[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TIBET: SPECIAL FOCUS FOR 2007
=======================================================================
REPRINTED
from the
2007 ANNUAL REPORT
of the
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 10, 2007
__________
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
House Senate
SANDER LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman BYRON DORGAN, North Dakota, Co-Chairman
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio MAX BAUCUS, Montana
MICHAEL M. HONDA, California CARL LEVIN, Michigan
TOM UDALL, New Mexico DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey MEL MARTINEZ, Florida
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
PAULA DOBRIANSKY, Department of State
CHRISTOPHER R. HILL, Department of State
HOWARD M. RADZELY, Department of Labor
Douglas Grob, Staff Director
Murray Scot Tanner, Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
Tibet: Special Focus for 2007
FINDINGS
No progress in the dialogue between China and
the Dalai Lama or his representatives is evident. After
the Dalai Lama's Special Envoy returned to India after
the sixth round of dialogue, he issued the briefest and
least optimistic statement to date. Chinese officials
showed no sign that they recognize the potential
benefits of inviting the Dalai Lama to visit China so
that they can meet with him directly.
Chinese government enforcement of Party policy
on religion resulted in an increased level of
repression of the freedom of religion for Tibetan
Buddhists during the past year. The Communist Party
intensified its long-running anti-Dalai Lama campaign.
Tibetan Buddhism in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR)
is coming under increased pressure as recent legal
measures expand and deepen government control over
Buddhist monasteries, nunneries, monks, nuns, and
reincarnated lamas. The Chinese government issued legal
measures that if fully implemented will establish
government control over the process of identifying and
educating reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist teachers
throughout China.
Chinese authorities continue to detain and
imprison Tibetans for peaceful expression and non-
violent action, charging them with crimes such as
``splittism,'' and claiming that their behavior
``endangers state security.'' The Commission's
Political Prisoner Database listed 100 known cases of
current Tibetan political detention or imprisonment as
of September 2007, a figure that is likely to be lower
than the actual number of Tibetan political prisoners.
Based on sentence information available for 64 of the
current prisoners, the average sentence length is 11
years and 2 months. Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns
make up a separate set of 64 of the known currently
detained or imprisoned Tibetan political prisoners as
of September 2007, according to data available in the
Commission's Political Prisoner Database. Based on data
available for 42 currently imprisoned Tibetan monks and
nuns, their average sentence length is 10 years and 4
months. (It is a coincidence that the number of monks
and nuns, and the number of prisoners for whom the
Commission has sentence information available, are both
64).
In its first year of operation, the Qinghai-
Tibet railway carried 1.5 million passengers into the
TAR, of whom hundreds of thousands are likely to be
ethnic Han and other non-Tibetans seeking jobs and
economic opportunities. The government is establishing
greater control over the Tibetan rural population by
implementing programs that will bring to an end the
traditional lifestyle of the Tibetan nomadic herder by
settling them in fixed communities, and reconstructing
or relocating farm
villages.
INTRODUCTION
The human rights environment that the Communist Party and
Chinese government enforce in the Tibetan areas of China has
not improved over the past five years, and has deteriorated
since 2005. No progress in the dialogue between China and the
Dalai Lama or his representatives is evident. Implementation of
China's Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law is weak and prevents
Tibetans from realizing the law's guarantee that ethnic
minorities have the ``right to administer their internal
affairs.'' The Communist Party tolerates religious activity
only within strict limits imposed by China's constitutional,
legal, and policy framework. Legal measures issued in 2006 and
2007 impose unprecedented government control on Tibetan
Buddhist activity. Party campaigns that seek to discredit the
Dalai Lama as a religious leader, to portray him and those who
support him as threats to China's state security, and to
prevent Tibetans from expressing their religious devotion to
him have intensified since 2005.
The government and Party prioritize economic development
over cultural protection, eroding the Tibetan culture and
language. Changes in Chinese laws and regulations that address
ethnic autonomy issues and that have been enacted since 2000,
when the government implemented the Great Western Development
program, tend to decrease the protection of ethnic minority
language and culture. The Qinghai-Tibet railway began service
in July 2006 and has carried thousands of passengers to Lhasa
each day, leading to crowded conditions in the city and
increased pressure on the Tibetan culture. In recent years,
governments in some Tibetan areas have accelerated the
implementation of programs that require nomadic Tibetan herders
to settle in fixed communities. The Chinese government applies
the Constitution and law in a manner that restricts and
represses the exercise of human rights by Tibetans, and that
uses the law to punish peaceful expression and action by
Tibetans deemed as threats to state security. The government
made no progress in the past year toward improving the right of
Tibetans in China to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed
freedoms of religion, expression, and assembly. Such
restrictions are inconsistent with the Chinese government's
obligations under international human rights standards.
STATUS OF DISCUSSION BETWEEN CHINA AND THE DALAI LAMA
Commission Recommendations, U.S. Policy, and the Report on Tibet
Negotiations
Commission Annual Reports in 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2006
included recommendations in support of the dialogue between the
Chinese government and the Dalai Lama or his representatives.
The Commission has observed no evidence of substantive progress
in that dialogue toward fair and equitable decisions about
policies that could help to protect Tibetans and their
religion, language, and culture, even though a session of
dialogue took place each year beginning in 2002, and even
though a basis for such protections exists under China's
Constitution and law.\1\ In response to the lack of progress
over the years, the Commission strengthened recommendations in
successive annual reports.\2\ The 2006 Annual Report called for
efforts to persuade the Chinese government to invite the Dalai
Lama to visit China so that he could seek to build trust
through direct contact with the Chinese leadership.\3\ In 2007,
Chinese officials continued to allow the potential mutual
benefits of the dialogue process--a more secure future for
Tibetan culture and heritage, and improved stability and ethnic
harmony in China--to remain unrealized.
The U.S. Congress will award the Congressional Gold Medal
to the Dalai Lama on October 17.\4\ The congressional act
providing for the award finds that the Dalai Lama ``is the
unrivaled spiritual and cultural leader of the Tibetan people,
and has used his leadership to promote democracy, freedom, and
peace for the Tibetan people through a negotiated settlement of
the Tibet issue, based on
autonomy within the People's Republic of China.'' \5\
U.S. government policy recognizes the Tibet Autonomous
Region (TAR) and Tibetan autonomous prefectures and counties\6\
in other provinces to be a part of China.\7\ The Department of
State's 2007 Report on Tibet Negotiations articulates U.S.
Tibet policy:
Encouraging substantive dialogue between Beijing and
the Dalai Lama is an important objective of this
Administration. The United States encourages China and
the Dalai Lama to hold direct and substantive
discussions aimed at resolution of differences at an
early date, without preconditions. The Administration
believes that dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama
or his representatives will alleviate tensions in
Tibetan areas and contribute to the overall stability
of China.\8\
The Report on Tibet Negotiations observes that the Dalai
Lama ``represents the views of the vast majority of Tibetans,''
and that ``his moral authority helps to unite the Tibetan
community inside and outside of China.'' \9\ The report
cautions that ``the lack of resolution of these problems leads
to greater tensions inside China and will be a stumbling block
to fuller political and economic engagement with the United
States and other nations.'' The report rejects the notion that
the Dalai Lama is seeking Tibetan independence:
[T]he Dalai Lama has expressly disclaimed any intention
to seek sovereignty or independence for Tibet and has
stated that he only seeks for China to preserve Tibetan
culture, spirituality, and environment.\10\
The President and other senior U.S. officials have pressed
Chinese leaders to move forward in the dialogue process,
according to the Report on Tibet Negotiations. In April and
November 2006, President Bush urged President Hu Jintao to
continue the dialogue and hold direct discussions with the
Dalai Lama.\11\ Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on
Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing to engage in direct talks with the
Dalai Lama when they met at the UN General Assembly in
September 2006.\12\ When Secretary Rice traveled to China in
October 2006, she reiterated the request for direct dialogue
between Chinese officials and the Dalai Lama.\13\ Under
Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula
Dobriansky, who has served since 2001 as the Special
Coordinator for Tibetan Issues and as a CECC Commissioner,\14\
traveled to Beijing in August 2006 and raised ``the need for
concrete progress'' during meetings with officials including
Executive Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo and Assistant
Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai, according to the Report on Tibet
Negotiations.\15\ Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte
raised the same issues during a February 2007 visit to
China.\16\
Dalai Lama's Envoys' Fifth Visit to China; Discussions with the Party's
UFWD
The Dalai Lama's envoys visited China for the fifth
time\17\ from June 29 to July 5, 2007, to engage in their sixth
round of dialogue with Chinese officials.\18\ The trip
culminated with the briefest\19\ and least optimistic statement
issued after any of the previous rounds of dialogue. Special
Envoy Lodi Gyari\20\ reported that he and Envoy Kelsang
Gyaltsen engaged in three ``sessions of discussion'' in
Shanghai and Nanjing, the capital of Zhejiang province, over a
one and one-half day period.\21\ The statement provided no
details about the topics the envoys discussed in meetings, or
about their activities and location during the remainder of
their visit. Unlike previous statements, the Special Envoy's
statement did not close with an expression of ``appreciation''
to Chinese officials and hosts, perhaps signaling an increased
level of frustration.
Gyari's statement acknowledged that the dialogue process
had reached a ``critical stage,'' and that ``[b]oth sides
expressed in strong terms their divergent positions and views
on a number of issues.'' Referring to the lack of progress,
Gyari said, ``We conveyed our serious concerns in the strongest
possible manner on the overall Tibetan issue and made some
concrete proposals for implementation if our dialogue process
is to go forward.'' \22\ The statement provided no details
about the proposals that the envoys hope Chinese officials will
implement.
In China, the envoys met with the Communist Party's United
Front Work Department (UFWD) Deputy Head Zhu Weiqun and UFWD
Seventh Bureau Director Sithar (or Sita).\23\ The UFWD oversees
the implementation of Party policy toward China's eight
``democratic'' political parties, ethnic and religious groups,
intellectuals, and entrepreneurs, among other functions. The
UFWD established the Seventh Bureau in 2005 and appointed
Sithar as Director, according to a September 2006 Singtao Daily
report.\24\ The Tibetan affairs portfolio moved from the Second
Bureau, which handles ethnic and religious affairs, to the new
Seventh Bureau. Sithar previously served as a deputy director
of the Second Bureau.\25\
The creation of the UFWD Seventh Bureau may signal that the
Party leadership has attached increased importance to Tibetan
issues, such as the ongoing dialogue with the Dalai Lama's
representatives. The mission of the Seventh Bureau, according
to the Singtao Daily report, is ``to cooperate with relevant
parties in struggling against secessionism by enemies, both
local and foreign, such as the Dalai Lama clique, and to liaise
with overseas Tibetans.'' \26\ The report notes that Party
leaders are concerned
principally about the ``development of the Tibet independence
movement in the `post-Dalai Lama era'.'' \27\
UFWD officials with whom the Dalai Lama's envoys meet also
hold additional posts in governmental, advisory, and NGO
spheres that increase and extend their influence on the future
of Tibetan culture, religion, and language. Liu Yandong, whom
the envoys met during trips to China in 2003 and 2004,\28\ is
head of the UFWD, Vice Chairman of the Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference, and the Honorary President
of China Association for Preservation and Development of
Tibetan Culture (CAPDTC), a
Chinese NGO founded in June 2004 that describes its legal
status as ``independent.'' \29\ Zhu is a member of the CCP
Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, a senior official
of the State Council Information Office,\30\ a cabinet-level
part of the Chinese government, and the Vice President of
CAPDTC.\31\ Sithar is CAPDTC's Vice Chairman.\32\
A Tibetan Vision of Autonomy: The Special Envoy Provides More Detail
In 2006 and 2007, the Dalai Lama, Special Envoy Lodi Gyari,
and the elected head of the Tibetan government-in-exile,
Samdhong Rinpoche, increased their efforts to advocate their
vision of Tibetan autonomy under Chinese sovereignty, and to
provide more detailed statements about their proposed formula.
In his annual March 10, 2007, statement,\33\ the Dalai Lama
asserted, ``The most important reason behind my proposal to
have genuine national regional
autonomy for all Tibetans is to achieve genuine equality and
unity between the Tibetans and Chinese by eliminating big Han
chauvinism and local nationalism.'' \34\ In testimony before
the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on
March 13, 2007, Gyari stated, ``In treating the Tibetan people
with respect and dignity through genuine autonomy, the Chinese
leadership has the opportunity to create a truly multi-ethnic,
harmonious nation without a tremendous cost in human
suffering.'' \35\ Samdhong Rinpoche told a gathering of
advocacy groups in Brussels in May 2007, ``We are simply asking
for the sincere implementation of the national regional
autonomy provisions enshrined in the Constitution of the
People's Republic of China, which is further spelt out in the
autonomy law.'' \36\
The basis of the Tibetan negotiating position continues to
be the Dalai Lama's Middle Way Approach,\37\ which renounces
Tibetan independence in exchange for genuine autonomy. An
outcome of the dialogue process that would fulfill Tibetan
wishes in a manner consistent with the Middle Way Approach
would require the Chinese government's agreement to:
The inclusion under the agreement of all the
areas in China that many Tibetans regard as ``the three
traditional provinces of Tibet,'' or about one-quarter
of China;\38\
The unification of that area under one
genuinely autonomous administration; and
The empowerment of the residents of the
resulting administrative area to elect a government
through a democratic process.
Gyari identified the Chinese response to the Tibetan
demands that ``the entire Tibetan people need to live under a
single administrative entity,'' and that Tibetans practice
``genuine autonomy,'' as the principal area of disagreement in
a November 2006 address at the Brookings Institution in
Washington, D.C.\39\ His prepared statement\40\ and responses
to questions\41\ were more detailed than remarks Gyari made
after the previous rounds of dialogue. The Dalai Lama
emphasized his commitment to the same principles in March 2006,
saying in his March 10 speech, ``I have only one
demand: self-rule and genuine autonomy for all Tibetans, i.e.,
the Tibetan nationality in its entirety.'' \42\ Samdhong
Rinpoche underscored the importance Tibetans place on including
all Tibetans in a reconfigured Tibet when he addressed advocacy
groups in May: ``[A]ll Tibetans must be administered by a
single autonomous self-government.'' \43\
Like many Tibetans, Gyari refers to all of the territory in
China where Tibetans live as ``Tibet.'' ``[I]t is a reality
that the landmass inhabited by Tibetans constitutes roughly
one-fourth\44\ the territory of [China],'' he said in his
Brookings statement.\45\ The Chinese government ``has already
designated almost all Tibetan areas as Tibet autonomous
entities. . . . Thus, our positions on what constitutes Tibet
are really not so divergent.'' \46\ The land area that Tibetans
claim as Tibet is about 100,000 square miles larger than the
total area of the TAR and the Tibetan autonomous prefectures
and counties designated by China.\47\ Aside from pockets of
long-term Tibetan settlement in Qinghai province,\48\ most of
the area that
Tibetans claim beyond the existing Tibetan autonomous areas is
made up of autonomous prefectures and counties allocated to
other ethnic groups.\49\ Ten counties in that area have
populations that are between 5 and 25 percent Tibetan,
according to official 2000 census data.\50\ The precise portion
of the approximately 100,000 square mile area that Tibetans
claim as Tibet, and where the Tibetan population is less than 5
percent,\51\ is unknown because a map that indicates the
boundary of Tibet with respect to current Chinese
administrative geographic divisions at the prefectural and
county levels is not available.
Gyari addressed the critics of proposed administrative
unification of land where Tibetans live, saying, ``Having the
Tibetan people under a single administrative entity should not
be seen as an effort to create a `greater' Tibet, nor is it a
cover for a separatist plot.'' \52\ Tibetans ``yearn to be
under one administrative entity so that their way of life,
tradition, and religion can be more effectively and peacefully
maintained,'' he said, and pointed out that the Chinese
government ``has redrawn internal boundaries when it suited its
needs.'' \53\ Gyari's prepared statement cites as an example
the abolition in 1955 of Xikang province upon the completion of
the division of its territory between Sichuan province and what
later became the TAR.\54\
Establishing a unified Tibetan autonomous administrative
area such as the Special Envoy described would involve all of
the TAR, all or most of Qinghai province, approximately half of
Sichuan province, parts of Gansu and Yunnan provinces, and
according to some maps, a small part of Xinjiang Uighur
Autonomous Region.\55\ Under China's Constitution, establishing
or changing units of administrative geography would require
approval by the National People's Congress (NPC) or the State
Council, or both.\56\
The Dalai Lama and Lodi Gyari provided more detailed
statements than previously about their expectations of
``genuine autonomy,'' which can be compared to the prevailing
situation under the Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law (REAL).\57\
Although the REAL declares in its Preamble that the practice of
autonomy conveys the state's ``full respect for and guarantee
of ethnic minorities' right to administer their internal
affairs,'' \58\ the Dalai Lama explained in his March 10, 2007,
statement the manner in which he believes the REAL has failed
ethnic groups like Tibetans:
The problem is that [regional ethnic autonomy] is not
implemented fully, and thus fails to serve its express
purpose of preserving and protecting the distinct
identity, culture and language of the minority
nationalities. What happens on the ground is that large
populations from the majority nationalities have spread
in these minority regions. Therefore, the minority
nationalities, instead of being able to preserve their
own identity, culture and language, have no choice but
to depend on the language and customs of the majority
nationality in their day-to-day lives.\59\
Gyari's statement to the Brookings Institution implied that
a solution to the autonomy issue would have to reach beyond the
REAL's status quo, and perhaps be innovative. He discussed the
Tibetan need for autonomy in the context of the higher level of
rights that Hong Kong and Macao enjoy under their status as
special administrative regions (SARs).\60\ Gyari said that the
Tibetans have not proposed to their Chinese interlocutors any
specific autonomy formula or administrative title, such as an
SAR, and stressed, ``[W]e place more importance on discussing
the substance than on the label.'' \61\ Samdhong Rinpoche
maintained that a solution is available within the existing
constitutional and legal environment: ``The PRC leadership can
very easily grant whatever we are asking for, if they have the
political will. They need not have to amend their constitution
nor make a major shift in their policies.'' \62\
The Tibetan Vision of Autonomy Versus China's Constitution and Law
The outlook for what the Tibetans call ``genuine autonomy''
under the current implementation of the REAL is poor. Communist
Party control over China's legislative, governmental,
policymaking, and implementation process, as well as
contradictory provisions in Chinese laws and regulations,
undercut the practice of regional ethnic autonomy in China. As
a result, the functional level of autonomy that Chinese laws
and regulations provide to local Tibetan autonomous governments
to ``administer their internal affairs,'' \63\ to protect their
culture, language, and religion, and to manage policy
implementation on issues such as economic development and the
environment, is negligible.
Recent laws, regulations, and local implementing measures
consistently prioritize the central government's interests
above protecting the right of ethnic autonomous governments to
exercise self-government.\64\ The same legal issues that
minimize the level of local autonomy for Tibetans serve to
diminish the prospects for substantive progress in dialogue
between Chinese officials and the Dalai Lama and his envoys.
The following examples of how China's application of law
adversely affects Tibetan autonomy are indicative, not
comprehensive. [See Section II--Ethnic Minority Rights for more
information on the REAL.]
The REAL Provides Subordination, Not Self-government
Article 7 of the REAL counteracts the Preamble's guarantee
that ethnic autonomous governments have the right to
``administer their own affairs'' by directing that,
``Institutions of self-government in ethnic autonomous areas
shall place the interests of the state as a whole above all
else and actively fulfill all tasks assigned by state
institutions at higher levels.''
The REAL Provides a Basis To Divide Tibetan Areas, Not To Unify Them
Tibetan leaders, including Lodi Gyari and Samdhong
Rinpoche, have described their vision in the past year that
China's Constitution and law, including the REAL, can support
the unification of Tibetan autonomous areas.\65\ The
Constitution and REAL do not state explicitly whether or not
contiguous areas where the same ethnic group lives are entitled
to be included in the same ethnic autonomous area. In fact,
Article 12 of the REAL provides the Chinese government a basis
in law for division by allowing the establishment of ethnic
autonomous areas to take into consideration factors such as
``historical background'' and ``the relationship among the
various nationalities.'' \66\ Because the National People's
Congress (NPC) and State Council have the constitutional
authority to approve the establishment of autonomous regions,
prefectures, and counties, and to alter their geographic
divisions,\67\ it is Beijing's view of history and ethnic
relations that guides decisions to apply the REAL in a manner
that unites--or divides--ethnic groups.
