Find out about life in Tibet, an autonomous region at the center of the US campaign against China

Brasil de Fato

Known as Tibet in the West, the Xizang Autonomous Region in China is one of the main elements of the geopolitical relations between Beijing and the United States. This is because Washington and US organizations are focusing on the territory to accuse the Chinese government of human rights violations and restrictions on religious freedom.

The subject may gain even more prominence now that the Democrats chose Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, as Kamala Harris’ vice on the presidential slate. Walz, a former congressman who had a seat in the US Congress for six terms since 2006, was part of the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), which proposes to monitor the situation of human rights in the Asian country.

The Chinese government, in turn, has been strongly and repeatedly showing its discontent and opposition to the commission’s reports. In 2017, for instance, when the CECC (then headed by the far-right senator Marco Rubio) held a meeting to mark the 20th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to China, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the entity “has always been biased against China,” “distorts facts” and is driven by “ulterior motives.”

Beijing had even adopted restrictive measures against Democrat congressman Jim McGovern, who is not just a member of the commission, but also a close ally of Kamala’s vice candidate. Under accusations of having interfered in China’s internal affairs, McGovern and his relatives were prohibited from doing business, cooperating or traveling to the Asian country.

Besides the commissions on China in the US Congress, the NGO Human Rights Watch is another US entity that considers as negative the policies implemented in the Xizang Autonomous Region. In different reports, the organization states that forced displacements targeted Xizang residents and Tibet’s native language and culture were being repressed.

Human Rights Watch also made claims about restrictions on religious freedom in Tibet. Buddhism is one of the main religions practiced in China, alongside Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism. In Xizang, over 90% of the population follows Tibetan Buddhism.  

In 2022, the spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang Wenbin, refuted Human Rights Watch accusations saying that it is “a supposed human rights organization, with many prejudices” and that “its production of lies and rumors has no market.”

What Tibet residents say

Brasil de Fato went to Xizang and talked to farmers, teachers and monks from different cities in this autonomous region.

Deji Yangzong, a member of Xizang’s government, mentions “two significant actions the Communist Party of China took” in recent history. “Politically, it freed millions of servants. Economically, until 2019, all the 74 impoverished counties in Xizang were lifted out of extreme poverty.”

The first action Yangzong mentioned was the peaceful liberation of Xizang 73 years ago. At that time, aristocrats, local officials and lamas [in Tibetan Buddhism, spiritual leaders] of the high-ranking monasteries were part of a group of about 5% of the Tibetan population that had almost all the wealth in the region. The other 95% of the people were feudal servants and enslaved workers. The so-called democratic reform in Xizang ended the exploitation system in 1959.

The economic victory refers to the campaign to eradicate extreme poverty, concluded in 2020. In Xizang’s case, the region with the smallest population in China (3,6 million people) had, until 2019, 628,000 lifted out of extreme poverty in all the 74 counties Yangzong mentioned.

In 2023, Xizang Autonomous Region’s GDP increased by 9.5% compared to the previous year, reaching 240 billion yuan, more than 33,5 billion US dollars. A part of the policies, in this sense, had to do with resettling families from mountainous and far-reaching locations without infrastructure or basic services.

Farmer Ciwang Pingcuo used to live in a small village in Medog county, Linzhi. He recalls that his family and neighbors had to walk for 5 to 6 days to travel from where they lived to the urban center of the county. “Sometimes, when we went to Bome County to buy some stuff, we had to carry all of them on our backs, regardless of the weight,” says Pingcuo.

The most common means of transportation to cross the Yarlung Zangbo River, Pingcuo explains, was the iron rope. “So, it was obviously difficult to send kids to school and the elderly to the doctor. It’s fair to say that our quality of life was low. With the help of the country and the government, we moved into our current house in 2003.”

Culture and religion in Tibet

According to local teachers heard by Brasil de Fato, the Xizang Autonomous Region has a bilingual education system – Mandarin Chinese and Tibetan. Wangdui, a teacher at Linzhi Primary School No. 2, says that each teacher incorporates tradition into their lessons.

“Whether it’s about passing on the tradition or learning it, our aim is to transmit this content to our students so that they can better preserve it in the future,” he said.

At the same school, teacher Longduo has been teaching Tibetan for 24 years. He says that, in addition to the language, teaching Tibetan calligraphy is increasingly a priority. He compares the current reality with the difficulty of accessing education in his childhood and says there was a shortage of ink and paper, and Tibetan calligraphy training had to be done on wood. “But now students have good quality paper and ink. They are very lucky,” he said.

Although the state is secular, it has implemented policies to support monasteries and monks because of the cultural and historical value of Tibetan Buddhism, which is the second-largest branch of Buddhism in the country. “The state takes care of our monks in several aspects, such as providing medical assistance and social security,” explained Dunzhu, a guide at Changzhu, the first Buddhist temple built in Xizang, back in the 17th century.

“For example, all the temples in Xizang offer free annual medical check-ups for monks. On a wider scale, the national government guarantees support for the temple’s accommodation facilities and infrastructure, which are exceptionally well maintained,” he said.

“Our temple’s main source of income comes from our small teahouse and the sale of items such as butter lamps, barley and khatas, all made by the temple itself.”

The rise in tourism in Xianzang in recent years is one of the factors in the region’s economic growth. From 2012 to 2023, the number of tourists jumped from 10,58 million to 55,17 million national and international visitors in 2023. The sector’s revenue last year was 65.1 billion yuan.

The Jokhang Temple, built over 1300 years ago and located in the capital, Lhasa, has been part of UNESCO World Cultural Heritage since 2000, and is under state protection. On special dates for Tibetan Buddhism, the temple receives almost 80,000 people a day.