Tibetan sources who spoke to Radio Free Asia linked the closures to the Chinese government’s education policies and its promotion of the Ethnic Unity and Progress Law, which took effect on July 1, 2026. They said the shutdowns could further limit opportunities for Tibetan children to learn their mother tongue and cultural traditions.
Sorry, how are literal CIA propaganda blogs accepted as a source?
Okay, let’s actually read past the headline and look at what the article itself admits versus what it wants you to believe.
First, the “schools are being shut down and kids are abandoned” narrative. The article buries the fact that Gangjong Grassland Girls’ School (one of the three “closed” schools) was already a government-affiliated institution with a curriculum following the state system. So the “closure” is a restructuring of an already integrated school, not the sudden eradication of an independent Tibetan institution.
Second, the “where did the children go?” question. RFA doesn’t tell you. But public reporting does: Golog has 63 boarding schools where rural students get free accommodation, food, and tuition. The reason is geographic. Golog is at an average altitude above 4,000 meters with scattered pastoral populations; daily commuting is not realistic. Boarding is voluntary, decided by parents and students, and kids go home on weekends and holidays. This is logistics, not a plot.
Third, the “language is being erased” claim. The article cites an “expert” saying kids will be forced into Chinese-only schools. Here’s the actual data from Xizang (Tibet): there are over 30,000 bilingual teachers, and the number of full-time Tibetan language teachers grew from 5,800 in 2018 to nearly 8,300. Tibetan language is a core compulsory subject, and in Chamdo, about 94% of ethnic Tibetan students take the Tibetan language exam for college entrance. If that’s “erasure,” it’s the most incompetent erasure campaign in history.
Fourth, the “Ethnic Unity Law is a weapon against Tibetan” line. The law that RFA says is the legal cover for closing schools explicitly states the state shall “encourage all ethnic groups to appreciate each other’s exceptional traditional cultures, and learn each other’s languages and scripts.” That’s Article 29, in black and white. RFA’s “researcher” either didn’t read the law or hopes you won’t.
Fifth, the new schools are invisible in this article. The same month RFA claims schools are vanishing, a brand-new Golog-Xining Ethnic High School (built with paired assistance from Shanghai) was operating with nearly 1,000 students, mostly from herding families. Earlier, the Golog Middle School in Xining received 122 million yuan in investment, largely funded by Shanghai. These aren’t secret facts. They just don’t fit the “cultural genocide” template.
So the next time you see “China closes Tibetan schools,” ask the questions RFA didn’t answer: Were the schools already government-run? Where did the students go? Are there more Tibetan-language teachers now than before? The answers usually make the headline look less like journalism and more like a press release for a very specific political agenda.
Begging people to not blindly believe the CIA 😭 People really will just nod along as long as it’s in line with their preconceived notions…
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Wait, the other day I read over in c/Europe it’s perfectly fine for Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia to suppress the Russian language for their Russian minorities in their schools.
So, in the end it’s not about any freedom values whatsoever, but about whether it’s against our enemies? Shocking.
The Russians invaded and colonized Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, shall I continue or we gonna stop here?
Yes, they did. And today those are free states. Which now punish their Russian (Russian speaking, mind you) minorities.
Look, I don’t even care that much whether some states decide to suppress languages of their minorities. I care about the messaging. If the virtue signalling is “it is bad to try to suppress language and culture of a minority in the state school system”, I can get behind that. But it needs to be a universal concept, then. Especially around our allies. Like, of course China is doing evil shit, I don’t expect them to do stuff differently. But I expect my allies and friends to do better.
I’ll never understand in these kind of discussions how that concept of using the same scope is difficult, but here we are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Messaging is nice in a black and white world. Russians invaded, annexed and colonized parts of countries with the intent of becoming the majority / russifying. It was used as an element of cultural genocide (similar to what we are seeing in China with Tibetans and Uighurs.)
