I can tell you from my Tibetan friend that absolutely nothing of the sort is going on.

There is however still a big separatist movement in Tibet due to the way the integration of the region was conducted. It’s not as big as it used to be even some 10 years ago, but it still exists in a sizeable

First of all, we have to understand exactly who are Tibetans so we can know what they came from and what they look forward to. I actually wrote a post some time ago here: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/23166.

Up until the PLA marched into Tibet and Tibetan nobles surrendered (they were, after all, heavily outmatched), Tibet was a feudal theocracy that still practised serfdom – in 1950. Here’s an article Michael Parenti wrote on Tibet’s feudalism: archive.is/3SyVs. There are pictures of Tibetan serves still floating around if you want to look up how they were treated. 97% of the population was under servitude, but the question remains however how most serves were treated. We can point at mostly individual accounts, but as far as I know there is no sweeping generalisations we can make. We can’t say, for example, that all serves were mutilated if they tried to flee their lord’s land, just that it happened in various (too many) cases. But the PRC has a museum in Tibet of this period of history and they paint a very clear picture. My friends however are not sure the museum is that truthful (regarding how widespread the abuses were) and I have to take this into account. Personally it seems to me that Tibetans seem to forget this part of their history and I don’t know why exactly, yet. It wasn’t that long ago either; my friend’s grandparents probably lived under serfdom (unfortunately, I was unable to know which class they belonged to. I know there were some monks in there but I don’t know if that was before or after the integration).

Tibet is a different case than say, neighbouring Xinjiang because their story with China is different. Whereas we can point to Xinjiang being an integral part of China since the 12th century, we can’t do that with Tibet because the ROC in 1912 gave it full independence. Therefore, with some help from propagandists, people can easily believe that the PRC invaded and annexed an independent country. Mao is seen differently in Tibet than in other regions because he was the one who gave the order for the army to move in. This, to my knowledge, did not happen in other parts of China after the proclamation of the PRC. I also think the PRC was perhaps too lenient in combating foreign interference in Tibet; the Dalai Lama for decades was paid millions by the CIA and today he is an allegory of Tibetan independence. That doesn’t happen by accident and it’s nothing new. I can guarantee you nobody in the western world knew who the Dalai Lama was or what he represented in 1960 (I can safely assume that because I doubt people in the 60s were overcome with a desire to learn about Tibet and Buddhism); that happened after the CIA got his hands on him.

Edit: there is also a slight difference in that Tibetans are closer to Mongolians than (Han) Chinese. Ethnically and linguistically. So that also complicates things with trying to integrate them into a Chinese nation. As a reminder, there is no Han supremacism. The PRC and CPC have always been very clear there is one Chinese nation, with various ethnicities comprising this nation on equal terms.

As for the cultural erasure, you can start to imagine here what the PRC is doing in Tibet. There is still poverty – a developing country will develop unevenly – and there are still many challenges to overcome to help integrate Tibetans. I say integrate because… where is the limit between neglecting your people and assimilating them?

Some (ignorant) people say that Tibetans should be left alone to become independent. I don’t believe being independent will do Tibet any good that the PRC cannot provide, except for some sense of national pride. So what then, do you leave them in the autonomous region to do as they wish and then get accused of neglecting them? Or do you teach them the national language so they can live and work anywhere in the country, and then get accused of assimilating them? I don’t know where the line lies, but I doubt the people that scream Free Tibet know either.

I know from my friend that the integration has led to many Han Chinese emigrating to Tibet, and perhaps this bothers Tibetans who, up until then, were mostly left alone by themselves. Remember Tibet is at an average height of 3000m above sea level and borders the Himalayas. For most of their history they were left alone, and were perhaps closer to neighbouring Nepal or India (that is how Buddhism entered Tibet after all). I can see how remote people living like this don’t take too kindly to foreigners, how quickly their ways of life can change after being left alone for so many years. With that said I wouldn’t say there’s racism in Tibet, at least not in 2020. Some Chinese people also speak better Tibetan than locals, because they take it as an elective in school and want to learn the language. Whereas young Tibetans today learn Mandarin because they’re not planning on staying in their village their whole lives, they aim for the big universities.

Where does erasing culture starts, basically. Was it erasing culture when the PRC abolished serfdom (and with it the highly abusive practices happening in Tibetan temples)? Is it erasing culture when Tibetans can go to prestigious universities in Beijing? Is it erasing culture when people from all over China are allowed to emigrate to Tibet? Things change and sometimes we don’t like how they change, but they are certainly not staying fixed – that’s the basis of dialectics. It’s ludicrous to think that Tibet could go back to 1950 and pretend that all these years under the PRC never happened. Tibet would have to industrialise (before 1950, most labour was done by hand, hence the serfdom) and open up to the world anyway. They are doing it under the PRC.