Europe

A research attempt into China’s visa practice, transnational repression and the limits to overcome the fears in Tibetan diaspora

By: Simon van Dongen

I am a Dutchman who is fascinated by Tibet, because of its nature and culture. A country with a two-thousand-year-old history, situated on a plateau with an average elevation of 4500 meters above sea-level. Today, Tibet is a highly restricted area. I have never been there, and I will probably never go there. Instead of travelling to Tibet I went to Nepal. Over there I met people from the Nepalese Himalayas who share Tibetan heritage. They are called Sherpa. Calm and warm people. There, in Langtang National Park, I had my first encounter with Tibetan culture.

It was a long journey. Although it looked nearby on the map, it took 7 hours to reach Langtang National Park from the capital Kathmandu. This narrow mountain dirt road was a horrifying experience. Eventually, I arrived at Dhunche, which is close to the Tibetan border and the starting point for a major trekking route. The road I took is portrayed on the map below.

Walking up the Langtang valley was like walking in a different world for me. Coming from a country below sea level, I was now walking between the highest mountains on earth. As shown on the map, I walked from a place near Dhunche towards Kyanjing. On the third day hiking, near Langtang village, I helped planting potatoes at a local farm. A picture I made that day is shown here. This intercultural interaction felt very special, partly because it all happened at an altitude of around 3500m.

Just before my travels, I finished my Human Geography thesis at Utrecht University: The flip side of the Chinese expansion of Tibet. Also, I read the biography of the former Tibetan political prisoner Palden Gyatso. Because of these documents, it became obvious to me that China has a full grasp on Tibetans within Tibet. After everything I had learned about Tibet, I realised that on the other side of this mountain in Langtang Valley, the Tibetan culture is eradicated.

A major part of my knowledge about Tibet I retrieved from two interviews during my thesis research. I interviewed Tsering Jampa and Wangpo Tethong, respectively the former and the current executive director of the “International Campaign of Tibet (ICT) Europe”. They predominantly spoke about repression within Tibet, but also mentioned Chinese transnational repression of Tibetans in the Netherlands. How and why does China repress people in my country? My curiosity around this question kept on triggering me after my trip to Nepal. This made me want to take action and return to the ICT to apply as a volunteer.

Tibetan anxieties form obstacles too high

Wangpo Tethong is a 61-year-old ICT director who came to the Netherlands two years ago. He gave me a warm welcome at the ICT office in Amsterdam. We realised that we wanted to add to the recent research: Chinese Transnational Repression of Tibetan Diaspora Communities of ‘The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy’ (TCHRD). Although this research provides proof of transnational repression on Tibetans, I think it gets too little attention. After a discussion with Wangpo, I decided to try to create context around this subject in the Netherlands specifically.

The story of journalist Marie Vlaaskamp in De Volkskrant added to my concern about transnational repression. Chinese police in the Netherlands used intimidation to silence her critical view on China. Within this newspaper article she exposed these acts. I realised the Chinese intimidation not only impacts Tibetans and Uyghurs in the Netherlands but also journalists. While this scared me, I still felt the urge to research transnational repression.

Wangpo Tethong introduced me to Dawa Tsering, former president of the Tibetan community in the Netherlands. He fled from the Chinese occupation in Tibet when he was a child. We had a long discussion about potential research. The three of us came up with a plan for a small case-study on Tibetans in the Netherlands. By analysing what happens when Dutch Tibetans apply for a visa to travel to Tibet, we were hoping to provide proof of transnational repression of Tibetans in the Netherlands.

Dawa Tsering spoke about Chinese intimidation he experienced while applying for a Visa for Tibet. He was also invited to Brussels, where he spoke to the audience in the European parliament. I quote from Dawa Tsering’s speech on Novembre 30th 2023:

“I feel like I am being watched constantly and every step of me is being tracked. It is a scary thought to think about how much they actually know about me and my family and what they could do to us.”

I was optimistic about conducting research to uncover more of these Chinese intimidation stories. However, Dawa Tsering warned us about difficulties we would face when trying to interview Tibetan people. He explained that most Tibetans in the Netherlands will not speak up about the Visa application.

“While now, most of us are being denied a visa, it is not clear why some people do get visas and others do not. This unclarity intensifies the worries amongst Tibetans to come under the attention of the Chinese government. It might mean that they will not ever be able to return to Tibet and see their family again.”

According to this quote from Dawa Tsering, Tibetan people are scared to attract attention of the Chinese government. This is especially the case when people still want to visit their family in Tibet. Because of this, Wangpo proposed to search for Dutch Tibetans who do not have aspiration to travel to Tibet, nor have family over there. Although we searched for these participants, we did not find anyone as people were unwilling to speak for different reasons. Some Tibetan people were interested to apply for a visa and talk about the process at first. Later, they turned down the request to speak with us. This process was food for thought for me. How is it possible that virtually no one wants to talk about this?