Even today, we can literally point at the Russian invasion of Ukraine as an ongoing example of “protection of Russian minorities” as a pretext for an unnecessary war on an independent and sovereign state separate from Russia. So yes, ideally, we should be able to say that ALL minorities in all countries regardless of historical precedent should be properly protected, but we live in a reality where that goodwill and weakness will be exploited by a Russia with imperial ambitions as casus belli for invasion of the Baltics. Forgive me if I take the Baltic’s fear of invasion at face value, they were still occupied 36 years ago.
And finally, just to flip the script here a little, the Russians are not exactly saints when it comes to protecting minority languages. Go read about Karelia for gods sakes. It was Finnish less than a hundred years ago.
Yeah, because Russia will immediately cease to threaten the Baltics, if they have eradicated the Russian language in some 6-8 generations.
Go read about Karelia for gods sakes.
Nowhere did I say that it is good when e.g. Russia does it?!
It’s strange, because it’s just so incompatible with how I feel. Like, I have higher standars for my friends and me than for strangers, but in politics it’s the other way round, where friends and allies can do whatever and are never called out.
Never ponder what happened to indigenous inhabitants of Ingria :v
edit: I’m confused as to why you upovted this if you disagree with the premise of west applying double standards
All by design. Its what imperialists do. It’s what the US and Canada did to my people and family.
Whether or not you trust RFA as a source. This is all part of a larger thread being reported on in wider credible coverage. And not just them as a group. Its part of a self stated literal policy position on the part of China.
And as the saying goes. Believe victims/women. Whether the accusations are true or false. Tibet is the one most liable to suffer repercussions from them not China.
Also if the United States was really going to try to discredit china. Considering all the bigots and racists involved in our government. Who don’t give a shit about such groups here let alone elsewhere. Our government which is guilty of the same thing here. The last thing that they would care about or do is try to create a narrative around something like this. It’s really disgusting to see “groups” hand wave stories like this away claiming such things.
Rfa is a known CIA asset. It exists specifically for the US to discredit China. So tbh I would need another source before I would consider anything written here to be anything other than propaganda.
There are other sources. Including China itself. What do you think ethnic unity is? Like I said I can understand people not trusting it explicitly. That’s fair. What’s truly frustrating, is the way I see so many especially here hand wave away and dismiss such things. Coming from a group that has experienced this it resonates personally.
Another thing to understand. Is that even if something is a propaganda outlet. Propaganda is typically based around something that is at some level true. The propaganda might misrepresent it. Or use it to imply something else. But just because someone uses it as propaganda doesn’t make it not true.
I wish we could have more nuanced discussions of China here. But we can’t. Because everything negative about China is automatically false propaganda. It’s like talking to magats. And big well-known sources are always lacking because of China’s lack of press freedom and access. Something which is not specific to china. It’s getting pretty bad here in the United States as well.
Calling China imperialist is akin to admitting you have no clue what the fuck you’re talking about. China hasn’t dropped a bomb in fifty years. Look no further than the US if you’re interested in imperialist ghouls, not socialist China. The idea you think the US wouldn’t spin up these stories is laughable, that’s what we do.
Closing 3 schools in a country with 1.5 billion people is only news if youre desperate to disparage China because you’re scared shitless of losing control over the world. Sinophobic fucks, you aren’t going to win.
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Calling China imperialist is akin to admitting you have no clue what the fuck you’re talking about.
Glances sideways at Africa…
China hasn’t dropped a bomb in fifty years.
Dropping a bomb is not a requirement for imperialism. Seriously go read the definition.
Nobody said it was, you’re attempting to handwave an important piece of evidence because it is inconvenient for your narrative.
The idea that China hasn’t dropped a bomb in fifty years supports that they’re not imperialist. But the biggest evidence is that they’re, you know, a socialist state. Socialist states do not have the budget nor interest in imperialism.
Feudal Tibet was liberated from its slavery. Xianjing was recovered after western color revolution attempts. Taiwan is allowed to exist and China has zero interest in taking it, given it’s already a part of China.
There is no imperialism coming out of China since the revolution. Western liberals coping with their own violence by being sinophobic never ceases to amaze me.
You do understand the person that I quoted that was basically implying that was you right?
