Last week’s US sanctioning of Chinese officials involved in Beijing’s ongoing criminal efforts to erase Tibet as a separate political, ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious entity showed America at its best. Few other governments give a hoot. Most cravenly look the other way. Citing a recent UN report on the “forced assimilation” of one million Tibetan children ordered into Mandarin-language state boarding schools far from their homes and families, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, demanded China stop trying to eradicate Tibet’s distinct identity. “We urge PRC [People’s Republic…
Tag: Tibet
China officials hit by US sanctions over ‘forced assimilation’ of children in Tibet
The United States will impose visa sanctions on Chinese officials pursuing “forced assimilation” of children in Tibet, where UN experts say one million children have been separated from their families. Secretary of state Antony Blinken said the US would restrict visas to Chinese officials behind the policy of state boarding schools, in the latest in a series of US moves on Beijing that comes despite a resumption of high-level dialogue. “These coercive policies seek to eliminate Tibet’s distinct linguistic, cultural and religious traditions among younger generations of Tibetans,” Blinken said…
Satellite data sheds light on China’s detention facilities in Tibet
There has been a pattern of increased activity in recent years at high-security detention facilities in Tibet, according to a new study measuring night-time lighting usage, suggesting a potential rise in harsher imprisonments by Chinese authorities. The report, by the Rand Europe research institute, said the findings added rare new clues about the Chinese government’s “stability maintenance” policies of control in the highly securitised Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), which it described as an “information black hole”. “Using overhead satellite imagery analysis and night-time lighting data, this study sought to add…
An Exiled Publisher Creates a ‘Brotherhood Across Tibetans’
In the winter of 1982, Bhuchung Sonam left his home in Central Tibet. For five days, he trekked with his father across the Himalayas to the Nepali border. Only around 11 years old then, he knew little about what they were fleeing — China’s decades-long colonization of his homeland — and why. He also didn’t realize that he would never again see his homeland, his mother or his six siblings. After arriving in Nepal, Sonam and his father made a pilgrimage to Buddhist sites in neighboring India, the home of the…
President of Tibet’s government-in-exile: region is seeking autonomy not independence – video
Penpa Tsering, the president of the Tibetan government-in-exile, has told Australia’s National Press Club the region is seeking autonomy, not independence from China. ‘So one polarity is the status of Tibet, historical status as an independent state, and the other polarity is the present state of Tibet under the government of the PRC [People’s Republic of China],’ he said. ‘We are trying to seek a solution of an autonomous arrangement whereby Tibetans would have the freedom to practise its language, protect its environment, you know, and preserve its culture and…
China Says U.S. Flew Balloons Over Xinjiang and Tibet
China accused the United States on Wednesday of flying high-altitude balloons over the western Chinese regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, pointing the finger at Washington amid growing scrutiny over Beijing’s global surveillance efforts. China’s claim comes two days after it first accused the United States of illegally flying balloons in its airspace, saying American airships had flown over China more than 10 times since the beginning of 2022. The United States denied the claim. In another apparent tit-for-tat move, China said it would “take countermeasures” against “relevant American entities” in…
Can a Police Officer Accused of Spying for China Ever Clear His Name?
Now that he is no longer accused of being a secret agent for China, Baimadajie Angwang can start asking hard questions. The hardest: How could he — a naturalized U.S. citizen, New York City police officer and Marine Corps veteran — have been jailed for months over what he says were misunderstood phone calls and classified evidence that not even his lawyer could see in full? When federal authorities arrested Officer Angwang in September 2020, they accused him of reporting on other Tibetans to a handler at the Chinese consulate…
US Asks to Drop Case Accusing NYPD Officer of Spying for China
He came to the United States at 17 on a cultural exchange visa and later applied for, and was granted, political asylum, court filings show. He joined the Marines in 2009, spent seven months in Afghanistan, became a U.S. citizen in 2010, was honorably discharged in 2014 and then enlisted in the Army reserves, court records show. In 2016, Officer Angwang joined the Police Department, where he was a patrol officer and, at the time of his arrest in September 2020, a community affairs officer with the 111th Precinct in…
‘At the Breaking Point’: Tibetans, Under Lockdown, Make Rare Cries for Help
BEIJING — Infected patients quarantined alongside those who tested negative. No food for hours, despite repeated requests. Lines of buses, loaded with people, waiting late into the night to drop them off at makeshift isolation centers. These are the scenes described by residents of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, who have been locked down for one month as officials try to contain a coronavirus outbreak. Lockdowns, including of entire cities, have become almost commonplace in China, which remains bent on eliminating the coronavirus even as the rest of the world…
China’s Covid Lockdowns Strand Tourists
A few days into a two-week tour through the island province of Hainan — known as the Hawaii of China — Nicole Chan received a message from local authorities that no traveler in the country wants to see in the pandemic. On Aug. 3, a day after officials reported 11 cases of Covid-19 in Sanya, a city of more than one million in Hainan, Ms. Chan was identified by the authorities as at risk because she had been in the area that day. She was told to quarantine right away…