New visa types leave doubts unanswered

To illustrate the problem, it is important to know the context about visa applications for Tibet. To gather information about documents required to travel to Tibet, I read the ICT-report “Access Denied”, I searched on the web and talked to travel agencies and a tourist who went to Tibet. Additionally, I used some of the knowledge I gathered during my thesis to provide context

If someone in Europe wants to travel to Tibet as a tourist, they only need a Tibet-permit if they stay shorter then 15 days. This is a trial policy announced by the Chinese government for visitors from six European countries, including the Netherlands. This policy was introduced on the first of December 2023 and will last a year. In order to stay longer then 15 days, tourists also need to apply for a visa at a Chinese consulate. The permit is provided by the tourists’ travel agency. If you have patience, you can deal with the restrictions and have a deep pocket, you can travel to Tibet as a Tourist.

It appeared like China has adopted a liberal tourist policy. However, travels through Tibet are regulated by China. On top of that, a fake reality is portrayed to these tourists. Tourists are only allowed to go to specific locations where they often see actors imitating Tibetan culture. These aspects make me strongly doubt the liberalism in Chinese tourist policy.

From what I have learnt, European citizens with Tibetan heritage experience way more difficulties in applying for a visa to travel to Tibet than people without. This is because they are limited to apply for the family-visit-visa. This type of visa comes with two extra conditions, namely an interview at the Chinese consulate and Chinese surveillance.

The two mentioned visa are shown here. (Left: tourist visa; Right: family-visit visa)

In the next part some stories of Tibetans applying for a visa to travel to Tibet will be given.

The ICT office in Brussels conducted a survey online in 2019. Tibetans were asked to anonymously tell their stories about their visa application for Tibet. Most of the respondents were Belgian Tibetans. One of these people explained the following about their visa application:

“My interview was around 25 minutes. The interview was all about my past and present life. I applied in Brussels Chinese visa application Center. They have asked about His Holiness the Dalai lama and his political perspective.”

So, the Chinese officials are gathering personal information, which I think they can use against you. Additionally, if an applicant says one critical thing about China, the visa will most probably not be given. Another Belgian respondent provided the following statement to the ICT:

“They asked me my birthplace and I answered them “Tibet”. Immediately they changed the visa form in English to Chinese. Then I had to give them all the information of my family members and I need to have introduction of to whom I want to visit and need two invitation letters… (…) Finally they denied to give me visa”^[1]

Even after sharing the required invitation letters from family in Tibet and sharing personal details of family members, this person is still denied access to Tibet.

Of course, I would like to speak to people like from the last quote. Unfortunately, visa application volunteers were not available. A few weeks ago, Vincent Metten, EU Policy Director at ICT, told me the situation in Belgium is comparable:

“… you said Tibetans were not willing to speak and so on. (…) I think that’s also something we face in Belgium because there is a lot of prudency, people don’t want to have an impact on their chances to visit their families and friends in the future.”

ICT Europe’s EU Policy Director Vincent Metten, who conducted the online survey, says ‘there is a lot of prudency” among Tibetans in Belgium to speak up about their visa application. Some awareness about the situation was created in 2019, but because of the pudency not much information has come out since then.

Some Tibetans who want to return to Tibet restrain from speaking up against China because they fear that their visa application will be denied. During the application process China can surveil Tibetans abroad and keep them quiet. Eventually most Tibetans abroad are not granted a visa. China presents itself as liberal with their 14-day free visa period, but to me this is just a sham.

Intimidation is effective

While trying to uncover what Chinese actions caused intimidation of Tibetans, I realised that the intimidation is the reason that it is not uncovered. It is painful to admit, but intimidation as a means of transnational repression by China is effective. Tibetan voices all over the world are silenced because of it. Although stories about Chinese transnational repression are exposed by the TCHRD and the ICT, the subject does not get the attention it deserves.

Personally, it feels very unfair that Tibetans cannot access their homeland freely. I was lucky to experience the mountain culture and nature near the Tibetan border. With that in mind, I try to imagine how painful it is for the Tibetan diaspora to see this all be locked away by China. The Chinese border does the same thing as the visa constrains do; it breaks up Tibetan families. Nevertheless, during my time as an ICT volunteer I experienced the strong sense of community in the Tibetan diaspora. To me, this is pure inspiration and a sign of resilience.