Conflict of Law Limits Rights Provided by the Constitution and REAL
The Constitution and REAL state that ethnic autonomous
congresses have the power to enact autonomy or self-governing
regulations ``in the light of the political, economic, and
cultural characteristics'' of the relevant ethnic group(s).\68\
But the Legislation Law reserves to the State Council the power
to issue regulations when the NPC specifically authorizes the
State Council to do so, thereby intruding upon the right of
ethnic autonomous congresses to issue regulations.\69\ These
provisions in the Legislation Law explicitly create a conflict
of law with respect to rights provided by the Constitution and
the REAL. The Legislation Law authorizes an autonomous people's
congress to enact an ``autonomous decree or a special decree''
that must be approved by the standing committee of the next
higher level people's congress.\70\
The Legislation Law Bars Autonomous Governments From Altering Laws and
Regulations That Concern Autonomy
The REAL includes a provision allowing an ethnic autonomous
government to apply to a higher-level state agency to alter or
cancel the implementation of a ``resolution, decision, order,
or instruction'' if it does not ``suit the actual conditions in
an ethnic autonomous area.'' \71\ The Legislation Law, however,
bars ethnic autonomous governments from enacting any variance
to any law or regulation that is ``dedicated to matters
concerning ethnic autonomous areas.'' \72\
Special Administrative Regions Offer More Flexibility
The Chinese Constitution provides a method to create a
political and administrative solution to challenges that the
principal body of Chinese law cannot resolve. Article 31
empowers the state to establish a ``special administrative
region'' (SAR) that can satisfy a particular need ``when
necessary,'' and authorizes the NPC to enact a law that
institutes a ``system'' (of governance and administration) ``in
the light of the specific conditions.'' \73\ Hong Kong and
Macao are the only SARs created by the NPC to date. Chinese
officials reject the notion that a Tibetan solution could be
developed by establishing a special administrative region,\74\
but their arguments use as proof the dissimilarity of the pre-
reunification political and economic systems of Hong Kong and
Macao (not reunited with China, democratic government,
capitalist economy) compared with the current political and
economic system in the Tibetan autonomous areas of China
(Chinese administration, non-democratic government, socialist
economy). The language in Article 31, however, states no
prerequisites of any kind and allows the state to create the
solution that it needs.
religious freedom for tibetan buddhists
Commission Recommendations and China's Record
Commission Annual Reports from 2002 to 2006 included
recommendations calling for the Chinese leadership to ``promote
the concept of religious tolerance,'' \75\ to ``meet with
religious figures from around the world to discuss the positive
impact on national development of free religious belief and
religious tolerance,'' \76\ and to take measures to develop the
freedom of religion in China including respecting ``the right
of Tibetan Buddhists to freely express their religious devotion
to the Dalai Lama.'' \77\
The Commission cannot report improvement in the overall
level of freedom of religion for Tibetan Buddhists at any time
during the past five years, and in the past year the
environment for Tibetan Buddhism has become significantly more
repressive. The Party led an intensified anti-Dalai Lama
campaign\78\ and an expanding program of patriotic
education,\79\ and two sets of new legal measures imposing
stricter and more detailed controls on Tibetan Buddhist
institutions and religious activity took effect.\80\ In the
Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), the government began on January
1, 2007, to implement new legal measures issued in September
2006 that regulate fundamental aspects of Tibetan Buddhism in a
stricter and more detailed manner than previous measures.\81\
The State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) issued
legal measures in July 2007 that empower the government and
Party to gradually reshape Tibetan Buddhism by controlling the
religion's most important and unusual feature--lineages of
reincarnated Buddhist teachers that Tibetan Buddhists believe
can span centuries.\82\
Although the Party tolerates religious activity only within
the strict limits imposed by China's constitutional, legal, and
policy framework, and the government further restricts those
limits at will, Chinese authorities tolerate selected Tibetan
Buddhist practices and expressions of religious belief,\83\ and
the intensity of religious repression against Tibetans varies
across regions.\84\
[See Section II--Freedom of Religion for more information
on Party and government control of religion.]
TAR Party Chief Intensifies Anti-Dalai Lama Campaign, Patriotic
Education
Tibetan Buddhism is at the core of Tibetan culture and
self-identity, and for most Tibetans the Dalai Lama is at the
core of Tibetan Buddhism. Seeking to strengthen control over
Tibetan Buddhism and to end the Dalai Lama's influence over
Tibetans, the Communist Party intensified a long-running
campaign during the past year to discredit the Dalai Lama as a
religious leader, to portray him and those who support him as
threats to China's state security, and to prevent Tibetans from
expressing their religious devotion to him.
TAR Party Secretary Zhang Qingli took on the role of a
high-profile representative of the anti-Dalai Lama campaign in
late 2005, when the Party's Central Committee transferred him
to the TAR from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.\85\ In
an August 2006 interview with a Western magazine, Zhang
attacked the Dalai Lama's Buddhist credentials, accusing him of
being a ``false religious leader'' who has led Tibetans astray
and done ``many bad things . . . that contradict the role of a
religious leader'' since he fled into exile in 1959.\86\ Zhang
urged the Party to ``clearly distinguish between proper
religious activities and the use of religion to engage in
separatist activities,'' an expression that can refer to
peaceful expressions of religious devotion to the Dalai Lama.
Zhang described the Party's conflict with the Dalai Lama and
the ``Western hostile forces'' \87\ that support him as ``long
term, sharp, and complex,'' and ``even quite intense at
times.'' \88\
Zhang rallied hundreds of Party members at a May 2007
meeting in Lhasa, the capital of the TAR, telling them, ``From
beginning to end . . . we must deepen patriotic education at
temples, comprehensively expose and denounce the Dalai Lama
clique's political reactionary nature and religious
hypocrisy.'' \89\ Patriotic education (``love the country, love
religion'')\90\ is an open-ended campaign to bring to an end
the Dalai Lama's religious authority among Tibetans, and that
requires Tibetan Buddhists to accept patriotism
toward China as a part of Tibetan Buddhism. Patriotic education
sessions require monks and nuns to pass examinations on
political texts, agree that Tibet is historically a part of
China, accept the legitimacy of the Panchen Lama installed by
the Chinese government, and denounce the Dalai Lama.'' \91\
Monitoring organizations confirmed in 2007 that officials are
increasing patriotic education activity in monasteries and
nunneries.\92\ In one case, the abbot of a monastery in Qinghai
province was forced to step down in May after he refused to
sign a denunciation of the Dalai Lama.\93\
In May 2006, Zhang called on TAR Party and government
officials to intensify restructuring and ``rectification'' of
Democratic Management Committees (DMCs),\94\ and to ``[e]nsure
that leadership powers at monasteries are in the hands of
religious personages who love the country and love religion.''
\95\ DMCs,\96\ located within each monastery and nunnery, are
the Party's direct interface with monks and nuns, and are
charged by the Party and government to implement policies on
religion and ensure that monks and nuns obey government
regulations on religious practice.
An official poster reportedly displayed in a Tibetan
Buddhist monastery in Sichuan province listed the DMC's main
functions, including to ``[u]phold the leadership of the
Chinese Communist Party, love the county and love religion, and
progress in unity'' and to ensure that ``[n]o activities may be
carried out under the direction of forces outside the
country.'' \97\ The same document instructs the DMC on its
``professional responsibilities,'' such as, ``To collectively
educate the monastery's monks and religious believers to abide
by the country's Constitution, laws, and all policies, to
ensure the normal progression of religious activities, to
protect the monastery's legal rights and interests, to
resolutely oppose splittist activities, and to protect the
unification of the motherland.'' \98\ The poster specified the
subordinate relationship of the monastery to external, non-
religious agencies: ``The monastery should accept the
administrative management of local village-level organizations,
and accept the leadership of the Buddhist association.'' A 1991
set of TAR measures regulating religious affairs described a
Buddhist association as ``a bridge for the Party and government
to unite and educate personages from religious circles and the
believing masses.'' \99\
TAR Measures Extend Party Control Over Tibetan Buddhism
In January 2007, Zhang Qingli wrote in an issue of Seeking
Truth that the TAR government must implement the national-level
Regulation on Religious Affairs (RRA)\100\ in a manner that
will ``ensure that the Constitution and laws enter the temple
doors, the management system, and the minds of monks and
nuns.'' \101\ There are more than 1,700 monasteries and
nunneries in the TAR, and approximately 46,000 monks and nuns,
according to official state-run media reports.\102\ As Zhang
called on the Party to achieve comprehensive implementation of
its policy on ``freedom of religious
belief,'' which he said aims to ``actively guide religion to
adapt to socialist society,'' \103\ the TAR Implementing
Measures for the Regulation on Religious Affairs (TAR 2006
Measures) were coming into effect.\104\
The TAR 2006 Measures state a general formula for the
relationship between the state and religion: ``All levels of
the people's government shall actively guide religious
organizations, venues for
religious activities, and religious personnel in a love of the
country and of religion, in protecting the country and
benefiting the people, in uniting and moving forward, and in
guiding the mutual adaptation of religion and socialism.'' The
national-level RRA, effective in March 2005, does not contain
such language.\105\
The TAR 2006 Measures impose stricter and more detailed
controls on TAR religious activity,\106\ which is mainly
Tibetan Buddhist,\107\ than the RRA or the 1991 TAR Temporary
Measures on the Management of Religious Affairs\108\ (TAR 1991
Measures) that the TAR 2006 Measures replaced. The most
forward-looking area of state intrusion into Tibetan Buddhist
freedom of religion, and the most consequential to the future
of the religion, is in the process of identifying, seating, and
providing religious training to
reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist lamas. The TAR 2006 measures
provide five articles on the matter,\109\ compared to one each
in the RRA\110\ and the TAR 1991 Measures.\111\ The RRA article
includes language that seeks to compel Tibetan compliance with
a 17th century Qing dynasty edict directing Tibetan religious
leaders to identify reincarnations by drawing a name from an
urn in the presence of an imperial Chinese official.\112\ The
TAR 1991 Measures ban the involvement in the identification
process of ``foreign forces,'' a
reference to the traditional role of the Dalai Lama and other
high-ranking Tibetan lamas now living in exile. [See the
following subsection for information on national measures
regulating Tibetan
reincarnation issued in July 2007 and effective in September.]
The TAR 2006 Measures establish additional Party and
government controls,\113\ beyond those contained in the RRA or
the TAR 1991 Measures, over the identification and education of
reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist lamas in the TAR.
No organization or individual in the TAR may
attempt to identify a reincarnated lama without
approval from the TAR government.\114\
No one from the TAR may travel to another
province to attempt to identify a reincarnated lama (or
vice versa) until the TAR Buddhist association
(``religious organization'') consults with the
provincial-level Buddhist association in the other
province (or vice versa), and the TAR Buddhist
association reports the matter to the TAR
government.\115\
DMCs must plan and implement milestones in the
institutional advancement of reincarnated lamas, such
as the formal seating of a reincarnated lama at a
monastery, formally ordaining a reincarnated lama as a
monk, and promoting a reincarnated lama to advanced
levels of Buddhist study. Local government must
supervise such events.\116\
DMCs must draft, and reincarnated lamas must
submit to, ``practical measures for strengthening the
development, education, and management'' of
reincarnated lamas.\117\
DMCs must report to the local government the
names of a reincarnated lama's religious and cultural
teacher(s) after the DMC has proposed candidates to the
local Buddhist association and the association
consents.\118\
The TAR 2006 Measures impose new requirements\119\ that
eliminate freedom of movement for monks and nuns in the TAR if
they travel for the purpose of teaching, studying, or
practicing religion.\120\ Monks and nuns living in TAR
monasteries and nunneries may not travel anywhere in the TAR
for the purpose of practicing religion\121\ without carrying
with them their ``religious personnel identification [card]''
and an unspecified form of ``proof'' provided by the county-
level government where they live, and reporting ``for the
record'' to the county-level government where they wish to
practice religion.\122\ Monks and nuns in the TAR may not
travel to another TAR prefecture to study religion without
first obtaining approval from the local government in the
destination prefecture, and reporting the approval to the local
government in the prefecture of origin.\123\ The TAR 1991
Measures, in comparison, stated no requirements of monks and
nuns who traveled between monasteries and nunneries in the TAR
in order to practice or study religion. The TAR 1991 Measures
contained one article addressing travel that required monks and
nuns traveling from the TAR to another province for advanced
Buddhist study or teaching Buddhism (or vice versa) to first
obtain consent from the governments of the TAR and the other
province.\124\
Buddhist associations, monasteries, nunneries, monks, and
nuns that violate provisions of the TAR 2006 Measures can face
criminal or civil penalties under Chinese law, or expulsion
from a monastery or nunnery.\125\ Authorities can, for example,
initiate punishments for ``illegal activities such as those
that harm national security or public security,'' a catch-all
phrase that can include expressions of religious devotion to
the Dalai Lama, or for sharing, viewing, and listening to any
type of recorded media about him. The TAR 2006 Measures
introduce an explicit ban on disseminating and viewing ``books,
pictures, and materials that disrupt ethnic unity or endanger
national security,'' and a ban on requests by ``religious
followers'' for monks and nuns ``to recite from banned
religious texts.'' \126\ Another punitive measure with
potentially broad impact empowers local governments to order a
``religious organization'' to ``disqualify'' as a registered
religious professional a monk or nun who, in ``serious
circumstances,'' does not fulfill regulatory requirements on
travel.\127\
A local government's use of regulations on religious
affairs to
enforce the demolition in May 2007 of a large, nearly completed
statue of a ninth century Buddhist teacher, Padmasambhava (Guru
Rinpoche),\128\ at the oldest Tibetan monastery, Samye,\129\
shows how the law can control religious practice, rather than
protect religious freedom. Photographs available in one report
appear to show that the 30-foot tall statue was constructed
within the monastery's grounds.\130\ People's Armed Police
(PAP) arrived at Samye, located in Shannan (Lhoka) prefecture
in the TAR, and demolished the statue during the Buddhist holy
month of Saga Dawa, according to an unofficial report.\131\
Private donors from Guangzhou city in Guangdong province paid
800,000 yuan to have the statue constructed.\132\
The RRA and TAR 2006 Measures introduce provisions
prohibiting any group or individual not part of a state-
authorized religious organization or venue for religious
activity from building such a statue.\133\ Both sets of
provisions mandate the demolition of a religious statue that is
erected without official approval, but the TAR 2006 Measures
only address the matter if the statue is built outside
monastery grounds.\134\ Because the statue was built on Samye's
grounds by individuals who were not authorized members of an
officially recognized religious institution, the local
government could have invoked RRA provisions as a legal pretext
to destroy the statue. In fact, an official Chinese media
report provided a rough translation of a Samye DMC notice
confirming the role of the RRA as well as the Law on Protection
of Cultural Relics.\135\ The State Administration for Religious
Affairs, the Ministry of Construction, and the China National
Tourism Administration jointly issued a ``Notice of Illegally
Building [an] Open[-air] Statue of Buddha,'' according to the
DMC notice.\136\ Lodi Gyari, the Dalai Lama's Special Envoy,
decried the statue's destruction, saying, ``This divisive and
sacrilegious act by an atheist state has caused deep anguish
among Tibetans in the region.'' \137\
The total number of monasteries, nunneries, monks, and nuns
that the TAR government tolerates could come under increased
pressure, based on Zhang Qingli's statements in Seeking Truth.
He described a ``bottom line'' for the number of locations for
``religious activity'' (monasteries and nunneries) and of
``full time religious persons'' (monks and nuns), and warned
that, ``[H]aving satisfied the needs of the believer masses,
there can be no indiscriminate building and recruiting.'' \138\
Zhang's comment could presage government action to assert more
aggressively its role in limiting the size of the Tibetan
Buddhist monastic establishment--which the TAR Party newspaper
said in 1996 exceeded the number that the Party planned in
1986, and created a negative impact on Tibetan social and
economic development.\139\
National Government Measures Take Control of Tibetan Buddhist
Reincarnation
The State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA)
issued a set of national measures in July 2007 (effective on
September 1) that, if fully implemented, will establish
government control over the process of identifying and training
reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist teachers throughout China.\140\
Unlike the TAR 2006 Measures, the ``Measures on the Management
of the Reincarnation of Living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism''
\141\ (MMR) apply to the significant concentrations of Tibetan
Buddhists in Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces, as
well as to the TAR. The total number of Tibetan Buddhist
monasteries and nunneries in the TAR and the four provinces
probably exceeds 3,300, based on official information, and the
total number of monks and nuns may exceed 115,000 by several
thousand.\142\ Each monastery hopes to have a reincarnated
teacher in residence, although some monasteries have none and
other monasteries have more than one. Based on official but
incomplete information, the Commission estimates that the total
number of reincarnated teachers in the Tibetan areas of China
probably exceeds 1,000, and could reach or surpass 2,000.\143\
The MMR will ``institutionalize management on reincarnation
of living Buddhas,'' according to a SARA statement,\144\ and
strengthen the subordination of traditional Tibetan Buddhist
practices to Party policy: ``The selection of reincarnates must
preserve national unity and solidarity of all ethnic groups and
the selection process cannot be influenced by any group or
individual from outside the country.'' The MMR could result in
greater isolation between Tibetan Buddhist communities living
in China and important Tibetan Buddhist teachers living in
exile, especially the Dalai Lama, by using each instance of
recognizing a reincarnated Tibetan teacher as an opportunity
for the government to reinforce the barrier between Tibetan
Buddhism in China and Tibetan Buddhists living in other
countries.
As elderly Tibetan Buddhist reincarnated teachers pass
away, government enforcement of the MMR may prevent Tibetans
from searching for and recognizing subsequent reincarnations,
resulting in a decreasing number of reincarnated teachers.
Article 3 requires that ``[a] majority of local religious
believers and the monastery [Democratic Management Committee]
must request the reincarnation'' before the search for a
reincarnation may take place.\145\ DMCs are less likely to
pursue a request for a reincarnation if local officials oppose
it, and local authorities are well-positioned to hinder or
discourage a majority of ``religious believers'' from
expressing their desire to maintain a reincarnation in a local
monastery. Article 4 disallows the recognition and seating of
reincarnations within urban districts established by higher-
level governments if the urban district government issues a
local decree banning further reincarnations.\146\ The Chengguan
district under Lhasa municipality is currently the only urban
district within the Tibetan autonomous areas of China.\147\ If
the Chengguan district government issues such a decree, it
could affect two of the largest and most influential Tibetan
monasteries, Drepung and Sera,\148\ and the two oldest Tibetan
Buddhist temples, Jokhang and Ramoche.
