-International Campaign for Tibet
For implementing the top-level design of “Sinicization” of Tibetans in a Chinese nation-state, the Chinese Communist Party convened an “ethnic work conference” in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, in early February. The provincial leaders of the Tibet Autonomous Region’s Communist Party, government, political body, judiciary, military and armed police attended the meeting on Feb. 9, 2022. According to the state media outlet Tibet Daily, the “ethnic conference” was convened for its importance to the “unity of the motherland, border stability, national unity, social stability, long term happiness of the country and rejuvenation of the people.”
The “ethnic conference” follows the tenth TAR party congress in late November 2021. Describing the coercive implementation of the party’s policies and strategies in Tibet as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “benevolence,” TAR Party Secretary Wang Junzheng extolled the party’s success, among other issues, in Sinicizing Tibetans in the past five years in his report to the 10th congress. In following up on the congress, the party convened the latest Tibet ethnic conference to further entrench Beijing’s agenda of “forging a sense of community of the Chinese nation.” The phrase “forging of Chinese communal consciousness” was enshrined in the party’s constitution at the 19th party congress in 2017.
With the Tibetan resistance firmly repressed through various preemptive “stability maintenance” mechanisms, the party appears to be readying to roll out more governance measures while also being vigilant to “look for and prevent major risks and hidden dangers in the ethnic field.” Two areas of concern jump off in analysis of the discourse during the latest Tibet party ethnic work conference and the 10th party congress. The party appears to be bringing changes to the governance system in terms of “capacity for ethnic affairs in Tibet” and stepping up bidirectional migration into and outside Tibet. Click here to read more.