Footnote:

[1] Some spelling adjustments were made to make it more readable

* The author is an ICT volunteer. He tells the story how he tried to find evidence of Chinese interference and intimidation of the Tibetan community in the Netherlands

The Chinese President has just concluded a visit to Europe, his first since 2019. He visited three countries: France, Serbia, and Hungary. Why did China choose these three countries? And what results and lessons can be drawn from the Chinese President’s trip?

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s motorcade passes an overpass on which a Tibetan flag and a “Free Tibet” banner was hung by activists of the Students for a Free Tibet.

Visit to France

The Chinese President’s visit to France follows President Macron’s visit to China in April 2023. It was part of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries when General de Gaulle was in power. Besides being one of the major European countries and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, one reason Beijing chose to kick off this visit of Europe in Paris can be partly explained by France’s position on Europe’s “strategic autonomy” from the USA, which it seeks to promote on the international stage. This approach aims to reduce Europe’s dependence on its American ally, particularly in matters of security and protection. Beijing views this position favorably as it aligns with the vision of a more multipolar world, less dominated by the United States.

Three Main Issues on the Political Agenda

Many subjects were on the agenda in France, but three main issues dominated the discussions: economic relations between France, the European Union, and China, characterized by a large trade deficit and Chinese state aid to its companies, which distorts free competition; international crises, particularly China’s stance on Moscow and its implications for the war in Ukraine. China has never condemned the war (referring to it as a “crisis”) and supports Russia, notably through the delivery of dual-use equipment. More than direct supply of weapons – a red line that China seems careful not to cross so far – it is the supply of machine tools and components for the production of these weapons that is the focus of attention. Thanks to commercial transactions by its companies, Beijing has enabled Moscow to revive its arms industry and gain an advantage in the conflict. China is unlikely to change its position on this issue.

Finally, the last major issue concerns environmental questions and climate change, in which France has played an important role in the past. In 2025, France will host the next United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice.

Human Rights marginalized

It’s highly probable that human rights were also discussed between the two Presidents, but in any case, in the public communication surrounding the visit on the French side, no mention was made of this subject, which is to be regretted. Prior to the Chinese President’s arrival and during his visit, the media, political representatives, NGOs, and members of the Uyghur and Tibetan communities widely highlighted the deplorable human rights situation in the country. A few days before the Chinese leader’s visit, the French President Macron met the President of the Central Tibetan Administration in Exile, Mr. Penpa Tsering, at an event at the Élysée Palace, to present the Legion of Honor to former Senator André Gattolin, known for his support to Tibetan. A meeting of this nature set a political precedent!

For their part, Tibetan supporters undertook protest rallies and even hung pro-Tibet banners from the Arc de Triomphe or from a bridge under which Xi Jinping’s convoy passed on its way from Orly airport to the capital. A major Tibetan demonstration was held on Place de la République on May 5, with several thousand participants. The Uyghurs also held a demonstration at Place de la Madeleine, despite intimidation and counter-demonstrations by pro-Beijing groups. On the political front, an open letter to the French President signed by 14 members of the French Senate’s Tibet Information Group highlighted Tibet’s geostrategic importance in Asia and urged the French President to put human rights and Tibet at the heart of his discussions with his Chinese counterpart. Also worthy of mention is the open letter published in Le Monde by Raphaël Glucksmann, Member of the European Parliament and head of the Socialist Party and Place Publique list in the European elections. In this open letter, he denounced the French President’s “obsequiousness” towards the Chinese leader and his lack of strategic vision.

Lack of European Unity

The French President invited the President of the European Commission to join a meeting with the Chinese President, which she accepted. A similar offer was made to German Chancellor Scholz, who apparently declined, having visited China a few days earlier. This lack of Frehc-German unity in the face of China is certainly not in the European camp’s favor, as it is yet another illustration of the lack of unity in the face of Beijing. China is well aware of this and is playing the “divide and conquer” card in its relations with European states.

Visits to Serbia and Hungary

This logic explains the subsequent visit to Belgrade, the capital of Serbia (which is not a member of the European Union), and then to Budapest in Hungary. In Serbia, Xi Jinping was warmly greeted at the airport by Serbian President Vucic (in France, it was Prime Minister Gabriel Attal who did the honors). The same was true in Hungary, where the Hungarian President met Xi at the plane. Red carpet, Chinese flags, glowing remarks from both sides: the aim was to demonstrate the excellent relations that unite Serbia, Hungary, and China.

One of the purposes for Xi’s visit to Serbia was to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade – an opportunity to criticize NATO in a European country that is not an alliance member, and implicitly reprimand NATO’s growing involvement in the Asia-Pacific region. China and Serbia proclaimed an “ironclad friendship” and a “shared future.” Serbia’s Vucic became the first European leader to commit to joining China in building a “community with a shared future.”

