The sinicization of Tibet includes the programs and laws of the Chinese government to force cultural assimilation in Tibetan areas of China, including the Tibet Autonomous Region and the surrounding Tibetan-designated autonomous areas. The efforts are undertaken by China in order to remake Tibetan culture into mainstream Chinese culture.
The changes, which have been evident since the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China in 1950–51, have been facilitated by a range of economic, social, cultural, religious and political changes that have been implemented in Tibet by the Chinese government. Critics cite the government-sponsored migration of large numbers of Han Chinese into the Tibet Autonomous Region, deemed Chinese settlements, as a major component of sinicization. Some academics have described it as a form of Han settler colonialism.
According to the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), the government of Tibet in exile, China's policy has allegedly resulted in the disappearance of elements of Tibetan culture; this policy has been called a "cultural genocide".Burbu, Dawa (2001) China's Tibet Policy, Routledge, , pp 100–124Samdup, Tseten (1993) Chinese population – Threat to Tibetan identity The government in exile says that the policies intend to make Tibet an integral part of China and control desire for Tibetan self-determination. The 14th Dalai Lama and the Central Tibet Administration have characterized sinicization programs as genocide or cultural cleansing in the context of Tibet.T. G. Arya, Central Tibetan Administration, China's 'ethnic unity' bill aimed at complete sinicization of the Tibetan plateau through ethnic cleansing: CTA Information Secretary, (15 January 2020), https://tibet.net/chinas-ethnic-unity-bill-aimed-at-complete-sinicization-of-the-tibetan-plateau-through-ethnic-cleansing-cta-information-secretary/ ["China has waged unceasing campaigns at both central and local government level to aggressively consolidate its military occupation of Tibet in the last more than six decades. But this new state-sponsored regulation is seen as a desperately contemplated measure to curb the undiminishing defiance of the Tibetan people and their call for the protection of their identity, for freedom, human rights and for the honourable return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet." "Central Tibetan Administration's Information Secretary Mr T.G. Arya condemned the new ethnic identity law, calling it a measure of ethnic cleansing aimed at complete sinicization of the Tibetan plateau. The Secretary also criticised the legislation as a gross violation of the international law and the Chinese constitution." " "What China could not achieve through the sixty years of occupation and repression, now they are trying to achieve it through repressive law. The law aims to achieve complete sinicization of the Tibetan plateau through ethnic cleansing. China finds Tibetan language, religion and culture as the main barrier to achieving complete control over the land," Secretary TG Arya told the Tibet News Bureau.]
The Chinese government claims that its policies have benefited Tibet, and it also claims that the cultural and social changes which have occurred in Tibet are consequences of modernization. According to the Chinese government, Tibet's economy has expanded; improved services and infrastructure have improved the quality of life of Tibetans, and the Tibetan language and culture have been protected.
History Qing dynasty and the Republic of China
Tibet has a complicated relationship with its neighbors, including China, especially during the Qing dyansty. After the Qing was overthrown in 1912 and before 1950, the area that corresponds to the modern-day Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) was claimed by the Republic of China but operated as a de facto independent state unrecognized by other countries. It printed its own currency and postage and engaged in some forms of international relations but did not exchange ambassadors with other nations. The government in Lhasa controlled central Tibet (Ü-Tsang) and later western Kham. Amdo and other parts of Kham were either autonomous, allied with or ruled by the Chinese, or repeatedly changed hands.Burbu, Dawa (2001) China's Tibet Policy, Routledge, , pp 86–99 During the early 20th century, Chinese Muslim general Ma Bufang governed Qinghai and implemented policies of sinicization and Islamification in Tibetan areas, according to accusations made by Tibetans. Forced conversion and heavy taxes were reported under his rule.
People's Republic of China
After CCP Chairman Mao Zedong won the Chinese Civil War in 1949, his goal was the unification of the "five nationalities" as the People's Republic of China (PRC) under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. The Tibetan government in Lhasa sent Ngabo (known as Ngabo in English sources) to Chamdo in Kham, a strategic town near the border, with orders to hold his position while reinforcements came from Lhasa to fight against the Chinese. On 16 October 1950, news that the People's Liberation Army was advancing towards Chamdo and had taken the town of Riwoche (which could block the route to Lhasa) arrived. Ngabo and his men retreated to a monastery, where the People's Liberation Army surrounded and captured them. After the Battle of Chamdo, Ngabo wrote to Lhasa suggesting a peaceful surrender instead of war. According to the Chinese negotiator, "It is up to you to choose whether Tibet would be liberated peacefully or by force. It is only a matter of sending a telegram to the PLA group to recommence their march to Lhasa." Ngabo accepted Mao's Seventeen-Point Agreement, which stipulated that in return for Tibet becoming part of the People's Republic of China, it would be granted autonomy. Lacking support from the rest of the world, the Dalai Lama sent a telegram to Mao accepting the agreement in August 1951.
