China’s influence in Nepal endangers Tibetan refugees
January 18, 2016
By Emily Korstanje
New Internationalist, January 12, 2016 – Tibetan refugees are extremely passionate about their homeland, culture and freedom – which is why it has devastated so many families to have to flee the country ever since the Chinese military invaded and took control of Tibet in 1949.
Until 2008, over roughly 128,000 Tibetans made it through the incredibly dangerous crossing over the Himalayas and more than 20,000 are currently living in Nepal as refugees, according to the Central Tibetan Administration and International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). Yet because of the overwhelming amount of undocumented Tibetans in Nepal, it is extremely difficult to get a precise number.
It is estimated that somewhere between 2,500 and 3,500 Tibetans were coming into Nepal each year. However, after several massive peaceful protests in Tibet in 2008, China intensely cracked down on Tibetans and severely tightened the borders. Since then there has been a dramatic decrease of refugees with roughly a few hundred people known to have made the journey last year and only 60 this year.
Tibetans in Nepal are known for their beautiful shops filled with stunning crafts and jewellery. One of the reasons they have these shops is because it is nearly impossible to gain Nepalese citizenship and they are not allowed to work for Nepalese corporations. Owning a small business, selling items on the street or selling Tibetan products to tourists inside their welcoming refugee camps are their only options for making a living in Nepal.
Among the Tibetan community in Nepal, you will find many Tibetan flags with the words ‘Free Tibet’ in various languages, along with pictures of the Dalai Lama. They use these items to represent their desire for freedom, human rights, and the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet. In Tibet, speaking out against China’s control or exhibiting such items could lead to imprisonment, torture, and even death.
‘When China took over Tibet, we had to flee for our freedom. My family didn’t want to live in fear and oppression, so they took the dangerous journey through the mountains to Nepal,’ said Tibetan shop owner Dzasa.*
Like many refugees currently living in Nepal, he was only a child when his parents fled Tibet in fear. He has lived in Nepal nearly his entire life, where his son (Dawa) was born.
‘The Chinese military were waiting at the border and captured my father. No one ever saw him again. We believe he was in prison and perhaps killed,’ Dzasa said.
The Chinese military have tightened the border so much that people are forced to find even longer and more dangerous routes through the mountain. Tibetans attempting to cross the border into Nepal face deportation at the hands of Nepalese border guards. The Nepalese government has also shut down various NGOs in the country that work toward supporting Tibetan refugees and those in transit to India as well as the U.S. resettlement plan, which offers Tibetan refugees the opportunity resettle in the United States.
China has an incredible influence over Nepal, whose government deeply admires the communist state. In fact, the country’s 10-year civil war was led by rebels called Maoists after China’s former communist leader. And while Nepal suffers from India’s current alleged fuel blockade, they are hoping to build even stronger ties with China.
Because of this crucial relationship with China, during Tibetan Buddhist holidays Nepalese soldiers walk through Tibetan refugee camps to monitor and ensure there are no protests or ‘uprisings against China’. Tibetan refugees are prohibited to partake in any kind of peaceful protests, which is upsetting for the many refugees who want to raise awareness of the injustice in their homeland.
‘A few years ago we wanted to silently walk around Pokhara Lake with “Free Tibet” signs but the Chinese government told Nepal they must put an end to it,’ said Tashi, a Tibetan refugee living in one of Pokhara’s camps.
During the attempted protest Nepalese soldiers were told to shut it down and began pushing through the silent protestors, throwing down their signs and yelling at everyone to go home.
‘Some of the tourists ran toward us and even started to cry because they saw we were peacefully protesting. They knew we were not there to harm, simply to stand up for our people’s rights,’ Tashi said.
Many Tibetans, like Dzasa’s son, who were born in the refugee camps and spent their entire lives in Nepal, do not have passports since Tibetan parents are not able to register their children’s birth. They are not fully accepted in Nepal and considered as second-class citizens. These refugee children feel trapped without any official form of identification.
As China’s influence increases in Nepal, Tibetan refugees become more vulnerable and are subject to the type of control that their families fled from.
‘Until China stops controlling and oppressing Tibetans, until it allows it to be a truly autonomous region where we can keep our culture and freedom, Tibetans in and out of Tibet will not feel safe or fully free,’ said one of Nepal’s Tibetan camp leaders and social worker, Tenzin.
