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The Guardian
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The hunt for the next Dalai Lama
Before long, Tibetan Buddhism will enter an unknown world – one without its current Dalai Lama. He has been the leader since he was chosen as a toddler more than 80 years ago. But the Dalai Lama is now 90, and talking openly about the process to pick his successor. Much has changed, however, since he was discovered by senior Buddhist monks in a village in north-west Tibet in 1937. Most pertinently, the Chinese invasion of Tibet in the 1950s and the subsequent exile of the region's Buddhist leadership to India in the decades since. As our south Asia correspondent, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, explains, it means the identity of the next Lama – and the process of how to find them – has become a deeply disputed question, pitting the Chinese state against Buddhist monks. And raising the possibility, too, that after the death of the current Dalai Lama, the world may see not one Dalai Lama but two. Lhadon Tethong of the Tibet Action Institute tells Lucy Hough what it has meant for Tibetans to live in exile for so long, and how they feel about Chinese attempts to interfere.
Hindustan Times
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Up to 100,000 Tibetan children aged 4 to 6 forced into boarding preschools: Report
New Delhi: Chinese authorities have forced up to 100,000 Tibetan children aged four to six years into a network of colonial boarding preschools, where they face abuse, neglect, indoctrination and identity erasure, according to a new report by a Tibetan think tank. The report shows how the Chinese government is using Tibetan children as a 'means to aggressively and forcibly assimilate Tibetans, threatening their survival as a distinct people.' (HT Photo/ Representative photo) The report by the Tibet Action Institute, drawing on rare first-hand accounts, shows how the Chinese government is using Tibetan children as a 'means to aggressively and forcibly assimilate Tibetans, threatening their survival as a distinct people,' the think tank said on Friday as the report's Hindi version was released in New Delhi as part of events marking the 90th birthday of the Dalai Lama. Ahead of the birthday, the Dalai Lama laid down the process for the continuation of the position of spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists after his death, and said only a trust created by him will be responsible for recognising his reincarnation. The remarks angered the Chinese government, which claimed it alone has the authority to approve the successor of the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since he fled Tibet during a Chinese military crackdown in 1959. The Tibet Action Institute revealed in an earlier report in December 2021 that Tibet's education system has become primarily residential, with almost 900,000 Tibetan children aged six to 18 living in government-run boarding schools. 'Subsequent estimates based on fieldwork by a Tibetan educational sociologist additionally suggest that at least 100,000 children aged four to six are also in boarding preschools,' the report said. The report, titled 'When They Came to Take Our Children: China's colonial boarding schools and the future of Tibet', presents evidence of the impact of the schools and other Chinese education policies. 'Students suffer physical and mental abuse, and in some cases, even death. Parents report being unable to easily access their children while they are in the schools,' the Tibet Action Institute said. Children are separated from families at an early age – as young as four in some rural areas – and 'indoctrinated to be loyal to the Chinese Communist Party'. The report said such measures cause emotional and psychological harm, loss of Tibetan language, and alienation from families and communities. Also Read: New report accuses China of 'indoctrinating' Tibetan children in boarding schools Even during school breaks, the Chinese government prevents students from accessing Tibetan language classes or participating in religious activities, the report said. 'China's colonial boarding schools are meant to indoctrinate, not educate Tibetan children,' said education expert Gyal Lo, the Tibet specialist at Tibet Action Institute. 'The testimonies in the report confirm my research and my own family's experience: The Chinese authorities are deliberately taking our children away and disconnecting them from their roots. 'Within a generation our language and culture could be lost, all because the Chinese government sees Tibetan identity as a threat to its control of our nation.' The Tibet Action Institute said the Chinese government has continued to forcibly close Tibetan-run schools and local village schools in recent years. This leaves most parents with no choice but to send their children to live in government-run boarding schools. Also Read: Tibetan govt-in-exile calls for int'l intervention over forcible enrolment of children in colonial boarding schools The children, whose mother tongue is Tibetan, must undergo schooling almost entirely in Chinese. 'Tibetan language materials, imagery or cultural content is purged from the curriculum and the classroom walls, so that children only encounter Chinese identity and culture,' the Tibet Action Institute said. Gyal Lo said China's attempt to 'dictate' the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama must be seen in parallel with its 'deeply troubling effort to reshape an entire generation of Tibetan children through its colonial boarding school system'. He added, 'These are not isolated policies – they reflect a systematic strategy to erase Tibetan identity, culture and spiritual traditions.' Also Read: Tibetan education conference slams China's 'assimilative' policies BJP MP Sujeet Kumar, who spoke at Friday's launch of the report, said the revelations are 'deeply disturbing and demand urgent global attention'. He added, 'As a democracy rooted in compassion and justice, India stands in solidarity with the Tibetan people in their struggle to preserve their language, culture and identity. No child anywhere in the world should be separated from their family or heritage in the name of assimilation.' Kumar reiterated an assertion recently made by Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Pema Khandu that India shares a border with India, not China. 'We should call it the India-Tibet border,' Kumar said.
