On May 23, 2023, Beijing observed a forum on the development of Tibet where the primary topic of discussion was ‘Younger generation contributing to the construction of an ecological civilization on the Tibetan Plateau’. Perhaps this is a positive development projected by the CCP to portray themselves as saviours of Tibet’s younger generation. Or perhaps this is an ironic case of deception that has been pervasive for the last 64 years since China invaded the independent nation of Tibet?
The paper, ‘Democratic Reform in Tibet-Sixty Years On’ was released on March 27, 2019. The paper contained a brief chapter on Tibet’s Ecology where it said: “In Old Tibet, with an extremely underdeveloped economy, people could only adapt to the natural environment – they (referring to the Tibetans) used whatever they could to exploit nature”. This statement could not be more paradoxical when we delve deeper into the facts and figures after the Chinese invasion of 1950 and the resultant Chinese actions that have strained the ecology of the Tibetan Plateau in connection to the global ecological concern it is today.
When China invaded Tibet in 1950, the country’s forests were one of the oldest reserves in all of central Asia. Chinese state logging enterprises (China is one of the largest consumers of timber in the world) inflicted an unprecedented scale of deforestation reducing Tibet’s forests from 25.2 million hectares to 13.57 million in the time span of 35 years between 1950 and 1985. A post-disaster study by Chinese scientists put excessive logging in the Yangtze Valley, particularly along the Tibetan areas as the primary cause of the 1998 Yangtze Flood which killed more than 3000 people, displaced 15 million, and affected 223 million people.
The 1960s saw the emergence of large-scale, systematic mining in Tibet. After China completed its survey of mineral deposits on the plateau (one of the primary goals behind the invasion), they excavated trillions of US dollars’ worth of minerals. In 2019, a production and operating outlook report released by China’s Gold International stated that copper production from the Jiama Mine increased by 54% to 55,025 Tonne from 35,844 Tonne. During the same period, gold production saw an increase from 47,710 ounces to 70,262 ounces. This has subsequently resulted in vast grassland destruction due to the expansion of the mines and extensive water pollution as the excessive waste was subsequently released into the water bodies found alongside the quarries, causing incidents like the Mingyak Lhagang water pollution and Dolkar Village water pollution cases.
Ralph Lemkin in 1944 proposed the concept of cultural genocide as ‘acts and measures undertaken to destroy nations or ethnic group cultures through, national, spiritual and cultural destruction.’ Hence it is blatantly clear that China, led by the CCP regime has ticked off all the boxes with regard to their aggressive assimilation operations of the Tibetan populace in Tibet.
On Feb 6, 2023, United Nations Human Rights experts, released a report in Geneva stating that about a million Tibetan children have been separated from their families by Chinese authorities. The experts said, “We are very disturbed that in recent years, the residential school system for Tibetan children appears to act as a mandatory large-scale program intended to assimilate Tibetans into the majority Han culture, contrary to international human rights standards.”
Since the time when President Xi gave a speech, urging China to build an ‘Impenetrable Fortress’ in Tibet to protect ‘National Unity’, China has forcibly removed Tibetan curriculums in schools in the region resulting in a designed and accelerated erosion in the inheritance of Tibetan Culture, Tradition and Language to the new generations of Tibetans.
According to the 2017 Freedom House report, Tibet is one of the least free countries in the world. The Red Regime led by President Xi has been carrying out systematic annihilation of the cultural heritage of Tibet with destruction of Tibetan Buddhism and religious traditions, Tibet’s unique education system. This massive effort in the degradation of Tibetan cultural and religious ecosystem has productive immensely negative ripple effects noticed in traumatic social breakdowns, rampant lawlessness, communal disharmony, uncontrolled sex trade and spikes in alcoholism. Meanwhile, Tibet has been inundated with Han Chinese settlers, making them the dominant ethnic population in an attempt to dilute the Tibetan populace and destabilize the cultural sensitivities of the Tibetan people in order to control the plateau by making it Sino-centric – a cultural genocide to make Tibet safe and stable for China.
The Chinese government’s recent attempts to hold the future generations of Tibetans responsible for the future of Tibet, despite their history of exploiting the plateau for the last six decades is deeply concerning, unnerving and raises serious ethical questions. Is it acceptable to hold the descendants of the victims liable for the chain of destruction, inflicted by the exploits of the invaders? Are the younger generations of Tibetans properly equipped with the mindset (Tibetan history, culture, and traditions) that has successfully enriched the environment before the red dragon’s shadow darkened and engulfed Tibet with tyranny.
It is disheartening to witness such a heavy burden being placed on the handicapped shoulders of a generation that has inherited an impoverished and raped environment as a result of unsustainable and looting practices by a regime that has constantly attempted to disregard the ‘Human development’ of Tibetans and in particular, scorched the legacy of inheritance of the Tibetan way of life to the next generation of Tibetans.