The MMR establishes unprecedented government control\149\
over the principal stages of identifying and educating
reincarnated Tibetan teachers, including:
Determining whether or not a reincarnated
teacher who passes away may be reincarnated, and
whether a monastery is entitled to seek to have a
reincarnated teacher in residence.\150\
Conducting a search for a reincarnation.\151\
Recognizing a reincarnation and obtaining
government approval of the recognition.\152\
Seating (installing) a reincarnation in a
monastery.\153\
Providing education and religious training for
a reincarnation.\154\
The measures provide for punishment of individuals or
offices that are responsible for a failure to comply with the
measures, or that conduct activities pertaining to
reincarnation without government authorization.\155\
In August 2007, senior officials, including Liu Yandong,
Head of the Communist Party United Front Work Department
(UFWD), and Ye Xiaowen, Director of SARA, convened a national
seminar in Beijing on ``Tibetan Buddhism work,'' and stressed
that in the matter of seating Tibetan Buddhist reincarnated
teachers, ``our own come first,'' according to a Singtao Daily
report.\156\ The phrase underscores Party resolve to ensure
that successful candidates for positions as reincarnated
teachers will from now on fulfill the Party's political
expectations, and that the Dalai Lama and other senior Tibetan
Buddhist teachers living in exile will have no influence on the
process.\157\ Officials at the seminar emphasized that the MMR
must be implemented fully throughout the Tibetan areas of China
and in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where many Mongols
believe in Tibetan Buddhism. At an August 17-18 UFWD work forum
in Lhasa, Director of the TAR UFWD, Lobsang Gyaltsen (Luosang
Jiangcun), relayed the national guidelines to regional
officials, and Zhang Yijiong, Deputy Secretary of the TAR Party
Committee, called on attendees to ``thoroughly implement the
policy of the [Party] on religious work'' and ``energetically
unite the religious and patriotic forces.'' \158\
Number of Imprisoned Monks and Nuns Declines as Repression of Religion
Increases
Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns constituted 11 of the 13
known political detentions of Tibetans by Chinese authorities
in 2006, compared to 21 of the 24 known such detentions in
2005, and 8 of the 15 such detentions in 2004,\159\ based on
data available in the Commission's Political Prisoner Database
(PPD)\160\ as of September 2007. The increased proportion of
monks and nuns that make up the total number of known political
detentions evident in 2005 has not changed in 2006, and is
likely to reflect monastic resentment against the intensified
patriotic education campaign. The total number of known
detentions of monks and nuns, however, has declined in
comparison with 2005. The unusual shift of political detention
of monks and nuns away from Sichuan province in 2005,\161\ when
none were reported, was short lived. Nine of the 13 known
political detentions of Tibetan monks and nuns in 2006 took
place in Sichuan province; the rest occurred in the TAR.
The extent to which the apparent decline in political
detention of monks and nuns in 2006 reflects actual
circumstances, or incomplete information, or both, is unknown.
It is possible that the Party and government's increased
repression of Tibetan Buddhism since 2005 (especially of
aspects of the religion that involve the Dalai Lama) has
produced the result that the government desires: a more subdued
monastic community. Fewer monks and nuns may be risking
behavior that could result in punishments such as imprisonment
or expulsion from a monastery or nunnery (a prospect that may
increase under the TAR 2006 Measures). At the same time, it is
likely that the actual number of detained monks and nuns is
higher than PPD data indicates.\162\ Reports of detention of
unnamed persons,\163\ or of persons who are reported as
missing,\164\ are not listed along with reports of detention
that include detailed information. Irrespective of the actual
number of recent detentions, the high proportion of monks and
nuns among them, and recent statements by monks and nuns
describing their frustration with government management of
Tibetan Buddhism,\165\ suggests that the level of monastic
resentment against Chinese religious policies remains high.
Repressive policies can result in a decline of behavior that
triggers punishment, but a high level of frustration suggests
that the potential for a resurgence of political protest
exists.
Tibetan monks and nuns make up about 64 of the 100 known
currently detained or imprisoned Tibetan political prisoners,
according to PPD data current in September 2007. Twenty-eight
of the monks and nuns were detained or imprisoned in the TAR,
24 in Sichuan province, 7 in Qinghai province, and 4 in Gansu
province. Based on data available for 42 currently imprisoned
Tibetan monks and nuns, their average sentence length is 10
years and 4 months.
No Progress on Access to (or Freedom for) the Panchen Lama
The Chinese government continues to refuse to allow access
by an international organization, such as the International Red
Cross, to Gedun Choekyi Nyima, the boy the Dalai Lama
recognized as the Panchen Lama in May 1995.\166\ Chinese
officials continue to hold him in incommunicado custody along
with his parents at an unknown location. Gedun Choekyi Nyima
turned 18 years of age in April 2007, and in May he completed
his 12th year in custody. Chinese officials claim that Gedun
Choekyi Nyima is leading a ``normal, happy life and receiving a
good cultural education.'' \167\ After the Dalai Lama announced
his recognition of Gedun Choekyi Nyima, Chinese officials took
the then six-year-old boy and his parents into custody. The
State Council declared the Dalai Lama's announcement ``illegal
and invalid'' \168\ and installed Gyaltsen Norbu,\169\ whose
appointment continues to stir widespread resentment among
Tibetans. Chinese authorities may punish or imprison Tibetans
who possess photographs of Gedun Choekyi Nyima or
information about him.
Incidents of Repression of Freedom of Religion in Tibetan Secular
Society
Chinese government repression of freedom of religion is not
limited to the Tibetan Buddhist monastic community, and
adversely affects secular Tibetan society. Most Tibetans are
not monks or nuns--they are farmers, herders, workers, traders,
business operators, professionals, students, teachers, and
government staff. In the TAR about 98 percent of Tibetans live
in secular society.\170\ Official repression of Tibetan
Buddhist activity by secular Tibetans principally targets the
Dalai Lama, Tibetan religious devotion to him, and aspects of
Tibetan Buddhism closely linked to him, especially certain
ceremonies and observances associated with the Gelug tradition
of Tibetan Buddhism.\171\ Tibetans who follow other traditions
of Tibetan Buddhism, such as the Kargyu, Sakya, and Nyingma
traditions, especially in Tibetan areas outside the TAR, may
experience less interference from authorities.\172\
Chinese authorities routinely seek to prevent Tibetans from
participating in religious observances that they suspect
signify Tibetan devotion to the Dalai Lama. For example, the
Lhasa Evening News published a Lhasa Party Committee notice on
December 12, 2006, that forbids government employees, workers
in government-run businesses, and school students to
participate in a Tibetan Buddhist observance, Gaden Ngachoe,
that would take place three days later.\173\ The notice warned,
``Everyone must conscientiously respect the government and
Party committee's demand.'' Tibetans traditionally light butter
lamps to mark the occasion.
The Lhasa Party Committee in May 2007 forbade Tibetan
school children in some Lhasa neighborhoods from participating
in
Tibetan Buddhism's most holy day, Saga Dawa,\174\ or wearing
``amulet threads'' (blessing strings) received at Buddhist
sites.\175\ Beginning in the late 1980s, when Tibetans staged a
series of public
protests against Chinese policies, the Lhasa government has
attempted to prevent Tibetans employed in the government sector
and Tibetan students from participating in Saga Dawa.\176\ The
prohibition continued in 2006, when the government threatened
to fire government employees who defied the ban, according to a
U.S. Department of State report.\177\
Tibetans living in the Lhasa area, as well as throughout
the TAR and in Tibetan autonomous areas of Qinghai, Gansu, and
Sichuan provinces, openly celebrated the Dalai Lama's July 6
birthday in 2007,\178\ despite government characterization of
such celebration as ``illegal'' \179\ and effective enforcement
of a ban in previous years.\180\ Some Tibetans reportedly
believed that the turnout in 2007 represented Tibetan
celebration of the Dalai Lama's receipt of the Congressional
Gold Medal, scheduled for October 2007.\181\
tibetan culture under chinese development policy and practice
Commission Reports and Recommendations: Tibetan Culture in a Developing
West
CECC Annual Reports issued since 2002 document that Chinese
government development policy and implementation, especially of
the Great Western Development (GWD) program,\182\ increase
pressure on the Tibetan language and culture, and erode the
Tibetan people's ability to preserve their heritage and self-
identity.
The 2002 Annual Report observed that GWD ``has
the most profound implications for western China of any
official policy formulation to emerge in the post-Deng
era.'' \183\ The report identified the Qinghai-Tibet
railway, then in its second year of construction,\184\
as the project causing the greatest alarm for Tibetans.
An expert told the Commission, ``The new railway to
Tibet will only intensify existing migratory trends,
exacerbate ethnic income disparities, and further
marginalize Tibetans in traditional economic
pursuits.'' \185\
In 2003, the Annual Report stated, ``The
majority of Tibetans, who live in rural areas, benefit
little from central government investment in the
Tibetan economy. Most of this investment supports
large-scale construction and government-run enterprises
in which Han control is predominant.'' \186\ Tibetans
must have access to significantly improved educational
resources if they are to adapt successfully to their
new environment, and if their culture is to survive,
then the Tibetan language must play an important role
in their education, the report said.\187\
In 2004, the Annual Report noted that
``existing policy initiatives are gaining momentum,
especially the Great Western
Development program, formulated to accelerate economic
development in China's western provinces and speed
their integration into the political and social
mainstream.'' \188\ The report warned that government
policies ``promote strict adherence to a national
identity defined in Beijing [and] discourage Tibetan
aspirations to maintain their distinctive culture and
religion.'' \189\
The 2005 Annual Report showed that Chinese
government statistics on educational achievement
demonstrate that few Tibetans are prepared to compete
for employment and business opportunities in the Han-
dominated economic environment developing around
them.\190\ Urban Tibetans reached senior middle school
at 19 times the rate of rural Tibetans, the report
said, but rural Tibetans are the largest and least
prepared category of Tibetans competing for
opportunities created by government economic
development programs.\191\
The release of the 2006 Annual Report followed
the start of operation of the Qinghai-Tibet railway.
The report noted ``increasing Tibetan concerns about
the railway's potential effects on the Tibetan culture
and environment,'' \192\ and explained why Chinese law,
government and Party policies, and official statements
increase Tibetan concerns that programs such as GWD and
projects such as the Qinghai-Tibet railway will lead to
large increases in Han migration.\193\
The Commission responded to the concerns and needs of
Tibetans in China by recommending increased funding for U.S.
NGOs to develop programs that ``improve the health, education,
and
economic conditions of ethnic Tibetans.'' A Commission
recommendation in 2003 stressed that such programs should
``create direct, sustainable benefits for Tibetans without
encouraging an influx of non-Tibetans into these areas.'' \194\
GWD Era Laws and Regulations Tend To Pressure, Not Protect, Tibetan
Culture
Changes in Chinese laws and regulations that address ethnic
autonomy issues and that have been enacted during the period of
GWD tend to decrease the protection of ethnic minority language
and culture. The stated purpose of GWD is to ``accelerate
economic and social development of the western region and the
minority nationality regions in particular.'' \195\ TAR Party
Secretary Zhang Qingli asserted that as the result of such
policies, ``Tibet is in [the] best period of development and
stability in its history.'' \196\ President and Party General
Secretary Hu Jintao, who served as the TAR Party Secretary from
1988-1992,\197\ affirmed support for GWD and the importance of
``the issue of coordinated regional development'' when he met
TAR delegates to the NPC in March 2007.\198\ Laws and
regulations such as the following have resulted in a trend of
increasing cultural, linguistic, and economic pressure on
ethnic minorities.
The National People's Congress (NPC) amended the 1984
Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law (REAL)\199\ in 2001, bringing the
law into conformity with more recent trends in Party policy.
Amendments added extensive language guiding issues that include
economic development, natural resource exploitation,
infrastructure construction, financial and fiscal management,
recruiting cadres, professionals, and workers from other parts
of China to ``Go West,'' establishing cooperative development
projects between other parts of China and the GWD area, and
improving the education system for ethnic minorities.\200\ [See
Section II--Ethnic Minority Rights for more information on the
REAL.]
The amended REAL increased state support for ethnic
minority education but lessened the state's commitment to the
constitutionally protected task of preserving and using ethnic
minority languages.\201\ The 1984 REAL required the state to
set up ``institutes of nationalities and, . . . nationality
oriented classes and preparatory classes which only enroll
students from minority nationalities.'' \202\ The amended REAL
requires such institutes to ``enroll only or mostly students
from ethnic minorities,'' \203\ potentially reducing the level
of use of ethnic languages within such institutes. Another
result is that ethnic minorities must compete academically with
Han who enroll in ethnic minority institutes, and compete with
them for jobs after graduation.\204\ The 1984 REAL authorized
the state to introduce for ethnic minorities ``[p]referred
enrollment and preferred assignment of jobs,'' \205\ a form of
assistance that can help Tibetans and other minorities to
compete for employment in an emerging market economy that
attracts an increasing number of Han who have better
educations.\206\ The amended REAL, however, removed the
language that authorized the preferential treatment for ethnic
minorities.\207\
The Provisions of the State Council for Implementing the
REAL,\208\ issued in May 2005, promote a key GWD strategy:\209\
encouraging professionals, experts, and workers in China's
populous areas to ``Go West'' along with their families to
``develop and pioneer in ethnic autonomous areas.'' \210\ The
amended REAL itself provides the basis for establishing
implementing provisions that provide incentives for population
movement into autonomous areas where Tibetans and other ethnic
groups live by authorizing local autonomous governments to
provide ``preferential treatment and encouragement'' to
``specialized personnel joining in the various kinds of
construction in these areas.'' \211\ Minister Li Dezhu of the
State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC) warned in 2000 that
implementation of the GWD and the resulting westward population
flow could cause ``possible trouble'' in ethnic relations. He
wrote in Seeking Truth that ``some changes in the proportions
of the nationalities'' would take place and that ``conflicts
and clashes'' could occur between ethnic groups.\212\
The State Council Legislative Affairs Office is reportedly
preparing a draft law for submission to the NPC that ``aims to
create a favorable legal environment and support for a smooth
implementation'' of GWD, according to a March 2006 statement by
Wang Jinxiang, the Vice Minister of the National Development
and Reform Commission and the Deputy Director of the State
Council Office of the Leading Group for Western Region
Development.\213\ Wang said that the Legislative Affairs Office
was working on the 14th version of the draft and that he
believed completion of the draft was ``imminent.'' No updated
information is available about the progress of the bill.
Protection for the Tibetan language has also decreased
under autonomy regulations enacted during the GWD period. In
2002, the TAR People's Congress revised the 1987 TAR
Regulations on the Study, Use, and Development of the Tibetan
Language,\214\ ending the precedence of the Tibetan language by
authorizing the use of ``either or both'' of Mandarin and
Tibetan languages in most areas of government work.\215\ A 1998
government White Paper stated, ``Guaranteeing the study and use
of the Tibetan language is an important aspect of safeguarding
the Tibetan people's right to autonomy and exercising their
right to participate in the administration of state and local
affairs.'' \216\ The then-current regulation ``clearly
specifies that both Tibetan and Chinese should be used in the
Tibet Autonomous Region, with precedence given to the Tibetan
language,'' according to the White Paper.
Qinghai-Tibet Railway Carries 1.5 Million Passengers Into the TAR in
First Year
The Qinghai-Tibet railway, officially designated a key GWD
project,\217\ ``transported 1.5 million passengers into Tibet''
during its first year of operation (ending on June 30, 2007),
according to a July report.\218\ The government issued no
public reports of major incidents or accidents linked to the
railway's operation during the year. Advocacy organizations
have expressed publicly\219\ what Tibetans in China say
privately, that the railway will facilitate a surge of non-
Tibetans into Tibetan autonomous areas, altering the
demographic and economic structure of the region, and further
increasing pressure on Tibetan culture and on Tibetans as they
compete for jobs and other economic benefits.\220\ Jampa
Phuntsog (Xiangba Pingcuo), Chairman of the TAR government,
claimed in June 2007 that such a threat does not exist, and
that Tibetans in the TAR would not face assimilation into
Chinese culture (``Han culture'').\221\
State-run media reports about the Qinghai-Tibet railway
generally apply the terms ``passenger'' and ``tourist''
interchangeably to persons traveling to the TAR, and provide
little information about how many passengers arrive in the TAR
for purposes other than tourism. For example, the July report
of ``1.5 million passengers'' describes them as ``nearly half
of the total tourist arrivals in the region.'' \222\ At that
rate of arrival, nearly 4,100 passengers arrived in the TAR
each day. That figure accords closely with a May 2006 statement
by the China Tibet Tourism Bureau (before railway operations
began) that the railway would ``transport an additional 4,000
tourists to Tibet each day.'' \223\ The July report's portrayal
of the 1.5 million passengers as ``tourists'' making up nearly
half the total tourist arrivals is also consistent with
information in other official reports: there were a total of
3.6 million tourist arrivals in 2006 and the first six months
of 2007.\224\
The Commission is aware of one official Chinese media
report that less than half of the Lhasa-bound Qinghai-Tibet
railway passengers were tourists during the height of the
tourist season after the railway began service. Midway into
September 2006, the railway's third month of operation, Jin
Shixun, the Director of the TAR Committee of Development and
Reform, provided information about the occupational categories
of passengers--60 percent were business persons, students,
transient workers, traders, and individuals visiting relatives;
40 percent were tourists.\225\ Jin's remark was based on
270,000 passengers over a period of approximately 75 days, or
about 3,600 passengers per day. If a similar proportion
prevailed throughout the remainder of the first year of
operation, then approximately 900,000 of the 1.5 million
passengers could have been non-tourists, and hundreds of
thousands of them could have been non-Tibetan business persons,
workers, and traders who intended to remain for a period in the
TAR. An October 2005 report by China's state-run media also
acknowledged that the railway will ``attract tourists, traders,
and ethnic Chinese settlers'' to the region.\226\
A Tibetan resident of Lhasa told a radio call-in show in
July 2007 that ``Tibetans in Lhasa have been overwhelmed by the
frightful explosion of the Chinese population in the city.''
\227\ The caller said that ``wherever you go, you get the
impression of overcrowding.'' Tibetans ``[witness] Chinese
tourists becoming permanent residents,'' she said, and reported
that ``Chinese migrants were moving fast into formerly Tibetan
neighborhoods and businesses.'' Another Tibetan caller from
Lhasa said ``there is deep skepticism about the aim and whose
purpose [the railway] is serving,'' and asserted that ``the
Tibetans are certainly not the direct beneficiaries.'' The
first caller acknowledged that Tibetan traders are doing more
business, but she said those benefits are ``insignificant if
you take the whole picture of Chinese benefits in terms of
business and employment into account.'' \228\ An NGO reported
in early August that Chinese fleeing flooded areas of the
country were ``pouring into Tibet'' on the Qinghai-Tibet
railway, and that thousands of unemployed migrants roamed Lhasa
looking for work.\229\ The ``unprecedented movement of Chinese
migrants to Lhasa,'' which started in July, ``has put pressure
on the local Tibetans and their day-to-day livelihood,''
according to the report.
Inadequate information provided by the Chinese government
about passengers traveling on the Qinghai-Tibet railway hampers
objective assessment of the railway's alleged role in
accelerating the influx of non-Tibetan residents into the
region. Existing examples of the establishment of rail links to
remote regions in China indicate that significant changes to
the proportions of ethnic groups occur over time. Rail links
were built into what is now the Inner Mongolia Autonomous
Region (IMAR) before the PRC was established;\230\ a railway
reached Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous
Region (XUAR), in 1962; the railway arrived in Kashgar, in the
western XUAR, in 1999.\231\ Based on official 2000 census data,
the ratio of Han to Mongol in the IMAR is 4.6 Han to 1 Mongol.
In the XUAR the ratio of Han to Uighur is 0.9 Han to 1 Uighur.
The ratio of Han to Tibetans in the TAR stood at 0.07 Han to 1
Tibetan in 2000, according to census data.\232\ Tibetans are
concerned that the Qinghai-Tibet railway will facilitate
changes in Tibetan areas of China similar to those in the IMAR
and XUAR.
