The assimilationist turn in Tibet policy in the Xi Jinping era

Matthew Akester

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After the People’s Republic of China (PRC) annexed Tibet by military invasion between 1949 and 1951, it initially pursued a policy of accommodation with Tibetan elites, promising national autonomy based on the Soviet model. By the mid-1950s, having secured greater military and administrative control of the plateau, and international quiescence regarding its occupation, ‘socialist reforms’ were introduced in the ‘Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures’ (TAPs) of eastern Tibet, sparking resistance that was crushed brutally. The spread of resistance to central Tibet – the domain of the Lhasa government, later designated as the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) – led to the ight of the Dalai Lama in March 1959, and imposition of ‘reforms’ throughout. Between 1959 and 1979, Tibet’s traditional social order, dominated by the monastic system, was almost entirely destroyed. Most educated Tibetans were killed or imprisoned, and much of the population reduced to poverty under the commune system.

In the post-Mao era, under the 1982 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, the ‘national autonomy’ system was reinstated in Tibet, nominally allowing for political representation as well as the tolerance of Tibetan language, religion and culture. Although the cadre force became Tibetanised to some extent, few Tibetans achieved positions of real power – there has never been an ethnic Tibetan secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) Party Committee, which is part of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). However, monasteries were restored under state oversight, Tibetan language education was permitted, and restrictions on immigration from the PRC were imposed. Following nationalist unrest in Lhasa between 1987 and 1989, these liberalised policies were curtailed. Immigration controls were removed, leading to an inux of Han Chinese settlers, and a state-subsidised infrastructure and urbanisation boom transformed the plateau landscape. The ‘national autonomy’ system remained in place nominally, but severe restrictions were imposed on religious life. Other expressions of Tibetan identity and aspirations were identied as dissent by an increasingly securitised state.