ABC News
29-06-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
China forces young Tibetan children to indoctrination boarding schools to push state propaganda
Distressed Tibetan children as young as four sent to Chinese state-run boarding schools for indoctrination have been beaten for praying and wearing Buddhist blessing cords, forced to sleep on sheepskins and taught only in Mandarin, a new report has found. Researchers and activists say the boarding schools have been used by authorities to suppress the local culture and language of people in China's Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). Details of the violence and coercive indoctrination have emerged in a new report from the US-based Tibet Action Institute (TAI) titled When They Came To Take Our Children. Two Tibetans interviewed told the TAI that children were reprimanded for practising their religion. "Students are restricted from wearing any sungdue [Buddhist blessing cords] around their necks and wrists and chanting Tibetan prayers," the report says. A former student, who has left Tibet, told the TAI if school authorities inspected dormitories and "found that we had not kept it clean, we were beaten as a punishment". Along with the allegations of beatings, the report says Tibetan children are indoctrinated to praise the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and taught only in Mandarin. "It's an effort to move Tibetan children away from family and community … expanding its control over what they're learning and thinking," Freya Putt, the author of the report and TAI's Director of Strategy, says. The TAI said its research was based on rare firsthand accounts from people in Tibet, and with those who have recently fled — as well as Chinese news reports and research papers. Human Rights Watch Associate China Director Maya Wang said they too have gathered evidence of the CCP's enforcement of Mandarin instruction of Tibetan schoolchildren. "It's part of a bigger forced assimilation drive, where the intention is to punish any kind of expression of Tibetans that are not following the Chinese government script," she told the ABC. Chinese authorities have denied children have been mistreated, and have used state media to cast the schools in a far more positive light. TAI's previous research found that 800,000-900,000 Tibetan children aged 6-18 were living in state-run boarding schools. Fieldwork by educational sociologist Gyal Lo suggests another 100,000 aged four to six are also in boarding preschools. "Some people do not want to send their children to boarding school but they don't have any other choice," a Tibetan who recently fled is quoted as saying in the report. "Parents do not want their children to be illiterate, so with that hope they send their children to the schools. But when these children return home, they cannot speak in Tibetan with their family members, they only communicate in Chinese. Dr Lo said he had even seen this happen to his two grand-nieces. He described it as a "sort of cultural genocide", and that his grand-nieces seemed to be uncomfortable sharing the family's Tibetan identity. "They became a stranger at home," he said. "That's just the result of the three months in the boarding preschool." The TAI's report detailed terrible conditions in boarding preschools. A student teacher's online diary is quoted, describing how "children in the lower bunks were prevented from falling off by boards; children in the upper bunks were tied up with a strap. For nap time, children have to sleep with their heads on their desks". Another account from a Tibetan still in Tibet described how the young child of a friend was so distressed they had to be locked in a room so their parent could leave them at boarding school. "China is using Tibetan children as the final frontier on the battleground to eliminate the Tibetan identity language and the culture," Dr Lo said. Former UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Fernand de Varennes, described these practices as an "existential threat" to Tibetan people. "Within two generations, if this situation does not improve, the language, much of the identity [and] culture will be lost," he said. Tibetan-Australian Yangkyi Dolma Sangpo, 25, attended a boarding school as a young child. Yangkyi's parents fled Tibet when she was only four months old. "My father, he got in trouble with the Chinese government because he was bringing Tibetan scriptures and Tibetan political texts from India back into Tibet," Yangkyi said. Her parents could not risk taking her on a month-long journey through the Himalaya mountains to India, she said. So she was left in the care of her grandmother. Yangkyi remembers being taught in Mandarin at school in the village where she lived with her grandmother. She said they did learn Tibetan "on the side", but the school was closed down when she was about six. She was then told she would have to go to a boarding school. At that school, students were strongly discouraged from speaking Tibetan or keeping possessions tied to Tibetan traditions, like prayer