*Note: names have been changed for the safety of refugees living in Nepal. WTN – Canada

Former Tibetan prisoner in ‘critical’ condition following alleged torture in detention
January 18, 2016
Radio Free Asia, January 12, 2015 – A former Tibetan protester was flown on Tuesday from Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa to Sichuan for medical treatment for an injury sustained while being held in a Chinese prison, sources said.
Kelsang Tsering was released last year after serving seven years in Chushul prison, just outside Lhasa, for his role in a March 2008 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, a source in Tibet told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
He has now been taken to a hospital in Sichuan’s provincial capital Chengdu, RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“However, there is very little hope for his recovery,” the source said.
Images of Tsering sent overseas and obtained by RFA show him lying face-down on a bed with a large, open wound on his back.
Tsering’s injury, allegedly suffered as a result of torture in detention, had failed to respond to treatment following his release, and his condition today remains critical, RFA’s source said.
Tsering and his wife and child have faced tough living conditions in Lhasa following his release, and have had little money for his medical treatment, the source said.
Tibetans from all across the plateau rallied to his cause, though, raising about 200,000 yuan [U.S. $30,430] enabling him to fly to Chengdu, he said.
Reported by Kunsang Tenzin for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Brooks Boliek. WTN – Canada

The politics of Tibet’s poisonous religious divide
December 28, 2015
By David Lague, Paul Mooney and Benjamin Kang Lim,
Reuters, December 21, 2015 – The doctrinal schism that the Chinese Communist Party is using to hound the Dalai Lama arose long ago in the internecine politics of his own school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Dalai Lamas are drawn from the dominant Gelugpa School, one of the four major Buddhist traditions in Tibet.
When the 5th Dalai Lama united Tibet in the 17th Century, he made an effort to embrace the other schools to enhance political unity, according to the French Tibetologist Thierry Dodin.
This move angered other senior members of the Gelugpa School who opposed sharing power and privilege. They united in a clique within their school around the worship of Dorje Shugden, then a little-known “protector deity.”
Over the centuries, Shugden devotees came to dominate the Gelugpa School and the religious politics of Tibet. After the Communists came to power in 1949, Shugden practitioners became influential in the exiled Tibetan communities in India and Nepal. At first, they were hostile to Beijing, particularly after Tibetan monasteries and cultural relics were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.
That changed with the current Dalai Lama, 14th in the line. He too had been educated under senior Shugden monks. But from the mid-1970s, he began to shape a more inclusive doctrine. In part, this was a political move aimed at unifying the different traditions in Tibetan Buddhism in the face of pressure from Beijing, according to Dodin and other Tibet scholars.
During a period of reflection, the Dalai Lama began to question the value of Shugden worship on the grounds it was harmful. In 1996, he publicly advised his followers to shun the practice. Since then, scholars say, there has been a gradual shift towards Beijing by the Shugden movement – a move that accelerated in the past decade.
China is careful to avoid obvious public references to its Shugden strategy. But on the ground, evidence abounds that Beijing has thrown its weight behind Shugden devotees.
GENEROUS FUNDING
Chinese authorities have poured funds into rebuilding and maintaining Shugden monasteries in the Tibet Autonomous Region and surrounding provinces. Reports in the state-run media show that China has financed extensive restoration at the Ganden Sumtseling Monastery in Yunnan Province and the Dungkar Monastery near Tibet’s frontier with India, both leading Shugden monasteries.
“There’s a massive drive to keep the remaining Shugden strongholds alive with a lot of support from the party,” said Dodin, director of the website TibetInfoNet. “This does not mean that others are left in decrepitude, but there is no such thing as a poor Shugden monastery.”
Buddhists who openly follow the Dalai Lama’s teachings face persecution by Chinese authorities, according to human rights groups and exiled Tibetans. It is now a criminal offence to discourage Shugden worship, they say.
Beijing also allows Shugden monks to travel overseas to teach and study with foreign Buddhists and exiled Tibetans.
In December 2012, Beijing sponsored the visit to Switzerland of Lama Jampa Ngodup Wangchuk Rinpoche, the first Tibetan lama sent abroad by the government to teach, according to the website dorjeshugden.com, one of the websites that publish news and commentary about the sect.