In nearly 300 years of strife. I don’t think the state ever dropped bombs on my people or ancestors. That doesn’t make what they did not imperialism. And even then. Even if China isn’t directly dropping the bombs. They’re supplying Russia who is. The state by its absolute Monopoly on violence and overwhelming Force doesn’t even need to fire a shot sometimes. Let alone drop a single bomb. But it’s still imperialism all the same. And you’re twisting into pretzels trying to defend it is pretty disgusting. Imperialist often see themselves as liberators or uplifting people. It’s rarely true.
The state has always been the oppressor. And those who defended it tools.
Ahistorical drivel. China is not imperialist, and if you can’t see that, I ask that you study Lenin’s titular book on the topic. There is no pretzels twisting, I can happily debunk whatever claim you make about China being imperialist with ease.
The state is not an enemy, only idealists think this way. The state, when governed by the proletariat, is good.
It’s funny, you’d think being on Lemmy for several years as an anarchist with an interest in understanding the perspectives of fellow revolutionaries would lead me to have more of an appreciation for MLs. Instead I’m just 98% convinced y’all are in a cult.
China is claiming territory in the south china sea far beyond its internationally recognized borders. That is imperialism.
Okay, even if I grant you that, does everyone in the Chinese government have to sell their labour-power for a wage, aka the definition of a proletariat?
Socialism is a mode of production characterized by a working class dictatorship, workers owning the means of production, and the government having a principle interest in public ownership.
At no point does socialism not have bourgeoisie. They just do not control government and get executed for their social murder schemes. Youre conflating communism, a mode of production without classes, with socialism, a mode of production that empowers workers.
Holy shit you are so out of touch, you can be imperialist without dropping bombs, your ignorance is showing
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Yeah… that’s a fair assessment
I almost strictly post to .world. I guess you have to make shit up all the time to hang.
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The only place worse than .world is piefed. Both are completely full of ignorant liberals. Piefed is just extra cringe.
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Everyone who doesn’t agree with me is bad, uneducated, and ignorant. Only what I say has any relevance, ever, and I’m also smarter than all of you are.
Why the fuck are we letting 10 year olds on Lemmy?
I
almost strictly post to .world. I guess you have tomake shit up all the timeFixed it for you
I am far from ignorant on what constitutes imperialism. China is not imperialist. Their lack of dropping bombs is just one example of how obvious this is. Have you read Lenin’s work on the subject?
Have you read Lenin’s work on the subject?
Clearly you haven’t.
Belt and Road Initiative is absolutely an imperialist debt trap.
But you can’t call out China’s actions, that’s CIA propaganda!
Just clarifying to readers, here: “imperialism” in m-l terms is strictly an extension of capitalist expansionism for economic extraction, and colonialism is an extension of that.
Also: since China can do no wrong Tibet has always been a vassal state of the, wait, what am I saying?
Tankies don’t acknowledge that China and Russia are also settler states that have invaded their neighbours and continue to repress and dominate ethnicities and exploit the regional resources.
Yep, Everyone is always the hero in their own story. Regardless of whether or not they actually are.
Everyone is always the hero in their own story.
So true. I vote for “Comment of the week” award.
Also TIL: found this origin story link
Tibet was liberated from a feudal mode of production that used slavery. Liberation is not imperialism. You can say China is repressing whomever you want with no evidence, and I can handwave such absurd claims with no evidence.
You know you’re in trouble when even Wikipedia is telling you there is no genocide in Xinjiang and that Tibet was full of slavers and feudalists.
Tibet was liberated from a feudal mode of production that used slavery.
Funny, that’s the exact same argument nazis use on native americans for white people civilizing them.
Tibet was liberated
I am far from ignorant on what constitutes imperialism. China is not imperialist
Proving your own declaration wrong with your next sentence is a very tankie talent 😄
Have you read Lenin’s work on the subject?
Of whether or not present day China is imperialist? Oddly enough, nobody has 😉
Here is the definition, im hoping it will help you out.
Free tibet
Same energy as “Free the Confederacy”
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Mao already did
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So to you the slavery and oppression is preferable to living under china?
Take your time to answer that question yourself
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China has been using economic warfare for those 50 years
China, since the revolution, has been lifting up the proletariat of various nations and investing in infrastructure and technologies. There is no debt trapping, those stories have been thoroughly debunked by world economists for decades now.
