[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PRESERVING TIBET: COMBATING CULTURAL
ERASURE, FORCED ASSIMILATION,
AND TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 28, 2023
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Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available at www.cecc.gov or www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
51-694 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
House Senate
CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey, JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon, Co-chair
Chair ANGUS KING, Maine
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
BRIAN MAST, Florida
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
MICHELLE STEEL, California
RYAN ZINKE, Montana
ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
DANIEL K. KRITENBRINK, Department of State
MARISA LAGO, Department of Commerce
THEA MEI LEE, Department of Labor
LISA JO PETERSON, Department of State
UZRA ZEYA, Department of State
Piero Tozzi, Staff Director
Matt Squeri, Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Statements
Page
Opening Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a U.S. Representative from
New Jersey; Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China. 1
Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley, a U.S. Senator from Oregon; Co-
chair,
Congressional-Executive Commission on China.................... 3
Statement of Hon. Michelle Steel, a U.S. Representative from
California..................................................... 4
Statement of Hon. Zachary Nunn, a U.S. Representative from Iowa.. 5
Statement of Hon. Uzra Zeya, Under Secretary for Civilian
Security,
Democracy, and Human Rights, and U.S. Special Coordinator for
Tibetan Issues................................................. 6
Statement of Penpa Tsering, Sikyong, Central Tibetan
Administration................................................. 9
Statement of Richard Gere, Chair, International Campaign for
Tibet.......................................................... 11
Statement of Lhadon Tethong, Director, Tibet Action Institute.... 18
Statement of Tenzin Dorjee, Senior Researcher and Strategist,
Tibet Action Institute......................................... 21
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Penpa Tsering, Sikyong........................................... 34
Gere, Richard.................................................... 35
Tethong, Lhadon.................................................. 41
Dorjee, Tenzin................................................... 43
Smith, Hon. Chris................................................ 45
Merkley, Hon. Jeff............................................... 46
McGovern, Hon. James P........................................... 47
Submissions for the Record
CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form.......................... 48
Witness Biographies.............................................. 50
(iii)
PRESERVING TIBET: COMBATING CULTURAL ERASURE, FORCED ASSIMILATION, AND
TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION
----------
TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 2023
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was held from 10:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m., in Room
106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC,
Representative Chris Smith, Chair, Congressional-Executive
Commission on China, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER SMITH, A U.S.
REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY; CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE
COMMISSION ON CHINA
Chair Smith. This hearing, ``Preserving Tibet: Combating
Cultural Erasure, Forced Assimilation, and Transnational
Repression,'' will come to order.
Today's hearing is an extremely important one. We are
greatly honored and privileged to hear testimony from a
distinguished panel of experts who will not only further
document massive human rights abuses committed by the Chinese
Communist Party against the people of Tibet, but will also
point us toward a way forward to the preservation of Tibet, its
language, its culture, its religion, and its people. All of us
need to do a better job exposing and reversing, or at least
mitigating, the ugly, hate-filled campaign by the Chinese
Communist Party to erase an entire people, the people of Tibet.
Cultural erasure happens when a people's language, and
religious and cultural heritage are stripped from them, when
children are taken from their parents and placed in
institutions, colonial boarding schools, where they cannot
speak their language or practice their religion but instead are
taught in an alien tongue and aggressively indoctrinated, while
the ties that bind them to their families and culture are
eviscerated. Roughly 80 percent of all Tibetan children within
the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China
are housed in such institutions. This is child abuse of the
cruelest kind.
According to the 2022 State Department Human Rights Report,
the Chinese Communist Party's human rights abuses in Tibet
include effectively placing Tibetan Buddhism under central
government control and subjecting Tibetan women to coerced
abortion or forced sterilization. What is also shocking is how
intrusive the CCP's totalitarian reach really is. Biometric
data--DNA and its scans--of over a million Tibetans, and
others, have been harvested and stored by the CCP. Blood
samples were drawn even from children in kindergarten.
And what is even more shocking is the role of an American
company, Thermo Fisher Scientific, in this genetic data
collection and genetic surveillance program. In December of
last year, Senator Merkley and I, along with Ranking Members
Rubio and McGovern, wrote a letter to Mark Casper, President
and CEO of Thermo Fisher asking him why DNA kits and DNA
sequencer replacement parts were still being sold directly by
his company to police in the Tibet Autonomous Region for use
and abuse in collecting biometric data.
We know this--and more importantly, he knows this--because
there have been multiple reports by Toronto-based Citizen Lab,
and our Commission itself, of Thermo Fisher products being
implicated in ongoing human rights abuse throughout the
People's Republic of China, through the use of DNA obtained
from Tibetans, Uyghurs, and other ethnic and religious
minorities. Indeed, the most nefarious misuses of DNA collected
have been to find matches for organ recipients from unwilling,
healthy innocent people. There is a mountain of evidence that
this is what is being done in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous
Region against the Uyghurs and other Central Asians such as the
Kazakhs and Falun Gong practitioners.
And I would note, parenthetically, that last night the
House passed with just two votes in opposition a bill that
throws the book at this horrific forced organ harvest
transplantation effort, where tens of thousands of people are
murdered by Xi Jinping and the CCP to obtain their organs. The
average is two to three organs per person. And I chaired a
hearing last year with the Lantos Commission on this very issue
and heard from experts. And I was shocked. I've been working on
this for years. I was shocked by just how pervasive it is and
how lucrative it is for the Chinese Communist Party. And one
other footnote to that: When any Chinese Communist Party
official gets sick and has needed a new liver, or a new lung,
or heart, who do they turn to? Those people that they despise
the most. And the average age of those who are murdered for
their organs is 28 years old.
Finally, I want to note that Tibet is important because of
what has happened in Tibet. The early 50s is the template for
so many of the crimes against humanity which we see play out
within the recognized borders of the People's Republic of China
today. Indeed, both Tibet and Xinjiang are autonomous only in
name. Both suffer from Xi Jinping's genocide. For genocide is
not only what we associate with the Holocaust, and surely that
was one of the most egregious genocides ever to occur--but it's
also happening today throughout China against the Tibetans, but
slowly, beyond the visibility of the press, Congress, and
parliaments around the world. It's also happening in Xinjiang,
as we know as well.
According to the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, acts of genocide include
intending to destroy ``in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group.'' It also includes causing
serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, imposing
measures intended to prevent births within the group, and
forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
That is what is happening in Tibet. And it is, as I said,
genocide.
Before I yield to my good friend and colleague, co-chair of
the Commission, Senator Merkley, who, along with Ranking Member
McGovern in the House, is the coauthor of the Resolve Tibet
Act, which underscores as a matter of policy that the Tibet-PRC
conflict remains unresolved and makes clear that our country's
support for Tibet will never waver. Some of the policy--this is
right from the text of the bill--it claims, and it's true, of
course, that claims made by the officials of the People's
Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party that Tibet
has been part of China since ancient times are historically
false.
The policy directed in this legislation also says the
government of the PRC has failed to meet the expectations of
the United States to engage in meaningful dialogue with the
Dalai Lama or his representatives toward a peaceful settlement
of the unresolved conflict between Tibet and the PRC, and that
the United States public diplomacy efforts should counter
disinformation about Tibet from the government of the PRC and
the Chinese Communist Party, including disinformation about the
history of Tibet, the Tibetan people, and Tibetan institutions,
including the Dalai Lama.
It's an excellent bill, and the sooner it's on the floor
for passage, the better. And I want to yield to the author of
it over on the Senate side, my good friend Chairman Merkley.
Co-chair Merkley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
really appreciate that you have convened this hearing and I
look forward to continuing to work with you on our shared
agenda for this Congress.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON; CO-
CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
This hearing will touch on several aspects of that agenda.
We'll hear about the unrelenting efforts by the Chinese
government to erase cultural, linguistic, and religious
diversity in China. We'll hear about the long arm of
transnational repression and how authorities reach beyond
China's borders to harass and intimidate, including here in the
United States. We'll hear about how companies headquartered
here can be complicit in the use of their technologies to abet
the machinery of the surveillance state. And we'll hear about
the indomitable human spirit of those yearning to live their
lives in dignity despite these assaults on their families and
their way of life.
This hearing explores these issues through the lens of how
they affect Tibetans. It builds on several hearings we held
last Congress to give voice to the aspirations of the Tibetan
people, in which we examined Tibet's environment, political
prisoners, language rights, and obstacles to resolving conflict
through dialogue. The chair and I have joined in shining a
spotlight on these issues with one of Tibet's great champions,
this Commission's former chair, Jim McGovern. Due to another
hearing, Congressman McGovern cannot be here today but will be
submitting a statement for the record.
And I hope that the bipartisan legislation he has led in
the House with Congressman McCaul, and which I lead in the
Senate with Senator Young, the Promoting a Resolution to the
Tibet-China Conflict Act, will advance during this Congress.
And thank you so much, Chairman, for drawing attention to it
and I really hope we can see it expedited. Dialogue to resolve
this conflict remains frozen, as it has been for 13 years, due
to Chinese authorities' refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama or
his representatives. Our legislation aims to bolster existing
U.S. policy seeking meaningful and direct dialogue without
preconditions to lead to a negotiated agreement on Tibet.
The Tibetan people, like people everywhere, deserve a say
in how they are governed. The right to self-determination is
foundational to the concept of universal human rights enshrined
in the U.N. Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Yet the Chinese government's policies preclude Tibetans from
exercising that most basic right. I look forward to hearing
from our witnesses on what those fighting for the rights of
Tibetans can do about this. And I invite our witnesses to share
their perspectives on how all of us can do better to protect
and support Tibet's linguistic, religious, and cultural
heritage.
Much has been done in this area over the decades through
the work of the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan
Administration. Yet as today's testimony will reinforce,
Chinese authorities' frontal assault on Tibetan language and
culture now brings elevated challenges, such as the Chinese
attempt to erase Tibetans' Tibetan-ness. The vast majority of
Tibetan children are now placed in colonial boarding schools,
as the chairman has referred to--80 percent of the children six
to eighteen are being placed in these schools, children now
even in preschool are being put into these schools. This story
gets worse with each passing month. The people of Tibet face
urgent challenges and I hope today's hearing will help us
understand better how we can support them.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have a member on
remotely.
Congresswoman Steel.
STATEMENT OF HON. MICHELLE STEEL,
A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA
Representative Steel. Thank you, Chairman, for hosting this
important hearing. Every person has the right to religious and
cultural beliefs. Governments, including the CCP, have no right
to restrict these fundamental beliefs. It was an honor to meet
the 14th Dalai Lama in 2016. It is inexcusable that the people
of Tibet are not free and are currently met with punishment
ranging from warnings and surveillance to interrogation and
detention. We cannot sit by while the Tibetans are being
detained and imprisoned for political or religious reasons. So,
to all the witnesses, the CCP continues to have oversight on
Tibetan religious life by mandating political education for
monks and nuns, can you believe, creating an apparatus to
surveil and manage monastic institutions. Can you expand more
on how CCP authorities continue to reorient Tibetan society?
Chair Smith. Okay, thank you, Congresswoman Steel. We will
ask that the panel respond to that after we get through all of
their opening statements. I would like to now yield to
Congressman Nunn.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ZACHARY NUNN,
A REPRESENTATIVE FROM IOWA
Representative Nunn. First of all, thank you very much, Mr.
Chair, for scheduling this important hearing to examine the
impact of the Chinese Communist Party's repressive rule of
Tibetans. And I look forward to the testimony today from this
august panel who've taken time to be with us. I also want to
express my gratitude for being able to serve on this
bipartisan, bicameral commission with my colleagues in the
House as well as in the Senate and the executive branch who are
with us. It's a privilege to participate because I believe very
strongly that this is a critical examination of what needs to
be done to ensure that China's compliance with international
human rights standards is held firm.
Look, as a former intelligence officer myself, with nearly
two decades of experience both in the military and working in
counterintelligence operations inside of China, I've seen
firsthand the national and the economic threat posed by China's
global interests. And we've seen throughout the course of
recent events, China will do whatever it takes for that level
of global domination. In Wang Jingze's book Thirty-Six
Stratagems, he highlights a theory that is steeped in Chinese
cultural history, this idea of sacrificing the plum tree to
preserve the peach tree. Now, what they mean by this is that
you can sacrifice in the short term those who are most
vulnerable for the strength of those who are in power.
We are seeing this play out constantly in the autonomous
state of Tibet today by the Chinese government. Even
individuals who are here in this room today know that the
Chinese government is relentless in its approach to applying
advanced technology to repress and track its very own people.
Intrusive electronic surveillance is prevalent at every level.
With this fact alone, it is cause for concern. The forced and
often arbitrary collection of sensitive biometric information
on millions of Tibetans and other local residents by their
government officials is dangerous, it is repressive, and it is
a clear violation of basic human rights.
By leveraging this technology, the Chinese government can
identify people not only by their face but also by their
cellular data, the very essence of who they are. The Tibetan
population is put at serious risk of genealogical repression
for future generations, who will be targeted on the basis of
their DNA. In fact, between 2016 and 2022, the DNA collection
program in the Tibet Autonomous Region is believed to have
catalogued as many as 1.2 million, approximately a third of the
entire population of this region. And worse yet, Chinese
authorities are targeting this data collection, as the chairman
highlighted, at primary schools where they're taking blood from
children as young as five years old--all of this done without
any parental notification or consent.
China's pervasive surveillance technology does not stop at
the Tibetan border. The CCP's repression efforts extend to
Tibetan communities abroad and are further evidence of the
extreme lengths to which the Communist Party will go to
undertake the dismantlement of the entire Tibetan civilization.
This biometric data is a legitimate threat that will only
deepen the CCP's control over indigenous populations around the
globe, and its use violates international norms and concerns
with privacy. Ownership of this biometric data is a basic human
right and deserves protection everywhere in the world.
And so, Mr. Chair, before I conclude my opening statement,
I want to make my position on the United States companies
selling technology to China today very clear. Any U.S. company
transacting with the Chinese government to sell technology that
can be used to further the Chinese government's repression is
equally complicit. China's blatant human rights violations
should immediately be clear, and those companies need to sever
their ties with these violators.
So, again, to both the chairman in the House and the
Senate, I look forward to our witnesses' statements today, the
recommendations that you're providing to us, so that we can
take constructive action on this and make sure that China does
not use their authoritarian surveillance or put others in a
place where they also become subject to this type of
totalitarian state.
With that, I yield back the remainder of my time and thank
the panel for being here today.
Chair Smith. Thank you so very much for your very strong
statement. We welcome you to the Commission and look forward to
your leadership, which will be greatly appreciated. [Applause.]
Under Secretary of State Uzra Zeya is here remotely. She's
going to now provide her opening comments as well.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. UZRA ZEYA, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE
FOR CIVILIAN SECURITY, DEMOCRACY, AND HUMAN RIGHTS, AND U.S.
SPECIAL COORDINATOR FOR TIBETAN ISSUES
Secretary Zeya. Thank you, Representative Smith, Senator
Merkley, and my fellow distinguished commissioners for the
opportunity to speak today on this timely and important topic.
I'd like to welcome our distinguished guests, Sikyong Tsering,
Mr. Gere, Ms. Tethong, and Mr. Dorjee, whose valuable insights
I look forward to hearing.
We're gathered here today at a critical moment for Tibet.
PRC authorities continue to wage a campaign of repression that
seeks to forcibly sinicize the 6 million Tibetans in the PRC
and eliminate Tibet's distinct religious, cultural, and
linguistic heritage. Recent reports on government-run boarding
schools and involuntary mass DNA collection in Tibetan areas
shock the conscience. These policies, targeting ethnic
minorities and religious practitioners, are part of broader PRC
efforts to reshape and undermine human rights globally,
including through various acts of transnational repression.
This administration will continue to shine a light on
Tibet-
related issues within our broader human rights concerns with
the PRC, bilaterally and jointly with multilateral partners,
and promote accountability for the PRC's human rights abuses in
Tibet and elsewhere. As U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibetan
Issues, I am committed to continuing this administration's
close and sustained cooperation with Congress to deepen our
strong track record of support for the Tibetan community and
uphold an affirmative vision for human rights.
I'd also like to put forward two questions to our
distinguished panelists. First, as we know, the PRC subjects
Tibetans to intense surveillance and draconian controls over
the flow of information, including the simple act of talking to
those outside the PRC. These threats extend outside the PRC, as
authorities target Tibetans through in-person and virtual
harassment, as well as threats to family and friends still
living inside the PRC. Understanding the impenetrability of the
Great Firewall, how can we improve information flow into and
out of the Tibet Autonomous Region?
As U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, I've
prioritized engagement with our partners and allies to enlist
multilateral support for the global Tibetan community,
especially on the issue of the Dalai Lama's succession. My
second question is, how can the international community
continue to elevate this issue multilaterally and what actions
have you seen as being most effective to challenging PRC
narratives? Thank you.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much, Madam Secretary. And
thank you for those excellent questions, which I know the panel
looks forward to answering.
I would like to welcome, again, an incredibly distinguished
panel, beginning with the Sikyong of the Central Tibetan
Administration, Penpa Tsering. He's the leader of Tibet's
government-in-exile, known as the Central Tibetan
Administration. He was sworn in as the Sikyong at an official
ceremony graced by His Holiness the Dalai Lama himself, on May
27th, 2021.
Mr. Tsering's service to the Tibetan cause and people
includes his election in 1996 to the Tibetan parliament-in-
exile, employing his knowledge of economics, and he also served
in the parliament's budget estimate committee multiple times.
In 2001, he was reelected as a member of the Tibetan
Parliament, during which time he took the role of executive
director of the Tibetan Parliamentary and Policy Research
Center, a research agency based in New Delhi. As executive
director, his outreach efforts directed toward Indian political
leaders led to the successful revival of the All-Party Indian
Parliamentary Forum for Tibet.
In 2008, after his reelection to a third term as a member
of the Tibetan parliament, he was elected as a speaker of the
14th Tibetan parliament-in-exile, and in 2011 he was again
elected as speaker. He is a tremendous diplomat. Many of us who
have met him are very much impressed with his skills, his
diplomacy, and his compassion. And he will be coming to us
remotely from India and will be our first witness.
Our next witness, no stranger to the Congress--House and
Senate--and to this Commission, a true champion of human rights
and democracy, and for the people of Tibet, is Richard Gere. He
is chairman of the board of directors for the International
Campaign for Tibet. He's a very successful actor. And I've
seen, and my wife, most of his movies. We love them. ``First
Knight'' was my favorite, but there are many other good ones in
there. [Laughter.] He's an amazing humanitarian, as I said, and
a man of tremendous compassion.
For more than 30 years, he has worked not only to draw
attention to the situation in Tibet and His Holiness the Dalai
Lama, but also to provide practical resolutions and solutions
to the humanitarian crisis that is rooted in injustice,
inequality, and intolerance. He also campaigned for awareness
and education in HIV/AIDS-
affected communities. He has helped to build the first female
dormitory in India for HIV-positive women, their children, and
HIV-positive orphans. In 1991, he founded the Gere Foundation,
a private foundation focused on advocacy, education, human
rights, and cultural preservation.
Richard has also used his popularity and his very
articulate voice to amplify the nonviolent struggle for Tibet,
which he brings to us again today. He's co-founder and chairman
of Tibet House in the U.S. since 1987. He joined the
International Campaign for Tibet's board of directors, where he
has served as chairman since 1995. So I just want to thank him
for that tenacious and longstanding leadership. It has made a
difference. [Applause.]
Our next witness will be Lhadon Tethong, who is co-founder
and director of the Tibet Action Institute, where she leads a
team of technologists and rights advocates developing open-
source technologies, strategies, and training programs for
Tibetans and others living under extreme repression. Formerly
the executive director of Students for a Free Tibet
International, she led the campaign against the 2008 Beijing
Olympics.
I'd note parenthetically that Frank Wolf and I tried very
hard to get the IOC first not to award it, and then we went a
couple weeks before and told everyone, including our own
embassy, what a farce it was for all of these politicians to be
flocking to that 2008 Olympics. And I would say ditto for the
one that just occurred. You don't become complicit in an IOC
event when a genocide is occurring in real time. Now we've had
another Olympics occurring during a genocide.
Ms. Tethong has testified before this Commission in the
past. She has received a number of awards, including the James
Lawson Award for nonviolent achievement from the International
Center on Nonviolent Conflict in 2011, and accepted the
Democracy Award from the National Endowment for Democracy on
behalf of the Tibet Action Institute in 2018.
Tenzin Dorjee is a senior researcher and strategist at the
Tibet Action Institute and is a doctoral candidate at Columbia
University's Department of Political Science, focusing on the
efficacy of nonviolent resistance strategies and the influence
of religion. He has held leadership and programmatic roles at a
number of organizations, including the National Endowment for
Democracy and Students for a Free Tibet. Tendor, as he's known
to many of us, is the author of The Tibetan Nonviolent
Struggle: A Strategic and Historical Analysis. His writings
have appeared in the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, the
Journal of Democracy, National Interest, Tibetan Review, and
the Oxford Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion. He also
testified before our Commission just a couple of years ago.
So I would like to now ask if we could hear from Penpa
Tsering for such time as he may consume. [Applause.]
STATEMENT OF PENPA TSERING, SIKYONG,
CENTRAL TIBETAN ADMINISTRATION
Sikyong Penpa Tsering. Thank you. Thank you very much,
Chairman Smith, Chairman Merkley, members, other distinguished
guests. Thank you very much for inviting me for this hearing.
And I'm very much encouraged by the presence of Special
Coordinator for Tibet Under Secretary Uzra Zeya, who has been
very diligently and wholeheartedly fulfilling her
responsibilities as special coordinator for Tibet.
And I'm also very happy to be present here alongside a
person who continues to play a very significant role in keeping
the hopes of the Tibetan people alive, and someone whom I hold
very dear, Mr. Richard Gere, chairman of the International
Campaign for Tibet. You have also invited two prominent
Tibetans, Lhadon Tethong and Tenzin Dorjee of the Tibet Action
Institute. As you mentioned before, both are very competent in
their leadership and they're now known for their research on
challenges confronting Tibetans inside Tibet, including the
colonial-style boarding schools. With them speaking in detail
on some of the specific issues, I request that the chairs
consider my written submission as part of the testimony, which
covers almost all the events over the last year.
And as the democratically elected leader of the Tibetan
people, the Central Tibetan Administration, of which I am the
Sikyong, is fully committed to following the Middle Way Policy,
the way forward shown by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and
adopted by the Tibetan parliament-in-exile. This policy is
aimed at finding a nonviolent, mutually beneficial, negotiated,
and lasting solution to the Sino-Tibet conflict that can set an
example to this violence-ridden world. Resolution to the Sino-
Tibet conflict can have profound geopolitical implications for
a more peaceful and secure region and world.
The absence of traction on dialogue since 2010 sounds
ominous, but we remain positive about finding a peaceful
solution to the Sino-Tibet conflict that avoids extreme
polarities. The sincerity of the People's Republic of China's
leadership manifests in the policies and programs being
implemented in Tibet as we speak. In the last few years,
evidence has been emerging from Tibet in the form of reports by
the U.N., the independent institutes, and scholarly research.
The Chinese government's one nation, one language, one culture,
and one religion policy is aimed at forced assimilation and the
erasure of Tibetan national identity and other minority
nationalities.
Unsurprisingly, the international watchdog Freedom House
lists Tibet as one of the least free countries in the world,
alongside Syria and South Sudan. We often get asked why we
don't hear about Tibet anymore--the PRC's Orwellian gridlock
system, the use of all means of artificial intelligence, as the
chairs mentioned, to surveil people, to control the flow of
information, and the lockdown of Tibet to the outside world;
even those in leadership roles in education, religion, culture,
and environment are being arbitrarily arrested or they just
disappear.
One's actions are linked to the welfare of one's near and
dear ones. One hundred fifty-seven Tibetans are known to have
self-
immolated since 2009, hoping against hope that the PRC
government would pay some attention to their plight, and hoping
against hope that the international community would come to
their rescue, but to no avail. The Chinese government focuses
too much on development and fails to understand the real
aspirations of the Tibetan people. Tibetan language, religion,
and culture are the bedrock of Tibetan identity. Compassion and
nonviolence, which form the foundation of our culture, will
undoubtedly promote peace and harmony in the world.
However, Tibetan identity is facing unprecedented threat of
eradication. The atheist Chinese government is trying to fully
control the process and authority of recognizing the
reincarnation of trulkus, or living Buddhas, as they are known,
that is unique to Tibetan Buddhism, along with interference in
the study of Buddhist philosophy and control over their
movement. To speed up assimilation, large-scale forced
relocation of Tibetans from their traditional homeland to
Chinese territories--and within Tibet--and the mass transfer of
Tibetan youth to China, all these Tibetans are being moved to
areas that are not of their traditional culture.
As part of the fifty-year Western Development Program,
started at the beginning of this millennium, unscrupulous use
of natural resources and reckless construction of dams,
railways, and road networks, airports, and other infrastructure
in Tibet threaten irreversible damage to Tibet's fragile
environment. Tibet is known as Asia's Water Tower and the Third
Pole because of the amount of glaciers and permafrost that
feeds all the major rivers of Asia. Therefore, it concerns not
only Tibet and the Tibetan people but has serious implications
for the food, economic, and water security of a population of
about 2 billion people downstream. If the PRC is not made to
reverse or change its current policies, Tibet and Tibetans will
definitely die a slow death.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission, I would like to
express appreciation for your organizing this very important
hearing. These hearings are a boost to the indomitable spirit
of the Tibetans inside Tibet and source of inspiration for the
Tibetans in exile to continue with our just struggle. I wish to
reiterate our gratitude to the U.S. Congress for making
necessary changes to the Tibet Policy Act. The continuous
support from Congress, the government, and the people of the
United States will enable the resolution of the Sino-Tibet
conflict through the Middle Way Policy, which will bring peace
to Tibet and beyond. I fervently hope that the Promoting a
Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Act, introduced in both
houses of the U.S. Congress, will be made into law. Thank you
very much for this opportunity again. [Applause.]
Chair Smith. I want to thank the Sikyong for his very
powerful testimony. And the reason we've called this hearing is
to begin to act as a pivot. Yes, there's focus on Hong Kong.
There's focus on Taiwan. There's focus on what's happening to
the Uyghurs and the genocide against the Muslims living there.
But we cannot take our eyes off the ongoing genocide being
committed against the Tibetan people. And the Promoting a
Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Act, authored by my good
friend to my left and by the ranking member, the former
chairman of the Commission, who couldn't make it here today--he
had other important things to be at--that becomes the pivot.
That we reengage. So this testimony and this hearing and,
again, that legislation, is critical to engaging as never
before on Tibet.
So I want to yield such time as he may consume to Richard
Gere.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD GERE,
INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET
Mr. Gere. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm very moved by
what I'm hearing here today. I'm always incredibly moved at
these hearings because it's--Congressman Nunn, we haven't met
before, but I'm astonished by the power and the profundity and
intelligence of your discussion with us today and your
experience. So thank you for being part of this. Thank you,
Chairman Smith, as always. Senator Merkley, thank you so much
for your continued support for these important things.
Representative Steel, who spoke, thank you very much. And Under
Secretary Uzra Zeya, thank you so much for speaking here today.
I'm here--my motivation is clear--for the Tibetan people,
the Tibetan brothers and sisters that I've known for 45 years.
It was 45 years ago that I wandered into a refugee camp in
Nepal and was astonished by these extraordinary people. And the
little that I've been able to help them in the meantime I think
has only to a very small degree repaid what they have given me
over the last 45 years. So I'd like to acknowledge our Tibetan
brothers and sisters in the room right now. Thank you so much.
[Applause.]
And this Tibetan community has been extraordinarily
successful; I've seen them all over the world. Obviously in
India, Nepal, Bhutan, other places in Asia, but also in Europe
and in the U.S. And this wonderful, vibrant Tibetan community
in the U.S., many of them citizens, is an extraordinary
addition to the American dream and experiment. And I think as
we've seen, the contribution they've given us is something
unique. The commitment to nonviolence, the commitment to wisdom
and compassion, is something that we sorely need.
Chairman Smith, I'd just like to acknowledge, ``First
Knight,'' a movie that I made which you referenced, when I had
very long black hair. [Laughter.] And I'm going to go back and
look at that again myself to remember who I was. [Laughter.]
For decades, as we know, the Chinese Communist Party's
ethnic policies have been largely predicated on containment,
denial, destruction, and assimilation. Repression has been most
severe in Tibet, and in East Turkestan with our Uyghur friends
it should be noted as well, where the CCP policies have
included the separation of families, the prohibition of
language, the destruction of religious sites and institutions,
the collection of DNA, and a pervasive surveillance system to
which the denial of information of movement is implemented. I
think we well know now that the surveillance budget in China
exceeds their military budget.
I obviously do not have to explain this threat to the
Tibetan people's very existence to this Commission, who likely
know decades of atrocities behind the CCP's ethnic policies
better than I do and have spoken so eloquently about them
today. Thank you. But briefly, in service of Beijing's
longstanding agenda to sinicize Tibet and ``manage'' individual
nationalities, the Chinese Communist Party's policies have been
characterized by cruelty, collective violence, and extreme
persecution.
The saddest truth is that the CCP's process of assimilation
and erasure is all too often concealed by Beijing's intricate
and powerful propaganda machine. Within China's digital prison,
just like all authoritarian regimes, the Chinese government
targets the very core attributes that define the continuity of
a people, specifically the family unit, religious expression,
cultural tradition, language, and environment--land. Literally,
this was a land grab, a land steal by the Chinese side.
Identifiable mechanisms, like arbitrary detention, forcible
transfer, rape, torture, and disappearance are all tools that
have been well documented throughout the course of Beijing's
assimilation practices. Xi Jinping's recent appointment of Pan
Yue to the Central Committee is likely an indication of this
aggressive assimilationism that will not only continue but
surely intensify. And if the Beijing chairman's recent visit to
Moscow is any indicator of a new era, every one of China's 55
ethnic groups--including Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians--are
right to be extremely afraid.
It does not have to be this way. As you know, the Dalai
Lama has offered countless ways over many, many decades, since
the 1950s, a pathway to resolution built on a dialogue process
meant to identify a peaceful and stable resolution in Tibet
which grants Tibetans meaningful autonomy within the framework
of the Chinese constitution. And just as a sidebar, when the
talks broke down between the Chinese and the Tibetans--I think
it was about 13 years ago--it was because the Tibetan side
brought to the discussion the Chinese constitution, and their
suggestions for compromise were based on the Chinese
constitution itself. The Chinese walked out and refused to
resume discussion. So it's clear where they were coming from.
It's obvious why a mutual agreement is crucial to Tibet's
survival and the avoiding of the eradication of the Tibetan
people, though it might be much less clear to Beijing how this
benefits them. There are three key elements of benefit to them.
First, it lends Beijing the legitimacy that it so desperately
seeks in Tibet, and which it's never had. Second, it enables
Beijing to reset the relationship with India. And third, if
successfully implemented, a reciprocal agreement in Tibet
removes or perhaps lessens the international stigma associated
with Beijing's abysmal human rights record. Ranging from acts
of genocide, like those determined by the International
Committee of Jurists in 1960 to present-day criticism of
Beijing's longstanding brutality in Tibet and East Turkestan,
which has only intensified after the 2008 Tibetan uprising,
which has been followed by years of self-immolation sacrifices
from the Tibetan people in protest of the Chinese government's
violent rule.
I would like to ask the Commission to remember Tsewang
Norbu, a very popular Tibetan singer, who self-immolated last
year in Lhasa. Demonstrating a peaceful agreement in Tibet,
which includes the rights of the child, the right to mother
tongue, freedom of movement and religious practice, would be a
powerful step up for Beijing, sending the entire world the
right signal that the Chinese government is genuinely capable
of addressing discord through dialogue, with reason and a
peaceable human value, rather than the demonstration of brute
force and denial.
Two steps must be taken to help this happen. First, we must
be clear about the history of the People's Republic of China in
Tibet that brought us to this point. Second, the United States,
allies, and the international community must speak with a
unified voice. For me, this is the most important thing. The
U.S. Congress and the U.S. people have done extraordinary
things. But we can only do so much alone. We have to engage our
European likeminded partners in a unified voice against this
Chinese oppression.
For the record, the Chinese Communist Party invaded Tibet
without any provocation whatsoever, and actually at the
suggestion of Stalin at the time, in 1949-1950. The CCP
consolidated control over the Tibetan minority nationality,
which obviously was not a minority of Tibetans. It was all
Tibetans. The Chinese had been thrown out of Tibet at that
point. The CCP violated human rights standards and contravened
its own policy promises to respect Tibetan institutions,
Tibet's religion, and the Tibetan peoples' right to self-
determination.
Open uprising in 1959--March 10th, 1959--and the Dalai
Lama's harrowing escape to India, where he and many additional
Tibetans sought refuge, and thanks to the generosity of India
remain harbored, where the Tibetan community has become a
vibrant and beloved thread in India's pluralistic democracy.
During the next two decades, the denial and destruction of
Tibetan culture, religion, and language, arbitrary detention
and torture is estimated by the Tibetan government-in-exile to
have resulted in the deaths of 1.2 million Tibetans, one-fifth
of the country's population.
Many more Tibetans languished in prisons and labor camps.
Many of them I knew personally. In fact, there was an extra-
ordinary Lama, Ribur Rinpoche, who lived with me for the last
several years of his life, who had spent 20 years in solitary
confinement. Many more Tibetans languished in these prisons.
The stories go on and on. Historic buildings were destroyed,
monastic temples, 6,000 monasteries destroyed. Literally
thousands of ancient Buddhist texts, critical to the legacy of
Tibetan Buddhism and the broader Buddhist community, were
burned, looted, or lost in the zealotry of the Cultural
Revolution.
Tibetans were collectivized, leading to unprecedented
famine--which was really unheard of before--in the PRC. (This
also happened to Chinese people themselves, it should be
noted.) The PRC sought to thoroughly erase identity or any
resistance. Other than specific methodologies--first honed in
Tibet, now refined and in well-documented practice against the
Uyghurs in East Turkestan--not much has changed. But the
pattern, however, gives reason for grave concern that it
increasingly expands to match the definition of crimes against
humanity. Crimes against humanity.
Despite being bound by the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights--which they are signatories to--the ICCPR, the Child
Rights Convention, and others, Beijing has never demonstrated
the standards defined within them in any concrete terms, which
makes a mockery of its very vocal claim that China is committed
to human rights and the rule of law. Beijing's assault on
Tibetan Buddhism has evolved since its invasion of Tibet and in
recent years, exponentially so under Chairman Xi's rule. CCP
policy has transitioned from total destruction of Tibetan
religious institutions, gatherings, and practices to one of
control, including eliminating core attributes of Tibetan
Buddhism while co-opting Tibetan Buddhists' right to determine
their own leaders.
Tibetans who peacefully oppose this are often detained,
routinely tortured, permanently injured, or even killed for the
peaceful practice of their religion. Reinforcing that point,
the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
expressed concern about ``reports of systematic and massive
destruction of religious sites such as mosques, monasteries,
shrines, and cemeteries, particularly in the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region and in the so-called Tibet Autonomous
Region.''
However, we must draw a line when the Chinese state will
require that Tibetan Buddhist monks receive Communist state
approval before reincarnating--a demand that's so grossly
antithetical to Tibetan Buddhist precepts that it cannot be
justified by flimsy or falsified historical claims of a
Communist government professing to be atheist. It's clearly
ridiculous. The most visible demonstration of Beijing's
aggressive assertion of authority over selecting the next,
15th, Dalai Lama must be opposed.
And we must note as a cautionary tale the first aggression
by Beijing during the selection of the 11th Panchen Lama,
literally kidnapping the child that had been identified by the
Panchen Lama when he was six years old, and then propping up a
state-sponsored impostor into the Tibetan reincarnation's empty
seat. I remember this moment quite well. I think I was in
Dharamshala when this happened. And there was a photograph of
this boy, the last photograph that was taken, that's been
circulating ever since. The child has not been seen. We don't
know if he's alive. His parents, his whole entire family was
also kidnapped. They have not been seen since.
As we've learned from the Tibet Action Institute's recent
and very valuable research, up to one million Tibetan children
are currently and systematically being alienated from Tibetan
language and culture in compulsory boarding schools. The
Chinese government's educational policies separate children
from their families, forcibly transferring the children into
schools far from their parents. Children are taught in
Mandarin, as the CCP is keenly aware that mother tongue is a
primary mode of cultural transmission, one of the most
fundamental components of the continuity of a people's identity
from one generation to the next, affecting everything from
access to the arts, literature, song, and religious texts.
They also know that it's one of the last impasses for their
control of Tibet and of the Tibetan people. Uprooting native
language is particularly egregious in the case of Tibetan
culture, considering the role that memorization and recitation
play in the rigorous monastic education system of Tibet. And if
the CCP's program to sever the transmission of Tibetan language
and culture to Tibetan youth proves successful, it will
significantly advance the PRC's agenda to contain and
assimilate the entire people.
In its concluding observations on the recent third periodic
report on China, the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social, and
Cultural rights expressed concern about reports ``of the large-
scale campaign to eradicate Tibetan culture and language, as
well as the general undermining of the linguistic identity of
ethnic minorities by the assimilation policy of the state
party, including the coercive residential boarding school
system imposed on Tibetan children.'' Lhadon's going to be
speaking much more about this. I'm sure you'll hear more
details about that.
As we argue the risks to freedom associated with apps like
TikTok, the CCP's vicious aim at the future of Tibetan children
should send the world a distress signal of the systematic and
often secret ruthlessness under which Beijing operates.
I hope the Commission will also note the forcible
population transfer of nomads in Tibet. Having thrived for
millennia herding and cultivating the vast and incredibly
valuable and sensitive Tibetan Plateau and being acclimated to
Tibet's unique climate, nomads are proven stewards of the land.
Really, no one knows that better than the Tibetans, and
especially these nomads. The Chinese have no experience there.
Their culture is deeply tied to the environment's demands
through a profound belief system that honors landscapes and all
living beings. However, the Chinese government is
systematically expelling nomads from ancestral lands through
forced migration, and transfers them into concentrated
sedentary dwellings. Dispossessed of their way of life and
ability to make a living, the result is tantamount to the
ghettoization of Tibet.
According to Chinese state media, at least 1.8 million
nomads have been transferred into these sedentary houses under
government policies. This estimate is likely extremely
conservative. In 2013, Human Rights Watch reported that over
two million Tibetans--two thirds of the entire population of
the TAR--had been ``rehoused,'' with hundreds of thousands of
nomadic herders forced into ``New Socialist Villages.''
Tibetans are not compensated or guaranteed income or employment
when resettled. To the contrary, they're often coerced or
forced into work programs that a U.N. special rapporteur
reported may ``amount to contemporary forms of slavery
including excessive surveillance, abusive living and working
conditions, restriction of movement through internment,
threats, physical and/or sexual violence, and other inhuman or
degrading treatment. Some instances may amount to enslavement
as a crime against humanity, meriting a further independent
analysis.''
CCP surveillance in Tibet is pervasive at all levels of
society. Beijing's matrix of technology, which is heavily
invested in and finely tuned, monitors the movements, phone
calls, and internet habits of every citizen. The most minor
offenses can lead to imprisonment, torture, and even death.
Information control, internet blackouts, and invasive digital
surveillance feed a massive state of control in Tibet. We've
recently witnessed the emergence of CCP police departments in
the shadows of democratic cities throughout the world. It's
astonishing. We know the surveillance extends far beyond
Tibet's borders.
Within China, Chinese tech firms have developed software to
detect and track Tibetans and other ``ethnic minorities''
within the PRC. A report published by Citizen Lab finds that
China's policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region has gathered
between 920,000 and 1.2 million DNA samples in the Tibet
Autonomous Region over the past six years. These figures
represent a quarter to a third of the total population of the
TAR. Human Rights Watch also details Chinese authorities
systematically collecting DNA from residents of the TAR,
including blood from children as young as five years old
without parental consent. Can you imagine this with your own
children, with our own children, our grandchildren?
Unthinkable.
This reminds us of East German Stasi methods, which
horrified us all. Families were encouraged to spy and report on
each other, often through coercion or financial incentives. I
hope the Commission will note the dangerous pattern of death
due to torture that has been observed, including the recent
deaths of 19-year-old monk Tenzin Nyima and 51-year-old tour
guide Kunchok Jinpa. In both cases, as with many others, an
investigation into these deaths in custody and the prosecution
of those responsible for those deaths, were never undertaken by
the Chinese authorities.
I would also like to note for the record Jigme Gyatso, a
monk at Labrang monastery who recorded and released a video
detailing his torture at the hands of Chinese police. He was
sentenced to five years in prison for that video and was
released in extremely poor condition. And as a result of his
``crime,'' Jigme was blacklisted from receiving private medical
care until his death last summer.
The appropriation of land often coincides with the
persecution of a people. The Chinese annexation of Tibet, the
land grab, and Beijing's plunder of Tibet's abundant natural
resources have significant regional security implications as
well. One of the most illustrative examples is water. China is
water-poor. In contrast, the Tibetan Plateau is the source of
the entire region's major rivers that at least 1.5 billion
people rely on for food and economic development. The PRC has
erected numerous massive damming projects and continues with
extensive plans for water diversion. China's occupation of
Tibet provides necessary resources to China, while allowing
Beijing to control the tap for South and Southeast Asia. This
is a very, very important factor. This is security for the
entire world we're playing with here.
Precious metals and minerals serve as another example.
Tibet's occupation provides access to 126 different minerals,
including copper, iron, uranium, zinc, gold, and lead. Tibet
also has large amounts of lithium that's critical to powering
modern technologies like cellphones and hybrid and electric
cars. Tibet's location and scale also provide a commanding
position for the entire Himalayan region, a fact certainly not
lost on the Communist Party. We've witnessed deadly skirmishes
between the Chinese and the Indians in Arunachal Pradesh, where
the People's Liberation Army encroaches on Indian borders and
continues to antagonize stability in the region.
Resource exploitation and environmental appropriation of
the plateau overlay a thick blanket of repression over Tibetans
who call it home. Voicing or communicating concern over these
policies puts Tibetan lives at risk of detainment,
disappearance, and worse. And so fear permeates the plateau,
leaving Tibetans silenced. This is how Tibetan people survive
in occupied Tibet, in fear and silence. According to
international law, people deserve the right to determine their
own future. The Tibetan people's call for dialogue with the
People's Republic of China is an urgent cry for self-
determination, to protect Tibet's unique culture, religion, and
linguistic and environmental heritage.
This cry has been going on now for decades. While self-
determination does not carry a single definition, the Tibetan
people have proposed a way forward toward self-determination
and meaningful autonomy within the framework of the Chinese
constitution in a reciprocal proposal of compromise based on
protecting the core interests of both Tibet and China. His
Holiness the Dalai Lama has presented multiple documents over
these many decades that provide a concrete framework for
negotiation. Yet in contrast, Beijing refuses to return to the
table.
Thirteen years have passed since the last Sino-Tibetan
dialogue. Although the U.S. routinely calls for the resumption
of dialogue--in fact it's the law of the land now--the Tibet
Policy Act of 2002 requires a resumption of dialogue--and has
made multiple laws stating support for dialogue, the CCP
ignores it and ignores any likeminded nations calling for that
same dialogue. Such a strategy must be called out. China must
return to the negotiating table at the highest level
immediately.
And these are the policy recommendations going forward:
Pass H.R. 533/S. 138, which has been discussed. A very, very
important piece of legislation. And work with the
administration to clarify U.S. support for the Tibetan people
and negotiations with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan
leadership. This is essential--completely essential--to long-
term support for the Tibetans' call for self-determination.
Number two, the implementation of the Tibetan Policy and
Support Act and the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act. These were
really important things that Congress passed over the last
years in both houses. And we have to make sure that they are
implemented--and follow through--all of us. Go to the State
Department and say: What have you done? We need the report. By
law, this is something you have to do. They need that
encouragement.
Follow the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural
Rights in its concluding observations. They call on Chinese
authorities to immediately abolish the colonial boarding school
system imposed on Tibetan children, allow private Tibetan
schools to be established, and ensure that Tibetan is the
language of instruction in Tibet. Also, utilize the U.S. vote
in the U.N. and optimize like-minded countries to press Central
Committee members to halt the expulsion of nomadic herders,
rural residents, and small-scale farmers from ancestral lands.
Also publish a comprehensive report on the CCP's propaganda
efforts in China and in international forums to manipulate
global perceptions of Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism, and His Holiness
the Dalai Lama.
The Chinese version of history is a complete fantasy. And
the decades of that fantasy are not going to change the reality
of the truth. It's very important for us, as free-speaking
peoples, to tell the truth about the history. And the history
is clear for anyone to see. Monitor the CCP's digital
transnational oppression, international police presence, and
evaluate the rights violations both in China and in other
countries. And, finally, implement concrete restrictions for
technology transfer and U.S. company support for forced or
coerced DNA and medical data collection.
I really want to thank the Commission and everyone here for
listening to this very long testimony. [Laughter, applause.]
Everyone here knows this already, but maybe someone else
listening to this hearing or reading it will hear it for the
first time. It's an overview that I think my partners to my
left are going into in more detail. So thank you all very much.
Chair Smith. Thank you so much. Mr. Gere, thank you for
that tremendous testimony. [Applause.] It is comprehensive,
informative, motivating, and it gives us so much to act upon.
And the historical perspective as well is just extraordinary.
Thank you so very much.
Ms. Tethong.
STATEMENT OF LHADON TETHONG,
DIRECTOR, TIBET ACTION INSTITUTE
Ms. Tethong. Chair Smith, Co-chair Merkley, and other
distinguished members of the Commission, thank you for your
steadfast and groundbreaking leadership on the Tibetan issue.
Thank you for this honor to be able to speak here today.
I just want to start by making it clear that I am speaking
of Tibet as Tibetans know it, the entire Tibetan Plateau--
900,000 square miles, made up of three historical provinces of
U-Tsang, Kham, and Amdo, and with a total Tibetan population of
what is today around 7 million Tibetans. China misleadingly
claims that there are only 3.2 million Tibetans in Tibet
because they count only the Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous
Region. That is central and western Tibet, mostly. They've
taken all of eastern Tibet, and they've carved up and sub-
fragmented Tibetans and the lands they live on into four
Chinese provinces and 12 autonomous prefectures and counties.
And in this way they distort and confuse people about what the
true picture inside of Tibet is.
For 70 years, generation after generation of Chinese
leaders have tried to break the faith and loyalty of the
fiercely independent Tibetan people to His Holiness the 14th
Dalai Lama, to Buddhism, and to a distinct Tibetan identity
that existed for well over a thousand years before the People's
Republic of China was even founded. But after using countless
strategies, resources, and unimaginable violence, Xi Jinping
now believes the best way for China to conquer Tibet is to kill
the Tibetan in the child. He's doing this by taking nearly all
Tibetan children away from their families and from the people
who will surely transmit this identity to them. Not just their
parents, but their spiritual leaders and their teachers. And
he's handing them over to agents of the Chinese state to raise
them to speak a new language, practice a new culture and
religion--that of the Chinese Communist Party.
A little over a year ago, Tibet Action released a report
showing that at least 800,000 Tibetan children are now living
in a massive network of boarding primary, middle and secondary
schools across all of historical Tibet. This shockingly high
number means that at least three out of every four Tibetan
children in all of historical Tibet, from ages six to eighteen,
are now separated from their families and living in a state-run
colonial boarding school system where the medium of instruction
and the entire curriculum is focused on fostering loyalty to
China. Tibetan is taught as a single language class, if at all,
and Tibetan culture is most often reduced to nothing more than
dance, song, and tokenized wearing of traditional Tibetan
clothing. The practice of Tibetan Buddhism is, of course,
strictly prohibited.
China doesn't hide the fact that these schools exist.
There's plenty of online propaganda claiming the students in
the boarding schools are happy and receiving a modern
education. This propaganda nearly always features, very
prominently, that single Tibetan language class. But what it
hides, and what is not included in our report, is the existence
of boarding preschools. Though we were hearing reports from
Tibet that parents were being forced to send children as young
as four and five away, we could not find any details on where
they were being sent or what schooling they were receiving. It
was only on the eve of actually releasing our report that we
met an expert eyewitness who'd recently fled Tibet and who
confirmed the existence of the mandatory boarding preschools
for children living in rural areas of Tibet.
Dr. Gyal Lo, a Tibetan academic who holds a Ph.D. from the
University of Toronto and has over thirty years of experience
in the field of education in Tibet and China estimates that an
additional 100,000 to 150,000 Tibetan children, at least, ages
four to six years old, now live in these boarding schools. He's
visited more than 50 himself. He's seen that the children are
required to live there Monday to Friday, where they're immersed
in a completely Chinese learning environment, including
participating in war reenactments where they're dressed in PLA
uniforms or Red Army suits. One Tibetan teacher describes the
situation in her area like this: ``Usually there are very few
Tibetan teachers; the majority are Chinese. So teachers only
speak in Mandarin and conduct all school curriculum in
Mandarin, including nursery rhymes and bedtime stories.'' When
the children join primary school, hardly any of them can speak
Tibetan.
Dr. Gyal Lo witnessed the impact of these preschools in his
own family when, after just three months of being in one,
children in his family who'd grown up in an entirely Tibetan-
speaking household preferred to speak in Chinese. He saw them
growing emotionally distant from their parents and grandparents
and acting like, as he says, guests or strangers in their own
home. Imagine your loved ones at this age and try to imagine
the heartbreak that this is causing for these families. I have
a six-year-old, and three-year-old twins, so I am right now
fully immersed in this period of childhood development. Kids at
this stage need the care of their parents and their families to
help them eat, bathe, get dressed, and maybe even more
importantly, to scare away the monsters at night, to comfort
them when they're sick or hurt, and to reassure them that
everything is going to be okay.
Tibetan parents don't want to send their kids away, and
most wouldn't if they had a choice. Some parents refuse, and
many more want to, but China's repression makes the price of
resistance extremely high. In order to avoid sending kids away,
some families split up, sending one parent to live with the
child in an urban area where they can attend a day school and
other parents report sleeping in cars near the boarding
preschools just so that they can be close to the kids at all
times. And, of course, the children are suffering too. Research
by scholars in China and Tibet clearly shows that the removal
of Tibetan children from their homes, as well as the highly
regimented and isolating boarding school life, is traumatizing
Tibetan children. Firsthand accounts of Tibetans who attended
boarding schools in Tibet show that pervasive racism and
discrimination will inevitably lead them to develop feelings of
shame and ethnic inferiority.
These impacts in Tibet sound hauntingly similar to the
residential boarding school systems used to eliminate
Indigenous identities in Canada, the U.S., Australia, and
beyond. This is because Chinese leaders are pursuing the same
strategy for the same reasons in Tibet, East Turkistan, and
Southern Mongolia, to quell resistance and to consolidate
China's rule over foreign lands and peoples. And while Chinese
officials argue that the schools in Tibet are fundamentally
different from boarding schools of the colonial era--in part
because students get to attend schools with modern facilities--
they miss the point entirely that what matters is what Tibetans
want for their children. And Dr. Gyal Lo likes to simplify this
issue in another way, by saying, ``It is not about how good the
school facilities are, but what is happening inside. The
fundamental question is: Who is teaching what to whom?''
And in Tibet, the answer is clear. The Chinese state is
removing Tibetan children from their homes by force or coercion
and placing them in schools where they have to speak Chinese,
conform to Chinese culture and tradition, while stripping them
of their own identity, including their religion and their
mother tongue. If this is not colonial education, I don't know
what is. And when viewed together with the all-out attack on
Buddhism and the nomadic way of life, we can see China intends
to destroy everything that makes Tibetans Tibetan. And calling
it ``ethnic unity'' or ``ethnic fusion'' or assimilation or
sinicization doesn't make it different, or any less colonial,
than what was done by Canada, the U.S., and Australia to the
First Nations, Indigenous, and Aboriginal people.
And what it is is crystal clear to Tibetans. Just as it's
clear to Uyghurs and Southern Mongolians--China's committing
genocide in Tibet. And at a time when our nations are finally
reckoning with these atrocities, that Xi Jinping is pursuing a
strategy targeting children for the elimination of language and
culture--a colonial strategy now reviled and condemned around
the world--should be, along with the Uyghur genocide, a massive
red flag for the international community of the true nature and
intention of the Chinese Communist Party. But this doesn't have
to be the end of the story. Tibetans inside Tibet have not
stopped fighting. We hear the stories of their resistance every
single day. And our Uyghur, Southern Mongolian, Hong Kong, and
Chinese activist brothers and sisters are fighting, too. Now is
the critical time for the world to step up and help.
I'll end there and address my recommendations in the Q&A.
Chair Smith. Thank you. [Applause.]
Thank you for those very powerful insights and the warnings
as to what Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party is doing
to the children. I look forward to posing some questions to
delve even further into that. Thank you so very much.
I'd like to now recognize Mr. Dorjee.
STATEMENT OF TENZIN DORJEE, SENIOR RESEARCHER AND STRATEGIST,
TIBET ACTION INSTITUTE
Mr. Dorjee. Thank you so much, Chairman Smith. Thank you,
Co-chair Merkley, and I want to thank all the CECC staff for
organizing this important hearing on Tibet. It's a great honor
to speak here next to my colleagues, and especially speaking
alongside the democratically elected prime minister of Tibet in
exile, Sikyong Penpa Tsering. It's also very inspiring to be
here in this room today with some of the most active members of
the Tibetan movement, who are right here in this room,
especially one of the most inspiring heroes of the Tibetan
movement, former political prisoner Ngawang Sangdrol. I just
saw her sitting over there. [Applause.] Ngawang Sangdrol
started fighting for Tibet when she was 12 or 13 years old and
went to Chinese prison for simply participating in a nonviolent
protest. Today she's still out here fighting for the same
cause.
Oppression produces exile. All oppressed nations have a
blessing called diaspora, where stateless exiles are able to
enjoy freedom of expression, religion, assembly, and
association that they are denied back home. Once upon a time,
Tibetans in the diaspora also enjoyed these freedoms. But in
the last decade, many of these freedoms have succumbed to the
long arm of the Chinese government. From Nepal and India to
Sweden and Switzerland, and now even in Canada and the United
States, formal and informal agents of the Chinese government
are using some of the oldest tactics of manipulation and some
of the newest technologies of repression to bully, threaten,
harass, and intimidate Tibetans into silence.
To fully grasp why and how China's apparatus of
transnational repression targets Tibetans, we must understand
its origins. China has historically viewed the Tibetan diaspora
as a leading threat to its global reputation. In the nineties,
the international Tibet movement was quite successful at
exposing China's human rights violations and generating bad PR
for the regime. This was undermining Beijing's foreign policy
objectives. It was during this period that the Chinese
government launched a new campaign to clean up its global
image. But instead of improving its human rights record on the
ground, Beijing decided to go after the Tibet movement abroad.
China proceeded to develop a sophisticated set of tools,
tactics, and strategies to silence not only Tibetans but also
pro-Tibet voices on the international scene. This multiyear
project to dislodge Tibet from the global agenda and erase it
from public consciousness targets students, activists, artists,
academics, former political prisoners, and many elite
institutions. Some of my own friends and colleagues in Canada
and the United States have gone through traumatizing
experiences as a result of being targeted either directly by
Beijing or by online mobs of Chinese nationalists, who are
often acting at the behest of the Chinese consulate.
One strategy that Beijing employs with devastating
effectiveness is the relationship mapping that links
individuals in the diaspora to their families in Tibet. This
mapping of family connections allows Chinese authorities to use
the fate of relatives back home in Tibet as a pawn to blackmail
exiled Tibetans into silence. Two years ago, I interviewed a
Tibetan American in New York who had visited Tibet to see her
aging parents. She told me how toward the end of her trip, her
minders from the United Front explicitly told her that her
political behavior going forward would determine not only her
future chances of getting a visa, but also the safety and well-
being of her family in Tibet. Her parents are basically the
hostage, and her silence in exile is the ransom. It's a ransom
she must pay every day by refraining from actions, online or
offline, that may be perceived as critical of China.
Agents of the United Front or the Chinese consulate
unfailingly communicate this exact message to every Tibetan
American who visits Tibet or applies for a visa. Most of the
time they don't get the visa. This transnational family mapping
is designed to manufacture a sense of guilt--call it advance
guilt--in the conscience of the exile, making the exile feel
that her political participation will endanger her family in
Tibet. The ultimate goal of this coercion by proxy is the
political deactivation of the exile.
Another common Chinese strategy is the weaponization of
funding to depoliticize institutions and demobilize
communities. This mechanism is visible in the case of
Baimadajie, the self-identified Tibetan NYPD officer who was
spying for the Chinese government. Exploiting the power of his
NYPD uniform, he was trying to manipulate the leaders of the
New York Tibetan community. This is what he was saying to them.
He was saying to the Tibetan leaders, ``You guys are paying a
monthly mortgage of nearly $50,000 for your community center. I
have some very wealthy Chinese friends who can help subsidize
your mortgage. But you should stop flying the Tibetan flag at
your events, and you should ban any discussion of political
issues at this venue.''
By dangling the promise of funding before the community
leaders, Baimadajie was trying to depoliticize and co-opt one
of the most important Tibetan-owned spaces in the diaspora.
Beyond targeting Tibetan communities, Beijing has used its
tight control over access and funding to shape political
discourse on university campuses, in cultural institutions,
academic forums, and even to influence the research agenda of
budding scholars and aspiring Sinologists. Beijing's apologists
out here happily exploit the openness of our democratic systems
to defend--ironically--defend the world's largest dictatorship.
Nevertheless, I believe there are ways to fight this. The
U.S., and the West in general, has conceded so much ground to
China in the last three decades and moved the equilibrium so
far in Beijing's favor. It is time to reset the diplomatic
baseline and it's time to go back to first principles of the
historical truth of Tibetan independence and legal right of the
Tibetan people to self-determination. It is time to liberate
ourselves from the delusion that sweeping human rights under
the rug, or throwing Tibetans and Uyghurs to the wolves, would
somehow make China more likely to cooperate on issues of common
interest and geopolitical importance.
The best way to counter China's transnational repression is
to proactively support the Tibetan, Uyghur, and Hong Kong
people's transnational, decolonial advocacy for human rights
and self-determination, and strengthen the Chinese people's
longstanding struggle for democracy and freedom. Thank you.
[Applause.]
Chair Smith. Thank you very, very much, all of you, for
that tremendous testimony. This has to be a pivot. I think your
point--you know, we have unfortunately bought into a narrative
from Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao, and all the others that preceded
them, that somehow if you go along, you get along, you do more
trade and things, and matriculate from dictatorship to
democracy. Nothing like that has happened. So it's time to
pivot. And certainly Tibet policy is a place that is just
crying out for a reappraisal and for a new initiative on the
part of the U.S. Government, which is why S. 138 and H.R. 533
are so important in that endeavor.
A couple of questions, then I'll yield to the Co-chair for
his questions. On the boarding schools, you know, my first
human rights trip--I've been to China many times on human
rights trips. I never got into Lhasa. Frank Wolf, my colleague,
did. I didn't. Couldn't get in. But my first trip was actually
to Moscow and Leningrad in 1982, on behalf of Soviet Jews. And
I'll never forget being in what is now St. Petersburg, going to
a museum on atheism. And I began to learn that the communist
ideology either destroys or co-opts all faiths, and all
exercises of conscience. You know, right now Xi Jinping is
using his sinicization campaign to completely co-opt all faiths
and all belief systems, or destroy them.
We went to this museum on atheism. And while we were there,
they were mocking Christianity, Judaism, and Islam in Kazan
Cathedral, which had been turned into a museum on atheism.
While we were there, all these young pioneers, children that
were 11, 8, 10, were going by with guides pointing to all of
the faith symbols and mocking them--because we got a
translation from our people that were taking us through it from
the embassy--mocking them like I couldn't believe. And all the
children were laughing. Look at this, look at that, how crazy,
blah, blah, blah, as they were teaching a militant atheism in
the schools.
I'm wondering if you can shed some light on what the
consequence of these boarding schools is on the hearts and
minds of these children. How long have those schools been in
effect? You know, as a tool of repression by the Chinese
Communist Party? Do they mock the Dalai Lama there? We know
that on the internet if you put the Dalai Lama into a search
engine--and I did it, at a Beijing internet cafe--and didn't
get anything but negatives. Unbelievably harsh negatives. And
Google was all a part of it. I was on a Google website or
search engine in Beijing. And that's the garbage that I got
from the censors from the Chinese Communist Party.
And I'm wondering, once they get a child with a very
impressionable, malleable mind, what is the impact when they're
trashing and mocking the Dalai Lama and Buddhism? Do we know
how it's affecting the children? Are they turning against--I
mean, how do they resist? And do they have contact with their
parents while they're at the boarding school? What is the modus
operandi there? Do they come home for summer vacation? I use
that in an American context, but do they get time off to see
their parents?
Secondly, on the population transfer issue, which, Mr.
Gere, you pointed out, I read one of the Dalai Lama's books,
and I remember he had a whole section about population transfer
as it was happening. And it's only gotten worse as, obviously,
indigenous Tibetans are increasingly displaced. They also have
used the forced abortion, coercive population control program
very effectively as a tool of genocide. We know that. And I'm
wondering if you might want to speak to the transfer issue.
And finally, the whole issue of--and you mentioned it, Mr.
Dorjee, about the dislodging from the international agenda. You
know, there are too many people who just care about the trade
so much and about getting along with the Chinese diplomats who
are very smooth, except when they are not, in international
fora. I've seen that at the U.N. I've seen that at the Human
Rights Council in Geneva. And they're bullies if they don't get
their way. I went to a press conference that was being held by
the Chinese delegation at the U.N. Human Rights Council, and I
asked questions, and they closed down the press conference when
I got into several human rights issues. And they were all
miffed. Before that, they were all talking in superlatives
about how great the Chinese human rights record is, which it is
not, of course.
So, again, these pieces of legislation, and the
prioritization of this by our secretary of state, our
ambassador to the United Nations and others--we need to do more
to get Tibet further on the agenda. Yes, we have terrible
issues with the Uyghurs. We have Hong Kong, Taiwan, all the
other terrible, terrible issues. But it can't be at the expense
of Tibet. It's got to be reasserted front and center. Maybe you
could give us some insight as to how.
Ms. Tethong. Thank you for those questions. Briefly,
restricted access--Tibet is so restricted, so severely
restricted, it is nearly impossible to know the exact situation
and conditions not just in the schools, but what it is like
when the kids go home, because the climate of fear is so
incredible. There's really not many people who will talk, or
will give us the kind of rich information and eyewitness
accounts we used to get when thousands of Tibetans escaped from
Tibet every year into India and Nepal. That number, Human
Rights Watch had it at about 3,000 average a year until 2008.
Now maybe a dozen make it.
Mr. Gere. Or less.
Ms. Tethong. Even less?
Mr. Gere. Yeah. Oh, yes.
Ms. Tethong. I mean, it's unbelievable. So we've lost,
unfortunately, those rich accounts of what the policy impacts
of the Chinese government are inside Tibet. What we do know,
though, is that the boarding preschools have only been around
since, say, 2016, so those little ones, we really don't know
the details of how they're affected by the political
indoctrination. We can only assume the worst. The older
students in this current sort of system of boarding schools,
it's been about a decade or so that they've been being built
and really expanded. And we've heard stories, reports of
Tibetan students protesting the removal of the Tibetan language
in those schools, other things like that that let us know that,
of course, these kids are still Tibetan, and their allegiance
to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and to Buddhism will be so
deeply ingrained in them that it's unlikely they're
participating at that level now. But if this goes on for
generations, what does our future look like?
And then as far as how often kids can go home, again, not
very often. The preschools seem to allow kids to go home on the
weekends. But certainly for the boarding schools that are
hundreds and hundreds of miles away, the kids can go home
supposedly every few months. Some it's even longer. And many
parents can't afford to go get them. So kids will go not home
but to a nearby connection or family member, or even have to
stay in the school rather than see their families.
Chair Smith. Could I just ask you, if a parent challenges
the child, do they report on them, and then they're disciplined
or arrested when the child goes back to the school, or the
boarding school and says, Mom and Dad said this--what happens
then?
Ms. Tethong. Oh, yeah, I would assume. You mean, if the
parents say anything to the child that the child then reports
later? Yeah, absolutely. And that's been the way of Chinese
authorities in Tibet for decades.
Mr. Dorjee. If I may add something to what Lhadon was
mentioning. The relationship between the children and their
parents is already becoming very, very weak and in the process
of being cut right now, children being unable or struggling to
converse with their parents. It's very much happening. We have
heard several accounts and testimonials of this happening right
now.
One thing that has already happened to so many families is
the relationship between children and their grandparents,
because many Tibetan parents speak Tibetan as their first
language, but they are able to speak some rudimentary Chinese
as a second language in some places. Whereas, when it comes to
the older generation of Tibetans who are above 50 or 60, the
grandparents' generation, they don't speak any Chinese because
there was not a single Chinese in Tibet before 1949, during the
invasion years.
And that generation of Tibetans does not speak any Chinese
at all. And they still don't, which means many of these
children who are in the boarding preschools, they are coming
back home when they are able to come during their short breaks
in between, and they're not able to say anything, have any kind
of communication--forget about conversing with their
grandparents. They're not able to have any communication with
their grandparents. So the grandparents have already lost the
children.
One thing I want to highlight here is the role sometimes--
because our societies are so structurally different that we
forget the role that grandparents can play in the development
of children, their psychology, their worldview, their cultural
character. And in Tibetan society, like many traditional
societies, grandparents play an extremely foundational role in
the development of the children's worldview, psychology, and
their fundamental identity. And that's part of the reason why
this is particularly dangerous, what's already happening.
I want to add one thing about the second question, China
being a bully in so many different scenarios and different
arenas. As we all know, nobody likes a bully. But there's
nothing worse than a bully who also plays the victim. And the
Chinese government has been extremely good at that. They play
the victim everywhere. But what they are actually doing--their
real character is that of a bully. And they do this inside
Tibet, in East Turkestan. They do it to their own Chinese
people who are asking for democracy. And they also do this
abroad.
And one way in which all of these issues--whether it's the
Uyghur genocide, whether it's the dismantling of democracy in
Hong Kong, or whether it's the colonial boarding schools in
Tibet--one way that will help us actually be more effective in
fighting each of these issues is actually seeing them as a
collective whole. Because what the Chinese government is trying
to do is isolate each of these issues and get the world to see
them as separate issues, so that our list keeps increasing,
because China's crimes are increasing, right? There are so
many.
So we get overwhelmed just by the length of the list.
Whereas I think if we are able to see all of these issues as
part of the same root problem of the Chinese Communist Party,
which has no legitimacy to rule over a quarter of the world's
population, that framework will actually help us visualize a
roadmap much more easily to dealing with that.
[Side conversation.]
Mr. Gere. I was just asking if we had any clear numbers of
the number of Chinese who have come into Tibetan territory. So
we don't have them. But I would assume at this point--I mean, a
lot of the work that we did at ICT was to stop the population
transfer. And population transfer, in the Geneva Convention, is
considered genocide. I think we can make the assumption that
there are more Chinese than Tibetans in Tibetan regions at this
point. So let's say that there are 7 or 8 million Chinese that
are now residents and controlling the Tibetan Plateau.
As you were saying, we get overwhelmed by how vast this
Chinese machine is. And, you know, we have to rethink in the
West every couple of years what our policies are. And there's
an interim period where there's discussion and there's a
relaxation of movement. There's no relaxation in China. These
policies were set many, many decades ago. And this hundred-year
program for the Chinese to take over the world, they're fifty
years ahead at this point because they're on point of doing
exactly what they set out to do. The mechanisms that they have
in place are everywhere now. They're in our universities.
They're in our schools. They're in our police departments.
They're in the deep structures of our intelligence community.
They're everywhere.