“By officially nominating him to travel abroad to teach, this would mean that the Chinese government is openly encouraging the proliferation of Buddhism, China’s ancient heritage and Dorje Shudgen’s practice,” an article on the website said.
PROTECTIVE CUSTODY
Another clear signal of Beijing’s preference: Senior Shugden monks are central to China’s effort to educate the Panchen Lama, second only to the Dalai Lama in religious stature.
In 1995, the Dalai Lama recognized a six-year-old Tibetan boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama. The boy and his family soon disappeared; Chinese authorities have said he is in protective custody. To sideline the Dalai Lama’s choice, Beijing then recognized another Tibetan boy, Gyaltsen Norbu, as Panchen Lama. This maneuver was crucial to Beijing’s plans to control Tibetan Buddhism, as the Panchen Lama plays a major role in recognizing reincarnations of the Dalai Lama, according to supporters of the Dalai Lama and experts on Tibetan Buddhism.
Many of the senior teachers responsible for educating Beijing’s hand-picked Panchen Lama are Shugden practitioners, according to experts on Tibetan Buddhism. Lama Gangchen, the most influential Shugden monk living abroad, has been photographed with this Panchen Lama as well.
President Xi Jinping in June met the party-approved Panchen Lama in Beijing. The monk told Xi he would “resolutely uphold the unity of the motherland and its people,” state television reported.
Chinese authorities have put aside their atheist convictions to insist they will vet the selection of the next Dalai Lama, according to official statements and reports in the state-run media.
This is part of an effort to ensure that the future spiritual leader of the more than six million ethnic Tibetans in Tibet and bordering provinces are loyal to the Communist Party. In response, the Dalai Lama has suggested he may reincarnate outside China or, perhaps, not at all.
That idea drew an outraged response from Zhu Weiqun, the point man in Beijing’s efforts to neutralize the Dalai Lama. “The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama has to be endorsed by the central government, not by any other sides, including the Dalai Lama himself,” Zhu said, according to a March 11 report in the state-run Xinhua news agency.
(Editing by Peter Hirschberg and Michael Williams)

Book Review – JFK’s Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, the CIA and the Sino-Indian War
January 4, 2016
The Economist, January 2, 2015 – In the autumn of 1962 Chinese troops invaded Indian-held territory, attacking across the 1,800-mile (2,880km) border that stretches along the Himalayas between the two giants of Asia. Mao Zedong instructed his army to expel Indian soldiers from territory that China claimed in Kashmir. In Washington the Chinese offensive was seen as a serious communist move in the cold war.
It was an inconvenient moment for the White House. President John Kennedy was absorbed in an even bigger crisis with communism closer to home: the flow of Soviet missiles to Cuba which threatened a nuclear conflict. Luckily for Kennedy, he had his own man in New Delhi. His friend from Harvard, John Kenneth Galbraith, was the American ambassador. So in a relatively easy act of delegation, Galbraith was put in charge of the “other” crisis.
Galbraith proved up to the task, in part, as Bruce Riedel writes in “JFK’s Forgotten Crisis” (Brookings Institution Press, 256 pages; $29), because he had access to the president and his aides. Most ambassadors report to the State Department, but the blunt Galbraith told the president that going through those channels was “like trying to fornicate through a mattress”.
The border war did not last long. The Chinese crushed the Indians. Mao declared a unilateral ceasefire a month later and withdrew Chinese forces. He had prevailed over his Asian rival, humiliating the Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
But victory was not just about Chinese might. At Galbraith’s urging, the Americans had quickly backed the distressed Nehru. An emergency airlift of supplies was sent to Calcutta and a carrier battle group was dispatched to the Bay of Bengal. In the end, Mao judged that the Americans might actually come to the help of India. He did not want to suffer huge losses of Chinese soldiers so soon after the Korean war. Thus American deterrence worked, and a confrontation between America and China was avoided, Mr Riedel writes.
The actual war is just one facet of this high-wire story of the geopolitics of the period, with its outsized characters and decisions that still reverberate today. Mr Riedel puts his experience as a former CIA analyst and a senior adviser on the National Security Council to canny use, uncovering details about an American covert operation in Tibet that has been mostly forgotten, though not by China.
