Racial Discrimination in Tibet (2000)
- Discrimination in Employment
The continued implementation of preferential policies for
the Chinese has widespread discriminatory effects in all
areas of employment, as confirmed by the testimonies of
recent Tibetan refugees. Although it has recently been
claimed that in Tibet "[s]peakers of different languages
are treated equally in the recruitment of workers,
cadres and students, with priority always given to
Tibetan speakers", a great majority of refugees report
that employers demand fluency in Chinese, regardless of
the job itself.
Nyima Tsering, a 26 year-old man from Lhasa Municipality,
arrived in exile in May 1999. In 1996 he applied for a
job in a "TAR" insurance company along with many other
Tibetans. "The company conducted the job selection test in
Chinese, and the applicants that were not fluent in Chinese
were immediately rejected. It didn't seem to matter that
the Tibetan applicants were well educated and had completed
middle school – the entire job selection revolved on being
able to speak Chinese. How can Tibetans compete with the
Han Chinese? "
Dawa Dorje, an 18 year-old man from Shigatse Prefecture,
experienced similar problems before escaping in January
2000. "I went to school for nine years and studied hard,
but because I was unable to speak fluent Chinese at the
end of it, nobody was interested in employing me. I had
no chance for further training, so in the end I had to
give up looking for a job. It made me feel as if all my
studies had been a waste of time."
In one of the earliest White paper on Human Rights
published in China, it was asserted that "[a]s for
employment policy, the Chinese government has formulated
a special policy for the minority nationalities. The
Government requires that state-owned enterprises in
minority areas give precedence to local citizens of the
minority nationalities over all others when recruiting
workers." It is also stated in the Chinese Constitution
that "In performing their functions, the organs of
self-government of the national autonomous areas"employ
the spoken and written language or languages in common
use in the locality." However, in reality neither of these
policies hold true in Tibet.
A 21 year-old man from Lhasa, who wishes to remain
anonymous, reported in November 1999 that "in all
government offices, Chinese is the language used in
documents, meetings and conferences. In the urban areas,
Chinese hold the great majority of high positions, for even
those Tibetans who can speak Chinese and are employed are
generally transferred to remote areas where their influence
is minimal."
The late Dungkar Lobsang Trinley, one of the leading
cultural and intellectual figures of modern Tibet – even
recognised by China as a ‘national treasure' – was a
powerful campaigner for the development of the Tibetan
language, and expressed great concern at the situation
prior to his death:
"We have reached a dangerous point. The number of people
in Tibet today who are literate in Tibetan is diminishing,
in spite of the avowed aim of the nationalities policy
implemented in Tibet over the last 40 years"
In spite of Tibetan being declared the first official
language to be used in all government offices and meetings
and in official correspondence, Chinese is used everywhere
as the working language, and since the level of Tibetan
is so low our people are being led by the nose and have
no power over their own destiny."
Nor is the supremacy of the Chinese language confined
to certain areas within the "Tibet Autonomous Region"
- a comprehensive survey of Tibet outside the "TAR"
carried out in 1995/96 by the Alliance for Research in
Tibet uncovered similar linguistic hegemony:
"While Tibetans often speak Tibetan amongst themselves,
Chinese is the language that thoroughly dominates the
mainstream of government, commerce and education"
A barometer of Chinese seriousness in preserving and
promoting Tibetan language may be the supply of Tibetan
language books available in Tibetan areas. Generally it
is conspicuously poor. Not a single government bookshop
was visited in any Tibetan site which did not offer
substantially more Chinese titles than Tibetan."
A Tibetan inside Tibet also commented to TIN in 1998 that
"in all the offices above the township, the use of Tibetan
for official communication is banned. This policy has
resulted in the loss of jobs for educated Tibetans who are
nevertheless not fluent in Chinese reading and writing."
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