Tibet

When Tenzin Nyima was growing up in India’s western Himalayan region of Ladakh, his parents, worried about his strongheaded ways, sought out a local oracle for guidance. The sage told the family, who had fled to India from Tibet in 1966 several years after a failed uprising against Beijing, to stop fretting. Nyima was destined to be a “brave soul,” he said. Indeed, in 1987, Nyima, just 18, went to an army base in Leh, the capital of Ladakh, asking to be recruited into a secretive Indian paramilitary unit with Tibetan soldiers, known as the Special Frontier Forces (SFF). On August 30 this year, Nyima’s mother Dawa Palzom, 76, was reminded of the oracle’s words when she got off the phone with

China’s foreign minister on Wednesday accused Indian troops of provoking the border clashes on Monday that left at least 20 people dead, saying Beijing was determined to maintain its territorial integrity. In the highest level communication since the deadliest conflict in the region for more than four decades, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar over the phone that the two sides should resolve their tensions through dialogue and keep the border safe, the Chinese foreign ministry quoted him as saying. The call was the latest move to de-escalate tensions after at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the clash in the Galwan River alley. China

Washington has angered Beijing in recent months with a flurry of legislation targeting China’s treatment of human rights in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. Tibet is now joining the list. The US House of Representatives’ foreign affairs committee on Wednesday approved a bill calling for stronger US support for religious and human rights in Tibet, a step along the way to it becoming law. Known as the Tibet Policy and Support Act of 2019, the bill is expected to go to the House for a full vote, although a date has not been set. US lawmakers have introduced legislation in recent months to allow for sanctions on individuals involved in the mass detention of at least a million members of Muslim minoritie

Tibetan Buddhist belief holds that when the Dalai Lama dies, his soul will be reincarnated in the body of a child. China has no problem with that – as long as it’s the right kind of law-abiding child, its foreign ministry said on Tuesday. Historically, successive Dalai Lamas have been found within the borders of Tibet. But that tradition could be coming to an end, since the current spiritual leader of the Tibetan people left China following a 1959 uprising against Communist Party rule. The 14th Dalai Lama, now living in exile in India, said in an interview with Reuters this week that the Chinese government would try to find a successor it approves of. But the 83-year-old said that a truly p

China has to restrict access to Tibet because some foreigners cannot handle the altitude, a top official in charge of the region has said. Wu Yingjie, the Communist Party chief of the Tibet Autonomous Region, said travel restrictions to the region are necessary because some visitors suffer from altitude sickness. “After considering the special geographical and climatic conditions, we adopted a series of regulations on foreigners entering Tibet in accordance with the law,” Wu told reporters on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress annual meeting in Beijing. Wu said many foreign visitors were “grateful” for the arrangements. The border region of Tibet is a popular travel destination

The city of Berlin sat at the very center of the Cold War between East and West. The Wall, Checkpoint Charlie. The Berlin Airlift and the advent of modern spycraft. But the ideological fight between communism and capitalism wasn’t all based there. An exhibition currently running in the German capital is all about what one of its curators, Natasha Ginwala, calls an “overshadowed chapter” in the Cold War. Well away from central Europe, the CIA trained exiled Tibetans in the arts of guerrilla warfare to fight Communist China. The exhibition Shadow Circus documents this unlikely alliance, which lasted from the 1950s well into the 1970s. Running until March 10 at Berlin’s Savvy Contemporary galle

An incoming Tibetan-Canadian student union president at the University of Toronto has pledged to continue advocating for a “free Tibet” after her support for Tibetan self-determination prompted protests from Chinese nationalists. Chemi Lhamo, the president-elect of the undergraduate student union of one of the university’s three campuses, said she is worried about her physical safety because of the hate messages she said she had received after her election win. Lhamo’s support for Tibetan activism has made her a target of the ire of some Chinese internet users and students at the university, who have accused her of trying to separate Tibet from the rest of China. The police have given her a

A Tibetan language activist has been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment by a Chinese court for “inciting separatism.” Tashi Wangchuk, 32, had been campaigning for the rights of ethnic Tibetans to learn their own language and culture, arguing the Tibetan language was being sidelined by Mandarin in the local education system. While Tibetan is still taught, Mandarin has taken over from the native tongue as the primary language of instruction in schools in many Tibetan-speaking areas. “The sentencing was harsh,” his lawyer Liang Xiaojun told Inkstone, adding that his client planned to file an appeal. It’s said that if one nation wants to eliminate another nation, first they need to eliminate

China has begun large-scale mining operations on its side of the disputed border with India. A huge trove of gold, silver and other precious minerals – valued at nearly $60 billion by Chinese state geologists – has been found in the Himalayas. People familiar with the project say the mines are part of an ambitious plan by Beijing to reclaim South Tibet, a sizeable chunk of disputed territory currently under Indian control. China’s moves to lay claim to the region’s natural resources while rapidly building up infrastructure could turn it into “another South China Sea,” they said. The South China Sea is a strategically important, resource-rich region disputed between six governments, and China

In a rare show of defiance, a Chinese military singer has spoken out against policies targeting ethnic Tibetans in China. The security clampdown in the western border regions of Xinjiang and Tibet are usually taboo topics at highly-scripted political gatherings. But Tibetan soprano Guowa Jiamaoji, a delegate to the country's top political advisory body, spoke out at an event during the annual legislative meetings, which are currently being held in Beijing. She called on authorities to stop targeting an entire ethnic group in its fight against separatism. “I don’t think they should impose measures intended to deter separatists on the whole Tibetan ethnicity,” the 54-year-old said. “It’s like