To Tibetans it was bad enough that they were forced to take part in the Dec. 26 public celebrations of Mao Zedong's 130th birth anniversary by Chinese authorities. Making matters worse, the state officials who organized the events credited the late leader with the "peaceful liberation of Tibet" in 1950.
According to an anonymous young Tibetan residing in the capital Lhasa, who
spoke to Radio Free Asia (RFA), the occasion was used as a platform to disseminate false narratives about Tibet and present a fabricated version of Tibet's past favoring Mao.
The celebrations reportedly portrayed an independent, pre-invasion Tibet as backward and impoverished. Tibetans-in-exile described such a depiction as a deliberate attempt to legitimize China’s violent invasion and annexation of the country.
China’s claim during the commemorative event in Tibet echoes its
previous assertions that Tibet had always been an integral part of its historical territory – a claim vehemently rejected by Tibetans, who argue that the Chinese incursion marked the beginning of the state’s illicit control over the region, leading to the erosion of human rights in an otherwise autonomous region.
The same RFA source added that Chinese officials again brought up the narrative that the Dalai Lama signed the historical "17-Point Agreement" with Beijing in 1951 of their own free will. But experts and human rights advocates, including Tibetans-in-exile, have
long asserted that Chinese occupying forces coerced the Tibetan side into signing the declaration, threatening a full-scale war if they refused.
It’s no secret that China is using
all available media, including commemorative events, to shape public perception of China’s control over Tibet.
In 2023 China ramped up efforts to fend off attempts by Tibetans-in-exile to safeguard their nation’s history and culture against Chinese propaganda. In October 2023, China
replaced the use of the term "Tibet" with "Xizang" – its romanized Chinese name – on all official diplomatic documents. It has also transferred large populations of
Han Chinese to the region to dilute the Tibetan population.
China’s forced assimilation of Tibet has included the establishment of compulsory boarding schools for Tibetan children – an act that the international community has denounced. Stephen Rapp, former ambassador for global war crime issues at the U.S. State Department, called these facilities a “
weapon of cultural destruction, which could constitute a crime against humanity.”