Study: China forcing Tibetans into labor camps

FPI / September 24, 2020

Hundreds of thousands of people in Tibet are being forced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) into military-style training centers which analysts say are akin to forced labor camps, a study has said.

The report by the Jamestown Foundation's is based on state media reports, policy documents and satellite imagery which Reuters news agency has corroborated.

The report, authored by Adrian Zenz, notes that 500,000 Tibetans, mostly subsistence farmers and herders, were sent to the re-education camps in the first seven months of 2020 and Chinese authorities set quotas for the mass transfer of those workers within Tibet and to other parts of China.

"The systemic presence of clear indicators of coercion and indoctrination, coupled with profound and potentially permanent change in modes of livelihood, is highly problematic," the study concludes.

The camps include “enforced indoctrination, intrusive surveillance” and steep punishments for anyone who fails to meet labor quotas set by Beijing, Zenz’s research found.

The CCP's policy requires the rural workers to be trained in “work discipline,” law, the Chinese language and aims to reform “backward thinking” through militarized instruction.

Beijing has deemed Tibet part of China for hundreds of years, but the region considered itself autonomous until communist party leaders invaded the area in 1950 and took control.

Since then, many Tibetans have accused communist China of trying to wipe out their Buddhist culture and language while taking advantage of their natural resources and encouraging Chinese residents from other parts of the country to move there and establish dominance.

"In the context of Beijing's increasingly assimilatory ethnic minority policy, it is likely that these policies will promote a long-term loss of linguistic, cultural and spiritual heritage," the study warns.

Tibet's president-in-exile Lobsang Sangay has been among those who have previously alleged that Tibetan people are being forced into labor camps and training centers for "education."

Free Press International