According to Tibet’s exiled leader, the Chinese government’s plans to obliterate cultural identity via procedures like to those used to erase Australia’s stolen generation have made George Orwell’s 1984 a reality in Tibet.
Penpa Tsering, the exiled president of Tibet, said that the region’s conditions had reached a level equivalent to those of South Sudan and Syria and that the Chinese government is “striking the very identity of Tibetan people” in an effort to eradicate the culture. “If anyone has read George Orwell’s 1984, that has come into reality in China and more so in the Tibetan region,” said Mr. Tsering on Wednesday at the National Press Club in Canberra.
He described the miserable circumstances in which Tibetans had to live under Chinese authority, including restrictions on information flow and freedom of travel as well as ongoing government monitoring.
“Locking Tibet away is what China attempts to do. Tell the world that Tibet is a communist paradise by turning it into a big jail where nobody is allowed to enter or exit, he said. The Tibetan government has repressed all aspects of its culture, including its primary religion of Buddhism, where CCTV has been installed in every monastery to monitor the movements of monks and nuns.
Artificial intelligence has been used to track Tibetans residing in the area, including electronic identification, geolocation, and DNA collection for profiling.
The president said, “This is intended to completely eradicate the uniqueness of the ethnicities so that everything becomes Chinese. Details of Tibetan children being taken from their families and placed in boarding schools with “colonial-style” living arrangements bring to mind Australia’s own stolen generation.
Mr. Tsering said that when Chinese authorities were reminded of their previous transgressions, they refrained by referring to the US and Australia among other nations.
China is aware of the errors made by these countries. The Tibetan people are being mistreated by the Chinese government on purpose and with knowledge.
According to Mr. Tsering, there will be major repercussions for Tibetans’ ability to keep their identity as a result of China’s announcement that it aims to discontinue Tibetan lessons in the Golong area starting in 2024 and perhaps spreading it to the whole region.
China wants to progress toward having one culture, one country, and one language while the rest of the world is going toward pluralism, thus they have made Mandarin the official language. Mr. Tsering urged the Albanese government to uphold its legal obligations and punish individuals in charge of the violations of human rights in the manner of Magnitsky.
“The Australian government has sanctioned Iran, Burma, and Russia, but when it comes to China, then everybody closes down a little bit,” the president added.
“If it’s a foreign policy, everyone has to be treated equally,”
The exiled leader isn’t calling for a total separation from China; rather, he is in favor of the “Middle Way approach” put forward by the Dalai Lama, which would allow for more autonomy for Tibetans while still keeping them subject to Chinese rule.
“We’re not asking for independence,” he said.
It doesn’t matter who reigns. It is a characteristic of the rule.
