The Economist - USA (2021-02-13)

42 The Economist February 13th 2021
China

Repression in Tibet

Accept these gifts, or else

T

he communistParty chief of Tibet, Wu

Yingjie, replied in January to a letter

from a yak-herder living on the outskirts of

the region’s capital, Lhasa. According to

state media, the author, Sonam Tsering,

had expressed gratitude to China’s leader,

Xi Jinping, for his “happy life”, and to the

party for providing care “as warm as the

sun”. Mr Wu asked the farmer to spread

this story to others in order to encourage

them, too, to love Mr Xi “from the bottom

of their hearts”. He also made clear what

was not responsible for Mr Tsering’s happi-

ness: Tibetan Buddhism and its leader, the

Dalai Lama. Mr Wu wrote that Tibetans

must “reduce religious consumption”,

eliminate the Dalai Lama’s “negative influ-

ence” and “follow the party’s path”.

The party has long vilified the Dalai La-

ma, who escaped to India in 1959, as the

treasonous overseer of an “evil clique” that

seeks to split Tibet from China. Since 2007

the government has even claimed sole le-

gal authority over his reincarnation (he is

85 and, says an aide, in “excellent health”).

But in recent months officials have inten-

sified their efforts to eradicate the Dalai La-

ma from the religious lives of China’s 6.3m

Tibetans, of whom less than half live in Ti-

bet itself, with most of the others in neigh-

bouring areas of the Tibetan plateau. They

have also been trying to persuade Tibetans

to pay less attention to their faith and show

more enthusiasm for Mr Xi and the party. It

is the latest stage in a decades-long at-

tempt to crush Tibetan identity.

The Tibetan religion is undergoing

what the party calls “sinicisation”. Al-

though different methods are involved, the

process echoes a campaign in neighbour-

ing Xinjiang to do the same to Islam, the

faith of most of that region’s 12m ethnic

Uyghurs. The purpose is to eliminate reli-

gious influences from outside China, espe-

cially from the Dalai Lama (on the Tibetan

plateau) and from radical Islamic groups

(in Xinjiang). In both regions, the party’s

efforts amount to an assault not only on re-

ligion, but on cherished cultural tradi-

tions. Chen Quanguo, the party boss in

Xinjiang, was Mr Wu’s predecessor. While

in Tibet Mr Chen tried out some of the

heavy-handed security tactics which later,

in Xinjiang, he developed into a vast net-

work of “re-education” camps for Uyghurs.

The party has taken its campaign to

horrific extremes in Xinjiang because it

fears that the region may turn into a

hotbed of terrorism (over the years, Uygh-

urs have staged several bloody attacks). In

Tibet the party has big worries about stabil-

ity, too. An explosion of unrest across the

plateau in 2008 prompted a security

clampdown there and tighter restrictions

on travel to Tibet by foreigners (journalists

are rarely admitted). After that, a series of

public self-immolations by desperate Ti-

betans kept the authorities on high alert.

But officials in Tibetan areas have not

replicated the worst atrocities in Xinjiang,

which America has contentiously called

“genocide”, though they do not involve

killing (see United States section). In Xin-

jiang, more than 1m Uyghurs have been

sent to the new gulag, where they suppos-

edly learn job skills. In Tibet, many farmers

As in Xinjiang, China is tightening its grip in Tibet

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