Between 1957 and the early 1970s America spirited young Tibetans out of their homeland through Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), trained them in Colorado, and parachuted them back into Tibet, where they fought the Chinese army. Galbraith described the covert effort as “a particularly insane enterprise”. But the CIA prevailed. In 1961 the Americans were so starved for information about China that the CIA bragged about the ambush of a Chinese army truck by the Tibetan rebels. Mr Riedel describes how a bloodstained satchel of Chinese documents from the truck was taken to the White House as prized bounty. The Americans were so ignorant about the early years of communist China, he writes, that the operation was deemed worth the risk because of the documents’ descriptions of the status of Sino-Soviet relations, and the grim conditions in the Chinese countryside.
The current alliances on the subcontinent and the unsettling arms race between Pakistan and India hark back to the war of 1962. Kennedy’s decision to help India drew Pakistan closer to China. India started down its path to becoming a nuclear power after its defeat by China. When India tested a nuclear weapon in 1998, the rationale was the threat from China.
Today China and India are competitors, not enemies. But more than 50 years after the war, the border dispute remains unresolved. The two countries account for more than a third of the world’s population. In July 2014 at the first meeting between the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, and Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, Mr Xi said: “When India and China meet, the whole world watches.” This superb history shows why. WTN CanadA

Indian police to tighten security around Dalai Lama
January 4, 2016
By Pratibha Chauhan
Tribune News Service, December 30, 2015 – The state police have sought additional funds and manpower to beef up security at the palace of Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama in McLeodganj.
They have proposed to install high-resolution cameras, baggage scanners and other sophisticated equipment at his palace.
A detailed report has been sent by the police to the State Home Department. The state will be seeking funds from the Ministry of Home Affairs as it is responsible for the security of the spiritual leader who has made McLeodganj his abode since he sought refuge in India.
The enhanced security cover for the Dalai Lama has been proposed in view of the threat perception to his life as the entire Tibetan freedom struggle rests on his persona. There have been several instances in the recent past when alleged Chinese spies with maps and documents containing secret information have been arrested from around his residence. The Dalai Lama, who fled from Chinese-occupied Tibet in 1959, travels for more than 20 days in a month all around the world.
The plans to deploy additional force and install equipment at the Dalai Lama’s palace is a follow up of the review of his security by various agencies, including the state CID, Intelligence Bureau (IB), Military Intelligence and other security forces. The security of the Dalai Lama is managed by Tibetan security personnel who form the inner ring of security, along with more than 50 Himachal Police personnel.
The police have proposed to install high-resolution 360 degrees cameras, baggage scanners and sophisticated sabotage-check equipment at the entrance of the Dalai Lama’s palace. “We have proposed a full-fledged battalion for his security against the existing strength of 50 Himachal Police personnel,” said a senior police functionary. If the proposal is accepted, more than 100 personnel will guard him round the clock.
The police also want security at the residence of the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorjee, up. He heads the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism. He fled from Tsurphu monastery in Tibet and landed in McLeodganj in January 5, 2000. He has been residing at Gyuto Monastery located in Sidhbari on the outskirts of Dharamsala.
Only 20 police personnel are deployed for his security. As followers, including a large number of foreigners come to Gyuto to seek his blessings every day, the police want the security cover enhanced WTN Canada

China to fortify border defences with focus on Tibet and Uighur region
December 21, 2015
By Ananth Krishnan
India Today, December 20, 2015 – An on-going reorganisation in China’s military that will unify two separate military commands currently in charge of guarding the border with India could see as many as one-third of all China’s land troops stationed in this expanded new western zone, a report said on Sunday.
While China’s 8.5 lakh land forces are currently spread across seven military area commands – of them two western commands, the Lanzhou and Chengdu regions, are tasked with the western and eastern sectors of the border with India respectively, besides Myanmar, Russia and a number of Central Asian countries – a major on-going overhaul of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is expected to create five new military zones directly under the command of the Central Military Commission headed by President Xi Jinping.
The move comes amid reforms to centralise and modernise the PLA to make it a smaller, nimbler and more high-tech military.
While the details of the reorganization are expected to be announced in coming weeks, the South China Morning Post reported on Sunday citing military sources that as many of one-third of all land forces may be included in the new West zone.
