(TibetanReview.net, Dec18’25) – China is a party state run by and for the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party; it makes solemn commitments, then governs as if those commitments are optional, and this gap between promise and practice runs through the Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s evaluation of the PRC’s record over the past one year released on Dec 10. With regard to the situation in Tibet, the Commission has reported observing no interest from People’s Republic of China (PRC) officials in resuming formal negotiations with the Dalai Lama or his representatives which last took place in Jan 2010.
The report, with a separate section on Tibet, finds that the PRC continued to restrict and sought to control the religious practices of Tibetans, asserting control over the process of selection and recognition of Tibetan Buddhist reincarnated teachers, including the Dalai Lama. In this connection, China’s National Religious Affairs Administration revised its Measures on the Management of Tibetan Buddhist Temples to increase requirements on monasteries and nunneries to adhere to Chinese Communist Party political doctrine and placing new bureaucratic demands on monastic leadership, the report notes.
The report also finds that the PRC authorities continued a program of mass expulsions and demolitions, begun in 2016, at Larung Gar Buddhist Academy, a major Tibetan Buddhist educational and training center. In November and Dec 2024, with several hundred officials being stationed at the complex as authorities pressured monastic residents to leave, ultimately expelling around 1,000 monks and nuns.
On the freedom of religious education, the report finds that PRC officials took steps to further restrict the space for independent Tibetan education, ordering the temporary closure of at least one major non-state Tibetan school and forcing hundreds of young Tibetan novice monks to leave monastery-affiliated schools and instead enroll at state-run residential schools.
The report accuses China of being in contravention of international human rights standards in punishing residents of Tibetan areas in the exercise of their protected rights, including expression of religious belief, protest against or criticism of Party or government policy, and free speech and assembly. It cited notable cases in this regard this past year of, among others, Jampa Choephel, a monk sentenced to one year and six months in prison for sharing a speech by the Dalai Lama on social media; Sherab (or Jamyang Legshe) and Gonpo Tsering, senior monks sentenced to four and three years, respectively, for protesting against construction of a hydroelectric dam; and Gonpo Namgyal, a language rights advocate who died due to torture in custody.
Another significant case it cites includes that of Hungkar Dorje Rinpoche, abbot of Lungngon Monastery in Gade (Gande) county, Golog (Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai, who disappeared in Aug 2024 following conflict with Chinese authorities over his public advocacy for linguistic rights for Tibetans and his refusal to comply with official religious and educational directives. He went into hiding in Vietnam, was detained there on Mar 25, 2025, by PRC and Vietnamese on authorities, was transferred to PRC custody three days later, and died the same day in Ho Chi Minh City. Amid demands for an independent investigation into the cause and nature of his death, China banned public discussion or commemorations of the death, and detained an unknown number of individuals in connection with online sharing information about the death, the report said.
The report’s executive summary notes: “The 2025 Annual Report traces broken promises across both international obligations and China’s own stated guarantees—the fifty years of rights and unchanged ‘way of life’ promised in Hong Kong, and ‘autonomy’ to Uyghurs and Tibetans that has yielded mass detentions and omnipresent surveillance; ‘constitutional’ protection for belief and speech overshadowed by tighter controls on worship and expression; declarations of labor rights contradicted by persistent forced labor and unfair trade practices; and pledges to play by global rules narrowed or reinterpreted in practice. What is promised on paper does not match what is practiced in reality.”
The 2025 report covers the Commission’s activities from Nov 2024 to Oct 2025. The Commission is chaired by Senator Dan Sullivan and Co-Chaired by Representative Chris Smith.