Tibet cannot remain a symbolic issue discussed only in passing statements while repression deepens on the ground.
Analysts note that Tibet carries strategic importance beyond its human rights dimension. The Tibetan Plateau is the source of many of Asia’s major rivers and has become central to China’s hydropower ambitions, infrastructure expansion, and border security strategy. Beijing’s tightening grip over Tibet is therefore seen not only as a domestic political issue, but as part of a broader effort to consolidate long-term geopolitical control across the Himalayas.
Tibetan groups in exile say the stakes are becoming existential. They argue that the CCP’s objective is no longer simply political obedience, but the gradual replacement of Tibetan civilization with a state-managed identity stripped of its language, spiritual traditions, and historical memory.
As diplomatic preparations continue, activists are urging Washington not to treat Tibet as a secondary issue sacrificed for economic negotiations or geopolitical convenience. For them, the question surrounding the Trump-Xi meeting reaches beyond diplomacy. It is about whether powerful democracies are prepared to confront what they describe as one of the world’s most sophisticated systems of cultural and religious repression before the damage becomes irreversible.