beads, she said. "We received a lot of bullying from other students who were there a long time … they were looking down on us," she said. At boarding school, Yangkyi said they were only taught Chinese culture and language. "We were not practising Tibetan religion or any other type of traditions," she said. Yangkyi remembers the culture shock when she returned home. "Because my grandmother and my extended family … they don't speak Mandarin, and me coming home [I was] completely speaking Mandarin all the time and correcting little words," she said. "Like if they said 'socks' in Tibetan, I'd be correcting them to say it in Mandarin." Yangkyi said she had a kidney condition as a young child. Her family used that as an excuse to keep her at home in the village instead of returning to the state-run boarding school. She eventually went to another privately run boarding school that taught Tibetan language and traditions. Then in 2010, Yangkyi was reunited with her parents who had been relocated to Australia on humanitarian grounds. Even outside of Tibet, people like Yangkyi and Dr Lo put themselves at great risk by speaking publicly about their experiences and research. When Dr Lo was recently in India, his father died. "My brothers and sister could not directly inform me that my dad passed away because they're afraid of Chinese authorities' intimidation," he said. Accounts from Tibet have been extremely difficult to verify. Yangkyi tried for months to get documents or photos from family still there, to help the ABC verify her story. But it was not possible without putting them at risk. Even chatting briefly with Yangkyi spooked one of her cousins. "He left me a note saying: 'Hey, I'll be MIA for a while, I don't want to get in trouble,'" she said. There have long been accusations and documentation of religious and cultural suppression in Tibet. In 1950, the then-newly proclaimed People's Republic of China sent troops into Tibet. It was annexed by China and after a failed uprising in 1959 the Dalai Lama — Tibet's spiritual leader — fled to India, where he set up a government in exile that still exists. Tibetans living overseas say communication with relatives is limited, and there is great risk talking about anything political or controversial. People in Tibet are also routinely restricted from travelling and being issued passports, according to the Central Tibetan Administration, the India-based government in exile. Foreign journalists and officials are rarely allowed into the region. The US State Department's East Asia and Pacific bureau stated in May that five requests in 2024 and three in 2023 by American officials to visit were rejected. Diplomats visiting Tibetan areas outside the TAR are subject to "conspicuous surveillance to intimidate, monitor, harass, and restrict [their] movements", it says. It says the TAR is the only part of China its officials need to formally request permission to visit. The ABC has made repeated requests to visit Tibet to report on the devastating earthquake in January, which killed at least 120 people. They were all denied, with officials citing safety concerns. The CCP has mobilised its media outlets to portray the schools in a positive way. A video posted on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, by China Tibet Net — a state media outlet — shows children in class, playing outside, conducting chemistry experiments and dancing. The description emphasises that enrolment in the boarding school system was voluntary, and students received free food and accommodation with tuition in both Tibetan and Mandarin. There was another video posted by The Tibet Daily, the official newspaper of the CCP's Tibet Autonomous Region Committee. It features footage said to be from foreign media reports, accusing them of spreading fake information about boarding schools. In the video, two Chinese reporters visit a school in Tibet where a teacher tells them they give classes in Tibetan language, culture and dancing. The video says the boarding schools are the only way to provide high quality education in such a large and sparsely populated region. In 2020, China's State Council introduced measures aimed at "promoting and popularising the national common language and script", with policies encouraging teachers from other regions to support teaching in Tibet and improve Chinese proficiency among local teachers. There was no requirement for teachers to have Tibetan language skills, according to a 2024/2025 recruitment document issued by the Shenzhen Municipal Education Bureau. Zoe Bedford from the Australia Tibet Council said her organisation had asked the Australian government to sanction Chinese government officials responsible for Tibet's boarding schools. "We get the reply back that the government raises the issue of these colonial boarding schools publicly and privately in their conversations with Chinese officials," Ms Bedford said. A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said they would not speculate about potential sanctions. "The Australian government has serious concerns about the erosion of educational, religious, linguistic, and cultural rights in Tibet, including through the boarding school system," it said in a statement. In October, Australia's ambassador to the United Nations, James Larsen, raised concerns about the "separation of children from families in boarding schools; and erosion of linguistic, cultural, educational and religious rights and freedoms". The ABC contacted China's Embassy in Canberra for a response. Professor de Varennes, the former UN special rapporteur, called on UN institutions and democratic countries to do more.