The United States, on the other hand, has been using economic warfare since inception.
“Communist” China, the country with the fastest growing population of billionaires and rapidly growing wealth inequality while the proletariat toil away in terrible working conditions. Slavery with extra steps.
You would benefit from studying historical materialism. You wouldn’t say such silly things if you had the education.
China has billionaires and private equity under state capitalism, a perfectly normal component of any state transitioning out of capitalism. The bourgeoisie in China have no political sway, are subject to so many regulations it would make your head spin, and actually pay taxes. If a billionaire in China betrays rhe working class they get executed.
To say that China has the “fastest growing population of billionaires” but to not recognize what being a billionaire means under socialist states with working-class parties running their government is to be dishonest intentionally. Saying China isn’t socialist because of billionaires is a very silly stance.
As for terrible working conditions, you just made that up. Because you’re weak. China is a nation of 1.5 billion people with strong workers rights. Your sinophobia doesn’t matter when we are looking at the material, historical record of the economics of China.
Don’t worry buddy, I have enough education to see through the bullshit of the Chinese system. You’re outright dismissal of my points as “silly” or “sinophobia” without any real counterpoints however makes me question your intelligence.
China has billionaires and private equity under state capitalism, a perfectly normal component of any state transitioning out of capitalism.
This is your excuse for billionaires, easy to say this when you are making it up as you go along. How can you claim something is “perfectly normal” when it has not been done before? Wealth inequality in China is increasing every year, doesn’t sound like the transition to communism is going very well.
The bourgeoisie in China have no political sway,
You say so little in your reply and what you did say is easily disprovable. Less than 1/3 of the CCP is made up of workers and farmers with the majority over 2/3 made up of well educated and well paid educated elites and professionals. Before you say they are all workers, they do not share the same interests. A doctor in Beijing earns $150,000 a year and lives very comfortably on this salary. A factory worker struggles on an annual salary of about $7000. The majority of the CCP has a vested interest in the status quo and any transition to communism would require them to vote against their own self interest. All the while more and more billionaires gain more and more power and control in the country that is rife with corruption to begin with. China has similar levels of corruption as the Ivory Coast or Ghana.
You then claim I made up the terrible working conditions in China because I am “weak”? Huh? What kind of argument is that? China is the country of the 996 work week, that still goes on despite weak crackdowns. The country of the Foxconn suicides, the Hukou system creating an underclass of employees and forced labor of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
I could go on all day but there is no convincing you because you believe what you want to believe. Facts don’t get in the way of your feelings, you live in the land of delusion and fantasy. You give China a free pass because the ruling party has “communist” in its name. Next you will tell me the Democratic Republic of Korea is a vibrant democracy. The truth is China has just figured out a way to exploit the surplus labor of it’s workers to fuel its export machine. They are never actually going to transition to full communism, this is the lie they tell the workers while the rich in China live well. “Keep working there little guys and at some unknown point in the future we will reach the promised land, I swear!” As I said earlier, it’s just slavery with extra steps. You say I am the “silly” one.
You just wrote an entire paragraph attributing arguments to me that I’ve never made. And you have the nuts to question my intelligence for accurately observing material reality.
“996” “Xinjiang” “workers don’t share interests” yeah buddy you’re a sinophobic moron. I deal with people like you virtually every day of the week. The reason I don’t engage with the stuff you say is because you’re parroting lines from people like Adrian Zenz without having a clue who he is or why that matters. You’re not interesting enough for me to coach.
I am once again pointing out to you that both the factory worker and medical worker would benefit from pursuing development and collectivization. Both have surplus value stolen from them, as is the basis of wage labor under a capitalist, and for those in the public sector they would also benefit from greater collectivization as is the basis of their shared prosperity.
You keep repeating the nonsense idea that communism is when everyone gets paid the same amount, but this has never been true. Not only is it a horrendous misreading of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs,” as everyone has unique needs, but the point at which that becomes reality is the point at which all labor is interchangeable and scarcity no longer exists for the majority of produced goods. Until that point, distribution is largely according to labor, meaning more skilled and more strenuous work is paid better.
