It’s a narrative that’s all too familiar: Nationalist world leaders claiming historical sovereignty over territory, weaponizing revised history to justify invasion.
In 1950, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) acted upon its self-declared inheritance over Tibet, imposing a treaty that officially annexed the region. Following the 1959 Tibetan uprising against the CCP, and the escape of the Dalai Lama to Dharamshala, India, the iron fist only tightened. The Tibetan government-in-exile estimates that in the 20 years following the uprising, 1.2 million Tibetans died as a result of China’s policies, while still many more languished in prison.
Historic revisionism is the basis for the same predatory rhetoric Xi Jinping’s government uses today as it builds entire villages in Bhutan, claims ownership over northern India’s Arunachal Pradesh as “South Tibet,” and threatens Taiwan with militaristic drills and mock missile strikes. Revisionist history is laden with propagandistic undertones – and it’s a threat to self-determination, culture, and human life.
Today, with the ink of President Joe Biden’s signature drying on the Resolve Tibet Act of 2024, the United States has an opportunity to explicitly – and officially – set the narrative straight. His signature marks a testy politicization of the Tibetan cause by the executive branch. As this law is implemented, however, the U.S. should be prepared to offer concrete support to the Tibetan community, which is already beginning to feel the CCP’s retaliatory crackdown.
The CCP portrays an image of China as diverse-yet-“blended,” contained by borders it claims are inherited from “ancient times.” By 1950, however, the Tibetan government had enjoyed 37 years of declared independence from Qing rule. Floundering for territorial security and fearing the same fissured fate of the Soviet Union, the CCP implemented assimilationist policies in claimed territories. This included the shuttering of local Tibetan schools and the rise of monolinguistic state-run residential education for Tibetan children as young as four, the destruction of monasteries, and mass arrests of those – including monks – who protested environmentally damaging policies. Authorities took aim not only at ideological dissidents but at the very ethnic and religious identities of the Tibetan community.
Undoing the methodical rewriting of history is no easy feat, especially as U.S. policy on Tibet has been historically arhythmic: Since the 1960s, when Tibetan lamas first won the hearts of the American public as counselors to counterculture protesters, the executive branch frequently criticized congressional support for the Tibetan cause.
In spite of then-President George W. Bush’s assertion that his administration had the right not to implement multiple provisions of the law, the Tibetan Policy Act of 2002 was eventually included in appropriations law. Amid the COVID-ridden tension of China-U.S. relations, the Tibet Policy Act of 2020 promised to slap Magnitsky sanctions on all officials of the Chinese government meddling in the selection of the next Dalai Lama. Both landmark policies called for dialogue between the CCP and the Dalai Lama, yet the meat of the legislation lay in specific funding programs for the Tibetan communities-in-exile, including support for uncensored news outlets and scholarships for cultural preservation.
Until now, China’s territorial claims have officially been left unchallenged by the United States, for fear of risking increased tension between Washington and Beijing. Marking a quiet transition from the previous precedent of unspoken acquiescence to CCP-defined borders, however, the State Department’s 2023 human rights report has dropped previous affirmations that Tibet is part of China.
Congress now seeks a definitive political re-write. Bolder than its predecessors, the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act – also known as the “Resolve Tibet Act” – makes it official U.S. policy that the CCP’s claim to Tibetan territory as “part of China since ancient times” is “historically inaccurate.”
One scholar noted the political weight of U.S. leadership in affirming self-determination – it could encourage India to speak up against the CCP’s territorial claims to Tibet. In the wake of the bill’s passage, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Michael McCaul traveled to India to meet with the 14th Dalai Lama, followed by engagements with a newly re-elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
This visit was met with strong condemnation by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which declared that China will take “resolute measures” to protect its sovereignty. In response to the passing of a truly “strong policy supporting Tibet,” first promised during Biden’s 2020 campaign, Chinese authorities have intensified their crackdown: As Biden signed the Resolve Tibet Act into law, CCP authorities responded by ordering the closure of Jigme Gyaltsen Vocational High School, for “undisclosed reasons.” This school, reputed for its specialized Tibetan language studies, maintained a rich repository of Tibetan literature.
When the U.S. politicizes human rights, it will not always feel the repercussions. However, the imprisoned community will. The Resolve Tibet Act must take their fate into consideration as well. For example, concerned voices of the Tibet Policy Institute pointed to the bill’s lack of substantive policy response to urgent issues such as the dramatic increase of forced relocation of rural Tibetans.
The CCP relies on the distortion of history to infringe upon Tibetan self-determination and justify its ethnonationalist project. An act of political affirmation is necessary to challenge a historical narrative that justifies a predatory status quo. Yet challenging is only the first step – as China begins to enact its “resolute measures,” the U.S. must be prepared to take responsibility for the reactions it is stirring, offering substantive support to the Tibetan community it is inadvertently putting in harm’s way.