Rebuilding the Tibetan Countryside: Allegations of Forced Settlement,
Re-housing
Another Party-led program linked to GWD and the anti-Dalai
Lama campaign aims to end a way of life that is iconic among
Tibetans and that has survived for centuries: nomadic
herding.\233\ A government program gathered momentum last year
that aims to build a ``beautiful, new socialist countryside''
\234\ and requires nomads to give up their traditional
lifestyle and grazing lands to live in fixed settlements, or
find other work. Similar programs affecting herders in Qinghai,
Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces are underway.\235\ A TAR
government program underway is moving Tibetan farmers into new
housing in reorganized communities. TAR Party Secretary Zhang
Qingli said that such steps would result in a ``harmonious
society.'' \236\ Party General Secretary Hu Jintao\237\ advised
TAR delegates, including Zhang, attending the NPC in March 2007
that ``maintaining social harmony and stability is the
premise'' for economic and social development in the TAR.\238\
Zhang Qingli said in the January 2007 issue of Seeking
Truth that the Party's determination to restructure Tibetan
farming and grazing communities is not only to promote economic
development, but also to counteract the Dalai Lama's
influence.\239\ Zhang said that to do so is essential for
``continuing to carry out major development of west China''
(e.g., GWD), and pointed out that 80 percent of the TAR
population are farmers and herders. ``[Farmers and herders
`living and working in peace and contentment'] is the
fundamental condition for us in holding the initiative in the
struggle against the Dalai clique,'' Zhang said.\240\ He listed
Party objectives including to construct permanent housing for
nomadic herders, improve farmers' housing, relocate farmers'
housing to achieve poverty relief, and ensure that 80 percent
of TAR farmers and herders are in ``safe and suitable'' housing
within five years. Zhang called on the Party to support
measures to ``actively organize'' Tibetan farmers and herders
to move to towns or urban areas to find employment, set up
businesses, or seek training in other skills.\241\
The Chinese government has implemented policies since 2000
(the year that GWD was implemented) to confiscate herders'
land, erect fencing, and resettle herders, and has intensified
the policies in some areas since 2003, Human Rights Watch (HRW)
reported in June 2007.\242\ Guolou (Golog) and Yushu Tibetan
Autonomous Prefectures (TAPs) in Qinghai province are the areas
most severely affected by implementation.\243\ The report
acknowledges that China faces environmental crises, and that
Chinese officials have explained that removing herds from
traditional pastures will benefit the environment,\244\ but the
report asserts that ``there are grounds for disputing both who
is responsible for those crises and the consequent actions
taken by the government in the name of protection in Tibetan
areas.'' \245\
The resettlement program has subjected herders to
compulsory or forced resettlement, compulsory livestock
reduction, bans on grazing, compulsory change of land use, and
evictions to make way for public works schemes, the HRW report
asserts.\246\ Chinese
authorities failed to consult adequately with the affected
herders, provide them with adequate compensation, or allow them
adequate options for complaint, thereby failing to fulfill
requirements under the Chinese Constitution, according to the
report.\247\ ``Claims of nonpayment are endemic, and there are
also allegations of corruption and discrimination in the
compensation process,'' according to HRW.\248\
The number of Tibetans affected by forced resettlement is
unknown but it ``clearly runs into the tens, if not hundreds,
of thousands,'' according to the HRW report.\249\ The
Commission's 2006 Annual Report reported that TAR authorities
relocated 48,000 herders and settled them in fixed communities
in the period 2001-2004,\250\ that a government program in
Qinghai province to settle herders (including Tibetans) placed
about 10,000 families in fixed communities by 2005,\251\ and
that a Gansu province program started in the late 1990s to
settle herders in Tibetan autonomous areas settled 7,000
families by 2004 and is expected to be complete in 2009.\252\
TAR government Chairman Jampa Phuntsog stated in June 2007
that ``no forced resettlement has been done'' in the TAR, and
he provided details about some cases of relocation.\253\ He
acknowledged that the TAR government had ``displaced some 7,000
people who lived at the source of the Yangtze River'' in
Changdu (Chamdo) prefecture and resettled them in Linzhi
(Kongpo) prefecture. He claimed that the government had
``respected the will of the people'' in doing so. In addition,
the TAR was seeking to move dozens of herding families out of
the Hol Xil Natural Reserve, but not all of them had agreed to
leave. ``We are still trying to persuade them to move, and they
will only be relocated when they agree to,'' Jampa Phuntsog
said.\254\
The TAR government launched a program in 2006, concurrent
with the region's 11th Five-Year Plan, to move Tibetan farmers
and herders into new housing.\255\ In the first year of
operation, the program moved 56,000 households with 290,000
members into new houses.\256\ Zhang Qingli personally led the
effort, according to state-run media, and when the program
concludes in 2010, it will have moved 220,000 families into new
homes.\257\ Based on an average household size of 5.2 persons
(suggested by the preceding data), the total number of Tibetans
moved into new housing by 2010 could be approximately 1.14
million--more than half of the total number of Tibetan rural
residents in the TAR at the time of the 2000 census.\258\
Reports by advocacy groups and official Chinese media
organizations on whether or not Tibetan participation in the
housing program is voluntary, and the consequences of the
financial burden on Tibetan farmers and herders, differ
sharply. Zhang Qingli said in March 2007 that county- and
prefecture-level governments offer each household a subsidy to
defray 10,000-25,000 yuan (US$1,300-US$3,300) of the estimated
60,000 yuan (US$8,000) cost of a house, with Tibetan
householders paying the rest.\259\ Construction is on a
``strictly volunteer basis,'' Zhang claimed.\260\ HRW reported
in December 2006 that the program requires villagers,
``particularly those who live next to main roads,'' to rebuild
their homes ``in accordance with strict official specifications
within two to three years.'' \261\ The government does not
subsidize the cost of the house, according to HRW, but lends
Tibetans between 20 and 25 percent of the cost to
householders.\262\
Tibetan farmers and nomads, whose 2,435 yuan average per
capita income in 2006 places them among China's poorest
citizens,\263\ generally do not have savings or other capital
resources equal to several years of income, so they face
difficulty in paying for the government-mandated housing.
``Nearly all must therefore supplement these funds with
considerable bank loans,'' HRW said. Even relatively wealthy
households have been ``forced into debt,'' and borrowers who
default on loans forfeit the right to occupy the house,
according to the report.\264\ None of the Tibetans interviewed
by HRW reported that they had a right to challenge the program
or refuse to participate in it. Some Tibetans described
incidents in which local authorities demolished Tibetan homes
after residents refused to participate in the program, or who
said that they could not participate because they could not
borrow enough money to pay for a new home. According to a June
2007 foreign media report, the relocated villages are ``cookie-
cutter'' in style, and even though farmers did not appear to be
happy, they were ``reluctant to complain.'' \265\
Local government officials in a village in Dingri county,
located in Rikaze (Shigatse) prefecture in the TAR, threatened
to punish households that failed to build a new home, according
to a May 2007 Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy
(TCHRD) report.\266\ Officials told the villagers that they
should improve their village before the 2008 Olympics so that
it will be more attractive to tourists. The government offered
to contribute 10,000 yuan toward houses that must cost a
minimum of 20,000 yuan, but villagers in the area are so poor
that only 4 of the 34 households built houses.\267\ Three of
the four households had to secure a bank loan in order to match
the government's 10,000 yuan contribution. ``The new houses do
not reflect the better living standards of Tibetan people, they
are not happy in the new houses built upon debts, [and] they
are more worried than ever about how to repay the loans to
banks,'' TCHRD's source said.\268\
PUNISHING PEACEFUL TIBETAN EXPRESSION UNDER CHINA'S CONSTITUTION AND
LAW
Commission Reports, China's Record on Tibetan Rights
Commission Annual Reports issued since 2002 document that
the Chinese government applies the Constitution and law in a
manner that restricts and represses the exercise of human
rights by Tibetans, and that uses the law to punish peaceful
expression and action by Tibetans as threats to state security.
The Chinese government, and governments in the TAR and other
provinces where Tibetans live, made no progress in the past
year toward improving the right of Tibetans in China to
exercise their constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of
religion, expression, and assembly. Such restrictions are
inconsistent with the Chinese government's obligations under
international human rights standards.\269\ Instead, Communist
Party political campaigns promote atheism and strengthen
government efforts to discourage Tibetan aspirations to foster
their unique culture and heritage. [See Section II--Freedom of
Religion.]
The 2002 Annual Report observed that the
Chinese government seeks to maintain unity and
stability\270\ by ``constraining Tibetan political,
cultural, educational, and religious life,'' and that
human rights and the rule of law in Tibetan areas of
China are configured to serve government and Party
interests.\271\
In 2003, the Annual Report noted that friction
remains between Tibetan aspirations to maintain their
distinctive culture and religion and Chinese policies
favoring atheism and emphasizing the primacy of
national identity. China represses peaceful expression
that it considers ``splittist,'' or that it deems to be
``detrimental to the security, honor, and interests of
the motherland.'' \272\
The 2004 Annual Report observed that China
represses or punishes peaceful expression by Tibetans
that authorities deem to ``endanger state security''
even if the expression is non-violent and poses no
threat to the state. An official in Beijing told
Commission staff in September 2003, ``There is not a
distinct line between violent and non-violent. . . . A
non-violent action can result in eventual violence.''
The 2005 Annual Report noted the downward
trend in the number of known Tibetan political
prisoners, and suggested, ``Tibetans are avoiding the
risks of direct criticism or protest against Chinese
policies and are turning to education, arts, and
religion for ways to express and protect their culture
and heritage.'' But as incidents of protest declined,
Chinese authorities watched for other signs of Tibetan
resentment or nationalism.
In 2006, the Annual Report provided additional
information on how Tibetans appear to be avoiding the
risks of direct
protest against government policies and turning to
other methods of cultural expression. After the Dalai
Lama told Tibetans in India, ``Neither use, sell, or
buy wild animals, their products or derivatives,''
Tibetans in China staged public events in which they
burned rare furs stripped from traditional Tibetan
garments.\273\
Political Imprisonment of Tibetans: Peaceful Expression and Non-Violent
Action as Threats to State Security
Chinese authorities continue to detain and imprison
Tibetans for peaceful expression and non-violent action,
charging them with crimes such as ``splittism,'' \274\ and
claiming that their behavior ``endangers state security.''
\275\ [See Section II--Rights of Criminal Suspect and
Defendants--Law in Action: Abuses of Criminal Law and
Procedure.] Expression or action that is linked to the Dalai
Lama is especially likely to result in such charges. Chinese
officials have punished Tibetans, such as Jigme Gyatso, a
former monk imprisoned in 1996 who is serving an 18-year
sentence\276\ for printing leaflets, distributing posters, and
later shouting pro-Dalai Lama slogans in prison, and Choeying
Khedrub, a monk serving a life sentence since 2000 for printing
leaflets, for peaceful expressions and non-violent actions that
officials believe could undermine Party rule. Two Tibetans
sentenced along with Choeying Khedrub, monk Yeshe Tenzin and
builder Tsering Lhagon, are serving sentences of 10 and 15
years respectively on the same charges.
Possessing photographs or copies of religious teachings of
the Dalai Lama can result in imprisonment for endangering state
security (by ``inciting splittism'') for up to five years,
especially if a Tibetan carries such material across the
international border into the TAR, an official of the Rikaze
(Shigatse) Prefecture Intermediate People's Court, located in
the TAR, confirmed in 2005.\277\ ``Any document that relates to
Tibetan independence, Dalai Lama photos, or any other documents
or literature containing reactionary themes or subjects are
punishable,'' he said. In February 2007, the Rikaze court
sentenced a Tibetan man, Penpa, to three years' imprisonment
after police searched his home and confiscated audio recordings
of the Dalai Lama conducting a Buddhist teaching in India.\278\
Local authorities became suspicious of Penpa when they learned
that he was saving sheep from the slaughterhouse as a religious
offering dedicated to the Dalai Lama's long life.\279\
Public security officials detained a total of nine Tibetans
in Ganzi (Kardze) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Sichuan
province, none of whom authorities accused of violent activity,
between March and August 2006, according to reports issued
between June and September.\280\ Officials detained six of the
Tibetans for alleged roles in printing and distributing pro-
independence leaflets in late May: Kayo Doga (a layman in his
late-50s, previously sentenced to three years of reeducation
through labor in 2002 for his role in arranging a prayer
ceremony for the Dalai Lama's long life); Yiga (Kayo Doga's
daughter, a former nun); nuns Sonam Lhamo, Sonam Choezom (or
Sonam Choetso), and Jampa Yangzom (or Jampa Yangtso); and Yiga,
a female middle-school student. According to an unofficial
source, a Ganzi county court issued a notice that all six
detainees, including the minor, Yiwang, would face trial and
that formal arrest had taken place.\281\
In separate incidents reported by unofficial sources
involving the seventh and eighth Ganzi detentions, officials
detained monk Namkha Gyaltsen of Gepheling Monastery in March
2006 for allegedly painting pro-independence slogans on
government buildings (or putting up pro-independence posters),
and monk Lobsang Palden, also of Gepheling, on August 15 after
authorities searched his room and found ``incriminating
documents'' including photos of the Dalai Lama.\282\ Namkha
Gyaltsen allegedly confessed and may face a sentence of seven
to eight years, and officials formally arrested Lobsang Palden
on September 6 on charges of inciting splittism. In the ninth
reported Ganzi detention, public security officials searched
the living quarters of Jinpa, the abbot of Taglung Monastery,
located in Seda (Serthar) county in Ganzi TAP, in
August 2006, according to an unofficial report.\283\ The
officials reportedly found nothing that they considered to be
illegal, but they detained Jinpa nonetheless, possibly in
connection with pro-independence posters that appeared in the
monastery a year earlier.
Public security officials based at Sera Monastery in Lhasa
detained monk Gyaltsen Namdrag in May 2006 on suspicion that he
distributed pro-independence pamphlets, according to an
unofficial report.\284\ The Lhasa Intermediate People's Court
sentenced him in October to five years' imprisonment on charges
of endangering state security (probably ``inciting
splittism''). Gyaltsen Namdrag is reportedly serving his
sentence at Qushui Prison, according to the report.
The Lhasa Intermediate People's Court sentenced tailor
Sonam Gyalpo to 12 years' imprisonment for espionage on June 9,
2006,\285\ following a search of his Lhasa home in August 2005
by state security officials who discovered photos and
videotapes of the Dalai Lama and printed matter, according to
an unofficial report.\286\ Sonam Gyalpo allegedly made contact
with the Tibetan government-in-exile in the 1990s and engaged
in pro-independence activity in the TAR, according to official
Chinese information reported by Dui Hua Dialogue in April
2007.\287\ Sonam Gyalpo was 1 of about 10 Tibetans detained
before the 40th anniversary of the TAR on September 1, 2005,
according to another unofficial report.\288\ He was reportedly
imprisoned twice previously for a total of nearly four years as
punishment for political activity,\289\ and is serving his
current sentence in Qushui Prison.\290\
Official Chinese information confirmed the detention of
Lhasa school teacher Drolma Kyab in March 2005, his conviction
on charges of espionage and illegally crossing the border, and
his sentence of 10 years and 6 months' imprisonment after he
authored a manuscript touching on sensitive political
subjects.\291\ The unpublished book contained 57 chapters on
subjects such as ``democracy, sovereignty of Tibet, Tibet under
[C]ommunism, colonialism, [and] religion,'' according to an
unofficial report.\292\ Drolma Kyab had started a second work
that focused on Tibetan geography and that touched on topics
including the number and location of military camps in
``Chinese occupied Tibet.'' \293\ He smuggled a letter
appealing to the United Nations for help out of Qushui
Prison,\294\ where he is serving his sentence.\295\ Drolma Kyab
wrote in the letter, ``They think that what I wrote about
nature and geography was also connected to Tibetan
independence. . . . [T]his is the main reason of my conviction,
but according to Chinese law, the book alone would not justify
such a sentence. So they announced that I am guilty of the
crime of espionage.'' \296\
The Gannan Intermediate People's Court in Gansu province
sentenced nun Choekyi Drolma to three years' imprisonment in
December 2005 for ``inciting splittism,'' according to official
Chinese information that became available in November
2006.\297\ She is serving her sentence in the Gansu Women's
Prison. Choekyi Drolma was among five Tibetan monks and nuns
detained in 2005 in Xiahe (Sangchu), in Gannan (Kanlho) Tibetan
Autonomous Prefecture (TAP) in Gansu. Public security officials
detained her along with nuns Tamdrin Tsomo and Yonten Drolma of
Gedun Tengyeling Nunnery, and monks Dargyal Gyatso and Jamyang
Samdrub of Labrang Tashikhyil Monastery, on May 22, 2005, on
suspicion that they circulated and displayed letter-sized
posters that were critical of the Chinese government. The
official information mentioned only Choekyi Drolma, but it is
likely that the court tried and sentenced the five monks and
nuns together since they allegedly acted together. Dargyal
Gyatso and Tamdrin Tsomo are believed to be serving 3-year
sentences; Jamyang Samdrub and Yonten Drolma are believed to
have been released after completing 18-month sentences.\298\
Jamphel Gyatso and Tashi Gyaltsen, two of a group of five
monks of Dragkar Traldzong Monastery reportedly detained in
Qinghai province in January 2005 and sentenced in February for
publishing a poem in the monastery newsletter, are reportedly
serving their three-year sentences at a brick kiln near Xining,
the capital of Qinghai.\299\ The other three monks, Lobsang
Dargyal, Tsesum Samten, and Tsultrim Phelgyal, completed two-
year and six-month sentences in July 2007 and are presumed to
be released. Security officials considered the poem to be
politically sensitive and ordered the monks to serve terms of
reeducation through labor.
No new developments were reported in the past year in the
cases of prisoners Bangri Chogtrul or Tenzin Deleg,
reincarnated Tibetan lamas convicted in separate cases. Both
men had contact with the Dalai Lama in India in the years prior
to their detentions. Bangri Chogtrul (Jigme Tenzin Nyima), who
lived as a householder in Lhasa and managed a children's home
along with his wife, was convicted of inciting splittism and
sentenced to life imprisonment in a closed court in Lhasa in
September 2000.\300\ The Lhasa Intermediate People's Court
commuted his sentence to 19 years of fixed term imprisonment in
July 2003, and reduced the sentence by 1 year in November
2005.\301\ Tenzin Deleg (A'an Zhaxi) was convicted in a closed
court in Sichuan province in November 2002 of conspiring to
cause explosions and inciting splittism.\302\ Authorities claim
that the case involves state secrets and refuse to disclose
details of evidence that establishes a direct link between
Tenzin Deleg and the alleged criminal acts. The Commission and
Human Rights Watch have published reports on the case, which
has stirred international controversy for its procedural
violations and lack of transparency.\303\ The provincial high
court commuted Tenzin Deleg's reprieved death sentence to life
imprisonment in January 2005. Chinese officials acknowledge
that he suffers from coronary heart disease and high blood
pressure.\304\
In an incident linked to a protest against Tenzin Deleg's
imprisonment, public security officials in Litang county, Ganzi
TAP, detained Tibetan nomad Ronggyal Adrag (Runggye Adak) on
August 1, 2007, at a horse-racing festival after he climbed
onto a stage where officials were scheduled to speak and,
according to one report,\305\ shouted slogans calling for the
Dalai Lama's return to Tibet, the release of Gedun Choekyi
Nyima (the Panchen Lama identified by the Dalai Lama), and
Tibetan independence. According to other reports,\306\ he
called for the Dalai Lama's return, freedom of religion, and
the releases of the Panchen Lama and Tenzin Deleg. Ronggyal
Adrag's statements may have been provoked by a petition drive
conducted by Chinese officials who visited local monasteries in
the weeks before the festival and told monks to sign a petition
stating that they do not want the Dalai Lama to return to
Tibet.\307\ In an unusually swift and public response, China's
state-run media acknowledged on August 3 that police detained
Ronggyal Adrag for ``inciting separation of the
nationalities,'' and that more than 200 Tibetans had gathered
the same day outside the detention center to call for his
release.\308\ All of the Tibetans left the area of the
detention center by the following day, according to the
official report. A week later, on August 8, People's Armed
Police forces used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse
Tibetans who gathered peacefully near the horse-racing grounds
to call for Ronggyal Adrag's release, according to an
unofficial report.\309\ Authorities detained three of Ronggyal
Adrag's nephews on August 21, including monk Adrug Lopoe of
Lithang Monastery, whom police deemed to be a ``splittist''
influence behind the public demands for Ronggyal Adrag's
release.\310\ Officials released Adrug Lopoe's two brothers
soon after they took him into detention.\311\
Another incident of Tibetan expression of the wish for the
Dalai Lama to return to Tibet resulted in the detention of
seven 14- and 15-year old middle school students in Xiahe
county, Gannan TAP, according to an NGO report.\312\ On or
about September 7, 2007, local public security officials
detained about 40 students from a
village middle school after some of the students allegedly
wrote slogans on walls calling for the Dalai Lama's return and
Tibetan freedom.\313\ Police released all but seven of the
students within 48 hours, and transferred seven boys to the
Xiahe county seat, where authorities refused to provide any
information to the children's families or confirm that they
were in police custody.\314\ The report named five of the boys:
Chopa Kyab (age 14), Drolma Kyab (14), Tsekhu (14), and two 15-
year-olds each named Lhamo Tseten.\315\ Police reportedly beat
one of the seven boys upon detention, resulting in profuse
bleeding, and refused to allow the boy's family to take him for
medical care.