Although the annexation of Tibet by the PRC is referred to as the "Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" in Chinese government historiography, the 14th Dalai Lama and Tibetan exile groups view it as colonization or invasion. After the 1959 Tibetan Uprising, the Dalai Lama repudiated the agreement saying he had approved it under duress. The Chinese government points to improvements in health and the economy as justifications for their assertion of power in what it calls a historically-Chinese region. According to the Dalai Lama, China has encouraged Han Chinese immigration into the region.
Before the signing of the Seventeen Point Agreement on 23 May 1951, Tibet's economy was dominated by subsistence agriculture, but the stationing of 35,000 Chinese troops during the 1950s strained the region's food supplies. When the Dalai Lama visited Mao Zedong in Beijing in 1954, Mao told him that he would move 40,000 Chinese farmers to Tibet. Forster-Latsch, H. and Renz S., P. L. in Geschichte und Politik Tibets/ Tibet unter chinesischer Herrschaft . Horst Südkamp (1998), Breviarium der tibetischen Geschichte, p. 191. Golzio, Karl-Heinz and Bandini, Pietro (2002), Die vierzehn Wiedergeburten des Dalai Lama, Scherz Verlag / Otto Wilhelm Barth, Bern / München, .
As a part of the Great Leap Forward in the 1960s, Chinese authorities coerced Tibetan farmers to cultivate maize instead of barley (the region's traditional crop). The harvest failed, and thousands of Tibetans starved.Shakya, Tsering (1999) The Dragon in the Land of Snows, Columbia University Press, Stein, Rolf (1972) Tibetan Civilization, Stanford University Press,
Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution was initiated by Mao and carried out by his supporters within the Chinese Communist Party, notably the Gang of Four, from 1966 to 1976 in order to preserve Maoism as China's leading ideology. It was an intra-CCP struggle to eliminate political opposition to Mao.MacFarquhar, Roderick & Michael Schoenhals (2006) Mao's Last Revolution, Harvard University Press, , p. 102
The Cultural Revolution affected all of China, and Tibet suffered as a result. Red Guards attacked civilians, who were accused of being traitors to communism. More than six thousand monasteries were looted and destroyed. Monks and nuns were forced to leave their monasteries and "live a normal life", and those who resisted were imprisoned. Prisoners were forced to perform hard labor, tortured and executed. Although the Potala Palace was threatened, Premier Zhou Enlai intervened and restrained the Tibetan Red Guards.
Recent developments
In 1984, the CTA claimed that 1,207,387 Tibetans had died "of unnatural causes" under Chinese rule since 1950. Chinese officials denied carrying out political executions in Tibet.
China's National Strategic Project to Develop the West, introduced during the 1980s after the Cultural Revolution, encourages the migration of Chinese people from other regions of China into Tibet with bonuses and favorable living conditions. People volunteer to be sent there as teachers, doctors and administrators to assist Tibet's development. Citing an unqualified labor force and less-developed infrastructure, the Chinese government has encouraged migrants to stimulate competition and change Tibet from a traditional to a market economy with the reform and opening up initiated by Deng Xiaoping.
Tibetans are the majority ethnic group in the Tibet Autonomous Region, making up about 93 percent of the population in 2008.Pinteric, Uros (2003): http://www.sidip.org/SIDIP_files/pintericu_tibet.pdf International Status of Tibet, Association for Innovative Political Science, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The 2008 attacks by Tibetans on Han- and Hui-owned property were reportedly due to the large Han Hui influx into Tibet.
According to George Fitzherbert, "To engage with China's arguments concerning Tibet is to be subjected to the kind of intellectual entrapment, familiar in the Palestinian conflict, whereby the dispute is corralled into questions which the plaintiff had never sought to dispute. Tibetans complain of being robbed of their dignity in their homeland by having their genuinely loved leader incessantly denounced, and of being swamped by Chinese immigration to the point of becoming a minority in their own country. But China insistently condemns such complaints as separatism, an offence in China under the crime of 'undermining national unity', and pulls the debate back to one about Tibet's historical status. Foreigners raise questions about human rights and the environment, but China again denounces this as a foreign intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, and pulls the debate back to Tibet's historical status."
The Chinese government has attempted to develop Tibet as part of its China Western Development policy and has invested 310 billion yuan (about 45.6 billion U.S. dollars) in Tibet since 2001. In 2009 it invested over $7 billion into the region, 31 percent more than the previous year. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway was completed in 2006 at a cost of $3.68 billion, leading to increased tourism from the rest of China.Xinhua News Agency (24 August 2005). New height of world's railway born in Tibet. Retrieved 25 August 2005. The Shanghai government contributed $8.6 million to the construction of the Tibet Shanghai Experimental School, where 1,500 Tibetan students receive a primarily-Chinese education. Some young Tibetans feel that they are Tibetan and Chinese, and are fluent in Tibetan and Mandarin Chinese.
In August 2020, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping gave a speech in which he stated that it is "necessary to actively guide Tibetan Buddhism to adapt to the socialist society and promote the Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism."