Country: China
Group: Tibetans
Date Finalized: 10/05/2021
Team: Samantha Bradford (lead), Alicia Hernandez, Lacey Hurst, Hunter Blevins, Elizabeth Ardila
There is ample evidence to demonstrate that China has committed ethnocide against the Tibetan people. The quality of data is given a 3 out of 3 because there is an ample amount of documentation from scholarly, peer-reviewed sources.
The Tibetans are made up of several related nomadic ethnic groups, and are believed to have settled in the Tibetan plateau by the Iron Age. Tibet and China both later fell under the Mongol Empire. In 1950, the newly formed People’s Liberation Army of China used armed force to defeat the Tibetan army and assimilate their region and peoples (Minority Rights Group, 2017). The Chinese government has suppressed Tibetan culture, religion, and language, because of the Tibetans’ allegiance to their exiled religious leader, the Dalai Lama and related fears of separatist sentiment (BBC, 2019). Chinese authorities have exiled, persecuted, and detained monks and nuns because of their religious practices and have destroyed thousands of religious temples (Unrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization, 2019). China has made efforts to excuse repression and delegitimize the teachings of the Buddhist religious leader of the Tibetans, the Dalai Lama, through historical narratives depicting him as an elite and authoritative ruler. Employment and education within the nation also requires usage of Mandarin, and emphasizes replacement of Tibetan (Minority Rights Group, 2017).
Sources
- BBC. (2019). Tibet profile. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia- pacific-16689779
- Minority Rights Group. World directory of minorities and indigenous peoples. Tibetans in China. Retrieved from: https://minorityrights.org/minorities/tibetans/
- Unrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization. (2019). Tibet: Chinese authorities keep demolishing Buddhist religious centres. Retrieved from: https://unpo.org/article/21601.