Our unshaken resistance to China’s Tibet railway

Updated three times below

On July 1st China will officially launch the China-Tibet railway, connecting Lhasa to Beijing for the first time by rail. Students for a Free Tibet and countless other Tibet support groups have worked hard to oppose the construction of this line and Bombardier’s delivery of luxury rail cars. Now that we’re approaching China’s Tibet railway’s first run, it’s critically important that we speak out in opposition to the purpose of this project: the destruction of the Tibetan identity and culture.

“China’s Tibet railway has been engineered to destroy the very fabric of Tibetan identityâ€?, said Lhadon Tethong, a Tibetan and Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet. “China plans to use the railway to transport Chinese migrants directly into the heart of Tibet in order to overwhelm the Tibetan population and tighten its stranglehold over our people. With the Beijing 2008 Olympics just 2 years away, we plan to hold Beijing and its railway partners accountable for destruction caused by the operation of this line.”

Just this week we heard newly arrived refugees from Tibet detail the negative impact the railway is already having on Tibetans.

Yamphel from Rebkong County says, ” The Railway has become a matter of concern for all Tibetans, when older generation passes away, younger generations would be converted into Chinese”.

Yeshi Damdul from Tölung Dechen County says, “Large numbers of poor Chinese would come to Tibet and the Railway would transport mineral ores from different parts of Tibet even thouh the government says it is for carrying passengers”.
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Tsering Dhondhup from Damshung County says, “There is white stone mining in our Lungring Township since five years; these shiny white stones are expensive, 6-9 truckloads are taken out every day to be cleaned in Lhasa and transported to Mainland China. Locals don’t have any right to say anything and no one dares to speak, they blast lots of dynamite and it was harmful to people because it destroyed nomadic grasslands.

Dhondup continues, “Last year there was gold and lead mining from a holy lake called Sertso lake near the stone mining site and locals are very worried. Tibetans are not allowed to work there. Mining is done beyond limit and it would continue in the future also because the Railway track is also purposely made near mining areas, more mining tests are done in Nalung Township. The places that used to grow grass no longer grow grass, the fertility of the soil is deteriorating, when the Railway come, many Chinese would come and we would lose all our land”.

The uses of the railway are already clear to Tibetans inside of Tibet. Colonization, exploitation, environmental devastation and cultural dilution will continue to come as Han Chinese settlers are able to enter into Tibet with greater facility and Tibet’s natural resources are whisked out at greater speed.

Economic development inside Tibet has never been what was at stake in this project. Rather, the issue is that this is not a Tibetan-led development endeavor and it is in no way targeted to benefit Tibetans. If Tibetans were allowed to build a railway inside Tibet it would travel along different route, likely connecting to India. A railway built by and for Tibetans would make a real effort to use the technology to link remote Tibetan towns together - a mission China’s Tibet railway completely avoids.

Yet that would not mesh with the PRC’s long-held plans for assimilating Tibet into mainland China. And so we witness China proclaim success in another aspect in their genocide of Tibetan culture.

The good news is that the world is watching as China launches a project the is designed to destroy Tibet’s identity and culture. The Associated Press has run a widely distributed story that highlights Tibetans’ loud objections to the railway and I think we’ll see a lot more coverage that’s highly critical of the project while China tries to promote the rail launch is its own glowing terms.

Critics say it is part of a larger campaign by Beijing to crush Tibetan culture by allowing a huge influx of Han Chinese migrants.
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However, [Zhu Zhensheng, vice director of Railway Ministry's Tibetan Railway Office] acknowledged that few ordinary Tibetans would benefit directly from the railway _ a key complaint by human rights and Tibet activists.

“At first there will be not very many opportunities for Tibetans to work on the train,” he said at a briefing. “We hope to increase those opportunities.”

Members of Students for a Free Tibet and pro-independence activists have been wearing black armbands in protest and say they will demonstrate at Chinese embassies and consulates around the world on Saturday.

“China’s railway to Tibet is not meant to benefit Tibetans and is only meant to consolidate Beijing’s control over the region,” the group said on its Web site.