Chinese authorities carried out 13 known detentions of
Tibetans in 2006, a decrease compared to the 24 such detentions
in 2005 and 15 such detentions in 2004, according to
information available in the Commission's Political Prisoner
Database (PPD) as of September 2007. Of the known political
detentions in 2006, nine took place in Sichuan province and
four in the TAR. The PPD listed 100 known cases of current
Tibetan political detention or imprisonment, a figure that is
likely to be lower than the actual number of Tibetan political
prisoners. Reports of Tibetan political imprisonment often do
not reach monitoring groups until at least one or two years
after the detentions occur. Forty-nine of the Tibetans are
believed to be detained or imprisoned in the TAR, 30 in Sichuan
province, 9 in Qinghai province, and 9 in Gansu province. The
location where Chinese authorities are holding the Panchen Lama
and his parents is unknown. Based on sentence information
available for 61 of the current prisoners, the average sentence
length is 11 years and 7 months.
The number of known cases of current Tibetan political
detention or imprisonment reported in the current Annual Report
is approximately half the number that the Commission reported
in the 2002 Annual Report.\316\ The downward trend in the
number of known Tibetan political prisoners may reflect
incomplete information, as well as fewer Tibetans risking
imprisonment as punishment for peaceful expression and non-
violent action in opposition to Chinese policies. Instead,
Tibetans may be turning to other methods of expressing their
culture and self-identity.
Monk Ngawang Phuljung of Drepung Monastery, the longest
serving Tibetan who remains imprisoned for counterrevolutionary
crimes, received a 6-month reduction to his 19-year sentence in
September 2005 and is due for release from Qushui Prison on
October 18, 2007, according to an October 2006 report based on
official Chinese information.\317\ After his detention in April
1989, the Lhasa Intermediate People's Court sentenced him along
with nine other Drepung monks at a public rally in November.
Ngawang Phuljung's crimes included ``forming a
counterrevolutionary organization,'' ``spreading
counterrevolutionary propaganda,'' ``passing
information to the enemy,'' and ``crossing the border illegally
and spying,'' according to a 1994 UN Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention (UNWGAD) report that quoted an official Chinese
response about the case.\318\ The UNWGAD report declared
Ngawang Phuljung's detention arbitrary, and stated that the
alleged espionage and betrayal of state secrets ``consisted in
fact in the exposure of cases of violations of human rights
including their disclosure abroad.''
The Commission's Executive Branch members have participated
in and supported the work of the Commission, including the
preparation of the 2007 Annual Report. The views and
recommendations expressed in this report, however, do not
necessarily reflect the views of individual Executive Branch
members or the Administration.
Endnotes
\1\ PRC Constitution, art. 36 (``enjoy freedom of religious
belief''), art. 116 (``enact autonomy regulations and specific
regulations in the light of the political, economic, and cultural
characteristics of the nationality or nationalities''), art. 119
(``independently administer educational, scientific, cultural, public
health, and physical culture affairs''), art. 121 (``employ the spoken
and written language or languages in common use''). Regional Ethnic
Autonomy Law, enacted 31 May 84, amended 28 February 01, art. 11
(``guarantee the freedom of religious belief''), art. 19 (``enact self-
governing regulations and separate regulations in the light of the
political, economic, and cultural characteristics''), art. 21 (``use
the language or languages commonly used in the locality;. . . the
language of the nationality exercising regional autonomy may be used as
the main language''), art. 36 (``decide on educational plans''), art.
37 (``independently develop education for the nationalities''), art. 38
(``develop literature, art, the press, publishing, radio broadcasting,
the film industry, television, and other cultural undertakings'').
Regulation on Religious Affairs, issued 30 November 04, art. 2
(``Citizens enjoy freedom of religious belief.'').]
\2\ CECC, 2004 Annual Report, 5 October 04, sec. I. The 2004
recommendation stressed more specifically the objectives of dialogue:
``The future of Tibetans and their religion, language, and culture
depends on fair and equitable decisions about future policies that can
only be achieved through dialogue. The Dalai Lama is essential to such
a dialogue. The President and the Congress should continue to urge the
Chinese government to engage in substantive discussions with the Dalai
Lama or his representatives.'' CECC, 2005 Annual Report, 11 October 05,
sec. I. The 2005 recommendation called for direct contact between the
Dalai Lama and the Chinese leadership: ``To help the parties build on
visits and dialogue held in 2003, 2004, and 2005, the President and the
Congress should urge the Chinese government to move the current
dialogue toward deeper, substantive discussions with the Dalai Lama or
his representatives, and encourage direct contact between the Dalai
Lama and the Chinese leadership.''
\3\ CECC, 2006 Annual Report, 20 September 06, 17-18.
\4\ H. Con. Res. 196, ``Authorizing the use of the Rotunda and
grounds of the Capitol for a ceremony to award the Congressional Gold
Medal to Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama,'' 4 September 07.
According to the House Concurrent Resolution, the award ceremony will
take place in the Capitol Rotunda on October 17, and the Capitol
grounds will be available for a public event. The Resolution names the
International Campaign for Tibet as the sponsor of the public event.
\5\ S. 2784, Fourteenth Dalai Lama Congressional Gold Medal Act,
The Library of Congress (Online), enacted 27 September 06;
International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) (Online), ``US Congress Passes
Bill to Award the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal: Bill
Cosponsored by 387 Members of U.S. House and Senate,'' 13 September 06.
ICT notes that the Fourteenth Dalai Lama Congressional Gold Medal Act
was introduced as S.2782 by Senators Dianne Feinstein and Craig Thomas,
and as H.R.4562 by Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Tom Lantos.
\6\ Steven Marshall and Susette Cooke, Tibet Outside the TAR:
Control, Exploitation and Assimilation: Development With Chinese
Characteristics (Washington D.C.: self-published CD-ROM, 1997), Table
7. The 13 Tibetan autonomous areas include the provincial-level Tibet
Autonomous Region (TAR), with an area of 1.2 million square kilometers
(463,320 square miles), as well as 10 Tibetan autonomous prefectures
(TAP) and two Tibetan autonomous counties (TAC) located in Qinghai,
Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces. Qinghai province: Yushu TAP,
197,791 square kilometers (76,367 square miles); Guoluo (Golog) TAP,
78,444 square kilometers (30,287 square miles); Huangnan (Malho) TAP,
17,901 square kilometers (6,912 square miles); Hainan (Tsolho) TAP,
41,634 square kilometers (16,075 square miles); Haibei (Tsojang) TAP,
52,000 square kilometers (20,077 square miles); Haixi (Tsonub) Mongol
and Tibetan AP, 325,787 square kilometers (125,786 square miles). Gansu
province: Gannan (Kanlho) TAP, 45,000 square kilometers (17,374 square
miles); Tianzhu (Pari) TAC, 7,150 square kilometers (2,761 square
miles). Sichuan province: Ganzi (Kardze) TAP, 153,870 square kilometers
(59,409 square miles); Aba (Ngaba) Tibetan and Qiang AP, 86,639 square
kilometers (33,451 square miles); Muli (Mili) TAC, 11,413 square
kilometers (4,407 square miles). Yunnan province: Diqing (Dechen) TAP,
23,870 square kilometers (9,216 square miles). The Table provides areas
in square kilometers; conversion to square miles uses the formula
provided on the Web site of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS): one
square kilometer = 0.3861 square mile. Based on data in the Table, the
10 TAPs and 2 TACs have a total area of approximately 1.04 million
square kilometers (402,000 square miles). The TAR and the Tibetan
autonomous prefectures and counties are contiguous and total
approximately 2.24 million square kilometers (865,000 square miles).
Xining city and Haidong prefecture, located in Qinghai province, have a
total area of 20,919 square kilometers (8,077 square miles) and are not
Tibetan autonomous areas.
\7\ Office of the Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, U.S.
Department of State, Report on Tibet Negotiations, 11 July 2007. The
Report is mandated by Section 611 of the Foreign Relations
Authorization Act, 2003.
\8\ Ibid.
\9\ Ibid.
\10\ Ibid.
\11\ Ibid. President Bush raised the issue of dialogue and direct
discussion between the Dalai Lama and Chinese officials when he met
President Hu in Washington in April 2006 and at the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) in Vietnam the following November.
\12\ Ibid.
\13\ Ibid.
\14\ Paula Dobriansky was sworn in as Under Secretary of State for
Global Affairs on May 1, 2001. She was appointed Special Coordinator
for Tibetan Issues on May 17, 2001. She was appointed CECC Commissioner
in July 2001.
\15\ U.S. Department of State, Report on Tibet Negotiations.
\16\ Ibid.
\17\ ``Dalai Lama's Envoy: China Talks Deal With Substantive
Issues, Encounter Obstacle,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law
Update, April 2006, 3. The envoys visited China on September 9-27,
2002; May 25-June 8, 2003; September 12-29, 2004, and February 15-23,
2006. The fourth round of dialogue took place at the Chinese Embassy in
Bern, Switzerland on June 30-July 1, 2005.
\18\ Tibetan Government-in-Exile, ``Statement by Special Envoy of
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lodi Gyari, head of the Tibetan
delegation, following the sixth round of discussions with the Chinese
leadership,'' 7 July 07.
\19\ Word count of main text of Special Envoy statements following
sessions of dialogue: 2002, 770 words; 2003, 831 words; 2004, 454
words; 2005, 514 words; 2006, 303 words; 2007, 235 words.
\20\ International Campaign for Tibet (Online), ``ICT's Mission,''
last visited 15 July 07. In addition to serving as the Dalai Lama's
Special Envoy, Lodi Gyari is the Executive Chairman of the
International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). International Campaign for
Tibet (Online), ``ICT's Mission,'' last visited 15 July 07. ICT
``promotes self-determination for the Tibetan people through
negotiations between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama.''
\21\ Tibetan Government-in-Exile, ``Statement by Special Envoy of
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lodi Gyari, head of the Tibetan
delegation, following the sixth round of discussions with the Chinese
leadership,'' 7 July 07.
\22\ Ibid.
\23\ Ibid.
\24\ ``Communist Party Adds Tibetan Affairs Bureau to the United
Front Work Department,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law
Update, October 2006, 8.
\25\ Ibid.
\26\ Ibid.
\27\ Ibid.
\28\ Tibetan Government-in-Exile (Online), ``Statement by Special
Envoy Lodi Gyari, Head of the Delegation Sent by His Holiness the Dalai
Lama to China,'' 11 June 03; Tibetan Government-in-Exile (Online),
``Statement by Special Envoy Kasur Lodi Gyari, Head of the Delegation
to China,'' 13 October 04.
\29\ ``Forum on Tibetan Cultural Preservation Upholds Party
Development Policy,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law Update,
November 2006, 12-13.
\30\ ``Talks With Chinese Officials in Switzerland Were Concrete
and Substantive, Says Tibetan Special Envoy,'' CECC China Human Rights
and Rule of Law Update, August 2005, 2-3.
\31\ ``Forum on Tibetan Cultural Preservation Upholds Party
Development Policy,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law Update,
November 2006, 12-13.
\32\ Ibid.
\33\ The Dalai Lama has made a statement on the anniversary of the
1959 Lhasa uprising on March 10 of every year that he has lived in
exile, beginning in 1960.
\34\ Tibetan Government-in-Exile (Online),''The Statement of His
Holiness the Dalai Lama on the Forty-Eighth Anniversary of the Tibetan
National Uprising Day,'' 10 March 2007. PRC Constitution, Preamble.
Samdhong Rinpoche's remark refers to a statement in the Preamble, ``In
the struggle to safeguard the unity of the nationalities, it is
necessary to combat big-nation chauvinism, mainly Han chauvinism, and
also necessary to combat local-national chauvinism.'' China's system of
ethnic autonomy is an attempt to resolve the divergent interests of a
dominant and potentially overbearing ethnic group (Han) and
nationalistic ethnic minorities (such as Tibetans, Uighurs, and
Mongols).
\35\ Testimony of Lodi G. Gyari, Special Envoy of His Holiness the
Dalai Lama, at the House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing on the
Status of Tibet Negotiations, U.S. House of Representatives Committee
on Foreign Affairs (Online), 13 March 07.
\36\ Tibetan Government-in-Exile (Online), ``We Are Not Asking for
`High' or `Low' Degree of Autonomy: Kalon Tripa,'' 12 May 07.
\37\ Tibetan Government-in-Exile (Online), ``The Middle-Way
Approach: A Framework for Resolving the Issue of Tibet,'' last visited
13 July 07. The explanation of the Middle-Way Approach lists eight
``important components.'' The first three are: (1) Without seeking
independence for Tibet, the Central Tibetan Administration strives for
the creation of a political entity comprising the three traditional
provinces of Tibet; (2) Such an entity should enjoy a status of genuine
national regional autonomy; (3) This autonomy should be governed by the
popularly-elected legislature and executive through a democratic
process.
\38\ Tibetan Government-in-Exile (Online), ``Tibet at a Glance,''
last visited 14 July 07. ``Land Size: 2.5 million square kilometers,
which includes U-Tsang, Kham and Amdo provinces [the three traditional
provinces of Tibet]. `Tibet Autonomous Region,' consisting of U-Tsang
and a small portion of Kham, consists of 1.2 million square
kilometers.'' A People's Daily Web page states that the area of China
is 9.6 million square kilometers.
\39\ ``Dalai Lama's Special Envoy Describes Status of Discussions
With Chinese Government,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law
Update, December 2006, 6-7.
\40\ ``Seeking Unity Through Equality: The Current Status of
Discussions Between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Government of
the People's Republic of China,'' Prepared Statement of Lodi Gyaltsen
Gyari, Special Envoy of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Brookings
Institution (Online), 14 November 2006.
\41\ Question and Answer Session with Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, Special
Envoy of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, on the Current State of
Discussions Between the Dalai Lama and the Government of the People's
Republic of China, The Brookings Institution (Online), 14 November
2006.
\42\ Tibetan Government-in-Exile (Online), ``Statement of His
Holiness the Dalai Lama on the Forty-Seventh Anniversary of the Tibetan
National Uprising Day.''
\43\ Tibetan Government-in-Exile (Online), ``We Are Not Asking for
`High' or `Low' Degree of Autonomy: Kalon Tripa,'' 12 May 07.
\44\ International Campaign for Tibet, Tibet at a Glance. The ICT
Web page describes Tibet as an ``occupied'' country of 2.5 million
square kilometers (965,000 square miles) with Lhasa as its capital.
\45\ ``Dalai Lama's Special Envoy Describes Status of Discussions
With Chinese Government,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law
Update, December 2006, 6-7. ``Seeking Unity Through Equality,''
Prepared Statement of Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari.
\46\ ``Seeking Unity Through Equality,'' Prepared Statement of Lodi
Gyaltsen Gyari.
\47\ ``Dalai Lama's Special Envoy Describes Status of Discussions
With Chinese Government,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law
Update, December 2006, 6-7. Steven Marshall and Susette Cooke, Tibet
Outside the TAR, Table 7. The total area of the TAR and Tibetan
autonomous prefectures and counties is approximately 2.24 million
square kilometers (865,000 square miles). The area that Tibetans claim
as Tibet, 2.5 million square kilometers, is approximately 965,000
square miles.
\48\ Tabulation on Nationalities of 2000 Population Census of
China, Department of Population, Social, Science and Technology
Statistics, National Bureau of Statistics, and Department of Economic
Development, State Ethnic Affairs Commission (Beijing: Ethnic
Publishing House, September 2003), Table 10-4. The only prefectural-
level areas of Qinghai province that are not a Tibetan autonomous
prefecture or a Mongol and Tibetan autonomous prefecture are Xining
municipality and Haidong prefecture. According to official 2000 census
information, the total population of Xining and Haidong was about 3.24
million. Of that population, about 224,000 persons (6.9 percent) were
Tibetans.
\49\ The territory that Tibetans claim outside the existing Tibetan
autonomous areas contain parts of autonomous prefectures or counties
named to reflect ethnic groups including the Hui, Salar, and Tu in
Qinghai province; the Kazak, Mongol, Yugur, Hui, Dongxiang, and Bao'an
in Gansu province; the Yi in Sichuan province; the Naxi, Lisu, Nu, Bai,
and Pumi in Yunnan province; and, according to some maps, the Mongol in
Xinjiang. Substantial Han Chinese populations are also included, some
established for centuries.
\50\ Tabulation on Nationalities of 2000 Population Census of
China, Table 10-4. According to official data, no county-level area
outside the existing Tibetan autonomous areas has a Tibetan population
higher than 25 percent. Three counties outside the existing Tibetan
autonomous areas have a Tibetan population between 20 and 25 percent:
Xunhua Salar Autonomous County (24.7 percent), Hualong Hui Autonomous
County (21.5 percent), and Su'nan Yugur Autonomous County (24.4
percent) in Gansu province. One county outside the existing Tibetan
autonomous areas has a Tibetan population between 10 and 20 percent:
Huangyuan county (10.4 percent) in Qinghai province. Six counties
outside the existing Tibetan autonomous areas have a Tibetan population
between 5 and 10 percent: Huangzhong county (8.5 percent), Datong Hui
Autonomous County (6.6 percent), Ledu county (6.4 percent), and Huzhu
Tu Autonomous County (6.0 percent) in Qinghai province; and Shimian
county (9.8 percent) and Baoxing county (8.7 percent) in Sichuan
province.
\51\ Ibid. Substantial areas and populations of the territory that
Tibetans claim outside the existing Tibetan autonomous areas contain
Tibetan populations of 5 percent or less, including part or all of:
Xining municipality in Qinghai province; Jiuquan, Zhangye, and Wuwei
municipalities, and Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu province;
Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province; and Lijiang
Naxi Autonomous Prefecture and Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in
Yunnan province.
\52\ ``Seeking Unity Through Equality,'' Prepared Statement of Lodi
Gyaltsen Gyari.
\53\ Ibid.
\54\ Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Online), ``The Tibetan ethnic
minority,'' 15 November 00. ``In 1929, the Kuomintang government set up
a commission for Mongolian and Tibetan affairs in Nanjing and
established Qinghai province. In 1939, Xikang province was set up.''
(The article also shows that the Guomindang established Qinghai
province in 1929. Today, Qinghai is occupied principally by Tibetan
autonomous prefectures established by the PRC government.) People's
Daily (Online), ``Panda's Hometown Lures Tourists, Investors With
Wonders,'' 23 August 01. ``Ya'an boasts a history of over 2,000 years
and was once the capital of Xikang province which was abolished in
1955.''
\55\ International Campaign for Tibet, Tibet at a Glance. A map on
the Web site shows the Tibetan boundary as a solid line. Portions of
Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces that are inside the Tibet
boundary are shown as dashed lines. Tibetan Government-in-Exile
(Online), Map of Tibet, last visited 14 July 07. The relatively
straight contour between the western and northern tips of the Tibet map
shows that a portion of Bayinguoleng Mongol Autonomous Prefecture is
included within Tibet.
\56\ PRC Constitution, art. 62(12). The National People's Congress
exercises the function and power to ``approve the establishment of
provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the
Central Government.'' PRC Constitution, art. 89(15). The State Council
exercises the function and power to ``approve the geographic division
of provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the
Central Government, and to approve the establishment and geographic
division of autonomous prefectures, counties, autonomous counties, and
cities.''
\57\ PRC Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law [hereinafter REAL], enacted
31 May 84, amended 28 February 01.
\58\ REAL, Preamble.