The new sprawling West zone will stretch across more than half of China’s territory: covering frontiers from Myanmar in the south to India and Central Asian countries in the west, and all the way north to Russia, and including the two vast and troubled regions of Xinjiang and Tibet.
This zone will be created by unifying the Lanzhou and Chengdu commands, and will for the first time bring both the western and eastern sectors of the border with India under one command.
While the reorganization holds significance for border defences, military sources told the South China Morning Post that internal security considerations were a prime factor in the reorganization.
“The West combat zone will concentrate on threats in Xinjiang and Tibet and other minority areas, close to Afghanistan and other states that are home to training bases for separatists, terrorists and extremists,” a military source was quoted as saying.
This could mean fortifying defences in the western Xinjiang region, which borders India, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as well as Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Russia and other countries. Xinjiang has seen intermittent violence, which China has blamed on separatist Uighurs and suggested some have received training in camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan.
Underlying the importance of Xinjiang in this reorganization, the PLA may consider shifting the nodal centre of its entire western operations from Chengdu and Lanzhou, where two commands are currently based, to Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang, which, according to the report on Sunday, could become the new headquarters of the PLA’s West zone WTN – Canada

‘I Am Telling The Story of The Invisible Tibet’
A commentary by Tsering Woeser
2015-12-09
The first big trouble I ran into in my life was over the Chinese edition of Notes on Tibet. That was more than 12 years ago now, but I remember it as if it were yesterday, because the dark shadow of this regime, which silences dissent and strips its citizens of their most basic rights, is still entwined in my psyche.
And that trouble has proved to be a blessing in disguise, because it set me on the path to becoming an independent author, where I found difficulty and danger, but also a precious kind of spiritual freedom for which I am deeply grateful.
As a writer living under an absolute authoritarian power, I have always been subjected to investigation because of my writings. But before Notes on Tibet, I mainly wrote poetry, where meanings are obscure and metaphorical, and can be carried out into the world as if hidden inside an amulet.
But as soon as I began writing nonfiction, albeit in a literary style, it became a matter of fact and the historical record, and I was very soon punished for it.
Notes on Tibet was published by the China Huacheng Publishing Co. in 2003, to an enthusiastic reception by its readers, and further editions soon followed, although one aspect of it caught the attention of the government.

‘Political errors’
For a start, the United Front Work Department of the [ruling] Chinese Communist Party said that the book contained “grave political errors.” The person in charge of ideological work on Tibet ordered an investigation and banned further sales of the book, seizing all copies still held by the publisher.
The book was a major target of criticism in 2004 at a meeting of the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP), where it was described as “committing the serious political errors of praising the 14th Dalai Lama, and the 17th Karmapa Lama, and of proselytizing and expressing religious devotion, while some chapters enter the territory of political misunderstanding to varying degrees.”
The Tibetan Literature Association, where I worked at the time, said that it “exaggerated and idealized the positive effects of religion on society, while many of its chapters exude a sense of reverence and worship for the Dalai Lama.”
“At times, it turns a blind eye to the huge successes of the past few decades of reform and opening up in Tibet, indulging in nostalgia for old Tibet and committing grave political errors and erroneous value judgments. It has lost sight of the political and social responsibilities incumbent on a writer to create a progressive literary culture,” the Association said.
I refused to admit to these so-called errors, and so, a year after of the publication and banning of Notes on Tibet, I lost my job, my home was confiscated and my insurance policies revoked, and I was banned from applying for a passport to leave China. I could only leave [Tibet’s regional capital] Lhasa to live in Beijing, which I still haven’t gotten used to, with my husband Wang Lixiong, an author who researches Tibet and Xinjiang.
Work continues
I have continued to write poetry, essays, short stories, and collections of oral history, 14 volumes in total, while Wang Lixiong has published three volumes. But of course these books, which are all written in Chinese, can’t be published in mainland China, only in Taiwan and Hong Kong in the case of one volume.
They are banned, and they can’t be brought back into China.
I am very pleased that 12 of my books have been translated into English, German, French, Japanese, Spanish, Catalan, Polish, Czech, and Tibetan, and I would like to thank the translators at this point for choosing my work, and the Czech Publishing Co. for its recognition, and my Czech readers for their concern.
The stories in the books may have been written many years ago, but these are no tales of mysticism and Tibetan demons.
