Faced with mounting international criticism of human rights abuses in Tibet, Chinese Tibetan officials were forced to come to the defense Thursday, saying there is no “coercive” labor in Tibetan vocational training programs.
There is no coercion (in Tibet), the people have a strong desire to go out to work, the people have a strong desire to learn skills, and the government responds to their desires and needs,” Tibet Autonomous Region Chairman Tsitsara said at a news conference in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
The press conference was organized by China’s State Council Information Office, which very rarely allows foreign journalists to attend and ask questions. Tibet, like Xinjiang, is the most sensitive region in China, and foreigners, especially foreign dignitaries and journalists, are strictly controlled when they want to visit or travel to Tibet.
According to Tsitsara, the local government of Tibet is concerned with increasing the income of the remaining labor force through vocational and technical training as part of the Tibetan poverty alleviation program. He explained that the Tibetan government also provides travel subsidies to those who go out to work, and if they return, the local government also welcomes them.
Tibet has a population of 3.51 million, and the local government’s poverty alleviation program has set a target of 15 percent of the total population, or about 520,000 people. According to a plan laid out by Xi Jinping, China will complete this poverty alleviation program by the end of 2020.
Qi Zara’s remarks at the press conference were in response to recent international criticism of the so-called “vocational training program” in Tibet for alleged human rights abuses. Last month, Adrian Zenz, a German expert on Xinjiang, published a study that said that in 2019 and 2020, Tibet will begin to imitate Xinjiang’s practice of establishing “vocational training centers” for “surplus laborers” in Tibetan areas. “The report says that in the first seven months of this year, Tibet has trained more than 500,000 “surplus laborers” from agricultural and herding areas through this policy, sending them to other areas of the TAR and other provinces in China for labor.
According to the report, in the first seven months of this year, more than 500,000 “surplus laborers” from Tibet’s agricultural and herding areas were trained through this policy and sent to work in other parts of the TAR and other provinces in China. The training is conducted through a militarized method in which trainees are supervised by armed police instructors and wear camouflage uniforms.
According to the report, there is much evidence that the trainees were coerced into participating in the training and that the program is systematically coercive and brainwashing, leading to “profound and potentially permanent shifts” in Tibetan lifestyles that are of great concern.
Just hours before the Chinese government’s press conference, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appointed Robert A. Destro, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, as the U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibet.
According to a statement issued by Secretary of State Pompeo, the Coordinator’s primary responsibilities will be to promote dialogue between Beijing and the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader-in-exile, or his representatives; to protect the unique religious, cultural, and linguistic identity of the Tibetan people; and to work to protect the human rights of Tibetans. In the statement, Pompeo emphasized that the coordinator will also support U.S. efforts to address the humanitarian needs of Tibetan refugees, promote sustainable economic development and environmental protection for Tibetan communities in the highlands.
The Chinese government has implemented strong repressive measures in Tibet and Xinjiang to eradicate terrorism and separatist forces. The Xinjiang authorities have drawn worldwide condemnation for detaining millions of Uighur Muslims in what Beijing calls “vocational training centers” for “ideological reform.
The U.S. Congress is highly bipartisan on the issues of Xinjiang and Tibet. The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act in May, and the House of Representatives had previously overwhelmingly passed the Tibet Policy and Support Act in January.
Republican Congressman Jim McGovern said at a hearing on Tibet last month that the U.S. Congress would be paying long-term attention to the Tibet issue. If Beijing “thinks we’re only going to have 48 hours of attention,” McGovern said, then that would be “a huge miscalculation.
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