\59\ Tibetan Government-in-Exile (Online),'' The Statement of His
Holiness the Dalai Lama on the Forty-Eighth Anniversary of the Tibetan
National Uprising Day.
\60\ PRC Constitution, art. 31. ``The state may establish special
administrative regions when necessary. The systems to be instituted in
special administrative regions shall be prescribed by law enacted by
the National People's Congress in the light of the specific
conditions.''
\61\ Ibid.
\62\ Tibetan Government-in-Exile, ``We are not asking for `high' or
`low' degree of autonomy.''
\63\ REAL, Preamble.
\64\ The REAL (amended 28 February 01) and State Council
Regulations on the Implementation of the REAL (issued 11 May 05)
promote increased emphasis on economic development, and reinforce the
government's Great Western Development program. The Regulation on
Religious Affairs (RRA) (issued 30 November 04) elaborates the state's
legal control over the publication and dissemination of religious
literature, the identification of high-ranking reincarnated Tibetan
Buddhist lamas, state supervision over who teaches and studies
religious subjects. The TAR Implementing Measures for the Regulation on
Religious Affairs (issued 19 September 06) are more detailed and
intrusive than the RRA in establishing control over the function of
Tibetan Buddhism. The TAR Regulations on the Study, Use, and
Development of the Tibetan Language (revised May 22, 2002) drop the
requirement that state government agencies use both Mandarin and
Tibetan, and instead allow them to decide to use either one.
\65\ Question and Answer Session with Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, The
Brookings Institution. Responding to a question about the ``unification
of all ethnic Tibetans,'' Gyari said that China accepts that ``the
Tibetan people are one people,'' so the Tibetans are asking that they
``be able to live within one single administration.'' Gyari asserted,
``I am utterly convinced from every point of view, what we ask is
legitimate, what we ask is according to the Chinese Constitution,
Chinese laws.'' Tibetan Government-in-Exile, ``We are not asking for
`high' or `low' degree of autonomy.'' Samdhong Rinpoche told a
conference, ``Our two desires are that the constitutional provisions of
national regional autonomy must be implemented . . ., [so that] all
Tibetans must be administered by a single autonomous self-government. .
. . We are simply asking for the sincere implementation of the national
regional autonomy provisions enshrined in the Constitution of the
People's Republic of China, which is further spelt out in the autonomy
law.''
\66\ REAL, art. 12. ``Autonomous areas may be established where one
or more minority nationalities live in concentrated communities, in the
light of local conditions such as the relationship among the various
nationalities and the level of economic development, and with due
consideration for historical background.''
\67\ PRC Constitution, art. 62(12), 89(15).
\68\ Ibid., art. 116. ``People's congresses of national autonomous
areas have the power to enact autonomy regulations and specific
regulations in the light of the political, economic and cultural
characteristics of the nationality or nationalities in the areas
concerned. . . .'' REAL, art. 19. ``The people's congresses of ethnic
autonomous areas shall have the power to enact self-governing
regulations and separate regulations in the light of the political,
economic, and cultural characteristics of the nationality or
nationalities in the areas concerned. . . .''
\69\ PRC Legislation Law, enacted 15 March 00, art. 9. ``In the
event that no national law has been enacted in respect of a matter
enumerated in Article 8 hereof, the [NPC] and the Standing Committee
thereof have the power to make a decision to enable the State Council
to enact administrative regulations in respect of part of the matters
concerned for the time being, except where the matter relates to crime
and criminal sanctions, the deprivation of a citizen's political
rights, compulsory measure and penalty restricting the personal freedom
of a citizen, and the judicial system.''
\70\ Ibid., art. 66.
\71\ REAL, art. 20. ``If a resolution, decision, order, or
instruction of a state agency at a higher level does not suit the
actual conditions in an ethnic autonomous area, an autonomous agency of
the area may report for the approval of that higher level state agency
to either implement it with certain alterations or cease implementing
it altogether. . . .''
\72\ PRC Legislation Law, art. 66. ``. . . An autonomous decree or
special decree may vary the provisions of a law or administrative
regulation, provided that any such variance may not violate the basic
principles thereof, and no variance is allowed in respect of any
provision of the Constitution or the Law on Ethnic Area Autonomy and
provisions of any other law or administrative regulations which are
dedicated to matters concerning ethnic autonomous areas.''
\73\ PRC Constitution, art. 31.
\74\ State Council Information Office, ``White Paper on Regional
Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet,'' Xinhua (Online), 23 May 04. ``The situation
in Tibet is entirely different from that in Hong Kong and Macao. The
Hong Kong and Macao issue was a product of imperialist aggression
against China; it was an issue of China's resumption of exercise of its
sovereignty. Since ancient times Tibet has been an inseparable part of
Chinese territory, where the Central Government has always exercised
effective sovereign jurisdiction over the region.'' ``Yedor: On the
`Middle Way' of the Dalai Lama,'' China Tibet Information Center
(Online), 18 July 06. ``It is known to all that the ``one country, two
systems'' refers to the fact that the mainland follows the socialist
system while Hong Kong and Macao continue to follow the capitalist
system they had followed before. However, no capitalist system existed
in Tibetan history; . . .''
\75\ CECC, Annual Report 2002, 12 October 02, Sec. 1.
\76\ CECC, Annual Report 2004, 5 October 04, Sec. 1.
\77\ CECC, Annual Report 2006, 20 September 06, Sec. 1.
\78\ Zhang Qingli, ``Grasp the Two Major Affairs of Development and
Stability, Promote the Building of a Harmonious Tibet,'' Seeking Truth,
16 January 07 (Open Source Center, 18 January 07); Tenzing Sonam,
``Roadblock on the Middle Path,'' Himal Magazine (Online), December
2006. ``Why, then, when the Tibetans are officially doing everything
possible to create what the Kashag's Prime Minister, Samdhong Rinpoche,
calls a `conducive atmosphere,' are the Chinese stepping up their
campaign to vilify the Dalai Lama, and denouncing his overtures to find
accommodation?''
\79\ ``China Vows to Tighten Security in Tibet,'' Reuters,
reprinted in Phayul (Online), 21 May 07. TAR Party Secretary Zhang
Qingli told a group of Party members, ``From beginning to end . . . we
must deepen patriotic education at temples, comprehensively expose and
denounce the Dalai Lama clique's political reactionary nature and
religious hypocrisy;'' ``Tibetan Abbot Forced To Step Down,'' Radio
Free Asia (Online), 30 May 07. A Tibetan Buddhist abbot in Gande
county, Guolou Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai province, said
that officials were stepping up patriotic education in the county.
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State,
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices--2006, China (includes Tibet,
Hong Kong, and Macau), 8 March 06. ``Numerous credible sources reported
that political education sessions intensified in Lhasa beginning in
April 2005.''
\80\ Tibet Autonomous Region Implementing Measures for the
``Regulation on Religious Affairs'' [hereinafter TAR 2006 Measures],
issued by the Standing Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region
People's Government on September 19, 2006. The TAR 2006 Measures became
effective on January 1, 2007.
\81\ Ibid. The Measures contain 56 articles (6,221 Chinese
characters). Tibet Autonomous Region Temporary Measures on the
Management of Religious Affairs [hereinafter TAR 1991 Measures], issued
by the Standing Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region People's
Government on December 9, 1991. The measures contain 30 articles (3,355
Chinese characters).
\82\ State Administration for Religious Affairs, Measures on the
Management of the Reincarnation of Living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism
[Zangchuan fojiao huofo zhuanshi guanli banfa] [hereinafter MMR],
issued 13 July 07.
\83\ Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department
of State, International Religious Freedom Report--2006, China (includes
Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau), 15 September 06. ``Although authorities
permitted many traditional religious practices and public
manifestations of belief, they promptly and forcibly suppressed any
activities, which they viewed as vehicles for political dissent. This
included religious activities that officials perceived as supporting
the Dalai Lama or Tibetan independence.''
\84\ CECC Staff Interviews. The Kargyu, Sakya, and Nyingma
traditions, especially in Tibetan areas outside the TAR, may experience
less interference from authorities.
\85\ ``Zhang Qingli becomes new Party chief of Tibet,'' Xinhua
(Online), 29 May 07; ``Xinjiang Communist Party Official Promoted to
Acting Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region,'' CECC China Human
Rights and Rule of Law Update, January 2006, 19. The Party Central
Committee appointed Zhang Qingli to the post of acting TAR Party
Secretary in November 2005, and Secretary on May 29, 2006. Zhang
previously served in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region as Deputy
Party Secretary and commander of the Xinjiang Production and
Construction Corps (XPCC).
\86\ ``TAR Party Secretary Accuses the Dalai Lama of Being a `False
Religious Leader,' '' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law Update,
September 2006, 14.
\87\ The Party and government use the term ``Western hostile
forces'' to include governments, NGOs, advocacy groups, media
organizations, and individuals who criticize Chinese policies, actions,
and records with respect to issues such as human rights, and who work
to encourage or facilitate change in such areas.
\88\ Zhang Qingli, ``Grasp the Two Major Affairs of Development and
Stability.''
\89\ ``China Vows to Tighten Security in Tibet,'' Reuters.
\90\ ``Monk Dies Following Dispute With Patriotic Education
Instructors,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law Update, December
2005, 10. ``A Reader for Advocating Science and Technology and Doing
Away With Superstitions'' (translated by International Campaign for
Tibet in When the Sky Fell to Earth: The New Crackdown on Buddhism in
Tibet, 2004). The manual asks, ``Why do we conduct patriotic education
among monks and nuns in the monasteries?,'' and provides the answer:
``Conducting patriotic education among the monks and nuns in the
monasteries is an important aspect of strengthening the management of
religious affairs by the government. . . . Dalai's bloc has never
stopped penetrating and engaging in splittist activities in our region
under the support of international antagonistic forces. . . . The monks
and nuns should be religious professionals who love the country, love
religion, obey the discipline, and abide by the law.''
\91\ ``Lhasa Area Monks and Nuns Face a New Round of `Patriotic
Education','' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law Update, November
2005, 10; Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Online),
``China Recommences `Patriotic Education' Campaign in Tibet's Monastic
Institutions,'' 13 October 05.
\92\ International Campaign for Tibet (Online), ``The Communist
Party as Living Buddha: The Crisis Facing Tibetan Religion Under
Chinese Control,'' 26 April 2007, 5. Tibetan Centre for Human Rights
and Democracy (Online), Annual Report 2006, March 2006, 39, 41-42.
\93\ ``Tibetan Abbot Forced To Step Down,'' Radio Free Asia. RFA
reports that officials forced an abbot of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery
in Gande (Gade) county, Guoluo (Golog) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture to
step down in May after he refused to sign a statement denouncing the
Dalai Lama. An official of the county Religious Affairs Bureau
allegedly acknowledged that authorities were stepping up patriotic
education.
\94\ ``Zhang Qingli Delivers Major Address at Opening of Party
Conference in Tibet [Xizang quanqu dangyuan lingdao ganbu dahui zhaokai
Zhang Qingli fabiao zhongyao jianghua],'' Tibet Daily, reprinted in
Xinhua (Online), 16 May 06; ``TAR Party Secretary Calls for Tighter
Control of Tibetan Monasteries, Nunneries,'' China Human Rights and
Rule of Law Update, July 2006, 9.
\95\ International Campaign for Tibet, ``The Communist Party as
Living Buddha,'' 37. ICT cites, Xinhua, ``Zhang Qingli: Ensure Tibet's
Leap-over Style Development and Long Term Order and Security [Zhang
Qingli: Quebao Xizang kuayueshi fazhan he changzhi jiuan], 18 May 06.
\96\ RRA, art. 17: ``Venues for religious activities shall set up
management organizations and practice democratic management. Members of
the management organizations of venues for religious activities shall
be selected through democratic consultations and reported as a matter
of record to the registration management organs for the venues.'' (In a
Tibetan monastery or nunnery, a DMC is generally made up of monks or
nuns selected from among themselves. Candidates are sometimes screened
by local officials, according to some reports.)
\97\ International Campaign for Tibet, ``The Communist Party as
Living Buddha,'' 39.
\98\ Ibid.
\99\ Tibet Autonomous Region Temporary Measures on the Management
of Religious Affairs [hereinafter TAR 1991 Measures], issued by the
Standing Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region People's Government
on December 9, 1991, art. 15. ``The Buddhist Association is a mass
organization of personages from religious circles and religious
believers, and a bridge for the Party and government to unite and
educate personages from religious circles and the believing masses. Its
effectiveness shall be vigorously brought into play under the
administrative leadership of the government's religious affairs
department.''
\100\ Regulation on Religious Affairs (RRA) [Zongjiao shiwu
tiaoli], issued 30 November 04.
\101\ Zhang Qingli, ``Grasp the Two Major Affairs of Development
and Stability.''
\102\ ``Regional National Autonomy Is the Only Road for Tibet's
Development, Part One,'' Xinhua, 24 April 07 (Open Source Center, 17
May 07). (Official TAR reports provided the figures of more than 1,700
monasteries and nunneries and 46,000 monks and nuns as early as 1996.)
\103\ Zhang Qingli, ``Grasp the Two Major Affairs of Development
and Stability.''
\104\ Tibet Autonomous Region Implementing Measures for the
``Regulation on Religious Affairs'' [hereinafter TAR 2006 Measures],
issued by the Standing Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region
People's Government on September 19, 2006. The measures became
effective on January 1, 2007.
\105\ RRA, translated on the Web site of China Elections and
Governance.
\106\ TAR 2006 Measures. Of the Measures 56 articles: 7 articles
lay out the ``general principles'' for religious activity; 21 articles
stipulate responsibilities and regulations for ``religious
organizations'' (provincial-level, government-controlled Buddhist
associations) and ``venues for religious activities'' (e.g. monasteries
and nunneries), as well as on activity by monasteries and nunneries; 17
articles regulate religious activity by ``religious personnel'' (e.g.
monks and nuns); 10 articles stipulate punitive measures against
persons or entities that violate the measures; 1 article repeals the
1991 Temporary Measures on the Management of Religious Affairs.
\107\ State Council Information Office, ``White Paper on Regional
Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet,'' Xinhua (Online), 23 May 04. ``At present,
there are over 1,700 venues for Tibetan Buddhist activities, with some
46,000 resident monks and nuns; four mosques and about 3,000 Muslims;
and one Catholic church and over 700 believers in the [Tibet Autonomous
Region].''
\108\ TAR 1991 Measures, issued by the Standing Committee of the
Tibet Autonomous Region People's Government on December 9, 1991.
\109\ TAR 2006 Measures, arts. 36-40.
\110\ RRA, art. 27.
\111\ TAR 1991 Measures, art. 23.
\112\ Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Online), ``Did Tibet Become an
Independent Country After the Revolution of 1911?,'' 15 November 00.
``In 1792 the Twenty-Nine Article Imperial Ordinance was issued. It
stipulated in explicit terms for the reincarnation of the Living
Buddhas in Tibet as well as the administrative, military, and foreign
affairs.'' (The edict sought to impose Qing control over religious,
administrative, military, fiscal, commercial, and foreign affairs. The
edict demanded that an Amban, the ``Resident Official'' representing
the imperial court, would have equal status to the Dalai and Panchen
Lamas, and function as the supervisor of the Tibetan administration.)
\113\ Although the TAR 2006 Measures are government-issued, the
measures depend in part on Democratic Management Committees (DMCs) and
Buddhist associations for effective application. The Party maintains
regular contact with both organizations, and requires each of them to
study and implement Party policies on religion.
\114\ TAR 2006 Measures, art. 36.
\115\ Ibid., art. 37.
\116\ Ibid., art. 38.
\117\ Ibid., art. 39.
\118\ Ibid., art. 39.
\119\ The RRA contains no precedent for restriction on travel by
religious professionals such as Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns. The
TAR 1991 Measures contained no restrictions on intra-provincial travel
by monks and nuns. The Commission does not have on file detailed
information about local rules or practices that may have exceeded the
level of restriction provided for by the TAR 1991 Measures or the RRA.
\120\ TAR 2006 Measures, arts. 41-44.
\121\ ``Practicing religion'' is distinct from studying religion,
which is more strictly regulated. Practicing religion may include
activities such as conducting extended periods of prayer and ritual
offering, or going on pilgrimage. Monks and nuns sometimes conduct
extended periods of prayer and offering while living in seclusion, or
in remote places in a rudimentary shelter.
\122\ TAR 2006 Measures, art. 41. The requirement to report for the
record to the local government's religious affairs bureau could provide
government officials a pretext to discourage, interfere in, or prevent
monks and nuns from engaging in traditional Buddhist practices,
especially living in seclusion or in remote places.
\123\ Ibid., art. 43.
\124\ TAR 1991 Measures, art. 9.
\125\ TAR 2006 Measures, arts. 46-55. The articles use the term
``disqualify,'' not ``expel.'' ``Disqualify'' here means to disqualify
someone from legally practicing religion as a religious professional.
Revoking registration as a ``religious professional'' terminates a
person's legal status as a monk or nun, and the authorization to reside
at a monastery or nunnery in order to study and practice religion.
\126\ Ibid., art. 34. The RRA and TAR 1991 Measures do not
explicitly state such a ban.
\127\ Ibid., art. 53.
\128\ Padmasambhava, or Guru Rinpoche, is regarded as one of the
greatest teachers of Tibetan Buddhism and a central figure in the
oldest tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, the Nyingma.
\129\ Gyurme Dorje, Tibet Handbook, (Bath, England: Trade and
Travel Handbooks, 1996), 235. Samye Monastery was probably constructed
between 775 and 779, although other historical accounts provide
different dates.
\130\ International Campaign for Tibet (Online), ``Demolition of
Giant Buddha Statue at Tibetan Monastery Confirmed by China,'' 14 June
07.
\131\ Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Online),
``Colossal Guru Rinpoche's Statue Demolished in Tibet: China's New
Religious Affairs Regulations for `TAR' Entered Into Force,'' 4 June
07.
\132\ Ibid.
\133\ RRA, art. 24, ``No organizations or individuals other than
religious bodies, monasteries, temples, mosques, and churches may build
large-size outdoor religious statues.'' TAR 2006 Measures, art. 13,
``No group or individual outside of religious organizations and venues
for religious activities may build religious structures such as a
large-scale open-air religious statue, or mani lhakhang [prayer (wheel)
temple].'' (The TAR 1991 Measures do not contain a precedent for
Article 13 of the TAR 2006 Measures.)
\134\ RRA, art. 44, ``Where, in violation of the provisions of
these Regulations, anyone builds a large outdoor religious statue, the
religious affairs department shall order it to discontinue the
construction and to demolish the statue in a specified time limit; . .
.'' TAR 2006 Measures, art. 48, ``Where, in violation of provisions in
Article 13 of these measures, a religious structure such as an outdoor
religious statue, stupa, or mani lhakhang [prayer (wheel) temple] is
built without authorization outside of a venue for religious activity,
the people's government religious affairs department at the county
level or above orders redress, suspension of construction, and
demolition within a specified time limit, in accordance with relevant
laws and regulations.''
\135\ ``Samye Moves Open-air Statue of Buddha,'' China Tibet
Information Center (Online), 9 June 07. ``Samye Monastery made bold to
erect a copper statue of Buddha Padmasambhava in the open air donated
by a related enterprise's principal, which disobeyed the Law of the
People's Republic of China on Protection of Cultural Relics and the
Notice of Illegally Building Open Statue of Buddha jointly issued by
the State Administration for Religious Affairs of People's Republic of
China, Ministry of Construction of the People's Republic of China, and
China National Tourism Administration.''
\136\ Ibid.
\137\ International Campaign for Tibet, ``Demolition of Giant
Buddha Statue at Tibetan Monastery''
\138\ Zhang Qingli, ``Grasp the Two Major Affairs of Development
and Stability.''
\139\ Tibet Information Network (TIN), Background Briefing Papers:
Documents and Statements from Tibet 1996-1997, 1998, 45. A November 4,
1996, article in the Tibet Daily said that the number of monasteries
and nunneries in the TAR (1,787) was too high and that the Party
planned in 1986 that only 229 monasteries would be reopened in the TAR.
