Executive Summary, August 2001
"Jampa: L'histoire du racisme au Tibet" en français
On the eve of the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) released a comprehensive report entitled Jampa: The Story of Racism in Tibet. The 110-page report exposes widespread racism and discrimination against Tibetans and highlights how the China's laws, regulations and policy statements contribute to racism in Tibet.
PRC Government Policy
The report addresses the myth propagated by the People's Republic of China that racism is mainly a Western phenomenon. Officials in Lhasa and Beijing publicly express that racism has not existed in China since the inception of Communist power. In February 2001, China's Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya declared during the Asia Regional Preparatory Meeting for the WCAR, "...at present the Chinese people of all ethnic groups are living in harmony."
However, as stated in the report's foreword, "Racism should be spelled out in order to be dispelled" (Chinese intellectual, Yang Liensheng). Although the government of the PRC adopted a constitution that stipulates racial and ethnic equality for all 56 peoples or "nationalities" in the PRC, enforcement mechanisms are extremely weak and politicized. Peoples who do not physically and culturally resemble the Han are not considered truly Chinese and are ranked lower in the racial hierarchy.
Constitutional and legislative provisions dealing with equality and discrimination are designed and implemented more to maintain a united and integrated Chinese state than to prohibit inequities of racism and discrimination.
Advocacy against racism in China is sometimes interpreted as inciting 'splittism.' The Chinese government's suppression of free discussion concerning race and ethnicity in the PRC is of grave concern and presents a major obstacle to be overcome in eliminating racial discrimination in China and Tibet.
Background
The portrayal of Jampa, an uneducated, dirty Tibetan in the 1963 Chinese propaganda film The Serf, exemplifies the longstanding ethnocentric Chinese perception of Tibetans as backward and in need of Chinese assistance. The government enforces these racial perceptions in supporting the contradictory claim that Tibetans as part of a common "Chinese" ancestry while simultaneously propagating and implementing China's "civilizing mission" in Tibet.
Today's policies and practice of racism and racial discrimination in Tibet are heavily influenced by the historical development of Chinese perceptions of Tibetans. Chinese leaders, including Sun Yatsen and Chiang Kaishek, promoted racial myths to redefine territorial borders and unify the Chinese nation-state.
Chinese nationalism, embedded in a historiography of Chinese greatness and superiority over all other "barbarian" peoples, provides a backdrop to the current Chinese policy on the control and administration of Tibet. In July 2001, Hu Jintao credited China for ushering in "a new era in Tibet to turn from darkness to light, from backwardness to progress, from poverty to affluence."
Liberation, enlightenment and modernization have been the ideological banners for subjugating national minorities and, far from promoting respect and equitable treatment, fuel pre-existing biases of backwardness, barbarism and primitiveness.
Tibetan Experience of Discrimination
The Tibetan experience of racism is particularly painful because it exists in the context of colonialist repression, where the government seeks to suppress the distinct Tibetan cultural identity in its efforts to create "Chinese unity."
The denigration and persecution of Tibetan religion and culture is a direct result of central government policy aimed at combating Tibetan resistance to the occupation of their country. The policy decisions resulting from the Chinese government's 3rd Forum on Work in Tibet, held in 1994, have led to the undermining of Tibetans' distinct national and cultural consciousness and religious faith and the assimilation of Tibetans into the framework of Chinese culture.
Tibetans are faced with the choice of assimilating and relinquishing their Tibetan identity, religion and culture or facing the perpetual potential of discrimination.
Tibetans lack access to healthcare, partly due to the concentration of medical facilities in urban areas rather than rural areas where the proportion of Tibetans is greater than Chinese. In the area of education, Tibetan children face many obstacles compared to their Chinese counterparts including expensive school fees, poorly trained teachers, struggling to retain Tibetan language skills through primary school, difficult transitions to Chinese-medium secondary and tertiary schools, and being subjected to the degrading messages of prejudiced curricula. Tibetans also face discrimination in employment and have less access to training and special business permits. Additionally, they must compete with Chinese settlers who frequently have the connections needed to expedite the ability to attain permits, government-provided housing or job opportunities.
Enforcement of laws and regulations that do exist to prohibit acts of discrimination are lax and are subject to an ever-changing political agenda and climate.
Although China's occupation of Tibet has brought a certain level of development to the region, the benefits of this development disproportionately favor Chinese settlers, especially as an influx of Chinese settlers is encouraged to dilute the population.
Among the most consistent human rights violations by the Chinese authorities in Tibet is the suppression of religious and cultural freedom. Approximately half of Tibetan political prisoners are Buddhist monks and nuns. Moreover, the attitude in China toward religion in Tibetan culture constitutes a type of discrimination that has been recognized by the UN Committee to Eliminate Racial Discrimination.
Conclusions and Recommendations
China has a demonstrably good record in opposing racism in some of its international forms and for opposing apartheid in South Africa long before many other governments, including the government of the United States. But domestically, China lags far behind much of the world in acknowledging and addressing racism. Rather than allowing open debate about racism, China rigorously suppresses such discourse, setting back progress in the fight against racism.
- The PRC should acknowledge and expressly recognize the existence and harmful effects of racism in the PRC. The government must initiate a public discussion and education campaign on the issue, for which it should mobilize substantial resources.
- The PRC government should create a commission to undertake a thorough review of the Constitution and laws of the PRC and repeal any language that is Chauvinistic, paternalistic or could otherwise contribute to discrimination against minority groups such as Tibetans. The commission should consist of members of all ethnic groups in the PRC who have a good understanding of the perceptions and feelings of their respective peoples.
- The PRC government should commission a revision of all school and university textbooks to remove and revise any portions and references that contain racist elements or that could contribute to the perpetration of racist perceptions and attitudes.
- The PRC should invite the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia to visit Tibet and examine Chinese policies and practices with respect to Tibetans and make specific recommendations on ways to combat any manifestations of racism and racial discrimination he/she may find there.
- Acts of racism and racial discrimination should be prevented and prosecuted by law; victims should have legal redress and perpetrators should face punishment.
Selected Quotes from Jampa: The Story of Racism in Tibet
Racial discrimination is common "everywhere in the world except China"
Former Communist Party Chairman Zhao Ziyang, 1988
"In some Western developed countries, there have appeared phenomena like xenophobia, intolerance [and] discrimination against immigrant workers...At present, the Chinese people of all ethnic groups are living in harmony."
Wang Guangya, PRC Vice Foreign Minister, 2001
"The World Conference recognizes that foreign occupation...is among the forms and sources of racial and discriminatory practices."
United Nations draft Programme of Action, World Conference Against Racism
"Acknowledging that foreign occupation creates and environment in which occupied people are exposed to a wide range of systematic and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms...[such as]...the situation of the six million Tibetan people suffering under 50 years of the occupation of their country Tibet."
NGO Forum Declaration: Draft Two, World Conference Against Racism
"The official preferential treatment policy for minority nationalities is another way to confirm the Han Chinese belief that all minorities are backward, primitive barbarians that who need the help of their Han older brothers."
Suisheng Zhao
"Nationalism and Han Chauvinism are now the only effective instruments in the ideological arsenal of the CCP. Any disruption in the relationship with foreign countries or among ethnic minorities can be used to stir 'patriotic' sentiments of the people to support communist authorities."
Liu Binyan
"A lot of Tibetans now say they wish thery were Chinese. This has been the greatest success of racism...convincing Tibetans to hate themselves."
Anonymous Tibetan
"The rhetoric of Han superiority has constituted a fundamental component of the Chinese world-view for centuries."
Lobsang Nyandak, Tibetan Center for Human Rights & Democracy