And we have to look at this. But as the gentleman said, we
can't get overwhelmed by how big it is. We have to be able to
parse it piece by piece and look at it. And the things that
mean the most to us are our children, frankly. And to look at
that the deepest, I think. And this question of continuity of
culture, from grandmother, grandfather to child, is deeply
important for us. Can we imagine our own kids being devoid of
that kind of cultural continuity and transfer of thoughts and
emotions, and a sense of who we are in the universe? The
Tibetan culture was an experiment of extraordinary visionary
possibilities. When Buddhism came to Tibet in the 7th to 8th
century, they were the tough guys in the community.
Tibet at one point controlled all of Asia. They controlled
the Mongolians, the Chinese. It wasn't even the Han Chinese at
that point. The Han Chinese were a very small, insignificant
kingdom that long ago. But Tibet was transformed by Buddhism.
They took it seriously. And the institutions were not
institutions of generating money or power in a worldly sense,
but creating bodhisattvas, perfect human beings who actually
generated love and compassion and wisdom. And the institutions
of the convents, the nuns, the monasteries were supported by
the people. And that's where they gladly sent their kids to be
educated and to foster these incredible ideals, which are--I
grew up in a Christian household--compassion, love, care for
our neighbors. These were important things to us that we had to
learn from our parents and our culture.
The Tibetans learned it in the extreme, that this was a
life and death struggle between the right path and the wrong
path. And the path they chose was love and compassion at all
levels of society. The Chinese disrupted that completely in
1949, with this invasion. And it was a very unfortunate but
necessary thing for the Dalai Lama to leave. When I first
became interested in the Tibetans, I knew very little about the
political situation. I was going to go to Tibet.
A friend of mine, John Avedon, had just written a book
about the history of Tibet and also the diaspora. He said, why
are you going to Tibet? And I said, well, I want to see Tibet.
And he said, well, you'll see Chinese there, and you'll see
people who are so cowed and fearful. You won't really have an
experience there. Go to Dharamshala, see His Holiness there. So
I did. And that was really the beginning of my involvement. But
it was so stunning to me to see Tibetans living in exile, but
within their own communities, with this continuity of culture,
they were unique.
And I see it in the community that's sitting here with us
today. These people are unique. They're unique on the planet.
They're unique in our present society. They have so much to
offer us, not just Americans, but the entire planet, of how we
can proceed. This breaking of that continuity of love, and
compassion, and wisdom is probably the saddest thing that we've
seen. I don't care about the money. I don't even care about the
natural resources. I care about this continuity of love and
compassion. And that's what we've seen broken.
Chair Smith. You know, I read John Avedon's op-eds in years
past, decades ago, one of them called ``The Rape of Tibet.''
And he talked about how forced abortion was used with absolute
impunity against the Tibetan women, just to get rid of
Tibetans. I mean, it was outrageous. So----
Mr. Gere. Well, to be fair, they use it against their own
people.
Chair Smith. Of course they do.
Mr. Gere. So this discussion was not against the Chinese
people, but against a system which is destroying them as well
as us.
Chair Smith. Thank you so much.
Chairman Merkley.
Co-chair Merkley. I so much appreciate the testimony that
each of you has brought and the experiences that all of you who
are attending are bringing to bear in this effort. There's a
vote underway in the Senate, so I have a question for each of
you but probably if I'm going to make the vote, which I need
to, I'll ask that you maybe take two minutes to respond to each
question. I want to start with Ms. Tethong.
Noting that in November, on behalf of this executive
commission, then-chair McGovern and I sent a letter to the
U.N., seeking a U.N. investigation on the separation of Tibetan
children from their families to these colonial boarding
schools. On March 6th, there was a report that the U.N.
Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights did a study.
It did not come from the High Commissioner on Human Rights but
from the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
And it very much called for an end to the forced relocations
and the state-run boarding schools, and had quite a lot of
data.
So one section of the U.N. has pursued an investigation.
The question now is, how can we push the U.N. to the next step?
What's the most important next step that this Congressional-
Executive Commission should push for?
Ms. Tethong. Thank you for the question and thank you also
for your efforts in moving this issue, changing this issue,
especially at the U.N. I think if the members of the
Commission, Members of Congress could request that the
administration really lead a coalition of likeminded countries
in opposing colonial boarding schools at the United Nations, at
the Human Rights Council, and other international fora, I think
that would play a huge part.
This would make such a contribution to, first, getting this
issue out there, because it's been hiding--or the Chinese
government has been hiding it so effectively. And second, for
pushing other countries--giving other countries the support
they need to get on board. And I think there are a lot of
likeminded nations who have these histories of the residential
boarding schools and these kinds of policies, that really have
an obligation to lead, together with the U.S., like Canada,
like Australia, and others.
Co-chair Merkley. Yes. Thank you. And certainly this is an
agenda that we can continue to push forward. I look forward to
working with you, Mr. Chairman, in that regard. And, Mr. Gere,
you talked in your testimony, kind of following on that, how we
need a unified voice with our European partners. How can we
best amplify these horrific circumstances? As I was saying to
Chairman Smith during the testimony, if you're just hearing the
story and you weren't already familiar with it, it would sound
like a dystopian world, you know, a few centuries from now on
some other planet. You know, in some sci-fi novel. All of these
horrific circumstances that are going on.
But it's here. It's now. We do know it. We hear it again.
And the world becomes somewhat hardened to all of the
circumstances that are going awry. How do we build a stronger
unified voice with our European partners?
Mr. Gere. Well, I think there's a moment now. I mean,
there's high skepticism of China right now. And I think we have
to take advantage of that. The Chinese have been very
successful in promising separate deals with different
countries. There hasn't been a unified effort against China.
But I think there is a moment now where there's a high degree
of unhappiness and skepticism, and a feeling of danger and fear
of China at this moment which is pretty universal, certainly
with our European partners. I think this is the moment for the
State Department, for the Commission, for us, for all of us, to
make those connections wherever we can.
Mr. McGovern and I have talked about this quite a bit. And
Speaker Pelosi also. This, to me, is central to what we can do
to actually change things. The U.S. Congress, the U.S.
Government, and the U.S. people have been completely supportive
of the Tibetan cause. And we continue to be very strong in what
we're doing. These bills are very important, very powerful
bills that are winding their way through Congress.
The Tibet Support Act of 2002 was huge in declaring support
for the Tibetan people and correcting many of the
misperceptions through the propaganda of the Chinese
government. Now's the time to talk to our equals in Europe, who
are friends in Europe, and say: Look, this is the legislation
that we have started with. And it's taken us decades to get
here, but use us, what we have done, to get similar laws
passed, similar legislation done, in the U.K., and France, and
Italy. I was on the phone with the Italians today. We're going
to be presenting similar legislation in Italy, because there's
a government there today that is incredibly skeptical of what
the Chinese are doing in the world. So this is a moment to take
chances reaching out to our friends around the world.
Co-chair Merkley. Thank you, Mr. Gere. And I know this
comes from your heart and from decades of advocacy. And we need
more American citizens to join you, as we are joining you, in
this advocacy. It's just a tremendous effort. And let's seize
this moment, as you have suggested.
Mr. Dorjee, you talk about the long arm of the Chinese
government and how they are essentially blackmailing Tibetans
who are resident in the United States.
Mr. Gere. Citizens!
Co-chair Merkley. Tibetans who are citizens here in the
United States. And this is a practice they're employing not
just with regard to Tibet, but in kind of a broad scope of
trying to suppress freedom of speech here, both by threats
regarding that person but also even perhaps more effectively,
threats against their families back home. And you gave us a
very specific example, the name deleted to protect the
individual. But it is extraordinarily hard to be an advocate
when your family is being threatened. What is the single most
effective thing we can do to counter this type of blackmail
against Tibetan citizens and Tibetan residents, citizens of the
United States, residents here, when their families are
threatened back home?
Mr. Dorjee. Thank you so much. I remember about 15 to 20
years ago, America was a very different place, where there
would be Chinese students studying overseas, and there were all
sorts of students here who were participating in political
conversations. When I was an undergrad, actually, on my campus
I even saw Chinese students taking part in all the events,
going to debates. They would come to Tibet events. They would
come to other political events, without fear that somebody was
watching over their shoulder. Things have changed a lot.
I sometimes work as a teaching assistant at Columbia
University, and what I see on campus, and many campuses these
days, is very different. I've spoken to a lot of Chinese
students, let alone Tibetan students, and Uyghur students, and
Hong Kong students. Even Chinese students who actually have
less reason to fear the Chinese government--even they are
terrified of taking part in any kind of activity that might be
deemed remotely critical or even borderline critical of the
Chinese government. And I think maybe we can find a way to make
the universities a little bit more responsible to their
students.
It's the job of the universities to protect their students,
the free speech of the students, the First Amendment rights of
the students, to take part in events they'd like to go to, to
participate in protests, to take part in dialogue, to actually
even meet with Tibetan students without fear. Many Chinese
students are actually afraid to meet with people like me, or
us, because they don't know who's watching. Because the
consulates have actually extended some of their arms and
tentacles into the university campuses. And I would really
appreciate it if Congress and the administration could look
into that particular problem, which is happening across many
university campuses. Both private universities and public
universities.
And as an immediate measure, establishing some kind of
hotline where people can report tips whenever they see these
incidents. My friend and colleague who was in Canada actually
was subjected to endless harassment and endless hate speech,
intimidation; she even received death threats from hundreds of
people. And the number of comments that she received, digital
harassment, she was really, really traumatized by that
experience. And when I was speaking to her just yesterday, she
told me her hope is that in the future other people don't have
to go through that kind of experience.
Co-chair Merkley. I'm so glad you mentioned the hotline.
I've been pushing the administration to set up just such a
hotline and the reaction so far has been modest. The first
response I got was, the FBI wants to just use their standard
tipline. And I said, what person being threatened by folks
overseas would call up a tipline that has to do with anything
in the world, any crime in the world, not knowing how the
information will be used, whether the person at the other end
speaks Tibetan, or speaks Chinese, or understands how carefully
this information has to be controlled, not to amplify the
threat.
And if we don't have a way for people to systematically
report, then it's just the tip of the iceberg. We're getting,
like, maybe a ten-thousandth of what's actually happening in
terms of the information we're securing. And I think for us to
take on transnational repression, we have to get a huge
understanding that there needs to be a transnational repression
hotline that is carefully, carefully staffed with multiple
language abilities, multiple protections, with such confidence
that people know that it's not going to be hacked, that they're
not going to amplify the problems by reaching out, that the
diaspora communities can circulate that information.
And I think that would help us really see the full picture
and be able to mobilize a much more aggressive response. And so
I floated that idea last year. And this is the first time I've
heard someone bring it back up before the Commission. And I'm
continuing to seek feedback on it and partnership on it,
because you can no longer be free here in the United States of
America if your family's being threatened abroad.
Mr. Dorjee. Thank you so much.
Co-chair Merkley. Thank you. [Applause.]
Chair Smith. Chairman Merkley, thank you very much. And
thank you for that initiative. I think it's a tremendous one.
And hopefully it'll go from modest to all in because who wants
to call the FBI when you have no idea, as somebody who is part
of the diaspora, who you're talking to? You know, law
enforcement to them, back home, means secret police and people
who are surveilling ad nauseum.
You know, I've actually chaired hearings on Confucius
Centers. I had one hearing with NYU, which has a campus in
Shanghai, bought and paid for by the Chinese Communist Party.
Actually, I invited myself and went over there and spoke on
human rights. But, you know, it's shocking how complicit higher
education, just like the business community, is with the
Chinese Communist Party.
Mr. Gere. Sure. It's all about money.
Chair Smith. It's all about money.
Mr. Gere. All about money.
Chair Smith. But thank you for your testimony. This hearing
and, again, these bills--which I do believe will be passed and
signed into law--need to be the pivot. And your voices and your
incredible knowledge and depth of compassion is the motivator.
You have helped us to see even more clearly what has to be
done. And we need to pivot today. So I thank you so much.
[Applause]
Mr. Gere. Thank you, Chairman. [Cheers, applause.]
Chair Smith. Without objection, all members will have five
legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and make
submissions. The hearing's adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:00 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]
=======================================================================
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
Prepared Statement of Sikyong Penpa Tsering
Chairman Smith, Chairman Merkley, members of the committee and
distinguished guests, thank you for inviting me to this hearing
alongside a person who continues to play a very significant role in
keeping the hopes of the Tibetan people alive and someone I hold dear,
Richard Gere, Chairman of the International Campaign for Tibet. You
have also invited two prominent Tibetans, Lhadon Tethong and Tenzin
Dorjee of the Tibet Action Institute, both competent in leadership and
now known for their research on challenges confronting Tibetans inside
Tibet, including the colonial-style boarding schools. While they speak
in detail on some of the specific issues, I request the chairs consider
my written submission as part of the testimony and I assure our
Administration's complete cooperation on any additional information
that the committee may need.
As the democratically elected leader of the Tibetan people, the
Central Tibetan Administration, of which I am the Sikyong, is fully
committed to following the Middle Way Policy: the way forward shown by
His Holiness the Dalai Lama and adopted by the Tibetan Parliament in
Exile. This policy is aimed at finding a non-violent, mutually
beneficial, negotiated and lasting solution to the Sino-Tibet conflict
that can set an example for this violence-ridden world. Resolution of
the Sino-Tibet conflict can have profound geopolitical implications for
a more peaceful and secure region and the world.
The absence of traction on dialogue since 2010 sounds ominous, but
we remain positive about finding a peaceful solution that avoids
extreme polarities. The sincerity of the People's Republic of China's
(PRC) leadership manifests in the policies and programs being
implemented in Tibet as we speak. In the last few years, evidence
emerging out from Tibet in the form of reports by the U.N., independent
institutes and scholarly research, the Chinese government's one nation,
one language, one culture and one religion policy is aimed at forced
assimilation and the erasure of the national identity of the Tibetans
and other minority nationalities. Unsurprisingly, the international
watchdog Freedom House lists Tibet right at the bottom with Syria and
South Sudan in their least free country index.
We often get asked as to why we don't hear about Tibet anymore--the
PRC's Orwellian gridlock system, the use of all means of artificial
intelligence to surveil people, control of the flow of information, and
the lockdown of Tibet to the outside world--even those in leadership
roles in education, religion, culture, and environment are being
arbitrarily arrested or just disappear. One's actions are linked to the
welfare of one's near and dear ones. 157 Tibetans were known to have
self-immolated since 2009, hoping against hope that the PRC government
would pay some attention to their plight and hoping against hope that
the international community would come to their rescue, but to no
avail. The Chinese government focuses too much on development and fails
to understand the real aspirations of the Tibetan people.
Tibetan language, religion, and culture are the bedrock of Tibetan
identity. Compassion and non-violence, which form the foundation of our
culture, will undoubtedly promote peace and harmony in the world.
However, these are facing unprecedented threat of eradication. The
atheist Chinese government is trying to fully control the process and
authority of recognizing the reincarnation of Trulkus, that is unique
to Tibetan Buddhism, besides interference in the study of Buddhist
philosophy and control on their movement.
To speed up assimilation, large-scale forced relocation of Tibetans
from their traditional homeland to Chinese territories and within
Tibet, the mass transfer of Tibetan youths to China for labor and the
incentivized migration of Han Chinese into Tibet are being carried out.
Moreover, Tibetan children across Tibet are not only being coerced into
colonial boarding schools but transferred to areas across China on a
massive scale.
As part of the fifty-year China's Western Development Program
started at the beginning of this millennium, unscrupulous use of
natural resources and the reckless construction of dams, railway and
road networks, airports and other infrastructure in Tibet threatens
irreversible damage to Tibet's fragile environment. Tibet is known as
Asia's Water Tower and the Third Pole because of the amount of glaciers
and permafrost that feeds all the major rivers of Asia. Therefore, it
concerns not only Tibet and the Tibetan people but has serious
implications for the food, economic, and water security of a population
of about 2 billion people living in the downstream countries that
depend on rivers originating in the Tibetan plateau.
If the PRC is not made to reverse or change its current policies,
Tibet and Tibetans will definitely die a slow death.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I would like to express
my appreciation to you for organizing this very important hearing.
These hearings are a boost to the indomitable spirit of the Tibetans
inside Tibet and a source of inspiration for the Tibetans in exile to
continue with our just struggle.
I wish to reiterate our gratitude to the U.S. Congress for making
necessary changes to the Tibet Policy Act.
The continuous support from the Congress, government and people of
the U.S. will enable the resolution of the Sino-Tibet Conflict through
the Middle-Way Policy, which will bring peace to Tibet and beyond. I
fervently hope that the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China
Conflict Act introduced in both Houses of the U.S. Congress will be
made into law.
Thank you very much for the opportunity again.
Prepared Statement of Richard Gere
______
Human Rights in Tibet: Survival of a People
introduction
For decades, the Chinese Communist Party's ethnic policies have
been largely predicated on containment, denial, destruction, and
assimilation. Repression has been most severe in Tibet--and in East
Turkestan it should be noted as well--where CCP policies have included
the separation of families, the prohibition of language, the
destruction of religious sites and institutions, the collection of DNA,
and a pervasive surveillance system through which the denial of
information or movement is implemented.