The article said that the number of monks and nuns (46,000 in early
1996) was high and created a negative impact on social and economic
development. (The TIN summary of the article did not include any
reference to a Party statement explicitly calling for a reduction in
the number of monasteries, nunneries, monks, and nuns.)
\140\ ``Reincarnation of Tibetan Living Buddhas Must Get Government
Approval,'' Xinhua, reprinted in People's Daily (Online), 3 August 07.
\141\ State Administration for Religious Affairs, Measures on the
Management of the Reincarnation of Living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism
[Zangchuan fojiao huofo zhuanshi guanli banfa] [hereinafter MMR],
issued 13 July 07.
\142\ State Council Information Office, ``White Paper on Regional
Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet,'' Xinhua (Online), 23 May 04. There are
approximately 1,700 monasteries and nunneries and 46,000 monks and nuns
in the TAR. CECC Staff Interviews, September 2003. According to a
Chinese official, there are 655 Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and
nunneries and approximately 21,000 monks and nuns in Qinghai province.
An official in Huangnan (Malho) TAP in eastern Qinghai province
reported that there are 83 monasteries and nunneries, 3,656 monks and
nuns, and 116 Tibetan Buddhist reincarnations in the prefecture. (Based
on the Huangnan figures, the ratio of the number of monasteries and
nunneries in Huangnan to the number of reincarnations is about 1.4 to
1. The ratio of monks and nuns to reincarnations in Huangnan is
approximately 32 to 1.) CECC Staff Interview, April 2004. According to
a Chinese official, in Gansu province there are 276 Tibetan Buddhist
monasteries and nunneries, approximately 10,000 monks and nuns, and 144
Tibetan Buddhist reincarnated teachers. (Based on these figures, the
ratio of the number of monasteries and nunneries in Gansu to the number
of reincarnations is approximately 1.9 to 1. The ratio of monks and
nuns to reincarnations in Gansu is approximately 69 to 1.) Web site of
the Sichuan Province Party Committee Policy Research Office, ``Improve
Capacity to Resolve Minority Issues, Make Efforts to Build a Harmonious
Ganzi,'' 10 August 05. There are 515 Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and
nunneries and 37,916 monks and nuns in Ganzi (Kardze) Tibetan
Autonomous Prefecture (TAP). (The data in these sources total 3,146
Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and nunneries and approximately 115,000
monks and nuns, and do not include monasteries and nunneries in Aba
(Ngaba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and Muli (Mili) Tibetan
Autonomous County in Sichuan province, and Diqing (Dechen) TAP in
Yunnan province.)
\143\ Based on an estimated 3,300 Tibetan monasteries and
nunneries, and extrapolating an estimate by applying the ratio of
monasteries to reincarnations in Gansu province (1.9 to 1) and Huangnan
TAP (1.4 to 1), an estimated total number of reincarnations could be
more than 1,700 (based on the Gansu ratio) and more than 2,300 (based
on the Huangnan ratio). The Gansu and Huangnan data samples are
relatively small, however, and may not provide a reliable estimate. The
Commission has very little information on the number of reincarnated
teachers in the TAR; the proportion there may be lower than in some of
the Tibetan areas of Sichuan and Qinghai provinces.
\144\ ``Reincarnation of Tibetan Living Buddhas Must Get Government
Approval,'' Xinhua, reprinted in People's Daily (Online), 3 August 07.
\145\ MMR, art. 3.
\146\ Ibid., art. 4.
\147\ Xining city, the capital of Qinghai province, has four urban
districts (Chengdong, Chengxi, Chengzhong, and Chengbei), but there are
no Tibetan Buddhist monasteries within the city districts.
\148\ The Commission does not have official information on the
number of reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist teachers at Drepung and Sera
Monasteries, but each monastery has several according to unofficial
reports.
\149\ In comparison to the MMR, only Article 27 of the RRA
addresses reincarnation (requiring government guidance and compliance
with ``historical conventions''). Articles 36-40 of the TAR 2006
Measures address reincarnation, but the measures apply only within the
TAR and do not apply as many detailed requirements as the MMR. Only
Article 23 of the TAR 1991 Measures refers to reincarnation (banning
the involvement of ``foreign forces'' in confirming reincarnations).
\150\ MMR, arts. 3-4.
\151\ Ibid., arts. 5-7.
\152\ Ibid., arts. 4, 7-9
\153\ Ibid., art. 10.
\154\ Ibid., art. 12.
\155\ Ibid., art. 11.
\156\ ` ``Our Own Come First' in the Reincarnation of Living
Buddhas,'' Singtao Daily, 23 August 07 (Open Source Center, 13
September 07). The report does not state the date when the forum took
place.
\157\ ` ``Ibid. ``The meeting stressed that the Tibetan areas must
strictly carry out the Management Measures for the Reincarnation of
`Living Buddhas' in Tibetan Buddhism, that `our own comes first' in the
reincarnation of living Buddhas, and that we must be on guard against
interference by the Dalai Lama clique in exile abroad with the support
of international hostile forces.''
\158\ Ibid.
\159\ The figures for 2004 and 2005, reported by the CECC 2006
Annual Report based on data available in the PPD as of August 2006,
have not changed.
\160\ The Commission's Political Prisoner Database (PPD) is
available Online at http://ppd.cecc.gov.
\161\ The CECC 2005 Annual Report referred to the period 2002-2004
saying, ``About two-thirds of the Tibetan political prisoners detained
from 2002 onward are in Sichuan province, according to the PPD. Half of
them are monks.''
\162\ U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, ``Annual
Report of the Commission on International Religious Freedom,'' 2 May
07, 123. ``The Chinese government acknowledges that more than 100
Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns are being held in prison.'' The report
does not provide a date for the Chinese statement or provide additional
detail.
\163\ Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, ``China
Recommences `Patriotic Education' Campaign in Tibet's Monastic
Institutions.'' For example, TCHRD reported that as many as eight Sera
monastery monks reportedly detained the previous July remained
unidentified. As of September 2007, additional information about the
outcome of their detentions is not available.
\164\ Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Online),
``Human Rights Update, October 2006. For example, TCHRD reported that
Sera Monastery monk Thubten Samten ``disappeared'' in May 2006 after he
behaved in a defiant manner to members of a patriotic education work
team when they warned him not to display prohibited material in his
room. As of September 2007, information about whether or not police
detained him is not available.
\165\ See, for example, International Campaign for Tibet, ``The
Communist Party as Living Buddha: The Crisis Facing Tibetan Religion
Under Chinese Control,'' 26 April 2007, 29, 43, 55, 75.
\166\ U.S. Department of State, International Religious Freedom
Report 2006, China. ``The Government continued to refuse to allow
access to Gendun Choekyi Nyima, . . . and his whereabouts were unknown.
. . . All requests from the international community for access to the
boy to confirm his well-being have been refused.'' ``UN Committee
Recommends Independent Expert to Visit Boy Named As Panchen Lama,''
CECC Virtual Academy (Online), 26 January 06.
\167\ UN Commission on Human Rights (Online), ``Summary of Cases
Transmitted to Governments and Replies Received, 27 March 06, 24-25.
The Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief sent a request
to the Chinese government for information about Gedun Choekyi Nyima on
June 9, 2005. The Chinese government provided a response on September
7, 2005.
\168\ ``It Is Both Illegal and Invalid for the Dalai Lama to
Universally Identify the Reincarnated Soul Boy of the Panchen Lama,''
People's Daily, 1 December 95 (Open Source Center, 1 December 95).
\169\ See CECC Annual Report 2006, Section V(d)--Freedom of
Religion, for additional information about the Panchen Lama and
Gyaltsen Norbu.
\170\ Tibet Information Network, Background Briefing Papers:
Documents and Statements from Tibet 1996-1997, 1998, 45. A November 4,
1996, article in the Tibet Daily said that there were 1,787 monasteries
and nunneries in the TAR, and 46,000 monks and nuns. Tabulation on
Nationalities of 2000 Population Census of China, Table 10-4. The
Tibetan population of the TAR was 2,427,168 in 2000. (If the government
enumeration of monks and nuns is accurate, then 1.9 percent of the TAR
Tibetan population are Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns, and 98 percent
are living in secular society.)
\171\ The Gelug tradition, established in the late 14th century, is
the largest of several traditions of Tibetan Buddhism that are
currently practiced. The Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama are the most
revered spiritual teachers of the Gelug.
\172\ CECC Staff Interviews.
\173\ International Campaign for Tibet (Online), ``Tibetans Banned
From Marking Traditional Buddhist Anniversary,'' 9 January 07. ``All
members of the Communist Party, government employees, retired cadres
and staff, cadres and workers of business and enterprise work units and
people's collectives, and the broad masses of young students are not
permitted to participate in or observe celebrations of the Gaden
Ngachoe Festival.'' (Gaden Ngachoe observes the passing in 1419 of
Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, of
which the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama are the most revered spiritual
teachers. The observance takes place on the 25th day of the 11th lunar
month on the Tibetan calendar, December 15 in 2006.)
\174\ Saga Dawa falls on the 15th day (the full moon) of the 4th
month of the Tibetan lunar calendar. The day commemorates both the
enlightenment and passing away of the Buddha. Saga Dawa fell on June 11
in 2006, and on May 31 in 2007.
\175\ Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Online),
``China intensifies prohibition of religious activities in Tibet during
the holy month of Saka Dawa,'' 19 May 07.
\176\ CECC Staff Interviews.
\177\ U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices--2006, China. ``Government officials reportedly ordered
Tibetans working for the government to refrain from going to temples
during the Saga Dawa festival in May or risk losing their jobs.''
\178\ ``Dalai Lama's Birthday celebrated by Tibetans across
Tibet,'' Phayul (Online), 5 July 07.
\179\ ``Work Report of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Government,''
Tibet Daily, 29 January 03 (Open Source Center, 16 June 03). Legchog
(Lieque), then-Chairman of the TAR government, said, ``We carried out
the work to confiscate and ban reactionary propaganda materials,
cracked down on illegal exit to and entry from other countries, and
checked ``Trunglha Yarsol'' [activities to mark the birthday of the
Dalai Lama] and other illegal activities.''
\180\ U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices--2006, China. The report refers to the Dalai Lama's birthday
in July 2006, saying, ``The prohibition on celebrating the Dalai Lama's
birthday on July 6 continued.''
\181\ ``Dalai Lama's Birthday celebrated by Tibetans across
Tibet,'' Phayul.
\182\ ``Grand Western Development Is a Vivacious Chapter in
Implementation of `Three Represents','' People's Daily, 20 October 02
(Open Source Center, 20 October 02). ``Since 1999, Comrade Jiang Zemin
has frequently presided over meetings to specifically study the issue
of implementing the strategy of great western development and has
issued a series of important directives. In early 2000, the State
Council founded a leading group for the development of the western
region and presented the strategy of great western development.'' State
Council, ``Some Opinions of the State Council on Continuing to Press
Ahead with the Development of the Western Region,'' Xinhua, 22 March 04
(Open Source Center, 29 March 04). ``Practice provides ample evidence
that the strategic decision by the CPC Central Committee and the State
Council to develop the west is entirely correct and that all policy
measures and key tasks pertaining to the development of the western
region are entirely consistent with reality.'' (The statement shows
that the State Council considers implementation of GWD to be a matter
of policy.)
\183\ CECC, 2002 Annual Report, 40.
\184\ ``Qinghai-Tibet Railway Project to Start on June 29,'' Xinhua
(Online), 17 June 01. Railway construction was scheduled to begin on
June 29, 2001. Completion would take six years.
\185\ CECC, 2002 Annual Report, 40.
\186\ CECC, 2003 Annual Report, 78.
\187\ Ibid., 81.
\188\ CECC, 2004 Annual Report, 97.
\189\ Ibid., 97-98.
\190\ CECC, 2005 Annual Report, 108
\191\ Ibid., 109.
\192\ CECC, 2006 Annual Report, 166.
\193\ Ibid., 168.
\194\ CECC, 2002 Annual Report, 41. ``The Commission recommends
that the Congress appropriate increased funding for NGOs to develop
programs that improve the health, education, and economic conditions of
ethnic Tibetans.'' CECC, 2003 Annual Report, 4. ``The Congress should
increase funding for U.S. nongovernmental organizations (Ngos) to
develop programs that improve the health, education, and economic
conditions of ethnic Tibetans living in Tibetan areas of China, and
create direct, sustainable benefits for Tibetans without encouraging an
influx of non-Tibetans into these areas.
\195\ Li Dezhu, ``Large-Scale Development of Western China and
China's Nationality Problem,'' Seeking Truth, 15 June 00 (Open Source
Center, 15 June 00). Li Dezhu (Li Dek Su) addresses the social and
ethnic implications of the program that Jiang Zemin launched in 1999.
(The campaign is also known as Develop the West, and as Xibu da kaifa.)
\196\ ``Zhang Qingli Addresses `First Plenum' of Tibet Military
District Party Committee,'' Tibet Daily, 20 April 07 (Open Source
Center, 8 May 07).
\197\ ``Hu Jintao,'' China Tibet Information Center (Online),
visited 2 August 07.
\198\ ``Hu Jintao Takes Part in Deliberations by Delegation of
Tibet Deputies,'' Xinhua, 5 March 07 (Open Source Center), 5 March 07.
Hu met with TAR delegates including Zhang Qingli and Jampa Phuntsog.
\199\ PRC Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law [hereinafter REAL], enacted
31 May 84, amended 28 February 01.
\200\ See, for example, REAL, amended 28 February 01, arts. 54-72.
\201\ PRC Constitution, art. 4. ``The people of all nationalities
have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written
languages, and to preserve or reform their own ways and customs.''
\202\ REAL, enacted 31 May 84, art. 65.
\203\ REAL, amended 28 February 01, art. 71.
\204\ ``Education, Employment Top Concerns for Tibetan Youth,''
Radio Free Asia (Online), 13 July 07; ``Tibetans Stage Rare Public
Protest in Lhasa,'' Radio Free Asia (Online), 8 November 06; Tibetan
Government-in-Exile, ``Abuse in Job Allocation in Tibet Drives Students
to Streets,'' 6 December 06. ``Tibetan University Graduates Stage
Public Protest, Allege Job Discrimination,'' CECC Virtual Academy
(Online), 15 December 06.
\205\ REAL, enacted 31 May 84, art. 65.
\206\ CECC, 2006 Annual Report, 169, citing Ma Rong and Tanzen
Lhundup, ``Temporary Migrants in Lhasa in 2005,'' Section IV(4.8),
Table 14. Based on a survey published by Chinese academics Ma Rong and
Tanzen Lhundup, the rate of illiteracy among Tibetan migrants (32.3
percent) was almost 10 times higher than for Han migrants (3.3
percent), and Han migrants were better prepared to secure jobs that
require skills learned in junior or senior middle school. Of the
migrants surveyed, Han reached junior or senior middle school at about
twice the rate of Tibetans: 53.7 percent of Han compared to 26 percent
of Tibetans reached junior middle school, and 19.4 percent of Han
compared to 9 percent of Tibetans reached senior middle school.
\207\ REAL, amended 28 February 01, art. 71.
\208\ Provisions of the State Council for Implementing the Law on
Regional Ethnic Autonomy of the People's Republic of China [hereinafter
REAL Implementing Provisions], issued 11 May 05.
\209\ ``PRC Western Development Official on 4 Key Aspects of New
Preferential Policies,'' China Daily, 23 October 00 (Open Source
Center, 23 October 00). ``Wang Chunzheng, deputy director of the State
Council's Western Development Office, said the policies focus on four
key aspects; increasing capital input, improving the investment
environment, attracting skilled personnel and boosting the development
of science and technology. This is the first time that China has
summarized the measures to be carried out in its `Go-West' campaign, .
. .''
\210\ REAL Implementing Measures, art. 29. ``The State encourages
and supports talents of all categories and classes to develop and
pioneer in ethnic autonomous areas and local government shall offer
preferential and convenient working and living conditions to them.
Dependents and children of cadres of Han nationality or ethnic
minorities who go to work in remote, tough, and frigid ethnic
autonomous areas shall enjoy special treatment in employment and
schooling.''
\211\ REAL, amended 28 February 01, art. 22.
\212\ Li Dezhu, ``Large-Scale Development of Western China and
China's Nationality Problem.''
\213\ ``Law on Western Development in Pipeline,'' China Daily
(Online), 14 March 06.
\214\ TAR Regulations on the Study, Use and Development of the
Tibetan Language [hereinafter TAR Language Regulations], adopted July
9, 1987, by the Fifth Session of the Fourth TAR People's Congress, and
amended on May 22, 2002, by the Fifth Session of the Seventh TAR
People's Congress.
\215\ TAR Language Regulations, arts. 3-5. Mandarin and Tibetan
have ``equal effect'' when government agencies at any level in the TAR
are ``carrying out their duties.'' Government and regional enterprise
meetings may use either or both of the Tibetan and Mandarin languages.
Official documents must be issued in both languages. Citizens of ethnic
minorities are ``assured of the right to use their native language to
carry out legal proceedings.''
\216\ State Council Information Office, White Paper on New Progress
in Human Rights in the Tibet Autonomous Region, February 1998.
\217\ ``Report on the Outline of The 10th Five-Year Plan for
National Economic and Social Development by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji
at the Opening of the Fourth Session of the Ninth National People's
Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing,'' China Central
Television, 5 March 01 (Open Source Center, 5 March 01). Premier Zhu
said, ``During the Tenth Five-Year Plan period, we need to place
emphasis on key projects for a good beginning to the program. . . . We
must focus on a number of major projects of strategic significance,
such as the transmission of natural gas and electricity from western to
eastern regions and the planned Qinghai-Tibet Railway.'' State Council
Office of Western Region Development, ``Implementation Opinions
Concerning Policies and Measures Pertaining to the Development of the
Western Region,'' Xinhua, 20 December 01 (Open Source Center, 15
January 01). ``Resources must be concentrated on the construction of a
host of major projects that impact the development of the western
region as a whole, such as the ``West China-East China Gas Pipeline
Project,'' the ``West China-East China Power Transmission Project,''
the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, major state highways, and the proper
exploitation, conservation, and utilization of water resources.''
\218\ ``Figures Related to Qinghai-Tibet Railway on its One Year
Inauguration Anniversary,'' Xinhua (Online), 01 July 07.
\219\ Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (Online),
Annual Report 2006, 02 March 07, 5. ``The railway facilitating a huge
population influx, including Chinese settlers into Tibet, is bound to
inevitably change Tibet physically and culturally causing further
alienation of Tibetan identity.''
\220\ ``Education, Employment Top Concerns for Tibetan Youth,''
Radio Free Asia (Online), 13 July 2007. The report does not refer to
the Qinghai-Tibet railway or to an increase in the Chinese population.
It cites the increasing importance of having fluency in Mandarin
language in order to secure a good job. The other factor necessary for
finding a job is ``making the right connections.''
\221\ ``Tibet Official: Tibet Not to be ``Assimilated'' by Han Amid
Huge Investment,'' Xinhua (Online), 20 June 07. Jampa Phuntsog
supported his assertion by pointing out, ``The customs and traditional
festivals also remain unchanged after millions of tourists flock there
following the central government's large amount investment in the
region.''
\222\ ``Figures Related to Qinghai-Tibet Railway on its One Year
Inauguration Anniversary,'' Xinhua. ``A year after its inauguration,
the railway has transported 1.5 million passengers into Tibet, nearly
half of the total tourists arrivals in the region.''
\223\ ``Tibetan Railway to Transport 4,000 More Tourists Each
Day,'' China Tibet Information Center (Online), 22 May 06.
\224\ ``Tibet Expects 6 Million Tourist Arrivals by 2010,'' Xinhua,
reprinted in People's Daily (Online), 7 June 07. ``The region hosted
more than 2.5 million tourists last year, including 154,800 from
overseas.'' ``More Than 1.1 mln Tourists Visit Tibet in First Half
Year,'' Xinhua (Online), 11 July 07. ``More than 1.1 million tourists
traveled to Tibet in the first six months of the year, up 86.3 percent
over the same period last year, according to the local tourism
authority.''