China has also successfully established military cooperation with this ally and has provided some military equipment to Belgrade (such as missiles and drones). Serbia’s military is relying on Chinese arms suppliers as tensions have increased with its smaller neighbor Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008 but the government in Belgrade does not recognize it, even though the U.S., U.K., and many other countries do. China and Kosovo do not have formal diplomatic relations as China does not recognize Kosovo as a sovereign state. On the contrary, China is supporting Belgrade’s position on Kosovo, and in exchange, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that Serbia had “a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity: Taiwan is China.” It is difficult to be more explicit than that.

Hungary and China signed some 18 cooperation agreements in sectors such as railways, IT, and nuclear energy. Hungary is emerging as an increasingly important production hub in Europe for Chinese automotive suppliers, including electric vehicle (EV) makers. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that “The two sides are ready to take the announcement of the establishment of an all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership for the new era as a new starting point to take bilateral relations and practical cooperation to a higher level.”

Conclusion

Xi’s visit to Serbia and Hungary has served several purposes: it has shown to its domestic audience that China has close friends in Europe, it tries to decrease the pressure on trade, security, and human rights coming from Europe, and these visits are chipping away at a world order he sees as dominated by the United States.

Serbia and Hungary don’t care about democracy or human rights. For them, foreign policy is strictly pragmatic and focused on economic interests. They are strategic gateways for Beijing toward Europe.

On the other side, China has not been successful over the past years in deepening its relations with other central and eastern European countries (with maybe the exception of Slovakia). Although China never recognized Russia’s behavior in Crimea or in Eastern Ukraine, China did not blame Russia for its military actions and is even supportive of Moscow in providing some dual-use equipment, which is feeding the war. This position is not appreciated by most of the eastern and central European countries, who have been under the domination of a communist country during the Cold War and are very supportive of Kiev against Russia’s aggression.

Penpa Tsering swears in as the new “sikyong,” the leader of the Central Tibetan Administration, on May 27, 2021.

Tibetan democracy in exile needs support because it faces numerous challenges in extremely difficult conditions. On the one hand, elections have to be organized in the over 30 countries where Tibetans live in exile, on a voluntary basis and without large financial resources. The Central Tibetan Administration—the official name of the government-in-exile—cannot levy taxes and is dependent on development cooperation or voluntary donations from Tibetans in exile. On the other hand, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tries to undermine the authority and work of the Tibetan government-in-exile wherever it can. Representatives of the Tibetans in exile, although they emerged from free and democratic elections, are still shunned by European governments for fear of the CCP’s reaction.

In 2018, in response to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “Belt and Road” initiative, the European Union launched the EU-Asia Connectivity Strategy. The concept essentially provides for the establishment of transport links, energy and digital networks, so-called connectivity partnerships and the promotion of sustainable financing. It does not speak of democracy and the rule of law, despite autocracy and enemies of democracy being on the rise in Asia.

The Tibetans, among others, would be ideal partners in a necessary value-based connectivity strategy. The European Union and its different institutions, as well as its 27 Member States, should therefore reach out to the Tibetans in exile and actively support the democratically elected representatives of the Central Tibetan Administration. This also includes receiving and listening to these representatives, including Penpa Tsering.

The Tibetan nun Dashar played by Millicent Wong in a scene from Pah-La (Picture: Helen Murray/Royal Court)

Pah-La situates its action in contemporary Tibet in 2008, featuring the self-immolation of a Buddhist nun, staged with the whiff of kerosene and circuit of flames inches from the audience that shoot towards the ceiling before the space is plunged into blackness. Even more shattering, although far less convincing, are the scenes to follow, compelling a London audience to consider the searing reality of what Tibetans have endured since the wave of self-immolations began in 2009 – the incarceration and torture of a nun who survived setting herself on fire, the brutal violence of state oppression, the deeply rooted fears of evisceration of Tibetan Buddhist civilization.

Such representations of Tibetan experience are rare given Beijing’s far-reaching and systematic efforts to silence, subvert and politicize depictions of Tibet that differ from those of the CPC. We are much more familiar with the neuralgic responses of pre-emptive capitulation and self-censorship from Hollywood and in the arts.

In Doctor Strange, for instance a mystical Tibetan guru in Marvel comics’ legend was played by white actress Tilda Swinton as a Celtic sage. Movies in the mould of ‘Seven Years in Tibet’, depicting China’s invasion, and ‘Kundun’, Scorsese’s moving biopic of the Dalai Lama (with a screenplay by the late Melissa Mathison, deeply-missed board member of ICT) are unlikely to appear any time soon. When the creators of ‘Pixels’ wanted to show aliens blasting a hole in the Great Wall of China, Sony executives worried that the scene might prevent the 2015 movie’s release in China, so they blew up the Taj Mahal instead. The new nationalist, assertive mood, in which Hollywood villains cannot be Chinese otherwise they risk jeopardizing the vital Chinese market, was epitomized in the Chinese action movie Wolf Warrior II, which became the highest-grossing Chinese movie of all time. Here, the villain is American, and in the final battle of the film tells Chinese hero Leng, “People like you will always be inferior to people like me. Get used to it.” Leng beats the villain to death and replies, “That was fucking history.” The film closes with the image of a Chinese passport and the words: “Remember, a strong motherland will always have your back!”

