Policy of forced assimilation against Tibetan children in China denounced

A Human Rights Watch report denounces that the education policies promoted by Beijing are displacing the Tibetan language and deepening the forced integration of ethnic minorities in China.

In mid-2021, China's Ministry of Education issued the “Children's Speech Harmonization Plan,” which for the first time requires the use of the Chinese language as the medium of instruction and care in all early childhood education centers in the country, including in ethnic minority areas.

A report by Human Rights Watch, based on an analysis of Chinese laws and policy documents, academic sources and interviews with Tibetans and specialists with recent, first-hand knowledge of the territory, examines the consequences of this change for children, families and the entire community of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

The organization highlights that the Harmonization Plan was not a sudden measure, but the near-final step in a process that lasted decades, through which the Chinese authorities progressively expanded the use of Chinese in education and reduced the role of Tibetan as a medium of instruction in early childhood education. 

In recent years, education policies have strengthened Chinese as the main language while relegating Tibetan to a more symbolic role within educational institutions.

HRW warns that the Harmonization Plan, although it does not explicitly prohibit minority languages in preschools, in practice puts an end to the legal authority granted by the 1984 Law on Regional National Autonomy for minorities to decide on language teaching at different levels of schooling.

The HRW report argues that the 2021 Harmonization Plan also marks a point of acceleration in China's gradual transition from encouraging ethnic diversity, promoted four decades ago, to demanding the “integration” of minority nationalities in today's China.

Along these lines, the document notes that currently throughout the country, including Tibetan areas, there is a requirement to promote love for the Chinese Communist Party and the motherland. All communities are also being pushed to identify as part of a single nation and to celebrate “the excellent traditional Chinese culture.”

Early childhood education institutions are not allowed to refer to or include religious elements in their teaching, which excludes Tibetan Buddhism, its customs, festivals, knowledge and cultural expressions from educational programs, even in Tibetan areas.

The human rights organization further argues that a child belonging to an ethnic minority in China may never receive instruction in their mother tongue throughout their entire childhood or adolescence, due to the shrinking of the “official” space allotted to the country's different ethnic groups. The report adds that, by requiring the use of Chinese in educational institutions, children are taught in another language at a key stage when they should normally be developing fluency in their mother tongue and their own native language.

The cultural consequences

The text also notes that language loss is accompanied by broader cultural consequences, including the weakening of communication between children and older people, the disruption of family dynamics, the reduced transmission of religious and cultural knowledge and the growing perception that the Tibetan language and identity are inferior. Although the analysis focuses on Tibet, the organization stresses that these dynamics are not exclusive to Tibetan areas or to that region in particular.

The HRW report raises concerns under international law and human rights, since the education policies implemented after 2021 are actively reshaping the linguistic, cultural and social foundations of Tibetan communities, putting the survival of the Tibetan language and culture at risk within a single generation.

In this regard, Human Rights Watch called on the Government of the People's Republic of China to ensure that the education of children belonging to minorities includes the development of respect for each community's cultural identity, language and values, in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to put an end to what it calls a “policy of forced assimilation of minorities in China.”

The organization also argued that the government of the Tibet Autonomous Region must include in the education of Tibetan children the development of respect for the community's cultural identity, language and values, while also ensuring that all Tibetan children can learn and use Tibetan both in early childhood education institutions and at other levels of schooling.

At the same time, HRW also urged foreign governments to demand that the Chinese government respect the rights of minorities to receive education in their own language, in line with international law and China's own constitution.

Guillermo Whpei

President of Fundación para la Democracia