34 China The EconomistMay 16th 2020
2 the volunteers who flocked to care for vic-
tims of the earthquake, says Huang Hsuan-
Ying of the Chinese University of Hong
Kong. During the covid crisis, counsellors
have formed online networks to co-ordi-
nate their efforts to help the afflicted. Yu
Zhihong, a professor of social work at Wu-
han University, set up one such group. Its
members provide psychological support
for nearly 30 people who lost loved ones to
the virus. Ms Yu says some of them are suf-
fering from feelings of guilt, believing they
were the source of a fatal infection, or wor-
rying that they did not do enough to help a
person who died.
But Ms Yu says that some people are re-
luctant to seek help from her network. She
says this may be because grief is a private
family matter in Chinese culture, and stig-
ma still surrounds those who seek help
from mental-health professionals.
There remain far too few such special-
ists to cope with China’s needs. The coun-
try has about two registered psychiatrists
per 100,000 citizens, only about a sixth of
the number in rich countries. Few Chinese
have access to top-notch primary health
care, so mild mental problems can go un-
detected until they are severe. Hospitals do
not offer good care, either. Doctors often
prescribe drugs, even when more subtle
treatment, such as psychotherapy, might
suffice. That is in part because they lack ex-
pertise and in part because it is more prof-
itable to dispense pills.
The mental-health system that the gov-
ernment says it is building would make it
easier for ordinary Chinese to receive
counselling in local clinics or schools. The
rich southern city of Shenzhen is one of
about 30 places that were instructed in 2019
to pilot such reforms. By the end of this
year it plans to have a staffed “psycholog-
ical counselling room” in all of its larger lo-
cal clinics. By the end of 2021 it aims to
make counselling available in 85% of prim-
ary and secondary schools.
The reforms may help. But officials of-
ten refer to them not as a way of boosting
public health, but as a means of improving
“social governance”—in other words,
strengthening control. It is possible that
the counselling rooms will provide some
assistance to people who are suffering, but
also make it easier for the government to
keep tabs on unhappy people.
Stories from Wuhan provide reasons to
be sceptical. Grieving relatives report that
they have been obliged to take government
officials with them when they bury ashes,
perhaps to ensure that funerals are kept
brief and low key. Members of one family
were ordered by police to delete an online
group they had created in order to help be-
reaved people connect with each other. The
government wants Chinese to talk more
about their emotions, but not if they say
the wrong things. 7T
o the great wallof mutual suspicion
and recrimination that divides China
and the United States, the American Senate
is adding another brick. As The Economist
went to press, its foreign-relations com-
mittee was about to discuss the Tibet Policy
and Support Act, a piece of bipartisan legis-
lation that was passed by the House of Rep-
resentatives in January. When, as seems
likely, it becomes law, China will be furi-
ous. It regards its conduct in Tibet as above
criticism by meddling foreigners.
Among other measures, the law would
make it American policy that only Tibetan
Buddhists can choose their religious lead-
ers, including an eventual successor to the
most senior of them all, the Dalai Lama,
who is 84 and lives in exile in India. The law
would demand that sanctions be imposed
on any Chinese official who attempts to
control the process of finding the Dalai’s
Lama’s reincarnation. Odd as it seems, Chi-
na’s avowedly atheist government is in-
deed intent on fixing the outcome. In 2007
it issued “management measures for the
reincarnation of living Buddhas”.
An anniversary this month recalls how
seriously China takes Tibetan religious
succession. On May 17th, 25 years ago,
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, a six-year-old boy,
was taken along with his parents from their
home in Tibet. Three days earlier, in a cere-
mony in northern India, the Dalai Lama
had proclaimed him as the 11th Panchen
Lama, the second-most senior monk in the
hierarchy, the tenth of whom had died in- In Tibetan tradition, the Dalai and
Panchen Lamas have important roles in
identifying each other’s reincarnations.
The boy, whom activists would call “the
world’s youngest political prisoner”, has
not been seen in public since. Occasionally,
China has tersely declared that he is living
life as “normal”. In 1995 it named its own
candidate as the 11th Panchen, Gyaltsen
Norbu, who appears in public occasionally,
but lacks credibility among Tibetans.
Exiled activists see the anniversary as a
chance to remind the world of China’s bru-
tality in Tibet and the hollowness of its
promises of “autonomy” there. But in Tibet
itself, the day will pass without notice. The
region has emerged from its covid-19 lock-
down into the political lockdown that
passes for normal life there. The official
media are indulging in a propaganda blitz
around a new law, passed by the regional
assembly in January, that came into effect
on May 1st: “Regulations on the Establish-
ment of a Model Area for Ethnic Unity and
Progress in the Tibet Autonomous Region”.
Matthew Akester, a Tibet researcher
based in India, says the regulations, under
which government and private organisa-
tions must “strengthen ethnic unity” and
combat separatism, contain nothing new.
Rather, they formalise a trend in China’s
policy towards its ethnic minorities. This
stresses “unity” rather than diversity, let
alone autonomy. Tibetan exiles fear that,
by promoting intermarriage between Ti-
betans and Han Chinese, Han migration
into Tibet and the urbanisation of Tibet,
China aims to eradicate Tibetan identity.
No American law is going to deter China
from trying. But neither will Tibet’s new
regulations change an enduring fact: the
strongest symbol of Tibet’s identity re-
mains the Dalai Lama himself and the hold
he has on Tibetan loyalties, despite 61 years
in exile. As China should have learnt from
the history of the Panchen Lamas, the Com-
munist Party will never be accepted by Ti-
betans as the arbiter of their faith. 7China angrily shrugs off a new
American law, and a sad anniversaryTibetThe lost boy
Man proposes, but the party disposes