Pah-La’s significance in bringing contemporary Tibet to the international stage (first London, other performances will follow) was acknowledged by reviewers; veteran theatre critic Michael Billington welcomed Pah-La’s “attempt to breach the inherent parochialism of British theatre” while Time Out said: “Given that Tibet has steadily drifted out of Western discourse as China’s star has ascended, it feels, above all, important that ‘Pah-La’ exists.”

Rarer still, then, that a writer takes an immersive approach and seeks to follow through ideas and personal testimonies through interviews and a journey into Tibet itself – which Abhishek Mazumdar makes surprisingly public given the dangers to Tibetans this must have entailed, saying that it involved clandestine nocturnal incursions into the two main prisons in Lhasa, Drapchi and Chushur (Qushui). In addition Abhishek – who has tackled contemporary themes of conflict and violence for instance in Kashmir in other plays – has also spoken about receiving threats and harassment from representatives of the Chinese government.

The drama of the play’s creation as depicted in such interviews and public statements would matter less in terms of evaluation of the work if Abhishek had created an entirely fictitious piece with fictitious characters, inspired by Tibet’s recent history. But Abhishek invites us to consider Pah-La as a literal expression, a direct transmission, of his several years of research, interviews and encounters in Tibet and the exile diaspora. And this is why the play has provoked some serious questions for Tibetans and others who have sought to follow closely the unfolding situation in Tibet – particularly since March 2008 transformed the political landscape.

Pah-La is premised on an idea that gathered force for Bengali playwright Abhishek, which is how can Tibetans, who are firmly non-violent, turn violent? In Abhishek’s reading of contemporary history, this is what happened for the first time in March, 2008 (while tangentially referring to a Chushi Gangdruk resistance fighter defecting to the PLA, the play elides the historical context of armed uprisings against Chinese invaders in the 1950s and ‘60s).

In doing so, Pah-La presents a narrative that hews uncomfortably close to that of the Chinese Party state, which depicted the ground-breaking and overwhelmingly peaceful protests of March, 2008 onwards simply as “one violent riot” in Lhasa on March 14 of that year. This narrative gained ground internationally with the “Lhasa riots” still being used as a convenient shorthand to define and therefore misrepresent a wave of several hundred mainly peaceful protests involving nomads, schoolchildren, scholars, monks and nuns that swept across the plateau in the buildup to the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing. As several Tibetan reviewers point out, the play does not contain even a passing reference to the other protests across the plateau at that time, which continued into 2009, and later. (Review by UK based Tibetans Georgina Choekyi Doji, Tenzin Zega, Dechen Pemba, Kunsang Kelden, and Sonam Anjatsang.)

Yet this period was so significant in Tibet’s contemporary history that it was characterized by one of Tibet’s most important intellectuals, the Amdo writer Tagyal (Shokdung) as: “Tibet’s peaceful revolution…a re-awakening of Tibetan national consciousness and solidarity”.

Abhishek contends – and there is no reason to doubt this – that much more serious violence was perpetrated by Tibetans than has been made public so far, in Lhasa on and after March 14, 2008.The issue is not that these claims are implausible, as they are not, but that Pah-La gives a disproportionate focus on Tibetan violence based on evidence that is not yet in the public domain, and that apparently also ignores the painstaking documentation of what happened in 2008 by Tibetan observers, organizations and international media.

In conversation at the Royal Court in London with Abhishek, he told me that in his depictions of violence by Tibetans he used only the incidents described by Tibetan sources, including the burning of a school and references to rape by Tibetan men. “I would not have used accounts by the Chinese I interviewed, as this would have skewed the picture,” he said. In the Tibetan Review piece – the Tibetan reviewers include Dechen Pemba of High Peaks Pure Earth, who documented and translated Tibetan writings about 2008 and beyond – also point out that the more dominant voices in the play belong to the Chinese characters. Similarly, to critique a scene of sexual assault by a Tibetan man of a Chinese woman – as the same fair and balanced review did – is not to deny that rape by Tibetans did not exist in 2008, it was to make the point that the way it was depicted in Pah-La came across as “strange and inappropriate”.