I obviously do not have to explain the threat to the Tibetan
people's very existence to this Committee who likely knows of decades
of atrocities behind the CCP's ``ethnic policies'' better than I do.
But briefly, in service to Beijing's longstanding agenda to
sinicize Tibet and ``manage'' individual nationalities, the Chinese
Communist Party's policies have been characterized by cruelty,
collective violence, and persecution.
The saddest truth is that the CCP's process of assimilation and
erasure is all too often concealed by Beijing's intricate and powerful
propaganda machine. Within China's digital prison, just like all
authoritarian regimes, the Chinese government targets the very core
attributes that define the continuity of a people; specifically, the
family unit, religious expression, cultural tradition, language, and
environment.
Identifiable mechanisms, like arbitrary detention, forcible
transfer, rape, torture, and disappearance are all tools that have been
well documented throughout the course of Beijing's assimilation
practices.
Xi Jinping's recent appointment of Pan Yue to the Central Committee
is likely an indication that this aggressive assimilationism will not
only continue but perhaps intensify. And if the Beijing Chairman's
recent visit to Moscow is any indicator of a ``new era,'' every one of
China's 55 ethnic groups--like Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Mongolians--are
right to be afraid.
It does not have to be this way. As you know, the Dalai Lama has
offered a pathway to resolution built on a dialogue process meant to
identify a peaceful, stable resolution in Tibet which grants Tibetans
meaningful autonomy within the framework of the Chinese constitution.
It is obvious why a mutual agreement is crucial to Tibet's survival
and to avoiding the eradication of the Tibetan people, though it might
be less clear to Beijing how this benefits China.
There are three key elements of benefit. First, it lends Beijing
the legitimacy it so desperately seeks in Tibet. Second, it enables
Beijing to reset its relationship with India and third, if successfully
implemented, a reciprocal agreement in Tibet removes--or lessens--the
international stigma associated with Beijing's human rights record,
ranging from acts of genocide, like those determined by the
International Committee of Jurists in 1960, to present-day criticism of
Beijing's longstanding brutality in Tibet which has only intensified
since the 2008 Tibetan Uprising, which has been followed by years of
self-immolation sacrifices by Tibetans in protest of the Chinese
government's violent rule. I would ask the Commission to remember
Tsewang Norbu, a very popular Tibetan singer who self-immolated last
year in Lhasa. Demonstrating a peaceful agreement in Tibet--which
includes the rights of the child, the right to mother tongue, the
freedom of movement and religious practice--is a powerful step up for
Beijing, sending the entire world the right signal that the Chinese
government is genuinely capable of addressing discord through dialogue,
with reason and peaceable human values, rather than by the
demonstration of force and denial.
Two steps must be taken to help this happen. First, we must be
clear about the history that brought us to this point of the People's
Republic of China in Tibet. Second, the United States, allies, and the
international community must speak with a unified voice on the need for
Beijing and its Chairman to return to the negotiating table.
For the record, the Chinese Communist Party invaded Tibet without
provocation of any kind in 1949-50. As the CCP consolidated control
over the Tibetan ``minority nationality,'' which obviously was not a
``minority'' in Tibet at the time, the CCP violated human rights
standards and contravened its own policy promises to respect Tibetan
institutions, Tibet's religion, and the Tibetan people's right to self-
determination. Open resistance to the Communists' violent policies grew
quickly, which led to the National Uprising in 1959 and the Dalai
Lama's harrowing escape to India, where he and many additional Tibetans
sought refuge, and thanks to the generosity of India, remain harbored,
where the Tibetan community has become a vibrant, beloved thread in
India's pluralistic democracy.
During the next two decades, the denial and destruction of Tibetan
culture, religion, and language, and arbitrary detention and torture,
is estimated by the Tibetan government in exile to have resulted in the
deaths of 1.2 million Tibetans--one-fifth of the country's
population.\1\ Many more Tibetans languished in prisons and labor
camps. More than 6,000 monasteries, temples, and culturally historic
buildings were destroyed, their contents pillaged. Literally thousands
of ancient Buddhist texts, critical to the legacy of Tibetan Buddhism
and the broader Buddhist community, were burned, looted, or lost in the
zealotry of the Cultural Revolution. Tibetans were collectivized,
leading to unprecedented famine as the CCP sought to so thoroughly
erase identity before any resistance mounted.\2\
Other than specific methodologies first honed in Tibet, now refined
and in well-documented practice in East Turkestan, not much has
changed; the pattern, however, gives reason for grave concern in that
it increasingly expands to match the definition of crimes against
humanity, as the brazenness of meeting with a comrade recently indicted
by the ICC for war crimes, under the diplomatic posture of defining a
new world order, might attest.
religious persecution
Despite being bound by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights,
the ICCPR, the Child Rights Convention and other agreements, Beijing
has never demonstrated the standards defined within them in any
concrete terms, which makes a mockery of its very vocal claim that
China is committed to human rights and the rule of law.
Beijing's assault on Tibetan Buddhism has evolved since its
invasion of Tibet and in recent years, exponentially so under Chairman
Xi's rule. CCP policy has transitioned from total destruction of
Tibetan religious institutions, gatherings, and practices to one of
insidious control, including eliminating core attributes of Tibetan
Buddhism while co-opting Tibetan Buddhists' right to determine their
leaders.
Tibetans who peacefully oppose this are often detained, routinely
tortured, permanently injured, or even killed for the peaceful practice
of their religion. Reinforcing this point, the U.N. Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expressed concern about ``reports
of systematic and massive destruction of religious sites such as
mosques, monasteries, shrines, and cemeteries, particularly in the
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and in the so-called Tibet Autonomous
Region.'' \3\
However, we must draw a line when the Chinese state requires that
Tibetan Buddhist monks receive Communist state approval before
reincarnating--a demand that is so grossly antithetical to Tibetan
Buddhist precepts that it cannot be justified by flimsy or falsified
claims of a Communist government professing atheism.
The most visible demonstration of Beijing's aggressive assertion of
authority over selecting the next--the 15th--Dalai Lama must be opposed
and we must note as a cautionary tale the first aggression by Beijing
during the selection of the 11th Panchen Lama--literally kidnapping the
child that had been identified as the Panchen Lama when he was six
years old, propping up a state-sponsored Lama into the Tibetan
reincarnation's empty seat. This is the youngest political prisoner
ever and thirty years later no one knows where the real Panchen Lama
is, or whether he is even still alive.
destruction of language
As we've learned from the Tibet Action Institute's recent and
critical research, which we are lucky to have, up to one million
Tibetan children are currently and systematically being alienated from
Tibetan language and culture in compulsory boarding schools.\4\ The
Chinese government's educational policies separate children from their
families--forcibly transferring the children into schools far from
their parents. Children are taught in Mandarin as the CCP is keenly
aware that mother tongue is a primary mode of cultural transmission,
one of the most fundamental components of the continuity of a people's
identity from one generation to the next, affecting everything from
access to arts, literature, song, and religious texts. They also know
it is one of the last impasses for their control of Tibet and the
Tibetan people.
Uprooting native language is particularly egregious in the case of
Tibetan culture considering the role memorization and recitation play
in a rigorous monastic education system. If the CCP's program to sever
the transmission of Tibetan language and culture to Tibetan youth
proves successful, it will significantly advance the PRC's agenda to
contain and assimilate a people.
In its Concluding Observations on the recent third periodic report
of China, the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural rights
expressed concerns over ``reports of the large-scale campaign to
eradicate Tibetan culture and language, as well as the general
undermining of the linguistic identity of ethnic minorities by the
assimilation policy of the State party, known as Sinicization,
including the coercive residential (boarding) school system imposed on
Tibetan children.'' \5\
As we argue the risks and ``freedom'' associated with apps like
TikTok, the CCP's vicious aim at the future of Tibetan children should
send the world a distress signal of the systematic and often secret
ruthlessness under which Beijing operates.
forcible population transfer
I hope the Committee will also note the forcible population
transfer of nomads in Tibet. Having thrived for millennia herding and
cultivating the vast and incredibly valuable Tibetan Plateau and
acclimated to Tibet's unique climate, nomads are proven stewards of the
land. Their culture is deeply tied to the environment's demands through
a profound belief system that honors landscapes and all living beings.
According to Chinese government media sources, at least 1.8 million
nomads have been transferred into sedentary houses under Chinese
government policies. This estimate is likely conservative. In 2013,
Human Rights Watch \6\ reported that over two million Tibetans (two-
thirds of the entire population of the TAR) had been ``rehoused,'' with
hundreds of thousands of nomadic herders forced into ``New Socialist
Villages.'' \7\
Tibetans are not compensated or guaranteed income or employment
when resettled. To the contrary, they are often then coerced, or
forced, into work programs that a U.N. Special Rapporteur reported may
`` . . . amount to contemporary forms of slavery including excessive
surveillance, abusive living and working conditions, restriction of
movement through internment, threats, physical and/or sexual violence
and other inhuman or degrading treatment, some instances may amount to
enslavement as a crime against humanity, meriting a further independent
analysis.'' \8\
It is no secret that the Dalai Lama was the first Nobel Peace Prize
winner recognized for environmental efforts in addition to his advocacy
for a peaceful resolution in Tibet, another demonstration of why he
must be included in dialogue. In contrast to the Dalai Lama's
longstanding wisdom on effective environmental policies, the Chinese
government systematically expels nomads from ancestral lands through
forced migration, transferring them into concentrated, sedentary
dwellings.
Dispossessed of their way of life and ability to make a living, the
result is tantamount to the ghettoization of Tibet.
institutionalized fear
The CCP has converted Tibet into a surveillance state combining
more brutal oppressive techniques with a panopticon of technology that
monitors the movements, phone calls, and internet habits of every
citizen. Constant monitoring and information control, internet
blackouts, and intrusive electronic surveillance are now pervasive at
all levels of society. Reminiscent of East German Stasi methods,
families are encouraged to spy and report on each other, often through
coercion or financial incentives.\9\ The most minor ``offense'' can
lead to extreme retaliation, including imprisonment and torture.
A dangerous pattern of death due to torture has been observed,
including the recent deaths of 19-year-old monk Tenzin Nyima and 51-
year-old tour guide Kunchok Jinpa. We emphasize that in both cases, as
with many others, an investigation into deaths in custody and
prosecution of those responsible for them was never undertaken by the
Chinese authorities.
Another example is the recent case of Jigme Gyatso, a monk at
Labrang monastery who courageously recorded and released a video
detailing his torture at the hands of Chinese police in 2008. He was
sentenced to five years in prison for that video and was released in
extremely poor health, leading to steady deterioration and his eventual
death last summer. Jigme was blacklisted from receiving private medical
care as a result of the ``crime'' he had committed by speaking out
about the abuse he had suffered.\10\
Chinese companies have developed software that automatically
detects and tracks Tibetans and other ethnic minorities within the PRC
on camera. A report published by Citizen Lab found that China's police
may have gathered between about 920,000 and 1.2 million DNA samples in
the Tibet Autonomous Region over the past six years.\11\ Those figures
represent one-quarter to one-third of the total population of the TAR,
which spans most of western Tibet. Human Rights Watch also released a
report stating that Chinese authorities are systematically collecting
DNA from residents of the TAR, including by taking blood from children
as young as five without their parents' consent.\12\
China's surveillance no longer halts at the Tibetan border. The
CCP's techno-authoritarianism and fear tactics extend to Tibetan
communities abroad. This oppression is being perpetrated behind a
digital iron curtain to hide reality on the ground. We also must take
seriously the pervasiveness of the surveillance in and outside of Tibet
and the harm it's doing psychologically to the younger generation, who
find themselves not only surveilled on platforms such as TikTok, but
also harassed for who they are. The development of these systems of
repression, reaching all the way around the world, reflects the lengths
the CCP will go to to dismantle the Tibetan civilization.
policy of plunder
We must also note that the Chinese annexation of Tibet has serious
regional security implications and gives Beijing access to Tibet's
abundant natural resources.
Tibet's location and scale provide a commanding position over the
entire Himalayan region, a fact certainly not lost on the Communist
Party. The CCP's occupation allowed not only an immediate enhanced
regional sphere of influence but also set it on a trajectory toward the
hegemonic control it continues to strive for.
Tibet also boasts a host of natural resources the Chinese lack. One
of the most illustrative examples is water. China is water poor. In
contrast, the Tibetan Plateau is the source of the region's major
rivers, the healthy flow of which at least 1.5 billion people rely on
for food and economic development.\13\ The PRC has erected numerous and
massive damming projects, and proposes to continue, along with water
diversion projects. Once again, we see dual purposes at play. China's
occupation of Tibet provides needed resources to China, while also
facilitating infrastructure development that allows it to literally
control the tap for South and Southeast Asia. This must not be ignored
since water control grants China literal and diplomatic might as well
as infrastructure that in and of itself represents yet another
potential military build-up along contested borders.\14\
Precious metals and minerals serve as another example. Tibet's
occupation ``provides access to 126 different minerals,'' including
copper, iron, uranium, zinc, gold, and lead. Increasingly relevant,
Tibet also has large amounts of lithium, critical to powering modern
technologies like cell phones, and hybrid and electric cars, and
more.\15\
The appropriation of property often coincides with the persecution
of a people. The resource exploitation occurring on the Tibetan Plateau
overlays the oppression of the Tibetan people who call it home, and
takes place over their objections--clearly stated despite the serious
risks associated with protests or demonstrations inside the PRC.
path forward: the middle way
At the heart of the Tibet-China conflict lies the fundamental human
right of self determination. According to international law and ethical
standards a people deserves the right to determine their own future.
Self-determination does not carry with it any single definition nor
does the Dalai Lama's proposed Middle Way. The Middle Way is based on
this foundation of meaningful autonomy even as it represents a proposal
of compromise based on protecting the core interests of both Tibet and
China.
Under the Middle Way, Tibetans call for dialogue to identify a
solution that is compatible with the People's Republic of China's
constitution while allowing Tibetans the self-determination needed to
protect their unique cultural, religious, and linguistic heritage.
There are many aspects to the Middle Way approach that His Holiness
the Dalai Lama has presented in multiple documents that provide a
concrete framework for negotiation.\16\ The key fact, however, is that
at no time has His Holiness or the Tibetan government in exile, the
Central Tibetan Administration, explicitly or implicitly signaled that
the ongoing occupation is resolved.
In contrast, China refuses to return to the table. To date,
thirteen years have passed since the last round of Sino-Tibetan
dialogue. Although the United States regularly calls for the resumption
of dialogue and has multiple laws on the books stating support for
negotiations with His Holiness or his designated representatives as the
path forward, the Chinese Communist Party continues to snub its nose at
the U.S. and like-minded nations.
China's refusal is transparent. It is simply a waiting game.
Beijing has sent numerous signals that it intends to designate its own
``Dalai Lama'' when the current Dalai Lama passes away. Such a strategy
must be thoroughly neutralized in advance.
Accomplishing this will entail two main components. Long term,
China must be enticed back to the negotiating table. Ideally, this
would mean joining in dialogue with the current Dalai Lama who is well
positioned to broker an agreement that will remain stable. However,
immediate steps also must be taken to ensure that China, the world, and
the Tibetan people know that the United States' support for the Tibetan
people and resolution through dialogue will never waver, regardless of
with whom or when a true settlement is achieved.
policy recommendations
Congress should pass and President Biden should sign the
Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Act (H.R. 533/S.
138) which clarifies that America will back the Tibetan people until
negotiations are settled, whether it is with the 14th Dalai Lama or a
future Tibetan leader. This is essential to providing the Tibetan
people the long-term support needed in their quest for dignity and
self-determination. The legislation also empowers the Special
Coordinator for Tibet to directly counter China's relentless propaganda
machine aimed at Tibet.
Fully and forcefully implement the Tibetan Policy and
Support Act and the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act. The former is a key
statute establishing multiple Tibet policies, the latter confronts the
inequity of United States citizens (including journalists, tourists,
and Tibetan Americans) not being able to enter Tibet, and the ability
of Chinese citizens to enter the United States.
Following the example of the U.N. Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights in its Concluding Observations, call on
Chinese authorities to immediately abolish the boarding school system
imposed on Tibetan children, allow private Tibetan schools to be
established, and ensure that Mandarin is not the only language allowed
as the language of instruction in Tibet.
Utilize the United States' voice and vote at the United
Nations to press Chinese authorities to take all necessary measures to
immediately halt expulsion of all nomadic herders, including Tibetan
ones, from their ancestral lands. This also should include other rural
residents such as small-scale farmers.
Undertake and present publicly a comprehensive report on
the Chinese Communist Party's efforts to manipulate global perceptions
of Tibet and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This should include the
countering of China's propaganda machine, digital transnational
oppression, and international investment schemes, and the evaluation of
human rights violations.
Set in place concrete restrictions for technology
transfer or other U.S company support for forced/coerced DNA or other
medical data collection.
[Endnotes appear on the following page.]
--------------------------
\1\ See https://tibetoffice.org/invasion-after
\2\ Ibid.
