China’s quest for ‘national identity’ and to place Beijing at the helm of the global geopolitical ranking has taken an ugly shape as the ruling party continues their ill-treatment of Muslim minorities of Xinjiang and Tibetans residing in Tibet.
Chinese Communist Party’s ugly face of their repressions of Uyghur minorities in Xinjiang is not hidden from anyone. Their policies like ‘shoot to kill’ those who try to escape is one of among many. They even implemented sterilisation on the women to suppress the population and separate children from the family-all tantamount to genocide. Not only this, China also tried to crush their culture and religious identities, The Singapore Post reported.
China illegally occupied Tibet in the 1950s and since then, Beijing has been following the policy of Sinicization with an agenda to eradicate Tibet’s unique identity and culture.
In a recent “All China Religious Circles” conference” in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa on May 13, the need for impelling Tibet’s long-term peace and stability and cohesive consensus on high-quality development was emphasized along with the sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism. Aggressive promotion of Mandarin from the primary level of schooling of children from minority ethnic groups is part of this agenda contrary to China’s purported “Bilingual Language Policy”. This conference was also attended by TAR Chairman Yan Sinhal.
Since their illegal occupation in Tibet, China has assaulted the rights of the Tibetan people to practise their own religion, language, tradition and culture. The Chinese authorities, in order to accomplish their sinicization mission, have attacked their cultural identity by making their language, Mandarin, the medium of instruction in the schools in Tibet from the primary level, reported The Singapore Post.
A series of recent posts on Weibo, as well as in Chinese media, including newspaper articles have reported that the Tibetan children are being imparted education from the primary level in Mandarin medium as part of the Chinese government’s agenda of aggressive promotion of the language from the early stages.
Another Chinese government project called “Tibetan and Han-one family” under the No. 4 Bureau of China Railway has been started in Renbu County, Shigatse City, Tibet. Although it is an infrastructure project, this Bureau has set “Help organisation”, which among other things provides funds to students with a weak economic background. This organisation also teaches various skills to local farmers and herdsmen through a sub-plan named “teachers leading the students” etc. Although it is not explicitly mentioned, it is most likely that under these projects, the medium of training and teaching would be Mandarin.
There have been umpteen instances in which the Chinese authorities ran projects in the name of education with an underlying agenda of promoting Mandarin among other tribes and ethnicities, according to The Singapore Post.
The imposition of the Mandarin language is seen as part of efforts for cultural homogenisation in China and erasing the uniqueness and variety of Tibetan identity and culture.
The process of sinicization is going on unabated for quite some time and has also gotten into the religious domain. Many international communities have accused China of crimes against humanity but still, Beijing continued to sinicize Buddhism in Tibet.