The three pages of acknowledgements in the script of Pah-La give a disturbing insight into the nature of Abhishek’s research inside Tibet, even while they are obliquely framed. Almost any encounters in today’s Lhasa are unlikely to escape the reach of one of the most dystopian and intrusive police and security states in the world. Before he was transferred as Party chief of the Tibet Autonomous Region to Xinjiang in 2016, soldier-turned-politician Chen Quanguo developed a system combining cutting edge surveillance technology with the deployment of tens of thousands of Party cadres in monasteries, schools, and homes, with the aim of rewiring Tibetan thoughts and beliefs, giving rise to fears of nothing less than obliteration of cultural and religious identity. Abhishek thanks sources for “risking their lives so that the rest of us could hear your stories”. But it is not clear that the real stories of those nuns, or other Tibetans, are being told and given due weight in Pah-La, even despite the genuine insights and at times, one suspects, direct quotes gleaned from his research.

The second act of ‘Pah-La’ in particular seems oddly unmoored from lived Tibetan experience of 2008 and beyond. For example, the dialectical debate between the Chinese prison guard and his captor, Tibetan nun Dashar, centering on a polygraph machine was unconvincing, even while Abhishek’s research on the sale of a number of such machines from Hong Kong to Lhasa after March 2008 is interesting and thought-provoking. (ICT has monitored the use of polygraph or ‘lie-detector’ tests among officials in eastern Tibet, linked to an evaluation of their political loyalty to the CCP. The reports, published in Chinese state media, are evidence of a disturbing new level of intrusion into the private lives and thoughts of Tibetans, indicating the atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia in the official sphere and the CPC’s insecurities over the erosion of its authority.)

Abhishek’s research should not be discounted, but nor should the painstaking documentation of March, 2008 onwards by Tibetans and Tibet organizations, as well as the monitoring of Tibetan self-immolations since Kirti monk Tapey set himself ablaze on February 27, 2009, after a prayer ceremony was cancelled at his monastery. With breathtaking courage, in 2008, Tibetans inside Tibet propelled the issue to the top of the international news agenda prior to the Beijing Olympics in August, China’s ‘coming out party’ on a global stage. (See ICT’s report).

Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser was one of those key voices, with more than 3 million internet users visiting her blog, and daily updates translated into numerous languages. There were so many wrenching stories – the blind monk who committed suicide, the lama who was beaten when he tried to prevent a protest from escalating, the hundreds of monks, hooded, bloody, with bare feet, dragged from Drepung monastery onto the Lhasa train to be taken to camps in remote Qinghai. Thousands of Tibetans were ‘disappeared’, often being taken from their homes in the middle of the night to face extreme brutality in ‘black jails.’ The spike in numbers of political prisoners since March 10, 2008, was the largest increase that has ever occurred in Tibetan areas of the PRC under China’s current Constitution and Criminal Law.

Woeser documented the internal lives and feelings of Tibetans, too, at that time; in one of her poems, ‘Fear in Lhasa’, she described how the fear in the city today is greater than at the time of three key events in Tibet’s contemporary history – the Lhasa Uprising, which led to the Dalai Lama’s escape into exile in March 1959, the Cultural Revolution, and the imposition of martial law in March 1989. She wrote: “A hurried farewell to Lhasa/Where the fear starts at the Potala and strengthens as you go east, through the Tibetans’ quarter/Dreadful footsteps reverberate all round, but in daylight you won’t glimpse even their shadow/They are like demons invisible by day, but the horror is worse, it could drive you mad/ A few times I have passed them and the cold weapons in their hands.”

Referring to the scale and scope of the crackdown that followed the protests, Abhishek says: “You could not believe a regime would turns so mad. There was a sense of madness across the board.” Pah-La points towards an aspect of 2008 that is little known, which is the resignations of Tibetan and Chinese prison guards and police from their jobs due to revulsion at the violence that followed the protests and riots, of which Abhishek appears to have some knowledge. He also hints at a way of viewing the protests through the lens of gender via the character of a female prison guard who blames the chaos on “all the fathers”; the Tibetan men for engaging in violence, the Chinese for responding with such overwhelming brutality.

An equally contentious point in Pah-La has proved to be that the (Tibetan) violence in Lhasa in March 2008 was sparked by the self-immolation of a Tibetan nun. Abhishek explained to me that he had heard the rumour of the self-immolation of a Tibetan nun prior to the March protests in 2008 several times; he later said that one of his sources had seen her name on a prison list. He also contends that there have been many more self-immolations than the 155 documented by ICT and other organisations. (The self-immolation in the play takes place on a remote hillside on a railway track in faraway Kham, with no explanation for why the nun Dashar then appears in a prison cell in Lhasa. There is no railway in Kham, yet, the ‘steel dragon’ traversing the Tibetan plateau that opened in 2006 runs from Qinghai to Lhasa).

