Lhasa, Aug 12 (IANS) The Chinese Communist Party’s policy in Tibet demonstrates an example of empire-building through assimilation. However, history indicates that rigid, forced assimilation plans ultimately face systemic limits, a report has detailed.
“The sweep of history reminds us of a simple truth: no empire, however mighty, is permanent. Rome, the Ottomans, the British Raj; all believed their dominion eternal, only to discover that power is cyclical, not absolute. Today, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) exercises seemingly unassailable control over the Tibetan Plateau, integrating it through modernisation, surveillance, and demographic engineering,” Khedroob Thondup, Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama’s nephew, mentioned in a report in the European Times.
It mentioned that the history indicates that rigid, forced assimilation plans ultimately face systemic limits. The CCP’s strategy of assimilation and approach to Tibet has been comprehensive and uncompromising. The party considers Tibet as a national security protection, an economic resource base and a geopolitical anchor, with infrastructure projects and military deployments reinforcing its strategic role, wrote Thondup adding that CCP’s policies mandate the sinicisation of Tibetan Buddhism.
He emphasised that these plans have been made by the CCP to remove differences and implement uniformity. However, history suggests that such rigidity often causes fragility and the fragility of imperial longevity has demonstrated that empires collapse due to external challenge and internal contradiction. China in the near future will likely increase surveillance, policing and demographic shifts to dilute Tibetan identity. However, the people of Tibet have resistance and resilience with the Tibetan civilisation having faced centuries of external pressure.
“The CCP’s Tibet policy is a textbook case of empire-building through assimilation. But history teaches that no empire is permanent. The wax and wane of power is inexorable. Tibet’s story is not one of disappearance but of resilience; an enduring reminder that identity, faith, and culture often outlast the structures that seek to erase them,” mentioned Khedroob Thondup.
Last week, leading international human rights organisation Amnesty International strongly condemned the arrest of prominent Chinese pro-democracy activist Zhang Yi after he displayed a photograph of the Dalai Lama during a visit to a monastery in Tibet.
The organisation described the case as a chilling example of China’s continued crackdown on peaceful expression and the longstanding misuse of “inciting separatism” charges to criminalise peaceful expression in the Tibetan region.
“The arrest of Zhang Yi after he showed a photograph of the Dalai Lama while visiting a monastery is a chilling reminder of how far the Chinese authorities will go to police the peaceful exercise of human rights. This case bears all the hallmarks of the Chinese authorities’ long-standing misuse of the offence of ‘inciting separatism’ to criminalise peaceful expression in Tibetan areas and in relation to Tibetan history, culture and religious belief,” said Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director Sarah Brooks.
“Pending his release, they must ensure that he has prompt access to his family and a lawyer of his own choosing. Authorities must protect him from torture and other ill-treatment while in detention,” she added.
Citing an arrest notice received by his family, Amnesty International said that Zhang was formally arrested on July 28 on suspicion of “inciting separatism”.
According to the rights body, Zhang was detained by police in Lhasa on July 1 while visiting Sera Monastery in Tibet with his younger brother. It noted that after being unable to communicate verbally with a Tibetan worshipper from whom he wished to borrow a prayer mat, Zhang showed the person a photograph of the Dalai Lama on his mobile phone.
Referring to his family’s account, Amnesty International said that two plainclothes men observed the interaction and appeared to record Zhang and his brother as they left the prayer area. The activist was detained by police before he could leave the monastery.
His detention came on the same day when China’s new Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress Law came into force.
–IANS
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