On February 15–16, China was grilled during the final two days of the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights session in Geneva. The UN’s top human rights body reviewed China for the third time on implementing the world body’s Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, reported Pardafas.
The rights advocates brought up issues including the Sinicization of Tibet and other terrible injustices there, Covid-19, retaliation against human rights defenders and a security law that crushed dissidents in Hong Kong.
These developments were overshadowed by reports that as part of an annual indoctrination process, the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama, Gyaltsen Norbu, was recently told by a senior CPC official to remain loyal to the ideals of President Xi Jinping!, reported Pardafas.
The Chinese State has made significant efforts to subjugate Tibet and its inhabitants. The latest in this series is the propaganda aired on state television through programmes showing that Buddhism is an “ancient Chinese religion” with Chinese characteristics.
According to Pardafas, the fact that the Panchen Lama has to swear loyalty to President Xi annually reminds of China’s tenuous hold on Tibet.
Notably, on February 21, 2023, the Tibetan New Year, Losar, the Panchen Lama met with Senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official Shi Taifeng, who reportedly said: “he would firmly bear in mind the earnest instructions issued by General Secretary Xi Jinping, conscientiously study and implement the guiding principles of the 20th CPC National Congress, and actively contribute to aligning Tibetan Buddhism to the Chinese context and socialist society”.
Shi Taifeng, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the United Front Work Department, acknowledged the achievements made by “Panchen Rinpoche”, but expressed hope that Rinpoche would firmly keep in mind the earnest expectations of General Secretary Xi Jinping and maintain a high degree of unity with the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core ideologically, politically and in action, reported Pardafas.
Chinese Panchen Lama willingly parrots the official line signalling the ever-increasing hold of China on Tibetan Buddhism. Since China appointed the 11th Panchen Lama in 1995, Gyaltsen Norbu has been presented as the ‘face of Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhism’.
Being a Chinese puppet, Norbu has travelled domestically and internationally extensively, giving numerous speeches about Buddhism, Tibet, and China. However, CPC’s efforts to gain recognition and acceptance from the Tibetans have largely failed, reported Pardafas.
Meanwhile, at Geneva, Chinese Ambassador Chen Xu and a delegation of about 40 envoys from China, faced questions from the UN Committee on the persecution of Tibetan human rights defenders, forced resettlement of Tibetan nomads, appropriation and mass-evictions of Tibetans from their lands, forced labour in Tibet, the disparity in access to education for Tibetans, forced assimilation of nearly one million Tibetan children in Sino-centric boarding schools, lack of rights for Tibetans to freely practice their religion including the flying of prayer flags and circumambulation (kora) of holy shrines, large-scale destruction of religious sites, and measures to control Tibetan Buddhist practice of reincarnation.
While the Chinese continue to evade inconvenient questions in Geneva, at home, it continues to intervene and shape the narrative on the reincarnation debates of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and further Sinicize Tibetan Buddhism, reported Pardafas.
According to Pardafas, the international community needs to persistently question China over violating the human rights of Tibetans, as occurred recently in Geneva.
