Tibetan Refugee Crisis

Tibetans have been exposed to extreme social, political, economic and cultural discrimination since the establishment of the new government by the Chinese. For the 3000 years of its existence, Tibet has undergone various challenges that range from political to social (Newland, 2010). The violence in Tibet that has not been able to stop for the over 60 years since the Chinese government established its government in the region. The fight to control every resource in Tibet has only intensified the violence rate in the region. The violence that has left over 1.2 million Tibetans to seek refuge elsewhere in other countries like India has been the cause of the miseries that the people of Tibet have been passing through for the past over 60 years. This paper will examine and analyze the situation in Tibet and the challenges that the people of Tibet pass through in the hands of the Chinese government. The analysis will focus on the social, political, economic and the cultural threats and discrimination to the people of Tibet.

If this sample essay on"Tibetan Refugee Crisis" doesn’t help,
our writers will!

Trust an expert

Since the Chinese government established its government in Tibet, the Tibetans have never had peace. The aim to create another government in the region was to reduce the ethnic violence that had left approximately 1 million people dead and another 1.2 million to seek refuge in the neighboring countries (Vasantkumar, 2013). The establishment of the Chinese government in the region was to reduce the violence and help keep peace in the region; something that had not existed in the region for many decades. However, according to McConnell (2009), the coming of the Chinese in Tibet proved not only to be unhelpful towards the peace-keeping strategy by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) but even more harsh and discriminative to the Tibetans. The invasion by the Chinese government in the region with the aim of promoting peace and bringing back the peaceful coexistence between the different ethnic groups in Tibet has only proved to be more lethal to the aim of peace-keeping. The rate at which refugees continue to flock in the neighboring countries from Tibet has only increased over the past years (Falcone & Tsering, 2008: 167). However, several discussions have been held about the Chinese responsibility in Tibet and most people still fear that the issue of peace getting back in Tibet is not something that should be expected soon. A lot of reasons have been given to explain and justify why many people still run away from Tibet even after the 65 years Chinese invasion in the region with the aim of protecting the interest of the natives (McConnell, 2011). However, as the discussions have turned out, the only interest that the Chinese government is protecting in the case of Tibet is only theirs but not the Tibetans.

The miseries, challenges, and the discriminative experiences that the Tibetans have been passing through for over 60 years in the past have been turned to the Chinese government (Newland, 2010). Some of the challenges include social, political, economic and even cultural discrimination. The situation of Tibet before the Chinese invasion was better than the way it is currently. As compared to the previous situation before the invasion, the current situation in Tibet cannot be compared to the situation as it was then before the Chinese government invaded the region (Whalen-Bridge, 2011: 107). The economic growth of Tibet has greatly reduced over the past decades since the Chinese government invaded the region. All the blames have been shifted towards the Chinese. The Chinese government has been accused of overexploiting the resources in the region (Vasantkumar, 2013). The Tibetans have been subjected to extreme discrimination since the Chinese government established their government in the region. According to the Tibetan government in exile, the Chinese government is to be blamed for everything that they face in the region.

Lack of political autonomy in Tibet is one of the political challenges that the Tibetans face since the establishment of the Chinese government (Chopra et al., 2011:243). The political situation in Tibet is worrying, and most people fear that the situation might not even get better soon. The Tibetans fear of becoming a minority group in their native land. The Chinese have been accused of dominating everything in Tibet. Tibetans in exile in India feel that their land has been taken away from them, and they feel that their rights have been deprived. There have been several cases reported about the political injustices on the people of Tibet by the Chinese government. People are arrested and jailed for many years of months for their political beliefs. A report released in June 1994 shows that over 180 women and 600 men were arrested in the month of June and jailed for their political interest and belief (Chopra et al., 2011). Research has further shown that over 255 political prisoners were detained in Tibet by the Chinese government in 1995 at Drapchi Prison (Chopra et al., 2011). As Chopra et al. (2011) explain the enactment and establishment of discriminative policies on the Tibetans have also contributed to the political challenges that the Tibetans have experienced over the past 65 years of the Chinese invasion in the region. For instance, the birth-control policy that has denied the women the opportunity to enjoy their reproductive rights is one of the major discriminative policies implemented by the Chinese government on the Tibetans (Chopra et al., 2011: 244).

