This week, Beijing’s top diplomat in New York, Chinese consul-general Huang Ping, defended the CCP’s policy of forcibly assimilating young Tibetans into Chinese culture.
Beijing’s policy of forcing children to attend Chinese-government boarding schools, where they are effectively stripped of their Tibetan identity and required to parrot CCP propaganda, was recently detailed in a report by the Tibet Action Institute, a nonprofit focused on human rights in the region. Many Tibetan youngsters, maybe as many as 1 million, have been coerced into attending school.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken indicated this week that the State Department will limit visas for officials participating in the forced-assimilation effort in light of these findings. Blinken stated in a statement, “These oppressive policies aim to wipe out the Tibetan language, culture, and religion among the younger generations of Tibetans.” He did not identify which government employees will be subject to the new rules.
That seems to have been what led Huang to make his Twitter debut yesterday. Sharing an article from the CCP’s propaganda organ China Daily, he urged his audience to “read this article and learn about the true picture in #Xizang (#Tibet).” Students get the “best of both worlds” at Tibetan boarding schools, which “offer specialized courses on excellent Tibetan culture.” The ‘forcible assimilation of Tibetan youngsters’ claim is completely baseless.
That Huang is supporting Beijing’s propaganda stance comes as no surprise. He is a high-ranking diplomat in the Chinese government. That’s his job, and he’s done it before, on issues ranging from Xinjiang to Taiwan.
His tweet is notable because it serves as a reminder that he is still on good terms with New York lawmakers despite his strong opinions. More than a dozen prominent New York Democrats, including Mayor Eric Adams and Representative Grace Meng, shared the stage with him earlier this month at a festival held by Hong Kong government agencies in Flushing, Queens. This year, he joined Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul in a procession through Chinatown, and he participated in a ceremony hosted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the Chinese consulate general to celebrate the return of stolen artifacts to China.
