Gerald Roche – Australian Himalaya Research Network

Urbanising Tibet: Aspirations, Illusions, and Nightmares

May 8, 2020May 8, 2020

On 28 March 2019, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) celebrated ‘Serfs Emancipation Day’ 西藏百万农奴解放纪念日 or, alternatively, the sixtieth anniversary of ‘democratic reform in Tibet’ 西藏民主改革. Exiled Tibetans commemorate 10 March 1959, the date of the Dalai Lama’s flight into exile in India, as ‘Uprising Day’, when thousands of Tibetans surrounded the Potala Palace in Lhasa and skirmished with the […]

Are debates over linguistic rights erasing diversity?

February 16, 2020February 18, 2020

As elsewhere in High Asia, minority languages in Tibet are the first victims of international tensions. During the recent UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) periodic review of China, a total of twelve countries raised the issue of Tibet. In their response, the Chinese delegation devoted two minutes to discussing Tibet (begins 2:33:39), and half that time was spent talking […]

Has the World Lost Sight of Tibet?

November 20, 2018February 18, 2020

Since the incarceration of roughly a million Uighurs in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang over the last year, the situation in Tibet has gotten relatively less coverage in Western media. What is the current situation for human rights, political openness or repressiveness, and economic development in Tibet? And how has the attention paid to […]