since
china seized control of the land they
live on tibetans have complained that
their religious freedom
and traditional way of life are being
actively curtailed
now it appears the situation is getting
worse
there's evidence that beijing is forcing
hundreds of thousands of tibetans off
their land
and into so-called vocational training
centers that are set to resemble labor
camps
traditional farmers and herders are
being turned into factory workers and
other low-paid labor
and made to relocate to other parts of
china
those are the findings of a report by a
u.s based research institute
findings china's governor in tibet
denies
there are no forced labor transfers as
the party secretary and i
explained just now people have a strong
desire to travel for work
and people have a strong desire to learn
new skills
the government has followed their wishes
and needs
[Music]
but the information gathered by the
jamestown foundation tells a different
story
it says rural tibetans are coerced into
militarized training regimens
in facilities like this one and
subjected to quote
thought transformation patriotic and
legal education
and chinese language teaching
it's aspects like these that are causing
comparisons to xinjiang province
where beijing is accused of
indoctrinating ethnic uighurs
and so-called re-education camps
there's no evidence that tibetans are
facing the same level of persecution
as the uyghurs but the international
community is taking note
on october 14th washington appointed a
new coordinator for tibetan issues
and had a message for beijing
one of the core challenges that we've
identified from the chinese communist
party there
a consistent violation of the most basic
and fundamental human rights for their
own
people whether it's in xinjiang what's
taking place there
whether it's tibet we talked about that
a little bit here this morning
we'll work hard to do everything we can
to build out a coalition
all across the world that comes to
understand how important that is
alongside of us
and works to impose costs on the chinese
communist party
when they act in ways that are
inconsistent with those basic
fundamental human freedoms
beijing's answer the us should mind its
own business
the establishment of the so-called
special coordinator for tibetan issues
by the us is totally out of political
manipulation
aiming to interfere in china's internal
affairs and
undermine the development and stability
of tibet
china has always opposed this position
and has never recognized it
tibet's government has said that some 15
of the region's population have received
vocational training in just seven months
and the program is ongoing rights groups
worry that with every person that's
enrolled
tibetan culture is being further eroded
joining us is kate saunders a specialist
and writer on tibet
kate the report documenting this just
came out but i know you've monitored
what's been happening in tibet
for years what have been some of your
own findings
yes this this report gave a very
important indication of the very rapid
social economic transformations taking
place
in tibet and what we found is that uh
this combination
of uh intensified securitization
and militarization uh before xinjiang
came to bed in which a dystopian
police state was set up in which
emerging from china's economic and
strategic objectives
on tibet and with the ultimate aim of
as an as an official document put it
breaking connections breaking lineage
breaking routes
and what we found is that this goes
beyond the superficial measures
now so tibetan buddhism and loyalty to
the dalai lama
runs very deep in tibetan people and so
the measures need to go
very deep too so we've seen the party
using a new language a new focus on
ideological control and focusing really
on
obliterating cadet collective memory of
what it is to be
tibetan and raising the dalai lama's
influence this this further emphasis on
sinusization
and even while we may not understand
fully what sinusization means
it it's it's linked to the objective of
creating compliant citizens
in tibet and with a focus
on not only the empty recitation of
party slogans but
but really the emotional buy-in
of of tibetans to an ideological
remolding or rewiring which is very
dangerous of course
right you mentioned that it's a police
state i'm curious
what is different this time do you think
that there's going to be an expansion
into bed of what has taken place in
xinjiang with the detention camps is
there a more systemic
uh thing that they're going to try to
import into tibet this time
it's very different in that we haven't
monitored the same
mass internment that has been seen in
xinjiang
and but although there has been a
large-scale
expansion of prisons and we've noticed
the
uh deeper institutionalization of this
ideological agenda with the construction
of new
party building facilities and
as incenses research they seem to be
centered on a military-style
training in many cases and
also in taking tibetans off their land
so this is linked to a drive
that we've seen since 1999 2000
under the so-called western development
campaign
in which tens of thousands possibly
millions
of tibetan nomads and herders have lost
their traditional livelihoods
and there's been a whole programme of
mass
urbanization and this is one of the
elements that is most important in the
latest research because tibetans are
being
removed from their land linked to these
massive
social engineering policies that we've
seen
over the years right that appears to be
china's end game
kate saunders thank you
you