I am telling the story of the invisible Tibet, the historical and real Tibet as it is experienced by all Tibetans.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

China deploys mass surveillance to secure streets around ancient Tibetan temple
December 7, 2015
By Nathalie Thomas
Reuters, November 30, 2015 – Once the site of violent clashes between Tibetans and Chinese security forces, the ancient area of Barkhor in the Tibetan capital has become one of the safest places in China, officials say, thanks in part to an on-the-ground surveillance network.
Guard posts erected among shops and in courtyards around the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa watch the comings and goings of residents. The posts are manned by locals who are selected by the residents’ management committee, though some appeared to be unstaffed. At night, the doors to the courtyards are locked, residents say.
Managing the remote Himalayan region of Tibet remains a difficult issue for China, which has struggled with decades of often violent unrest in protest at Chinese rule, which started when Chinese troops marched into Tibet in 1950.
The government’s strategy, which was formally rolled out across the region in November 2014, is a “grid management” surveillance system aimed at managing society “without gaps, without blind spots, without blanks,” according to state media.
“This is a Chinese specialty, where the masses participate in managing and controlling society and they also enjoy the results of managing their society,” said Qi Zhala, the top Communist Party official in Lhasa.
Earlier this month, Reuters reporters, along with a small group of journalists, were granted a rare visit to the region on a highly choreographed official tour. Chinese authorities restrict access for foreign journalists to Tibet, making independent assessments of the situation difficult.
For the Han Chinese, many of whom have moved to Lhasa in recent years, the scheme is popular.
“If there’s anyone suspicious entering the courtyard, then they know,” said Shou Tianjiang, a Barkhor resident, referring to the ramshackle guard post erected in the center of the courtyard where he rents a room for his sock business.
The changes that have transformed Lhasa are evident. Five years ago when Reuters was last allowed access to the Tibetan capital, squads of paramilitary officers patrolled the streets and armored personnel carriers were stationed on most roads. But the paramilitary presence was not visible on the visit this November.
Activists say, however, that the real aim of the program is to maintain absolute control over the Tibetan population. Beijing reviles exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist.
“They want to detect and root out any sentiment that runs counter to the party state,” said Kate Saunders, spokeswoman for the International Campaign for Tibet.
Rights groups say China has violently tried to stamp out religious freedom and culture in Tibet. China rejects the criticism, saying its rule has ended serfdom and brought development to a backward region.
(Editing by Sui-Lee Wee and Nick Macfie)

Tibetan homes to be demolished, replaced by Chinese-style dwellings
December 7, 2015
Radio Free Asia, December 4, 2015 – Chinese authorities in Tibet have ordered the destruction of houses built in traditional style in three counties outside the regional capital Lhasa, with their replacement by Chinese-style dwellings scheduled for completion in five years, according to a local source.
Demolition and construction will begin in 2016 in Tagtse (in Chinese, Dazi), Lhundrub (Linzhou), and Maldro Gongkar (Mozhugongka) counties, located outside Lhasa city, a resident of the area told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“We are being forced to accept and support the plan without any choice,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Our own house is in very good shape and doesn’t need reconstruction,” she said, adding that residents in all three counties have been ordered to register for their homes to be replaced by buildings of Chinese design.
“We haven’t turned in our own names yet,” she added.
The order for replacement was issued by the Lhasa city government and then communicated to Tibetan families by their county governments, with residents of Tagtse informed in September, Lhundrub in October, and Maldro Gongkar in December, RFA’s source said.
“The project will begin with those families who are recipients of government welfare, and then move on to those families who don’t receive benefits,” she said.
Though anticipated costs of the work in Tagtse and Lhundrub are still unclear, “families in Maldro Gongkar have been told to contribute 200,000 yuan [U.S. $31,340], with remaining expenses paid by the government,” she said.
“Families have been promised the keys to their new homes when the work is finished,” she added.
Details and costs of the planned reconstruction could not be independently confirmed, and calls seeking comment from the Lhasa city government rang unanswered on Thursday.
In 2013, a project to modernize Lhasa’s central Barkhor, or Old City, area ignited a storm of protest online and among international Tibet support groups, with some calling the move an attempt to destroy Tibetans’ “living connection” to their past.
