Beijing pressures Tibetans to ‘speak in Chinese’

Lhasa [Tibet]: Chinese officials in rural Tibet are forcing village leaders to speak in Chinese and pressurizing them to support language policies mandated by Beijing,” a media report said.

This is part of Chinese authorities’ move forward with campaigns aimed at restricting the use by Tibetans of their native language, according to Radio Free Asia (RFA).

“A 10-day workshop was held for local leaders in Kongpo in central-eastern Tibet to promote Chinese, both written and spoken, as their main language of communication,” RFA’s source said.

The report said workshops that were launched at the end of 2021 order local administrators to conduct business only in Chinese.

This decree requires Tibetan village employees to speak and communicate in Chinese at all times.

Tibetan researchers living in exile called the move a further push by China to weaken the Tibetan people’s ties to their national culture and identity, RFA reported.

For years, China has been closing down the institutions that teach the Tibetan language and culture, including monasteries or private-run schools.

Analysts and critics have slammed this Sinicization drive.

Pema Gyal, a researcher at London-based Tibet Watch, said that the Chinese government imposes the use of Mandarin Chinese in Tibetan schools and religious institutions. “But now these policies are being enforced on all Tibetans.”

“This is an attempt to Sinicize Tibet’s language and culture,” Gyal said. (ANI)