Lhasa, Nov 10 — If China claims that Tibet is part of China, then it must allow Tibetans to have meaningful control over their culture, religion, language, education and local governance, a report has detailed while stressing that Beijing has consciously, consistently and deliberately refused to grant genuine autonomy to Tibet.
"The problem is that this vision rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Chinese state views Tibet. The evidence of the past several decades suggests that Beijing has not merely failed to grant genuine autonomy. It has consciously, consistently, and deliberately refused to do so. And after years of failed appeals, negotiations, and proposals, continuing to ask for genuine autonomy increasingly resembles barking up the wrong tree," Khedroob Thondup, nephew of the Dalai Lama, wrote in the 'European Times'.
China claims that Tibet has autonomy through the system of "regional ethnic autonomy." In the Chinese government white papers, Tibet Autonomous Region is mentioned as an example of minorities which govern their own matter under the framework of the Chinese state. China maintains that people of Tibet participate in local administration while remaining under the leadership of the central government. Chinese official documents have consistently said that autonomy exists under that framework only, the report mentioned.
Many Tibet supporters believe that China could eventually be convinced to adopt a more flexible interpretation of autonomy. However, this assumption ignores core political philosophy of Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP is not building a federal state and it does not consider regional self-government as an intrinsic democratic good. Instead, the legitimacy of CCP relies heavily on centralised authority, political unity and full control over what it describes as sovereign territory. From China's perspective, genuine autonomy for Tibet is not an administrative question but a security question.
Chinese leaders have long expressed fear that meaningful local control could lead to a political identity different from the Chinese national identity promoted by the state, the report in European Times stated. If Tibetans have control over religion, education, historical narratives, cultural policy and local governance, China fears that Tibet's demands for greater self-determination could eventually follow.
In September, thousands of Tibetan protesters marched through Washington protesting against Chinese President Xi Jinping's recent visit to the US, carrying Tibetan flags and placards with slogans that read, “Xi Jinping is guilty of genocide” and “Tibet was never a part of China,” another report had cited.
It noted that the demonstration brought together a broader coalition of Uyghur, Southern Mongolian, Chinese democracy, Taiwanese, Burmese, Falun Gong and Chinese Christian groups that have suffered under the Chinese Communist Party.
The protest took place during Chinese President Xi Jinping's State visit to the US. More than 3,000 Tibetans gathered to protest Xi’s visit to the White House, in what organisers described as the largest-ever Tibetan rally in North America, organised by the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) with support from other Tibetan activist groups, according to the report in online magazine ‘The Diplomat’.
“The protesters came with demands that they said should be part of the China-US relationship: that Trump raise human rights with Xi, that China release political and religious prisoners, and that Tibetans be allowed to preserve their language and culture. The group also demanded the repeal of China’s new Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, which took effect in July and promotes what Beijing calls a shared sense of identity among China’s 56 ethnic groups,” the report mentioned.