Hindustan Times
31-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
New report accuses China of ‘indoctrinating' Tibetan children in boarding schools
Tibetan children face abuse, neglect, indoctrination, and identity erasure in the Chinese government's network of colonial boarding schools and preschools in Tibet, an advocacy group has accused. The Tibet Action Institute (TAI) in its recent report has accused the Chinese government of using Tibetan children as a means to aggressively and forcibly assimilate Tibetans, threatening their survival as distinct people. The report found that students are restricted from enrolling in Tibetan language classes or engaging in religious activities, even during school breaks. As per activists, such boarding schools are now believed to house approximately one million Tibetan children, however, the exact number is difficult to confirm. The report titled 'When They Came to Take Our Children': China's Colonial Boarding Schools and the Future of Tibet' says the children are separated from their families at an early age –– as young as four years old in some rural areas –– and indoctrinated to be loyal to the Chinese Communist Party. 'There is now additional evidence that even younger children are being compelled to board across Tibet. At present, Tibetan children aged three or four to six must attend Chinese-language preschool,' the report states. TAI, is a US based advocacy group created in 2009 to assist Tibetans after large protests were held before the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The research for the report is based on rare firsthand accounts by Tibetans either still in Tibet or who have recently escaped. This includes fifteen in-depth interviews conducted between 2023 and 2024 with Tibetans who had recently fled to India, statements published online by people still in Tibet, and approximately 75 private or public comments by people in Tibet from January 2022 to April 2025 that were documented by Tibetans in exile. The report stated that China's education policies in Tibet seek to deracinate Tibetan children from their culture, language, and identity. In the colonial boarding school system, children are first separated from their families, and then bombarded with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideology through carefully curated images, texts, and songs, all in Chinese language. The report also added that as one of the persons who recently escaped from Tibet as saying: In boarding schools, the indoctrination process begins from a very young age. The children are taken away from their parents, restricted from speaking their mother tongue – Tibetan – taught in Chinese language, forced to learn and speak Chinese, and taught only state-approved history. A stated in the report, former boarding school student described how politicised education was implemented in their classroom: 'All the materials put on our class walls were in Chinese. All [my] class teachers [were] Chinese…. In all the classes, we had pictures of Xi Jinping, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao.' The report outlined that all students in China are subjected to a politicised curriculum that is intended to cultivate loyalty to Xi Jinping and the Communist Party. However, in Tibet, education is part of a larger effort to methodically strip away a sense of Tibetaness and manipulate students' primary identification to be Chinese, rather than Tibetan. Notably, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights echoed the Special Rapporteurs', in March 2023, concern that the colonial boarding schools violate China's obligations under the ICESCR, urging the Chinese government to 'abolish immediately the coerced residential (boarding) school system imposed on Tibetan children. 'A generation of Tibetan children is being harmed by China's colonial boarding school policy — socially, emotionally, and psychologically,' said Lhadon Tethong, director of TAI, calling on the international community to step up all efforts to push the Chinese government to abolish this abusive and coercive system. TAI urges the United Nations and concerned governments to call on the Chinese government to immediately conduct a public investigation into the alleged abuses, deaths, and mental health concerns of Tibetan children in Chinese state-run boarding schools, to abolish the coercive system of boarding schools and preschools, and to enable Tibetan children to access high-quality mother tongue education while living at home.