I know Students for a Free Tibet and our supporters will not let the launch of this destructive railway go without protest. An international Day of Action is planned for this Saturday and protests will take place at Chinese embassies and consulates worldwide. Earlier this week fifty Tibetan demonstrators were arrested at a protest outside of the Chinese embassy in Delhi, India. China thinks it can promote it’s railway to Tibet as a technological success, but the truth of its destructive design is readily visible to anyone taking a serious look at who was given input in the design of the railway and who will actually benefit from the railway.

[Update I]

Here’s a revealing quote by Chinese railway minister Zhu Zhensheng, courtesy of McClatchy Newspapers report Tim Johnson:

No culture can develop and thrive in a closed environment.

That may be true, but what Zhu suggesting that Tibetan culture will thrive best when inundated by Chinese culture. I’d argue that a better description of Zhu’s dream scenario isn’t Tibetan culture thriving, but assimilating itself into Chinese culture.

The quickest path to the destruction of a culture is the death of its language and the dilution of its population. The Chinese government’s policies of population transfer has made Tibetans a minority in their own country. Educational opportunities in the Tibetan language are shut off before high school, leaving Tibetans forced to choose between their language and their educational (and economic) future.

I wouldn’t want any other culture to set the terms of America’s development and I’m certain that Tibetans want and deserve the right to chart the course of their culture, not have it destroyed by the at-best paternalistic policies of the Chinese Communist Party.

[Update II]

More media coverage of the rail launch. No articles I’ve read have yet to find a way to describe the railway without referencing the destructive impact it will have on the survival of the Tibetan culture.

Clifford Coonan of The Independent writes:

Exiled activists from the mountainous enclave fear that the track will sound the death knell for the traditional culture of Tibet. Environmentalists fear irreparable damage to a precious ecosystem on the remote and frozen Qinghai plateau.

Whichever argument prevails, the departure of the first train from Beijing to Lhasa signals a profound change for Tibet.

Ruled for hundreds of years by red-robed Tibetan Buddhist monks, Lhasa is a different place from the time when Chinese troops entered in 1950 and began imposing the dominant Han Chinese culture on the ancient territory.
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However, groups demanding more autonomy for the region fear the train will bring even more Han Chinese migrants into Tibet, further diluting the indigenous culture.

Coonan does the dangers of the rail line to the Tibetan culture justice in his write up. While ostensibly presenting both the pro-railway and pro-survival of the Tibetan people arguments, his article ways heavy with the valid criticisms groups like SFT are presenting. Coonan makes clear both the history of China’s policies aimed at cultural destruction in Tibet and the ease with which this process will be accelerated by the new rail link.
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Richard Spencer of The Telegraph writes:

When Locomotive T27 shuffles out of Beijing’s West Station tomorrow on a 2,500-mile journey to the roof of the world, China’s 50 year-long colonisation of Tibet will be complete.
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Demonstrations are planned outside Chinese embassies around the world over the weekend. But there will be little trouble in Tibet, with reports of a heavy army and paramilitary presence in the capital, Lhasa.
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The railway has military as well as economic benefits. Tibet has become China’s most overtly militarised region, as could be seen from the convoys of up to 80 army trucks travelling this week across the plateau, fresh from resupplying the garrisons.

This is partly to ensure security - there have been major uprisings against Chinese rule, the last, in the late 1980s, ending with a declaration of martial law by Tibet’s then party secretary, Hu Jintao.

I think Spencer is missing his own point about the military. The militarization of Tibet is for the purposes of colonization, not security. Militarization in a colony isn’t about providing security, but to ensure the continued repression of the colonized people. Spencer was bold enough to call China’s military occupation of Tibet a colonization; it would have been nice for him to carry the analysis through till the end of the article.

[Update III]

On the blogs, Johnontheroad writes about how his travels in Tibet have formed his opinions on China’s military occupation and the destruction the railway will cause.

Right now the Chinese have around 500,000 soldiers stationed in the TAR region of Tibet of around 2 or 3 million Tibetans. That’s roughly about 1 soldier to every 4 or 5 Tibetans. Why? Because the Chinese know they are in the wrong. They know that Tibetan don’t want be in China, so they force them to. Force exposes it’s own wrongness. Think about that.

More updates to come, gotta run for now…

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