Meanwhile, the demolition in October of Tibetan dwellings near a scenic lake in northwestern China’s Qinghai province has left over 900 homeless and living in tents, sources said in earlier reports.
Reported by Lobsang Choephel for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finn

China’s about-face on climate change
Carrie Gracie
China editor
• 30 November 2015
Carrie Gracie explains China’s plans for solar energy
With a hard pledge on peaking carbon emissions and with ever more ambitious targets on installing renewables, China has become one of the countries to watch at this week’s Paris conference.
The Qinghai Tibet plateau is the heart and lungs of Asia. Here, the continent’s weather is made and its great rivers are born.
The altitude and the cold make it one of the most extreme climates on earth.
When I visited, icy winds gusting at 50mph (80km/h) were whipping a sandstorm into Qie Qun Jia’s face as he herded his flock of sheep home to safety.
The 28-year-old Tibetan nomad has only ever known this life.
But climate change is turning the grasslands that once supported his yak herd to desert, and now Qie Qun Jia has only a flock of sheep.
“When I was little the grass grew tall and the mountains were covered with flowers,” he says.
“Summers were warmer and winters were much colder. But in recent years there’ve been so many sandstorms, the flowers are disappearing and the grazing gets worse year by year.
So our flocks of sheep are shrinking. We can’t afford to buy grass to feed them.”
Counting the cost
China is both a victim and a perpetrator of climate change.
After three-and-a-half decades of headlong industrial growth powered by coal, China is the world’s largest polluter, and now it is counting the cost in climate change and environmental damage.
In the north and west, it faces desertification. In the south and east, it battles flooding. Its population endures some of the world’s most polluted air, soil and water.
Since the last global UN climate conference in 2009 when Beijing was unwilling to commit to hard targets on reducing carbon emissions, it has realised that its dependence on fossil fuels has to stop. It has become a climate convert.
This about-face is driven not just by the ever more alarming threats from devastating climate change and pollution, but also by opportunity.
China believes the world is on the brink of an energy revolution and it sees a chance to dominate, and profit from, the new technologies of a greener century.
After putting industrial growth above the environment for so long, the Chinese government now believes sustainable growth can only come from rescuing the environment. Tackling climate change is in the national interest.
Solar energy’s big moment
The Huanghe solar farm on the Qinghai plateau claims to be the biggest of its kind in the world. Nearly four million solar panels tilt up towards a vast blue dome of sky.
As I walked between the rows with senior engineer Shen Youguo, tumble weed and sand blew into us and the wind was bitter, but he’s excited. It’s a big moment to be in solar energy in China.
“What we’re doing right now is for the sky to be bluer and the water to be clearer. We want a better future for everybody. So we’re committed to being a part of that push,” he says.
The International Energy Agency predicts that solar power will be the world’s leading source of electricity by the middle of this century.
China wants to dominate renewable technologies like this, and competition between its manufacturers is driving down costs not just in China but globally, as Mr Shen explains.
“As technology advances, the efficiency of our solar batteries improves and the costs come down. So there’s bound to come a day when solar power becomes cheaper than traditional energy.
Personally I’m very optimistic about it,” he says.
Even the environmental activists are impressed.
Yuan Ying of Greenpeace says there are still many challenges to integrate renewable energy fully on China’s national grid, but that the overall trend is positive.
“China is now showing more willingness to lead the international effort to tackle climate change. We also hope China’s efforts can inspire other countries to follow,” says Yuan Ying.
Back on the Qinghai plateau, Qie Qun Jia puts his sheep to bed and the sandstorm drives him in from the cold to sit by the stove with a bowl of steaming milk tea.
In the old days he lived in a tent, but he now has a two room house with a solar panel just outside the door.
The light bulb hanging from the ceiling is solar powered as is the TV on which his children are watching cartoons. He worries about what will become of them in the future.
“We grew up so freely, raising our cattle on this vast grassland. Every day was fun. But our sons and daughters can’t continue this herding life. There’s no road ahead for them. I feel very sad,” he says.
It will take generations to cure China’s addiction to coal and embed renewable energy at the heart of its economy. And all the while, the grassland is shrinking.
Even with an agreement in Paris and even with stronger pledges in the years ahead, the self-inflicted scars of climate change in China may yet deepen before they heal.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34929561