(TibetanReview.net, Mar06’25) – Delegates from Tibet Autonomous Region attending China’s ongoing annual “Two Sessions” political conclave which opened on Mar 6 have sung the praise of Chinese rule there and vowed to keep “high pressure” on alleged separatists, according to the AFP Mar 6.
The delegates to the National People’s Congress, China’s rubberstamp parliament, have added that stability was “improving” – but warned it was necessary to maintain “high pressure” on alleged secessionists.
The delegates, handpicked by the Communist Party of China apparatus before their “election”, have also hailed “Sinicization” of Tibetan Buddhism, while adding that more than 90% of “community leaders” now had basic knowledge of Mandarin.
China’s definition of “separatists” include not only those seeking the restoration of Tibet’s independence but also others accused of every form of real or perceived opposition to Chinese government policies, including those calling for the preservation of Tibet’s cultural and linguistic identity or the protection of its natural environment.
Under the Sinicization drive, China has vowed to appoint its own “reincarnation” of the current Dalai Lama, and compels Tibetan Buddhists to subject their religious traditions and practices to loyalty to and singing the praise of the Communist Party of China-state. It has set up boarding schools where Tibetan children are taught to think and act like loyal Chinese subjects, separated from the community of their parents and ethnic group.
China annexed Tibet in the 1950s. It began this with an armed invasion of the country after the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct 1, 1949, followed by the imposition under duress of a 17-Point Agreement which promised something of a one-country two systems policy for Tibet. That agreement, which China was accused of never adhering to, came to an end with a brutal armed suppression of the Tibetans’ largely peaceful uprising protests in Mar 1959.
China is accused of having killed or directly caused the deaths of more than 1.2 million Tibetans and destroyed over 6,0000 places of religious study and worship during the first two decades or so of the occupation rule, mostly during the Great Leap Forward (1958-62) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) campaigns.