According to current information, the wave of self-immolations that have swept across the Tibetan plateau began with the Kirti monk Tapey who set fire to himself on February 27, 2009, after a religious ceremony at his monastery in Amdo (Ngaba) was cancelled. (The first self-immolation in Tibetan society in the modern era took place in exile in Delhi, India, on April 27, 1998, when Thubten Ngodrup set himself on fire – and later died – as a Tibetan Youth Congress hunger strike was broken up by Indian police.)

Tibetans have said that when they hear of a self-immolation, they pray that the individual dies, rather than survive the ordeal that follows. Tapey survived. Monks from Kirti monastery in exile said that police opened fire on him after extinguishing the flames, and that according to further information received three years later (demonstrating the extent of the information blackout), “They are not allowing the bullet wounds on his arms and legs to heal, but repeatedly re-opening them in the name of medical treatment.” The same sources said that when Tapey was taken to hospital after his self-immolation in Barkham the first thing he said to his mother was, “I am not the son you want to see. I should have died that day, but I didn’t manage it.”

An official documentary shown on Chinese TV in 2012 showed Tapey in hospital, wearing monks’ robes, with his head, neck, arms and legs heavily scarred, sitting under a pink quilt emblazoned with the word ‘Love.’ Despite the heavy pressure he must have been under to express his regret, or blame the Dalai Lama, in the video Tapey simply talks carefully only about his physical condition, saying that most parts of his body have physically healed and he can write slowly with one of his hands. The humanity of hospital staff is conveyed through a nurse, speaking to the official news agency Xinhua, who says: “With Tibetan incense, prayer beads and Buddhism sutras laid on his bedside table, Tapey normally spent no less than an hour participating in Buddhist services in both the morning and evening.”

Another monk who self-immolated and is depicted in the same video gives a similar succinct message to camera, omitting any mention of regret and manipulation by “external forces” (despite inevitable pressure to single out the Dalai Lama as being responsible). Eighteen-year old Kirti monk Lobsang Kelsang, who set fire to himself on September 26, 2011, was filmed in his hospital bed saying: “I have no words but thanks – doctors have given me another life, they all treat me well.”

The Party state narrative on March 2008 was immediate and unambiguous. When CCTV made a documentary called “Records of the Lhasa Riots” in 2008, footage of the incidents on March 14, 2008, was broadcast over and over again on primetime television in China, and was made into a DVD. The deaths of Chinese shop workers were broadcast repeatedly on Chinese national television, with little or no mention of the Tibetan shop workers who died in the same fires – and no mention of Tibetans killed when Chinese troops opened fire, or afterwards following torture. (Leading Tibetan historian and scholar Tsering Shakya wrote in the book “The Struggle for Tibet” written with Wang Lixiong that when much larger riots broke out in Wengan, Guizhou and inland China, even Chinese bloggers wondered why the protestors in Lhasa had been demonized on national television as criminals, while in Wengan the local leadership was sacked, an investigation team sent to review local policies, and news of the incident scarcely reported in the official media at all.)

The official response was far more muted and ambiguous when the self-immolations began. It was not until May 2012 –three years after Tapey set fire to himself in 2009 – that the Chinese state media produced its most elaborate response in the form of a video broadcast in both Chinese and English (with some variations between the two) on Chinese Central Television (CCTV), China’s predominant state television broadcaster. The preparation time accorded to the documentary, and a series of articles published a month later which gave more human details about those who had self-immolated, gave a sense of individuals within a bureaucratic system struggling for an adequate and coherent response.

It is still not known exactly how many people were killed or died after torture following the events of March, 2008; the Beijing leadership engaged in a comprehensive cover-up of the torture, disappearances and killings across Tibet combined with a virulent propaganda offensive against the exiled Tibetan leader, Nobel Peace Laureate the Dalai Lama.

Pah-La is a flawed but passionately-felt attempt by the playwright to lead us to a deeper understanding, and it poses serious questions. More answers will come from inside Tibet over time; just as it is only now that we have gained a fuller comprehension of the sheer scale of the killings and oppression in March, 1959, through Jianglin Li’s essential analysis of eyewitness sources and classified government records.

The most powerful scene in Pah-La, for me was entirely without dialogue. Nuns are darting around a dark stage amidst fluttering religious texts, in the gaze of a gleaming Buddha; Buddhist mantras can be heard amid Communist Party slogans. It is a moment when the sheer power and energy of Tibetan culture and individuals seeking to transcend their terror through the transformative impacts of Tibetan Buddhism can be sensed.

