White Paper vs. Reality: China’s Disputed Narrative on Tibet

DHARAMSALA, 29 March: China has made sweeping claims in its latest white paper on Tibet, declaring that “all-round and historic progress” has been made in human rights in Tibet, accusing the West of “misunderstandings” and “prejudices” about human rights conditions in Tibet. 

Despite Tibet’s overall score of 0 out of 100 in Freedom Houses’ “Freedom in the World 2025″ report released on 27 February 2025, China’s latest white paper on human rights in Tibet claims Beijing has “implemented effective measures to develop the economy, improve living standards and people’s wellbeing, promote ethnic unity and progress, and protect the basic rights of all the people in the region”  the Chinese state-run Global Times reported, declaring “all-round and historic progress” has been made in human rights in Tibet. 

“Today, Tibet enjoys political stability, ethnic unity, economic development, social harmony, and amity among different religions. Its environment is sound, and local people are content with their work and daily lives. This progress represents a remarkable achievement in protecting human rights on the snowy plateau,” the paper claimed. 

As China released the document on Friday, which it observed as “the 66th anniversary of the democratic reform” that it claimed “ended feudal serfdom in Tibet” before its occupation, it declared that life in Tibet “is like Gesang flowers in full bloom in the New Era.”

In contrast to these assertions, human rights organisations and experts have raised alarms over China’s transnational boarding schools in Tibet, where approximately 1 million Tibetan children, which accounts for 78% of Tibetan schoolchildren aged six and older, represent a significant aspect of the government’s strategy to assimilate Tibetan children into Han Chinese culture, effectively erasing their unique cultural identity. Yet Beijing has dismissed it with a bizarre claim: “Students and parents can choose to board at schools, and students can go home during weekends and holidays,” and that Tibet led China in providing 15 years of publicly-funded education from kindergarten to senior high school, and that boarding schools are necessary due to geographical challenges.

Further, it accused the Western media outlets of tarnishing Tibet’s development by raising concerns over issues such as the use of boarding schools in the region.

While Tibet remains heavily regulated, the 2024 World Press Freedom Index (WPFI), published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), exposed China’s severe restrictions on press freedom in Tibet, declared China as the world’s largest jailer of journalists, spoke of significant difficulties encountered by foreign journalists when attempting to report from Tibet, yet Xu Zhitao, the Vice Chairman of the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region, has said, as the State Council Information Office released the paper in Lhasa that Tibet “is open to the world, and the region welcomes foreign friends to visit and travel and foreign journalists to conduct interviews.”

Dismissing China’s misinformation, falsification and fallacy, Tenzin Lekshey, the Spokesperson of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), has said in a post on X that  “China’s so-called ‘white paper’ on Tibet overlooks vital components of fundamental human rights within Tibet, such as freedom of expression, movement, and religious practice. China’s gross human rights violations in Tibet cannot be concealed behind the Iron Curtain.”