\3\ Concluding observations on the third periodic report of China,
including Hong Kong SAR, China, and Macao SAR, China, p. 13. https://
tbinternet.ohchr.org/--layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/
Download.aspx?symbolno=E%2FC.12%2FCHN%2FCO%2F3&Lang=en
\4\ ``Separated from their Families: China's Vast System of Colonial
Boarding Schools'' inside Tibet, Tibet Action Institute, December 2021
https://s7712.pcdn.co/wpcontent/uploads/2022/12/
2021_TAI_ColonialBoardingSchoolReport_Digital.pdf; and OHCHR, 6
February 2023,``China: UN experts alarmed by separation of 1 million
Tibetan children from families and forced assimilation at residential
schools.''
\5\ OHCHR, 6 February 2023, ``China: UN experts alarmed by separation
of 1 million Tibetan children from families and forced assimilation at
residential schools.''
\6\ Human Rights Watch, 27 June 2013, `` `They Say We Should Be
Grateful': Mass Rehousing and Relocation Programs in Tibetan Areas of
China,'' https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/06/27/they-say-we-should-be-
grateful/mass-rehousing-and-relocation-programs-tibetan.
\7\ https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/29/beijings-green-fist
\8\ UN Human Rights Council, A/HRC/51/26, ``Report of the Special
Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and
consequences,'' Tomoya Obokata, p. 8.
\9\ https://www.maxhertzberg.co.uk/background/politics/stasi-tactics/
#::text=Tactics%20included%20questioning%2C%20repeated%20stop,
of%20the%20police%20interest%20etc.
\10\ https://savetibet.org/prominent-former-tibetan-political-prisoner-
dies/
\11\ Citizen Lab, 31 September 2022, ``Mass DNA Collection in the Tibet
Autonomous Region from 2016-2022,'' https://citizenlab.ca/2022/09/mass-
dna-collection-in-the-tibet-autonomous-region/.
\12\ Human Rights Watch, 5 September 2022, ``China: New Evidence of
Mass DNA Collection in Tibet,'' https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/09/05/
china-new-evidence-mass-dna-collection-tibet.
\13\ https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442249134/Water-Peace-and-War-
Confronting-the-Global-Water-Crisis-Updated-Edition
\14\ Chellaney, Brahma, Water: Asia's New Battle Ground; Georgetown
University Press, 2011, see chapter 3
\15\ Ibid. p. 116-117
\16\ https://tibet.net/important-issues/sino-tibetan-dialogue/note-on-
the-memorandum-on genuine-autonomy-for-the-tibetan-people/
Prepared Statement of Lhadon Tethong
Chair Smith, Co-chair Merkley, and other Distinguished Members of
the Commission: Thank you for your steadfast and groundbreaking
leadership on the issue of Tibet.
Today, I will speak of Tibet as Tibetans know it: the entire
Tibetan plateau--an area of approximately 900,000 square miles--made up
of the three traditional provinces of U-Tsang, Kham, and Amdo, and with
a total Tibetan population of what is today around seven million
people.
China misleadingly claims there are just 3.2 million Tibetans in
Tibet because Chinese leaders are counting only those Tibetans in the
``Tibet Autonomous Region'' or the T.A.R.--that is, mostly central and
western Tibet. They've taken almost all of eastern Tibet, and have
carved up and sub-fragmented Tibetans and the lands they live on into
four Chinese provinces, ten autonomous prefectures and two autonomous
counties. In this way they distort and confuse people as to what the
true picture inside Tibet is.
For 70 years, generation after generation of Chinese leaders have
tried to break the faith and loyalty of the fiercely independent
Tibetan people to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, to Buddhism, and to
a distinct Tibetan identity that existed for well over a thousand years
before the People's Republic of China was even founded.
But after using countless strategies, resources, and unimaginable
violence, Xi Jinping now believes the best way for China to conquer
Tibet is to ``kill the Tibetan in the child.'' He is doing this by
taking nearly all Tibetan children away from the people who will surely
transmit identity to them--their parents and families and spiritual
leaders and teachers--and handing them over to agents of the Chinese
state to raise them to speak a new language, and practice a new culture
and religion--that of the Chinese Communist Party.
A little over a year ago, Tibet Action Institute released a report
showing that at least 800,000 Tibetan children are living in a massive
network of primary, middle, and secondary boarding schools across all
of historical Tibet. This shockingly high number means that at least
three out of every four Tibetan children aged six to eighteen is now
separated from their family and living in a state-run colonial boarding
school where the medium of instruction and the entire curriculum is
focused on fostering loyalty to China.
Tibetan is taught as a single language class, and Tibetan culture
is most often reduced to nothing more than song and dance and the
tokenized wearing of traditional Tibetan clothing. The practice of
Tibetan Buddhism is strictly forbidden.
China doesn't hide the fact that these schools exist. There is
plenty of online propaganda claiming the students in boarding schools
are happy and receiving a modern education. This propaganda nearly
always features--very prominently--that single Tibetan language class.
But what it hides, and what was not included in our report, is the
existence of boarding preschools in rural areas.
And though we were hearing reports from Tibet that parents were
being forced to send children as young as four and five years old away,
we could not find any details on where they were being sent or what
schooling they were receiving. It was only on the eve of releasing our
report that we met an expert eyewitness who'd recently fled from Tibet
and who confirmed the existence of mandatory boarding preschools for
children in rural areas.
Dr. Gyal Lo, a Tibetan academic who holds a Ph.D from the
University of Toronto and has over thirty years of experience in the
field of education in China and Tibet, estimates that an additional
100,000 to 150,000 Tibetan children now live in boarding schools. He's
visited more than 50 such preschools where children are required to
live from Monday to Friday, and where they are immersed in a completely
Chinese learning environment, including participating in war
reenactments dressed in PLA uniforms or Red Army suits.
One Tibetan teacher described the situation in her area like this:
``Usually there are very few Tibetan teachers; the majority are
Chinese. So teachers only speak in Mandarin and conduct all school
curriculum in Mandarin, including nursery rhymes and bedtime stories.
When [the children] join primary school . . . hardly any of them can
speak Tibetan.''
Dr. Gyal Lo witnessed the impact of these preschools in his own
family when, after just three months, children who'd grown up in an
entirely Tibetan speaking household preferred to speak in Chinese. He
also saw them growing emotionally distant from their parents and
grandparents and acting like guests or strangers in their own home.
Try to imagine your children or loved ones at this age and the
heartbreak this is causing for these families. I have a six-year-old,
and three-year-old twins, and so I am fully immersed in this period of
childhood development right now. Kids at this stage need the care of
their parents and family to help them eat, bathe, and get dressed and--
perhaps more importantly--to scare away the monsters at night, to
comfort them when they are hurt or sick, and to reassure them that
everything is going to be okay.
Tibetan parents don't want to send their kids away. And most
wouldn't if they had a choice.
Some parents refuse, and many more want to, but China's repression
makes the price of resistance extremely high. Those who do face
financial penalties and the loss of essential government support
systems such as health care, education, and the national identity cards
required for every activity. In order to avoid sending their kids away,
some families split up--sending one parent to live with the child in an
urban area where they can attend a day school. Other parents sleep in
cars near the boarding preschools in order to be close to their
children at all times. And, of course, the children are suffering too.
Research by scholars in China and Tibet, as well as reports by
other outside sources, clearly shows that the removal of children from
their homes, as well as the highly regimented and isolated boarding
school life, is psychologically traumatizing Tibetan children. And
firsthand accounts of Tibetans who attended boarding schools in Tibet
show that pervasive racism and discrimination will inevitably lead them
to develop feelings of shame and ethnic inferiority.
These impacts of the colonial boarding school system in Tibet sound
hauntingly similar to those of the residential boarding school systems
used to eliminate Indigenous identities in Canada, the U.S. and
Australia. This is because Xi Jinping and Chinese leaders are pursuing
the same strategy, for the same reasons, in Tibet, in East Turkistan
and Southern Mongolia. They are trying to quell resistance and
consolidate China's rule over foreign lands and peoples.
And while Chinese officials argue the schools in Tibet are
``fundamentally different from boarding schools of the colonial era''--
in part because the students get to attend schools with modern
facilities--they miss the point entirely that what matters most is what
Tibetans want for their children. Even if the schools are gleaming new
and the children wear Tibetan chubas, have one Tibetan class a day and
are occasionally fed Tibetan food, Tibetan parents don't want their
children to have their identity and mother tongue stripped away from
them and replaced with that of a Chinese nationalist.
Dr. Gyal Lo likes to simplify this issue by saying: ''It is not
about how good the school facilities are, but what is happening inside.
The fundamental question is: who is teaching what to whom?''
In Tibet, the answer is clear: The Chinese state is removing
Tibetan children from their homes by force or coercion and placing them
in schools where they have to speak Chinese and conform to Chinese
culture and tradition while stripping them of their own identity,
including their religion and their mother tongue.
If this is not colonial education, I don't know what is.
And when viewed together with the all-out attack on Tibetan
Buddhism and the nomadic way of life, we can see that Xi Jinping and
the Chinese Communist Party intend to destroy everything that makes
Tibetans Tibetan. Calling it ``Ethnic Unity'' or ``Ethnic Fusion'' or
assimilation or sinicization doesn't make it different, or any less
colonial, than what was done by the governments of Canada, the U.S.,
and Australia to the First Nations, Indigenous and Aboriginal peoples.
And what it is is crystal clear to Tibetans. Just as it is clear to
Uyghurs, and to Southern Mongolians. China is committing genocide in
Tibet. And at a time when our nations are finally reckoning with these
atrocities, that Xi Jinping is pursuing a strategy targeting children
for the elimination of language and culture--a colonial strategy that
is now reviled and condemned around the world--should be, along with
the Uyghur genocide, a massive red flag for the international community
of the true nature and intention of the Chinese Communist Party.
But this doesn't have to be the end of the story. Tibetans inside
Tibet have not stopped fighting. We hear about their acts of resistance
every single day. And our Uyghur, Southern Mongolian, Hong Kong, and
Chinese activist brothers and sisters are fighting too. Now is the
critical time for the world to step up and help.
To that end, Tibet Action Institute respectfully urges:
All members of Congress and senior Administration
officials to publicly condemn China's colonial boarding school system
in Tibet and call on the government of China to immediately halt the
implementation of this system, and especially boarding preschools;
The members of this Commission, together with other
members of Congress, to request that the Administration lead
democracies in exposing and publicly opposing the colonial boarding
school system in Tibet at the U.N. Human Rights Council and in other
multilateral fora;
The Administration to sanction Chinese leaders and
officials responsible for the colonial boarding school system, and
especially the intellectual architects responsible for developing and
implementing this system;
Congress and the Administration to secure programmatic
support for Tibetan organizations working to preserve and advance
Tibetan language and culture, especially the establishment of Tibetan
language programs and schools for Tibetans living in the United States;
The members of this Commission to create a task force
based on the understanding that China's campaign of ethnic elimination
in Tibet, East Turkistan, and Southern Mongolia, as well as its
repression in Hong Kong and threats against Taiwan, are interlinked and
part of the same problem of Chinese colonialism, and therefore require
a unified framework to generate policy responses adequate to compel
current and future generations of Chinese leaders to change course.
Recognizing that this problem constitutes a crisis requiring an
international response, this task force would explore and recommend to
the Administration all available diplomatic, economic, and political
responses, including the option of forming an International Contact
Group; and
The members of this Commission to press China to allow
the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Special Procedures, and
other independent human rights experts immediate, meaningful, and
unfettered access to Tibet, including access to colonial boarding
schools, and especially boarding preschools.
Prepared Statement of Tenzin Dorjee
______
China's Transnational Repression Against Tibetans in the Diaspora
Thank you Chair Smith, Co-chair Merkley, and distinguished members
of the Commission. It is an honor to testify today on China's
transnational repression against Tibetans in the diaspora.
Oppression produces exile. All oppressed nations have a blessing
called diaspora, where stateless exiles are able to enjoy freedom of
expression, religion, assembly, and association that they are denied
back home. Once upon a time, Tibetans in the diaspora enjoyed these
freedoms too.
But in the last decade, many of these freedoms have succumbed to
the long arm of the Chinese government. From Nepal and India to Sweden
and Switzerland, and now in Canada and the United States, formal and
informal agents of the Chinese government are using some of the oldest
tactics of manipulation and some of the newest technologies of
repression to bully, threaten, harass, and intimidate Tibetans into
silence.
To fully grasp why and how China's apparatus of transnational
repression targets Tibetans, we must understand its origins. China has
historically viewed the Tibetan diaspora as a leading threat to its
global reputation. In the nineties, the international Tibet movement
was quite successful at exposing China's human rights violations and
generating bad PR for the regime. This was undermining Beijing's
foreign policy objectives.
It was during this period that the Chinese government launched a
new campaign to clean up its global image. But instead of improving its
human rights record at home, Beijing decided to go after the Tibet
movement abroad.
China proceeded to develop a sophisticated set of tools, tactics,
and strategies to silence not only Tibetans but all pro-Tibet voices.
This multi-year project to dislodge Tibet from the global agenda and
erase it from public consciousness targets students, activists,
artists, academics, former political prisoners, and elite institutions.
Some of my friends and colleagues in Canada and the United States have
gone through traumatizing experiences as a result of being targeted
either directly by Beijing or by online mobs of Chinese nationalists,
who are often acting at the behest of the Chinese consulates.
One strategy that Beijing employs with devastating effectiveness is
the relationship mapping that links individuals in the diaspora to
their families in Tibet. This mapping of family connections allows
Chinese authorities to use the fate of relatives back home as a pawn to
blackmail exiled Tibetans into silence.
Two years ago, I interviewed a Tibetan American in New York who had
visited Tibet to see her aging parents. She told me how toward the end
of her trip, her minders from the United Front explicitly told her that
her political behavior going forward would determine not only her
future chances of getting a visa, but also the safety and well-being of
her family members in Tibet.
Her parents are basically the hostage, and her silence in exile is
the ransom--a ransom she must pay every day by refraining from actions,
online or offline, that may be perceived as critical of China. Agents
of the United Front or the Chinese consulate unfailingly communicate
this message to every Tibetan American who visits Tibet or applies for
a visa.
Most of the time, though, Tibetan Americans are denied a visa
simply because of their racial identity. Tibetan Americans applying for
a China visa are generally put through a tortuous process of ethnic
discrimination, individual humiliation, and eventual rejection--but not
before their data is harvested by the consulate. They are made to
provide the names, locations, occupations, and other biographical
details of their relatives in Tibet. Each piece of information
surrendered to the consulate is a data point that Beijing uses to map
the Tibetan diaspora.
This transnational family mapping is designed to manufacture a
sense of guilt in the conscience of the exile, making her feel that her
political participation will endanger her family in Tibet. The ultimate
goal of this ``coercion by proxy'' is the political deactivation of the
exile.
Another common Chinese strategy is the weaponization of funding to
depoliticize institutions and demobilize communities. This mechanism is
visible in the case of Baimadajie, the self-identified Tibetan NYPD
officer who was spying for the Chinese government. Exploiting the power
of his NYPD uniform, he was trying to manipulate the leaders of the New
York Tibetan community.
He was saying to them: ``You guys are paying a monthly mortgage of
nearly 50,000 dollars for your community center. I have some very
wealthy Chinese friends who can help subsidize your mortgage. But you
should stop flying the Tibetan flag at your events, and you should ban
any discussion of political issues at this venue.''
By dangling the promise of funding before the community leaders,
Baimadajie was trying to depoliticize and co-opt one of the most
important Tibetan-owned spaces in the diaspora.
Beyond targeting Tibetan communities, Beijing has used its control
over access and funding to shape political discourse on university
campuses, cultural institutions, academic forums, and even influence
the research agenda of budding scholars and aspiring Sinologists.
Beijing's apologists happily exploit the openness of our democratic
systems to defend the world's largest dictatorship.
Nevertheless, I believe there are ways to fight this. The U.S., and
the West in general, has conceded so much ground to China in the last
three decades and moved the equilibrium so far in Beijing's favor. It
is time to reset the diplomatic baseline and go back to first
principles of historical truth and legal rights. It is time to liberate
ourselves from the delusion that sweeping human rights under the rug
and throwing Tibetans and Uyghurs to the wolves would somehow make
China more likely to cooperate on issues of common interest and
geopolitical importance.
The best way to counter China's transnational repression is to
proactively support the Tibetan, Uyghur, and Hong Kong people's
transnational, decolonial advocacy for human rights and self-
determination, and strengthen the Chinese people's longstanding
struggle for democracy and freedom.
Recommendations
1. I request that Congress and the Administration set up a
hotline--if possible, even an office dedicated to this issue--where
people can report incidents of transnational repression by Beijing, and
make relevant information and resources available in Tibetan, Uyghur,
and other languages so that affected communities will find it easy to
report incidents, seek protection, and pursue justice. These measures
would not only help protect vulnerable communities but also deter CCP
agents from engaging in some of their more blatant forms of harassment
and intimidation.
2. I request that Congress look into the role and responsibility of
universities in the United States to protect the freedom of students
who are targeted or at risk of being targeted by Beijing's apparatus of
transnational repression. So far, public as well as private
universities have done a drastically inadequate job of protecting their
Chinese, Uyghur, Hong Kong, or Tibetan students from harassment,
intimidation, or espionage activities instigated by the Chinese
consulates or other PRC agencies.