At an after-show talk during Pah-La’s run in London Abhishek Mazumdar reflected on his experience meeting a child who later apparently died of starvation in prison, after March 2008. “What sort of play do you write after that? With Tibetans I speak to, there is often a sense of having lived through an experience that is so harsh, it is not that one doesn’t want to talk about it, it is that one doesn’t have the words.”

Virtually unnoticed by the general public, the Süddeutsche Zeitung seems to have decided to discontinue supplements from the Chinese Communist Party’s China Daily. News of the termination of this presumably very lucrative business relationship was tucked away in a third-page article by the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s correspondent for China, who claimed that the “China Watch” supplement was only meant as a one-time affair. In November 2017, things certainly sounded different. In response to our criticism, the managing directors stated in an email to the International Campaign for Tibet that they intended to include the supplement in their print edition “bi-monthly.” This would mean that at least two more print editions should have appeared this year if the SZ had not, apparently, thought better of it.

Even if it remains unclear what made the management reconsider, it is a decision worthy of praise. Other media should follow the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s lead and terminate their advertising deals with this propaganda-peddling newspaper. They should distance themselves from cooperation with Chinese state media, which not only serve as the mouthpiece of an authoritarian country and party leadership but also take part in the most perfidious oppression. Since 2013 TV and the state-run press in China have broadcast forced confessions from dissidents clearly jailed unjustly to silence them and intimidate the public. This clearly contradicts international human rights standards as well as China’s own written laws.

Thus, the International Campaign for Tibet, along with the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) and the French Ligue des droits de l’Homme, made an urgent appeal to the Parisian Le Figaro to discontinue its monthly China Daily supplement. In Germany, the Handelsblatt continues to publish advertising supplements from China Daily, as do many other leading media in Europe and America. It is high time to call out this cooperation for what it is: the selling-out of journalistic credibility.

Vincent Metten (ICT) asking questions during the Q&A Sassion. On the panel from left to right: the chinese interpreter, Mr Pema Thinley and EIAS moderator Mr Fouquet.

Pema Thrinley (Chinese transliteration: Baima Chilin) the Vice Chairman of the Ethnic Affairs Committee, National People’s Congress of China spoke about “Assessing Economic Development in Tibet”. We believe that this is in direct contravention of the mandate of the European Institute for Asian Studies, as a “leading Brussels-based Think Tank and Policy Research, which provides a platform for the promotion of dialogue and understanding between the European Union and Asia on affairs of strategic regional and global importance, hereby ensuring indepth, comprehensive research and information exchange.” (www.eias.org)

Pema Trinley served in the People’s Liberation Army based in Tibet from 1969 to 1986, a military career which could be as an important credential for the continued implementation of harsh security policies in the region that have become the norm for the Party in handling Tibet. He is seen as a man who had played a prominent role in justifying the crackdown on Tibetans after the March 2008 protests in the Tibetan capital city, Lhasa. This year Pema Trinley accused the Dalai Lama of “profaning religion and Tibetan Buddhism” as a reaction to Dalai Lama’s remarks that he might not be reincarnated when he dies.

The decision by EIAS to invite this official delegation also appears contradictory in the light of its recent decision to reject a discussion with an authoritative independent expert on Tibet’s environment, a matter of regional stability and increasing global concern.

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) contacted the EIAS and proposed them to host an event with an expert in environmental issues in Tibet, Mr Gabriel Lafitte, a researcher in the Department of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, of Monash University, in Australia, and editor of a specialist website www.rukor.org which focuses on Tibetan encounters with global modernity.

EIAS responded to the proposal as follows: “After discussing internally, and while unfortunately organizing a public seminar on Tibet is not possibility for EIAS, we would be very interested in having an internal meeting with Mr Lafitte, should he be interested (together with some of our senior associates and researchers).”

Very surprisingly, a few weeks later we received an invitation from the same organization to attend a Briefing Seminar on Tibet by Pema Thinley as the main speaker.

During the Q&A Session, I asked why the Institue had changed its attitude towards Tibet and has now included it on its agenda, EIAS’ “moderator” Mr David Fouquet answered: “Even in small organisations, there can be bureaucratic misunderstanding and miscommunication. I was not involved in process you describe, but we can maybe talk about it later with the person you were in contact with. My approach would be that it would have been a possible topic of interest.”

Participants to the EIAS Briefing.

The diplomat from the Chinese EU mission trying to prevent me from taking pictures.

In my view, there is a real need for additional investigation by independent experts and journalists on how some of Brussels’ based think tanks and research centers dealing with Asia, in particular active on China, position themselves and tackle sensitive issues such as human rights, Tibet, Taiwan or Hong Kong.

And most importantly there is a need to understand what are the interests and reasons behind such attitudes and what is the added-value for these organisations to side-line sensitive issues from a public debate.