China Canada Photo: VCG

China expresses deep dissatisfaction and lodges a stern opposition to Canada’s determination to hold an event on the preservation of Tibetans’ unique culture on the sidelines of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, as well as hyping up Xizang-related issues and spreading lies together with the US at a public seminar on assessing “China’s Assimilationist Policies Targeting Tibetan Language, Culture and Religion,” said a spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Canada on Wednesday. 

According to a statement from the spokesperson, the organizers and participants of these meetings are filled with anti-China organizations and individuals, among whom the Tibetan government-in-exile is a thoroughly separatist political group which no country in the world acknowledges. 

While both Canada and the US recognize Xizang as part of China’s territory, they secretly provide a platform for “Tibetan independence” organizations, continuously repeating lies and rumors that have long been debunked, with a real intention to smear China with Xizang-related issues and embolden the “Tibetan independence” forces, the spokesperson said. 

Xizang is a high-altitude region with a dispersed population, said the spokesperson. Especially for children from nomadic communities, they face long and inconvenient journeys to school. Providing education in dispersed areas also presents challenges in maintaining teaching quality. To ensure that all children have equal access to education and respond to parents’ wishes for their children to study in a safe and comfortable environment, local governments have established boarding schools. However, whether students live at school is entirely based on the students and parents’ wishes and needs. 

These schools generally offer traditional cultural courses such as Tibetan language, and students are allowed to wear Tibetan clothes on campus. Parents can visit the school and pick up their children from school at any time, the spokesperson said. 

The boarding schools in Xizang are vivid examples of protecting the Xizang people’s human rights and their cultural traditions. The so-called forced assimilationist is purely a lie, the spokesperson noted. 

According to the spokesperson, Canada and the US have mandatory regulations for their foreign naturalized citizens in term of language, culture and history, and even require them to pass specialized examinations. As Chinese nationals, it is only natural for the Xizang people to possess skills and knowledge of the national language, culture and history, as it is the right and responsibility of every citizen. 

“How has this become ‘forced assimilationist’ and an undermining of Tibetan language and culture in the mouths of those people? Isn’t this a blatant double standard?” the spokesperson asked. 

Canada and the US claimed that they hope China will not repeat the mistakes they made on the issue of indigenous population and are willing to share their beneficial practices. However, since the peaceful liberation of Xizang, the central government of China has abolished the feudal serfdom system, leading to significant progress in social and economic development of the region, with the lives of the Xizang people undergone tremendous changes compared to before liberation, the spokesperson added. 

The indigenous issues in Canada and the US bear no resemblance to the Xizang issue. What they should do is to learn from China’s successful cases instead of using their own guilt as an excuse and basis for accusing other countries, engaging in baseless slander and defamation against China. 

Canada and the US claim to oppose “foreign interference” yet are obsessed with hyping up Xizang-related issues to interfere in China’s internal affairs. What they care about is not Xizang people’s well-being at all, which is rather merely a tool for them to wantonly interfere in China’s internal affairs and seek geopolitical interests, the spokesperson said. 

What I want to emphasize is that the tremendous achievements in development since the peaceful liberation of Xizang cannot be covered by the slander and defamation from the US and the West, the spokesperson said, adding that the scheme of “turning Xizang into a card to contain China” will never succeed. 

Global Times