According to McConnell (2009), there are also social challenges that the Tibetans have passed through and continue to pass through while in the hands of the Chinese government. For example, oppression of women through forceful arrest and detention without trial are some of the major social challenges that Tibetan women go through, and the situation keeps even worsening. Many women are arrested for what they believe is their right. For example, many women are arrested for their political beliefs (McConnell, 2009). However, the situation gets worse when they are in detention as they are further oppressed. Torture and sexual abuse are rampant issues in the prisons in Tibetan on women in detention. Research indicates that the sexual oppression and harassment that the Tibetan women pass through is executed by the Chinese officials in the region. The Chinese officials take the opportunity of the desperate Tibetan women in custody and expose them to sexual harassment and torture that does not only end with the physical torture but extends to the mental part as well. It is bad to be denied an opportunity to express ones rights in ones native land like in the case of Tibet where the Tibetans have been denied to exercise what the rest of the world is exercising (McConnell, 2009).

The Tibetans have been denied the freedom and opportunities to enjoy the privileges that the outer world enjoys. Most of the countries in the world have adopted the democratic form of the government in which most people are given the opportunity to express their opinions freely not like the case of Tibet where people are forced to do what they do not feel comfortable with. Torture and cruelty are not the best leadership strategies that a government can use on its people as the Chinese government claims that the Tibet was and has been part of China since almost 3000 years ago (Chopra et al., 2011).

Most Tibetan women are arrested and detained in prisons without trial. However, the detention without trial is not enough because most of them are subjected to extreme torture that leaves many of them dead in custody. What Tibetans are going through is not only against the human rights but also irresponsible for the government. Apart from the social challenges the Tibetans also face the cultural threat from the Chinese people who have dominated their native homeland (Falcone & Tsering, 2008). The domination of the Chinese people in Tibet has only posed a threat to the Tibetan culture. With the fear of the majoritys influence in Tibet as the Chinese continue to flock to the region more fear only intensifies the doubt whether the situation in the region would end soon. The people in exile still fear of their native homeland that there is no hope that things would get better soon. Tibetans have been forced to take refuge in other countries and others who are left in the country have been dominated and forced to assimilate the Chinese culture posing a huge threat to the Tibetan culture.

The challenges that Tibetans go through is not an exception to economic challenges. Some of the economic challenges that the Tibetans pass through include exhaustion of natural resources in the region and denial of opportunities to the natives. As Singh & Rumel (2012) argue the ploy to take over the Tibetans resources in Tibet by the Chinese government is something that began many years ago in the late 1950. Chinese leaders like Liu Shaoqui argued that Tibet was a vast unoccupied land that had a lot of resources that would exploit for the benefit of the region (Singh & Rumel, 2012). The Chinese government took the privilege and advantage over the minority Tibetans to overexploit them in their own native land. The coming of Chinese in Tibet began with the establishment of industries in the region. In 1980 over 60,000 Chinese were transported to Tibet with the aim of enhancing labor for the construction of industries in the region.

Some years later another 50,000 Chinese were again transported to Tibet. However, this time, it was never about labor provision but rather an aims to increase the population of the region. Over the years, the Chinese figure in Tibet has only grown with time. Most of the resources in the region have been exploited and the benefit taken to China instead of helping the native owners of the lands. The aim of the Chinese influx in Tibet to show their technology or advance in science has not been received well by the Tibetans who feel that they have been deprived their right of ownership. The invasion of the Chinese in Tibet has only worsened things over the years (McConnell, 2011). Supply of commodities have significantly reduced and prices of products gone high. The majority people who suffer the effects are the Tibetans whose resources are exploited and all the benefits carried away to another country. Most of the people transported to Tibet by the Chinese government are businesspeople and workers to work in the factories and industries built under the Chinese government.

In conclusion, Tibet is one country where people do not feel the desire to have a self-governing government because their resources are controlled by some other people who have dominated their land. The coming of Chinese in Tibet was not clearly about promoting the development of the region, but it had some hidden agenda behind it. From our discussion in the previous section of this paper, the conclusion we can depict from the case of Tibet is that Tibet still need liberation from the harmful, dictatorial and discriminative Chinese government. Isolating people from their own country and land and exploiting their resources without considering their interest is oppressive and discriminative. Therefore, it is time that the truth is told; Tibetans will continue to suffer and their culture as it is exposed to extinction threat from the Chinese influence if nothing is done to save the situation. I believe that is time that the United Nations got in to solve the situation and not giving another country like China to exploit the resources to their interest leaving the natives exposed to total poverty and extreme suffering that they are undergoing now.

Work cited

Chopra, Deepta, Philippa Williams, and Bhaskar Vira. "Politics of citizenship: experiencing statesociety relations from the margins." Contemporary South Asia 19.3 (2011):...