You deliberately refuse to understand these basic points and keep retreating to the most nonsense attacks on communism possible.
The CCP/PLA and the Russians constantly do this when they illegally occupy a country.
Sino-russian french republic… or sino-russian scandinavian social democracies… or sino-russian poland.
Wait what was that?? Must’ve been the sino-russians…
Tibet can’t catch a break. They have suffered many natural disasters and CCP occupation is getting more and more invasive.
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‘Have you seen what America looked like before the Europeans arrived? It was a shithole! If ‘Native American Culture’ amounts to sitting around doing nothing I think theyre legitimately better off under white Europeans’.
This is what you sound like right now.
This response is fucking disgusting
Everything about them is. They’re gross.
Love how you tankies shout about the imperial west while casually ignoring China’s own imperial nature.
That’s some mighty fine propaganda you bought into. It’s no wonder you are spreading it, it must have come at a great loss of your common sense.
The CCP/PLA took Tibet for the exploitation of natural resources and strategic location. Liberation? Are you telling us murdering over 70 million people, from the 1920’s to the present, who disagreed with the CCP is liberating? Get lost. That’s why the good folks in Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan and the rest of 1st World Asia despise you.
Let’s play a game:
Tankie argument or LITERAL psychology textbook examples of narcistic abuse justification.
IDK… It’s really hard. I struggle to tell the difference sometimes.
I hope you know that in the stories online of family members defending or minimizing abuse or molestation from other family members, you would be the ones defending the rapist or the abuser.
Wow, a whole 3 schools in a region of almost 4 million people?
Comparing with a similar sized state in my country:
- 1412 pre schools
- 1611 basic education, first 5 years
- 800 basic education, last 4 years
- 337 high schools
Closing 3 is almost a cultural genocide omg
Seems slightly disingenuous to use stats from your country and pretend that it means anything here.
If anyone has these stats about China and Tibet, I’d be really interested in seeing them. Otherwise it’s pointless.
Official chinese figures report it at 2200 schools of all levels. I didn’t post that because the first reply would be "well you can’t trust the official figures, the chinese government is clearly lying!“
And really, comparing similarly sized places around the world is not valid? You really need to visit China, it is as good or better than any other place I’ve been. We know their literacy rate is good, school math and science levels are among the highest, etc. Why wouldn’t it be comparable to other places?
Well I’m in the US, and we have a sordid history of forcing natives into certain types of schools.
So I’d just be curious to hear about how many Tibetan language schools have been closed specifically, and where all of those people now need to go to learn (that now specifically doesn’t include their culture at all).
Ok, tankie.
And how many were closed in order to erase their cultural education?
List them if you will. Preferably alphabetical if you don’t mind.
EDIT: yeah. I thought so.
Trying to evade the main point over here that:
China (country A) is closing schools in Tibet (country B) after a Military annexation.You know that annexation happened almost 70 years ago right?
You think the numbers of schools in a region that had 97% illiteracy rate and is now 28% remained the same all this time, and they are now, 70 years later, closing down 3 to oppress them? (Out of 2200 btw)
You know that annexation happened almost 70 years ago right?
Indigenous lands in north america were taken hundreds of years ago
a region that had 97% illiteracy rate and is now 28% remained the same
Literacy rates improved vastly for indigenous people in the Americas. Does that make that colonialism acceptable to you?
We brought democracy btw
- USA
We made line on chart go up btw
- China
I actually like the idea of state atheism but the consequences of implementing such policies will always lead to suffering, repression, and cultural genocide. I’ve thought about this a bit and haven’t come up with any kind of gentle solution. It seems to me that the core issue is the structural aspect of the religion that imposes its own laws on the group that conflicts with other hierarchies.
I think secularism is the closest you can get to something like that. People have a right to believe what they want even if that can be harmful. The most we can do is to make sure that those harmful beliefs don’t affect others.
I think you’re probably right. It’s just such a headache to deal with religious nationalism always inching toward power and capturing offices.
The right thing is never the easiest option unfortunately.