3. I request that Congress start mentally and discursively linking
the issues of Tibet, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang as part of an overarching
colonial problem that has persisted into the 21st century. The CCP
lacks the legitimacy--historical or democratic--to rule these peoples
and we should not let that foundational fact get lost in the complex
discussions of the regime's current crimes against humanity. If
Congress can lead with bold language to describe the colonial
relationship that is at the root of China's genocidal policies and
crimes against humanity in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong and
consistently deny Beijing the legitimacy to rule these peoples, others
including the Administration will follow suit when the Overton window
for emancipation widens.
______
Prepared Statement of Representative Smith
Good morning, and welcome to the first hearing of the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China to be held during this
118th Congress.
Today's hearing is an extremely important one, one which I hope
will get wide attention and circulation, for it deals with the attempt
of the Chinese Communist Party to erase an entire people, the people of
Tibet.
Cultural erasure happens when a people's language and religious and
cultural heritage are stripped from them, when children are taken from
their parents and placed in institutions--what we call ``colonial
boarding schools''--where they cannot speak their language or practice
their religion, but instead are taught in an alien tongue and
effectively indoctrinated, while the ties that bind them to their
families and culture are washed away.
Roughly 80 percent of all Tibetan children within the Tibet
Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China are housed in such
institutions.
And that's not all. According to the 2022 State Department Human
Rights Report, the CCP's abuses in Tibet include effectively placing
Tibetan Buddhism under central government control and subjecting
Tibetan women to ``coerced abortion or forced sterilization.''
What is also shocking is how intrusive the CCP's totalitarian reach
is. Biometric data--DNA and iris scans--of over a million Tibetans has
been harvested and stored by the CCP. Blood samples were drawn even
from children in kindergarten.
And you know what is even more shocking? The role of an American
company, Thermo Fisher Scientific, in this genetic data collection and
genetic surveillance program. In December of last year, Senator Merkley
and I, along with Ranking Members Rubio and McGovern, wrote a letter to
Mark Casper, the President and CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific--and it
is important that we note his name, MARK CASPER, as there needs to be
accountability by corporate actors--asking him why DNA kits and DNA
sequencer replacement parts were still being sold directly by his
company to police in the Tibet Autonomous Region for use and abuse in
collecting biometric data.
We know this and more importantly, he knows this--because there
have been multiple reports by Toronto-based Citizen Lab, Human Rights
Watch, and indeed this very Commission, of Thermo Fisher products being
implicated in ongoing human rights abuses throughout the People's
Republic of China, through the use of DNA obtained from Tibetans,
Uyghurs, and other ethnic and religious minorities.
Indeed, the most nefarious misuse of DNA collection has been to
find matches for organ recipients from unwilling, healthy, innocent
victims.
While we have yet to see reports of this being done to Tibetans in
Tibet, there is now a mountain of evidence that this is what is being
done in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region against Uyghurs and other
Central Asians such as Kazakhs and Kyrgyz.
Indeed, we know from Chinese open source reporting that the ``Dead
Donor Rule,'' which governs transplants deemed ethical by the medical
transplant industry, is routinely being violated in the PRC. We also
know that 28 years of age is deemed the ideal age for organ ripeness by
transplant surgeons in China, and there is effectively a culling of
Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, and others to illicitly and
barbarically obtain their organs.
I would be remiss if I were not to note, however, that just
yesterday evening, Congress took a major step forward in combating this
horrific practice when the House of Representatives passed by a vote of
413-2 a bill I authored, along with lead Democratic cosponsor Bill
Keating of Massachusetts, H.R. 1154, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting
Act of 2023.
We should also note that the long arm of CCP repression against
Tibetans reaches into this very country, where Tibetans, along with
Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, not to mention Han Chinese
dissidents living abroad, are targeted for harassment and pressure.
Finally, I want to note that Tibet is important because what has
happened in Tibet, beginning in the 1950s, is a template for so many of
the crimes against humanity that we see play out within the
conventionally recognized borders of the People's Republic of China
today and that prick our consciences, including what is happening in
the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Indeed, both Tibet and Xinjiang are autonomous only in name, for
both suffer a repression so staggering that one might consider it as
amounting to genocide.
For genocide is not only what we associate with the Holocaust, the
gas chambers and the mass killings of men, women and children. No. For
according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide, acts of genocide, intended to destroy ``in whole or
in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,'' also
include ``causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
group; and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the
group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another
group.''
That is what is happening in Tibet, just as it is in the Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region. These crimes, I believe, are crimes that can
amount to genocide.
But to end on a more positive note, we hope to hear today from a
distinguished panel of experts who not only will help document these
abuses, but also point us toward a way forward--to the preservation of
Tibet, its language, its culture, its religion, and its people.
Thank you. And with that, I now yield to my esteemed colleague and
Co-chair of this Commission, Senator Merkley.
______
Prepared Statement of Senator Merkley
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate that you
have convened this hearing and I look forward to continuing to work
with you on our shared agenda for this Congress.
This hearing will touch on several aspects of that agenda. We'll
hear about the unrelenting efforts by the Chinese government to erase
the cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity in China. We'll hear
about the long arm of transnational repression and how authorities
reach beyond China's borders to harass and intimidate, including here
in the United States. We'll hear about how companies headquartered here
can be complicit in the use of their technologies to abet the machinery
of the surveillance state. And we'll hear about the indomitable human
spirit of those yearning to live their lives in dignity despite these
assaults on their families and their way of life.
This hearing explores these issues through the lens of how they
affect Tibetans. It builds on several hearings we held last Congress to
give voice to the aspirations of the Tibetan people, in which we
examined Tibet's environment, political prisoners, language rights, and
obstacles to resolving conflict through dialogue.
The Chair and I have been joined in shining a spotlight on these
issues by one of Tibetans' great champions, this Commission's former
chair Jim McGovern. Due to another hearing, Congressman McGovern cannot
be here today but will be submitting a statement for the record. I hope
that the bipartisan legislation he has led in the House with
Congressman McCaul and I lead in the Senate with Senator Young, the
Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Act, will advance
this Congress. And thank you so much, Chairman, for drawing attention
to it and I really hope we can see it expedited. Dialogue to resolve
this conflict remains frozen, as it has been for 13 years, due to
Chinese authorities' refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama or his
representatives. Our legislation aims to bolster existing U.S. policy
seeking meaningful and direct dialogue without preconditions to lead to
a negotiated agreement on Tibet.
The Tibetan people, like people everywhere, deserve a say in how
they are governed. The right to self-determination is foundational to
the concept of universal human rights, enshrined in the U.N. Charter,
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Yet the Chinese government's
policies preclude Tibetans from exercising that most basic right. I
look forward to hearing from our witnesses on what those fighting for
the rights of Tibetans can do about this.
And I invite our witnesses to share their perspectives on how we
can better protect Tibet's linguistic, religious, and cultural
heritage. Much has been done in this area over the decades through the
works of the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration. Yet as
today's testimony will reinforce, Chinese authorities' frontal assault
on Tibetan language and culture now brings elevated challenges, such as
the Chinese attempt to erase Tibetans' Tibetan-ness. The vast majority
of Tibetan children are now placed in colonial boarding schools, as the
chairman has referred to; 80 percent of the children six to eighteen
being placed in these schools; children now even in preschool being put
into these schools. This story gets worse with each passing month.
The people of Tibet face urgent challenges and I hope today's
hearing will help us understand better how we can support them.
Prepared Statement of Representative McGovern
Good morning. I join Chair Smith and Co-Chair Merkley in welcoming
those attending today's Congressional-Executive Commission on China
hearing on Tibet, whose people are dear to my heart. As someone who has
long advocated for the human rights of all Tibetans, I regret that I am
unable to attend in person due to a scheduling conflict.
The grave, well-documented violations of the human rights of
Tibetans that are the subject of this hearing have been going on for a
long time. They are insidious because the long-term goal is to
undermine the very existence of the Tibetan people.
On paper, the constitution and laws of the People's Republic of
China (PRC) affirm the rights of ethnic minorities to ``use and
develop'' their languages. But in practice, Chinese authorities are
taking every opportunity to promote Mandarin at the expense of Tibetan
(and other minority languages) in educational settings.
If Mandarin is essentially the only available language of
instruction, any formal right to safeguard a mother tongue is moot. If
criticizing the PRC's language policies is criminalized and language
rights advocates are imprisoned, then clearly the right to ``use and
develop'' minority languages is not respected.
If thousands of children, including children of preschool age, are
coerced into attending boarding schools where the instructional
language is mostly Mandarin, while also being prevented from studying
Tibetan language, history, and culture in other settings, then
Tibetans' supposed right to ``use and develop'' their language does not
exist, regardless of what Chinese authorities say.
Those same authorities constantly interfere with the practice of
Tibetan Buddhism. The policy of ``sinicization'' of religion--shaping
religious identity and practice to adhere to ideological and cultural
standards set by the PRC--is at work when Chinese officials claim legal
authority to control the Dalai Lama's reincarnation. Or when they
continue to hide the real Panchen Lama from the world. Or when they
demolish historic Buddhist institutes and forcibly evict entire
monastic communities, as happened at Larung Gar and Yachen Gar in 2016.
There are credible reports that PRC authorities are implementing
pervasive surveillance programs in Tibetan areas of China--programs
that involve the collection of DNA and the scanning of irises on a
massive level. Some of the ``data collection'' efforts have been
focused on temples, monasteries, and schools, including primary
schools--the very institutions at the heart of Tibetan communities that
are essential for preserving and renewing Tibetan culture.
Today's witnesses will provide the painful details of these PRC
policies and their devastating consequences. Taken together, these
policies are designed to leave Tibetans no choice but to assimilate
into the majority Han Chinese culture and eventually disappear. This is
cultural erasure. Tibetans in China cannot change these policies
because they lack any effective say in how they are governed.
What can we do about this?
My answer to that question is H.R. 533, the Promoting a Resolution
to the Tibet-China Conflict Act that I introduced in January with House
Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul.
This bipartisan bill provides that it is U.S. policy to recognize
that the Tibetan people have the right to self-determination under
international law. But that right is precluded by current PRC
policies--including all the policies that will be discussed today that
aim to undermine the pillars of Tibetan existence--their language,
religion and culture.
By reminding the world of the basic truth that Tibetans have a
legal right to self- determination as a people, the bill strengthens
the longstanding bipartisan U.S. policy of promoting dialogue between
representatives of the Tibetan people and the PRC. The goal of
dialogue, suspended since 2010, is to ensure genuine, meaningful
autonomy for the Tibetan people. Achieving that goal would necessarily
end the unjust and destructive PRC policies that we are examining
today. Genuine autonomy would end cultural erasure.
The Tibetan people are resilient, and they have been patient. But
no one should expect that they will be patient forever. The U.S. must
state loudly and clearly that the Tibetan people have a right to their
language, their culture, and to determine how they are governed--they
have a right to self-determination and that right must be at the center
of United States policy.
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Witness Biographies
Penpa Tsering, Sikyong, Central Tibetan Administration
Sikyong Penpa Tsering was sworn in as the Sikyong of the Central
Tibetan Administration and the Tibetan people at an official ceremony
graced by His Holiness the Dalai Lama on May 27, 2021.
Born on June 3, 1963, Sikyong Penpa Tsering grew up in Lugsam
Samdupling Tibetan Settlement in Bylakuppe in South India. After
completing his higher secondary education from Central Tibetan School,
Sikyong pursued his Bachelor's degree in Economics from Madras
Christian College (MCC) in Chennai from 1985 to 1988.
While pursuing his college studies, a series of major
demonstrations erupted in Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet, against the
unjust policies of the Chinese government. During this critical period,
Sikyong Penpa Tsering joined Tibetan Freedom Movement to initiate a
solidarity campaign with the sufferings of the Tibetan people inside
Tibet. This office also helped connect Tibetans living in the Indian
state of Tamil Nadu.
Over the years after completing his college education, Sikyong
Penpa Tsering served in various capacities and offered his wholehearted
service to the Tibetan cause and people through nongovernmental
organizations and by actively participating in various Tibetan
political activities.
In 1996, Sikyong Penpa Tsering was elected as a Member of the
Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile from Domey Constituency. As a member of the
Tibetan Parliament, he served as a representative of the entire Tibetan
people and worked earnestly to resolve the issue of Tibet based on the
mutually beneficial Middle Way Approach advocated by His Holiness the
Dalai Lama. Employing his knowledge of economics, Sikyong Penpa Tsering
also served on the Parliament's Budget Estimate Committee many times.
In 2001, he was re-elected as a Member of the Tibetan Parliament
during which he took on the role of the Executive Director of Tibetan
Parliamentary and Policy Research Center (TPPRC), a research agency
based in New Delhi. His efforts as the Executive Director of TPPRC and
his constant outreach efforts directed towards Indian political leaders
led to the successful revival of the All Party Indian Parliamentary
Forum for Tibet (APIPFT).
In 2008, after his re-election to a third term as a member of the
Tibetan Parliament, Sikyong Penpa Tsering was elected as the honorable
Speaker of the 14th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile. In 2011, he was
elected to a fourth term as a member of the 15th Tibetan Parliament-in-
Exile and was duly elected as the Speaker through a majority vote.
In his two decades of service as a Tibetan parliamentarian, Sikyong
Penpa Tsering oversaw various initiatives and activities to enhance the
Tibetan freedom movement. From fostering a grassroots foundation of
democratic principles among the Tibetan people to empowerment of
Tibetan youth through workshops and seminars, he worked diligently as a
representative of the Tibetan people with an earnest effort to
strengthen the Tibetan movement's diplomatic relations and advocacy on
both the national and international stage.
From August 2016 to November 2017, Sikyong Penpa Tsering assumed
the role and responsibility of Representative of His Holiness the Dalai
Lama at the Office of Tibet based in Washington, D.C. His concentrated
efforts to strengthen support for Tibet in the U.S. Government endeared
many to the Tibetan cause. During his stint as the Representative, he
also oversaw and participated in several forums and discussions on the
issue of Tibet that included overseas Chinese intellectuals and
democracy activists based in North America.
Richard Gere, Chairman of the Board of Directors, International
Campaign for Tibet
Humanitarian, actor, and Golden Globe winner Richard Gere is known
for his roles in such films as Chicago, Days of Heaven, An Officer and
a Gentleman, The Cotton Club, American Gigolo, Pretty Woman, Primal
Fear, Arbitrage, Time Out of Mind, and Norman.
For more than thirty years Gere has also worked to draw attention
and practical resolutions to humanitarian crises rooted in injustice,
inequality, and intolerance. He has served as a long-time rights
advocate whose humanitarian efforts have taken him to Tibet, India,
Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan, Kosovo, Central America, and the Middle East.
Gere has used his popularity to amplify the voice of the nonviolent
struggle for Tibet. He was co-founder and Chairman of Tibet House U.S.
in 1987. In 1991, he founded the Gere Foundation, a private foundation
focused on advocacy, education, human rights, and cultural
preservation.
Mr. Gere joined the International Campaign for Tibet's Board of
Directors where he has served as Chairman since 1995 and he has
addressed the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the
Congressional Human Rights Caucus, the U.S. House of Representatives,
the European Parliament, and the United Nations Human Rights Commission
in Geneva. He has sponsored numerous U.S. visits, teachings, and
publications by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Since the early 1980s, Gere also campaigned for awareness and
education in HIV-AIDS affected communities. He helped build the first
female dormitory in India for HIV-positive women, their children, and
HIV-positive orphans. He launched the Heroes Project in partnership
with Parmesh Godrej, Kaiser Family Foundation and the Avahan AIDS
Initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to mobilize
government, societal leaders, and the media industry to fight HIV/AIDS
in India.
Most recently Gere has worked with advocacy groups like CRISIS UK
and RAIS Fundacion to draw attention to the homeless crisis. He has
testified in the Spanish Senate on the value of housing first and the
urgent need for integrated solutions around the issue.
Gere has received honors from Amnesty International, amfAR, the
Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Hadassah International, The
Tibet Fund, and the Harvard AIDS Institute. He is the recipient of the
German Sustainability Award for Advocacy, CARE's Humanitarian Award for
Global Change, the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award, the Marian
Anderson Award, and Freedom House's Raising Awareness Award.
Lhadon Tethong, Co-founder and Director of Tibet Action Institute
As director of Tibet Action Institute, Lhadon Tethong leads a team
of technologists and rights advocates developing open-source
technologies, strategies, and training programs for Tibetans and others
living under extreme repression. Formerly the executive director of
Students for a Free Tibet International, Lhadon led the campaign
against the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She received the James Lawson Award
for Nonviolent Achievement from the International Center on Nonviolent
Conflict in 2011 and accepted the Democracy Award from the National
Endowment for Democracy on behalf of Tibet Action Institute in 2018.
Tenzin Dorjee, Senior Researcher and Strategist at Tibet Action
Institute
Tenzin Dorjee is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University's
Department of Political Science. He is the author of The Tibetan
Nonviolent Struggle: A Strategic and Historical Analysis. His writings
have appeared in the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Journal of
Democracy, National Interest, Tibetan Review, and the Oxford
Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion.
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