\225\ ``Qinghai-Tibet Railway Transports 270,000 Passengers,''
Xinhua (Online), 14 September 06. ``About 40 percent of the passengers
were tourists, 30 percent business people and the rest students,
transient workers, traders and people visiting relatives in Tibet.''
\226\ ``Tibet Rail Construction Completed,'' China Daily (Online),
15 October 05. ``The line is expected to attract tourists, traders and
ethnic Chinese settlers who currently have to take either expensive
flights to Lhasa or bone-shaking bus rides.''
\227\ ``Callers Decry Impact of Tibet Railway,'' Radio Free Asia
(Online), 31 July 07.
\228\ Ibid.
\229\ Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Online),
``Tibetan People in Lhasa Reel Under Influx of Chinese Migrants,'' 3
August 07.
\230\ John K. Fairbank and Roderick MacFarquhar, eds., The
Cambridge History of China, Vol. 14, (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1978), 368: ``Map 7. Railway Construction between 1949 and
1960.'' The railroads linking Jining, Hohhot, and Baotou in Inner
Mongolia were built before the PRC was founded.
\231\ State Council Information Office, ``White Paper on History
and Development of Xinjiang,'' Xinhua (Online), 26 May 03.
\232\ Tabulation on Nationalities of 2000 Population Census of
China, Department of Population, Social, Science and Technology
Statistics, National Bureau of Statistics, and Department of Economic
Development, State Ethnic Affairs Commission (Beijing: Ethnic
Publishing House, September 2003) Table 10-1: total population of the
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR) was 23,323,347, of whom
18,465,586 were Han; total population of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous
Region (XUAR) was 18,459,511, of whom 7,489,919 were Han; total
population of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) was 2,616,329, of whom
158,570 were Han. Table 10-2: total Mongol population of the IMAR was
3,995,349. Table 10-5: total Uighur population of the XUAR was
8,345,622. Table 10-4: total Tibetan population of the TAR was
2,427,168. In the IMAR, the ratio of Han to Mongol was approximately
4.6:1; in the XUAR, the ratio of Han to Uighur was approximately 0.9:1;
in the TAR, the ratio of Han to Tibetan was approximately 0.07:1
\233\ Human Rights Watch (Online), ` ``No One Has the Liberty to
Refuse'--Tibetan Herders Forcibly Relocated in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan,
and the Tibet Autonomous Region,'' 11 June 07, 3. A Tibetan herder from
Maqin (Machen) county, Guoluo (Golog) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in
Qinghai province (November 2004): ``They are destroying our Tibetan
[herder] communities by not letting us live in our area and thus wiping
out our livelihood completely, making it difficult for us to survive in
this world, as we have been [herders] for generations. The Chinese are
not letting us carry on our occupation and forcing us to live in
Chinese-built towns, which will leave us with no livestock and we won't
be able to do any other work. . . .''
\234\ Zhang Qingli, ``Grasp the Two Major Affairs of Development
and Stability, Promote the Building of a Harmonious Tibet,'' Seeking
Truth, 16 January 07 (Open Source Center, 18 January 07).
\235\ Human Rights Watch, ``No One Has the Liberty to Refuse,'' 3.
According to the report, the current program to settle nomadic herders
began in 2000 and has intensified in some areas since 2003.
\236\ Zhang Qingli, ``Grasp the Two Major Affairs of Development
and Stability.''
\237\ Hu Jintao served as the TAR Communist Party Secretary from
1988-1992.
\238\ ``Hu Jintao Takes Part in Deliberations by Delegation of
Tibet Deputies,'' Xinhua, 5 March 07 (Open Source Center), 5 March 07.
\239\ Zhang Qingli, ``Grasp the Two Major Affairs of Development
and Stability.''
\240\ Ibid.
\241\ Ibid.
\242\ Human Rights Watch, ``No One Has the Liberty to Refuse,'' 3.
\243\ Ibid., 27.
\244\ Ibid., 17-18. ``The [policy] known as `revert pasture to
grassland' (tuimu huancao), was aimed at reversing degradation in
pastoral regions by imposing total, temporary, or seasonal bans on
grazing.''
\245\ Ibid., 45. ``Tibetan herders had pursued their way of life
for centuries without causing harm to the grassland; damage emerged
only after the imposition of policies such as collectivization.''
\246\ Ibid., 26-38.
\247\ Ibid. The report provides as examples art. 13 (``the right of
citizens to own lawfully earned income, savings, houses and other
lawful property''); art. 41 (``the right to criticize and make
suggestions,'' ``the right to make to relevant state organs complaints
and charges against, or exposures of, violation of the law or
dereliction of duty''); and art. 111 (``committees for people's
mediation,'' ``mediate civil disputes,'' ``convey residents' opinions
and demands and make suggestions to the people's government'').
\248\ Ibid., 57.
\249\ Ibid., 43.
\250\ ``More Nomadic Tibetan Herders Settle Down,'' Xinhua
(Online), 2 September 04; ``Government Campaign to Settle Tibetan
Nomads Moving Toward Completion,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of
Law Update, November 2005, 8.
\251\ Hamish McDonald, ``China Anxious To Prove Settled Life is
Better for Tibetan Nomads,'' Sydney Morning Herald (Online), 5 October
05; ``Government Campaign to Settle Tibetan Nomads Moving Toward
Completion,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law Update, November
2005, 8.
\252\ CECC Staff Interviews. The nomad families lived in Gannan
(Kanlho) TAP and Tianzhu (Pari) Tibetan Autonomous County. ``Government
Campaign to Settle Tibetan Nomads Moving Toward Completion,'' CECC
China Human Rights and Rule of Law Update, November 2005, 8.
\253\ ``Tibet Official Denies Forced Relocation of Herdsmen,''
Xinhua (Online), 20 June 07.
\254\ Ibid.
\255\ ``Zhang Qingli Addresses `First Plenum' of Tibet Military
District Party Committee,'' Tibet Daily, 20 April 07 (Open Source
Center, 8 May 07). ``250,000 Tibetans move into new houses in 2006,''
China Tibet Information Center (Online), 16 January 07. ``The ``Housing
Project'' which has been put into operation since 2006 aims at
improving locals' living condition and special attention has been put
into the house renovation, nomads' settle-down and moving because of
endemic [local health problems].''
\256\ ``Party Chief Brings Tibet New Homes,'' China Daily,
reprinted in People's Daily (Online), 15 March 07.
\257\ Ibid.
\258\ Tabulation on Nationalities of 2000 Population Census of
China. Table 1-2 shows 2,427,168 Tibetans in the TAR. Table 1-2c shows
that 2,058,011 of them are classified as ``rural.''
\259\ ``250,000 Tibetans move into new houses in 2006,'' China
Tibet Information Center (Online), 16 January 07. The article states,
``The ``Housing Project'' mostly reduces the cost of building houses
for local Tibetans as the subsidy varying from 10,000 yuan to 25,000
yuan has been offered to locals.''
\260\ ``Party Chief Brings Tibet New Homes,'' China Daily. ``It
would cost a rural Tibetan about 60,000 yuan to build a new house with
a floor space of about 200 square meters. Part of that money could come
from the autonomous region's government. Farmers can apply to receive
10,000 yuan; a herdsman can apply for 15,000 yuan; and a resident of a
poverty-stricken area can seek up to 25,000 yuan.''
\261\ Human Rights Watch (Online), ``Tibet: China Must End Rural
Reconstruction Campaign,'' 20 December 06.
\262\ Ibid. ``The cost of building a new house that meets the
government's standards is about US$5,000-US$6,000, though the
government lends households only about US$1,200 for construction
costs.''
\263\ ``Tibet Population Tops 2.8 Million,'' Xinhua (Online), 12
April 07. In the TAR in 2006, ``Farmers and herders posted a per capita
net annual income of 2,435 yuan, . . .'' ``China's GDP Grows 10.7% in
2006,'' China Daily, reprinted in Xinhua, 25 January 07. In 2006,
``Last year, rural residents in China had their per-capita income
increase by 10.2 percent to 3,587 yuan.'' (Based on these figures, the
average rural income in the TAR is 68 percent of the national average.)
\264\ Human Rights Watch, ``Tibet: China Must End Rural
Reconstruction Campaign.''
\265\ ``Tibet is Remade by Hand of Chinese Government by Force,''
McClatchy Newspapers, 29 July 07, reprinted in Phayul, 30 July 07.
\266\ Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Online), Human
Rights Update and Archives, ``The Rural Reconstruction Campaign in
Tibet Against the Will and Wishes of the Residents,'' April 2007.
\267\ Ibid.
\268\ Ibid.
\269\ See, e.g., the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted
and proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10
December 48, arts. 2, 7, 18, 19, 20; International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights (ICCPR) adopted by General Assembly resolution
2200A (XXI) of 16 December 66, entry into force 23 March 76, arts.
2(1), 18, 19, 21, 22, 26, 27; International Covenant on Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) adopted by General Assembly
resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 66, entry into force 3 January
76, art. 2(1, 2).
\270\ ``China to Monitor Ethnic Relations,'' Xinhua (Online), 29
March 07. The State Council announced a monitoring mechanism to deal
with ``emergencies resulting from ethnic issues.'' The mechanism aims
to ``clamp down on ethnic separatism so as to safeguard ethnic unity,
social stability, and national security.'' (The report provides an
update about government efforts to crack down on what it deems to be
ethno-nationalism.)
\271\ CECC, 2002 Annual Report, 38.
\272\ PRC Constitution, art. 54.
\273\ CECC, 2006 Annual Report, 170-71.
\274\ PRC Criminal Law, art. 103 (``organize, plot or carry out the
scheme of splitting the State or undermining unity of the country;''
``incites others to split the State or undermine unity of the
country''). The Commission's Political Prisoner Database does not
contain official charge information for many Tibetan cases, but
official Chinese media reports, as well as unofficial reports,
frequently provide information indicating a charge of splittism.
\275\ Ibid., art. 102-113.
\276\ Dui Hua Dialogue, ``Official Responses Reveal Many Sentence
Adjustments,'' Fall 2006, 6; ``Officials Extend Tibetan's Sentence for
Shouting Pro-Dalai Lama Slogans in Prison,'' CECC China Human Rights
and Rule of Law Update, December 2006, 17.
\277\ ``Chinese Court Has Jailed More Than 20 `Reactionary'
Tibetans Since 1996,'' Radio Free Asia (Online), 1 September 05;
``Court Official Acknowledges Imprisoning Tibetans Who Carried Dalai
Lama Photos Into the TAR,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law
Update, October 2005, 4-5.
\278\ ``Tibetan Jailed for Three Years,'' Radio Free Asia (Online),
9 March 07. (The RFA report did not provide information about the
charges against Penpa. Charges arising from possessing material
pertaining to the Dalai Lama are likely to be based on Article 103 of
the Criminal Law (inciting splittism).)
\279\ Ibid. (The RFA report did not provide information about the
charges against Penpa. Charges arising from possessing material
pertaining to the Dalai Lama are likely to be based on Article 103 of
the Criminal Law (inciting splittism).)
\280\ ``Three Tibetan Women Arrested in Lhasa,'' Phayul (Online),
15 June 06; ``Chinese Authorities Detain Five Tibetans for Alleged
Leafleting,'' Radio Free Asia (Online), 16 June 06; ``Tibetan Monk
Faces Eight Years for Separatism,'' Radio Free Asia (Online), 14 July
06; ``China Detains Teenage Girl for Writing Pro-Independence
Leaflets,'' Radio Free Asia (Online), 18 August 06; ``China Detains
Tibetan Abbot in Sichuan,'' Radio Free Asia (Online), 7 September 06;
``Another Tibetan Monk Arrested,'' Radio Free Asia (Online), 19
September 06;; ``Officials Detain Nine Tibetan Residents of Sichuan for
Links to Leaflets, Posters,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law
Update, November 2006, 3-4.
\281\ ``China Detains Teenage Girl for Writing Pro-Independence
Leaflets,'' Radio Free Asia.
\282\ ``Tibetan Monk Faces Eight Years for Separatism,'' Radio Free
Asia; ``Another Tibetan Monk Arrested,'' Radio Free Asia. Namkha
Gyaltsen was reportedly held in a detention center in Aba (Ngaba)
Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province, according
to RFA, and Lobsang Palden is presumed to be detained in Ganzi TAP.
\283\ ``China Detains Tibetan Abbot in Sichuan,'' Radio Free Asia.
\284\ Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Online),
``Monk Sentenced to Five Years Term for Distributing Political
Pamphlets,'' 14 November 06.
\285\ Dui Hua Dialogue, ``Summary of Recent Prisoner Responses,''
Spring 2007, 7.
\286\ Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Online),
``Former Tibetan Political Prisoner Served With 12 Years Prison Term,''
24 November 06. According to the TCHRD report, Sonam Gyalpo's family
appealed his case. No additional information is available about the
appeal.
\287\ Dui Hua Dialogue, ``Summary of Recent Prisoner Responses.''
\288\ TibetInfoNet (Online), ``Detentions Before 40th Anniversary
of TAR,'' 9 September 2005.
\289\ Ibid. Sonam Gyalpo was sentenced to three years' imprisonment
in TAR Prison (Drapchi) after he supported a protest march by monks in
Lhasa on September 27, 1987. He was held without charge for about one
year in the TAR Police Detention Center (Sitru) after July 1993, when
he returned to the TAR following an undocumented visit to India. Dui
Hua Dialogue, ``Summary of Recent Prisoner Responses.'' Dui Hua reports
that, according to the official Chinese response, Sonam Gyalpo was
sentenced to three years in prison in January 1989 for
``counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement.'' (It is not clear
whether the three-year sentence began in 1987 or 1989.)
\290\ Dui Hua Dialogue, ``Summary of Recent Prisoner Responses.''
\291\ Ibid.
\292\ Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Online),
``Commentary Manuscript Lands Tibetan Youth Ten Years in Prison,'' 25
July 06.
\293\ Ibid.
\294\ International Campaign for Tibet (Online), ``Tibetan Scholar
Sentenced to Ten Years in Prison After Writing Book on History and
Culture,'' 8 August 06.
\295\ Dui Hua Dialogue, ``Summary of Recent Prisoner Responses,''
Spring 2007, 7.
\296\ International Campaign for Tibet, ``Tibetan Scholar Sentenced
to Ten Years.'' ICT obtained a copy of the letter.
\297\ ``Official Information Confirms Sentence for Tibetan Nun Who
Put Up Posters,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law Update,
December 2006, 17.
\298\ Free Tibet Campaign (Online), ``Four Monks and Nuns Arrested
for Displaying Dalai Lama Poster,'' 30 January 06; ``Gansu Court
Sentences Five Tibetan Monks and Nuns for Protest Posters,'' CECC China
Human Rights and Rule of Law Update, March 2006, 10-11; Radio Free Asia
(Online), ``China Arrests Tibetan Monks, Nuns for Dalai Lama Poster,''
20 December 05; Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Online),
``Arrest of Tibetan Monks for Postings Calling for Freedom in Tibet,''
15 July 05; ``Official Information Confirms Sentence for Tibetan Nun
Who Put Up Posters,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law Update,
December 2006, 17.
\299\ ``Five Tibetan Monks Jailed in Western China,'' Radio Free
Asia (Online), 13 February 05; Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and
Democracy, Human Rights Update February 2005, ``Monks Imprisoned for
Political Journal,'' April 2005.
\300\ International Campaign for Tibet (Online), ``Long Sentences
for Tibetan Political Prisoners for `Splittist' Offences,'' 12 May 06.
The ICT report contains a link to an ICT translation of the sentencing
document. ``Lhasa Court Commutes Life Sentence for Children's Home
Director to 19 Years,'' CECC China Human Rights and Rule of Law Update,
April 2006, 16. The sentencing document lists evidence against Bangri
Chogtrul that includes meeting the Dalai Lama, accepting a donation for
the home from a foundation in India, and a business relationship with a
Tibetan contractor who lowered a Chinese flag in Lhasa in 1999 and
tried to blow himself up. Jigme Tenzin Nyima acknowledged meeting the
Dalai Lama, accepting the contribution, and knowing the contractor, but
he denied the charges against him and rejected the court's portrayal of
events.
\301\ Dui Hua (Online), ``Dui Hua Executive Director Attends
Trials, Explores Judicial Openness, Clemency Granted to Tibetan Monk,
Labor Activist,'' 28 February 06.
\302\ ``The Execution of Lobsang Dondrub and the Case Against
Tenzin Deleg: The Law, the Courts, and the Debate on Legality,'' Topic
Paper of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, February
2003; Human Rights Watch (Online), Trials of a Tibetan Monk: The Case
of Tenzin Delek, 9 February 04.
\303\ Ibid.
\304\ ``Tibetan Monk Involved in Terrorist Bombing Still in
Prison,'' Xinhua (Online), 31 December 04.
\305\ Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Online), ``A
Tibetan Arrested in Lithang for Political Demonstration,'' 2 August 07.
\306\ International Campaign for Tibet (Online), ``Security
Crackdown Feared Following Public Appeal by Tibetan for Return of Dalai
Lama,'' 2 August 07; ``Scores of Tibetans Detained for Protesting at
Festival,'' Radio Free Asia (Online), 2 August 07.
\307\ International Campaign for Tibet (Online), ``Official
Petition on Dalai Lama May Have Provoked Lithang Action,'' 10 August
07. According to an ICT source: ``'It seems that most of the local
population knew about this petition being circulated by officials, and
it caused an increase in tension and anxiety. People in this area
revere His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Runggye Adak's action could
have been a response to this provocative move by officials. Local
people may have somehow wanted to demonstrate that this petition is a
lie, and did not represent the wishes of Tibetans in Lithang.''
\308\ ``Villager Detained for Inciting Separation,'' Xinhua,
reprinted in China Daily (Online), 3 August 07.
\309\ International Campaign for Tibet (Online), ``New Images
Confirm Dispersal of Tibetans by Armed Police After Lithang Protest:
Runggye Adak's Relatives Taken Into Custody,'' 24 August 07.
\310\ Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Online), ``The
Chinese Authorities Transfer Adruk Lopoe to an Unknown Location, Arrest
Another Tibetan Nomad,'' 28 August 07; International Campaign for
Tibet, ``New Images Confirm Dispersal of Tibetans by Armed Police After
Lithang Protest.'' Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy
(Online), ``China Arrest Three Nephews of Ronggye A'drak in Lithang,''
22 August 07.
\311\ Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (Online), ``The
Chinese Authorities Transfer Adruk Lopoe to an Unknown Location, Arrest
Another Tibetan Nomad,'' 28 August 07.
\312\ Human Rights in China (Online), ``Tibetan Schoolboys Detained
as Crackdown Worsens,'' 20 September 07.
\313\ Ibid. The students allegedly wrote slogans on walls of the
village police station, and elsewhere in the village.
\314\ Ibid. According to the report, authorities held the students
at a village police station from September 7-9 and allowed families to
access the children.
\315\ It is commonplace for multiple Tibetans in the same community
to have identical names. Generally, Tibetan names do not include a
family name.
\316\ The number of known cases of current Tibetan political
detention or imprisonment reported in CECC Annual Reports: 2002 Annual
Report, 39, ``less than 200,'' based on a 2002 report by the Tibet
Information Network (TIN); 2003 Annual Report, 79, ``approximately
150,'' based on a March 2003 TIN report; 2004 Annual Report, 101, ``145
prisoners,'' based on a February 2004 TIN report; 2005 Annual Report,
112, ``120 current cases,'' based on CECC Political Prisoner Database
information current in June 2005; 2006 Annual Report, 171, ``103 known
cases of current Tibetan political detention or imprisonment,'' based
on PPD information current in August 2006.
\317\ Dui Hua Dialogue, ``Official Responses Reveal Many Sentence
Adjustments.''
\318\ United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention, Decisions adopted by the Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention, Decision No. 65/1993, 5 October 94.