Miami Herald
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
China's ‘Colonial' Schools Erasing Tibet Culture: Rights Group
The Chinese government is reportedly seeking to tighten its control over Tibet by targeting its youngest residents. At "colonial boarding schools across the regions, students are increasingly denied access to their native language and culture—with many subjected to neglect and physical abuse," according to a report released Thursday by the U.S.-based advocacy group Tibet Action Institute. The People's Republic of China seized control of Tibet—which it refers to as Xizang—in 1950, claiming the region needed to be "liberated" from its theocratic and feudal system. Major uprisings followed in 1959, the late 1980s, and again in 2008, each prompting violent crackdowns by Chinese forces. Critics say Tibet—birthplace of the Dalai Lama—has effectively become a police state, with international observers largely shut out except during tightly managed government tours. Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the United Nations Human Rights Office with emailed requests for comment. Observers say the crackdown has only intensified since Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power in late 2012. This tightening of control has extended beyond public spaces into the classroom. Tibet's education system is now predominantly residential, with as many as 900,000 children between the ages of 6 and 18 estimated to be enrolled in state-run boarding schools, the group estimates. At least 100,000 children as young as 4 have been placed in boarding preschool. These most vulnerable of Tibetans are being subjected to an intense state-directed Sinicization campaign "in order to cement the transformation of Tibetan children's identity and allegiance," according to a new report by the U.S.-based Tibet Action Institute, which based its findings on interviews with Tibetans who escaped to India, and secret communications with individuals still living in the region. While separated from their families, students receive an education delivered exclusively in Chinese and focused on Chinese history, cultural heritage and national identity. "But when these children return home, they cannot speak in Tibetan with their family members. They only communicate in Chinese and it becomes difficult at home. The government aims to change these Tibetan children to Chinese by removing Tibetan identity," the report quoted one source as saying. The report describes the system as a violation of both domestic and international law. It also claims knowledge of "numerous cases of abuse and negligence." One parent cited "poor" food quality, while a former student now living in exile said students were beaten if their dormitories were found to be not clean enough during inspections. Gyal Lo, an activist and educational sociologist with the Tibet Action Institute, said in the press release accompanying the report: "China's colonial boarding schools are meant to indoctrinate, not educate Tibetan children. Chinese authorities are deliberately taking our children away and disconnecting them from their roots. "Within a generation our language and culture could be lost, all because the Chinese government sees Tibetan identity as a threat to its control of our nation." Guo Jiakun, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said on April 1 during a regular press conference: "We reject groundless vilification of Xizang's human rights, and religious and cultural cause, and oppose foreign officials' interference and sabotage in the name of performing their duties in Xizang." The Tibet Action Institute called on the United Nations and foreign governments to demand China "immediately conduct a public investigation into the alleged abuses, deaths, and mental health concerns at Tibetan boarding schools, to abolish the coercive system of boarding schools and preschools, and to enable Tibetan children to access high-quality mother tongue education while living at home." Related Articles American Drone Company Claims Major Breakthrough Over Chinese CompetitorsParaglider Flies into 'Death Zone,' Miraculously SurvivesFootage Shows China and Ally Flexing Military MusclesChina Reacts to Trump Tariffs Bombshell 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
