Transforming our world
through nonviolent action
through nonviolent action
In 1994, a group of inspired individuals created what would become the largest international grassroots organization in the Tibetan Freedom Movement — Students for a Free Tibet (SFT). This year is SFT’s 25th anniversary, and we’re dedicating it to the grassroots — the backbone of SFT.
We recently concluded our three-day “Youth for Tibet: Europe Meetup” event (May 3-5) in Paris, France. Students for a Free Tibet organized this event with our friends from the Tibetan Youth Association of Europe to strengthen youth engagement throughout Europe, and especially France.
Taglined “connecting identities, creating a movement,” the goal of the meetup was to create a space where Tibetan youth could engage in meaningful dialogue about their individual identities and how to connect and leverage those experiences and traits for the Tibetan Freedom Movement.
Participants and facilitators joined the meetup from Belgium, Canada, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
We’re planning for more trainings and conferences in 2019, but we need your support to make it happen! These events are a major component of cultivating young leaders, strengthening our grassroots, and, in turn, invigorating the Tibetan Freedom Movement.
To continue supporting SFT’s upcoming grassroots initiatives, please consider making a donation today.
DonateWith your help, we know that we can increase the resources available to our youth. Together, we can make a difference.
Students for a Free Tibet is extremely proud to be the largest grassroots organization working in the Tibetan movement in the world! But what does that look like? As the academic year comes to an end, I am excited to share two major updates from our USA Grassroots base:
On April 13-14, 2019, over 30 chapter leaders from UMass Amherst, American University, UConn, U of T St. George, York University, Boston community, New York community and Amherst community joined together at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst campus for two days of grassroots trainings, cross-chapter networking and strategic reflection!
During the 2018-2019 academic year, we had the pleasure of welcoming seven new chapters to the SFT Family! We are happy to introduce our new chapters:
Visit us online to find the 5 easy steps to starting a chapter in your own community or campus!
Thank you to the countless people that have generously supported SFT’s work this academic year — our grassroots achievements would not have been possible without you! To continue supporting SFT’s upcoming grassroots initiatives, please consider making a donation today.
Lastly, after this successful grassroots mobilization in the United States, we now have the opportunity to expand our Europe Network. This week, SFT is coordinating the 2019 Youth for Tibet Europe Meet-up from May 3-5. There will be over 30 students and youth leaders from five different countries attending the event.
We look forward to seeing all the inspiring work our chapters and base of youth leaders will continue to do in 2019!
China should immediately free the Panchen Lama from custody and allow him to return to his monastery to assume his role as the second most well-known religious figure in Tibet, a Tibetan advocacy group said on the eve of his 30th birthday.
On May 14, 1995, Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, recognized six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th Panchen Lama and three days later, Chinese authorities took him and his family away, installing another boy in his place. He was for years considered the world’s youngest political prisoner.
While the religious leader’s whereabouts remain unknown and he has not been seen in public since his disappearance, “it is believed he is still alive,” Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said in a statement marking his April 25 birthday.
“As the Panchen Lama turns 30, the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) calls on China to immediately free him and allow him to return to his monastery, Tashi Lhunpo, and assume his vital role as a religious leader,” the statement said, noting that enforced disappearance is defined as a crime by the United Nations.
“China’s attitude toward the Panchen Lama clearly shows that its claim of respecting religious freedom in Tibet—a historically independent country that China has occupied and ruled with an iron fist for the past 60 years—is aimed solely at serving its political goal of controlling Tibetan Buddhism.”
ICT called the case of the detained Panchen Lama an example of “China’s long game for securing control over Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet,” noting that the boy who was officially selected to replace him—Gyaltsen Norbu—now takes part in formal events and “serves as a proxy for the Chinese government.”
Historically, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama have been involved in the recognition of each other’s incarnation, and ICT said that by empowering its selected Panchen Lama, China hopes to commandeer the eventual rebirth of the 83-year-old Dalai Lama, who has been living in exile in India for the past 60 years.
Reuters news agency quoted the Dalai Lama last month as saying his incarnation could be found in India, and warned that any successor named by China would not be respected—much as Beijing’s anointed Panchen Lama has been widely rejected by Tibetans.
While the Dalai Lama has said that only he has the authority to decide his future incarnation, China’s Foreign Ministry said in March this year that it “must comply with Chinese laws and regulations.”
ICT noted that lawmakers from both the U.S. and the European Union have called on China to end its interference in the reincarnation system, and it called on the broader global community to reaffirm the right of Tibetans to practice their religion without meddling from the Chinese government.
“World leaders must also insist that China immediately release the Panchen Lama so he can perform his essential role in serving his people as one of their most important spiritual leaders,” the advocacy group said.
ICT president Matteo Macacci said that while the Panchen Lama has spent nearly a quarter-century as a political prisoner, “he has the majority of his life ahead of him to benefit his people and the whole of humankind.”
“While Chinese leaders believe they can control the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama, their efforts have been and will continue to be rejected by both Tibetans and the international community,” he said.
“Therefore, the smartest thing for China to do if it wants to reclaim trust and goodwill around the world is to free the Panchen Lama immediately and immediately stop its interference in Tibetan Buddhist reincarnations.”
Macacci was joined by U.S. Representative Jim McGovern, the chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission and Congressional-Executive Commission on China, who called the Panchen Lama’s enforced disappearance “one of the most egregious examples of China’s violation of the religious freedom rights of the Tibetan people.”
“In honor of his 30th birthday, I again call on the Chinese government to free the true Panchen Lama immediately and without conditions,” McGovern added.
In a personal message to the Panchen Lama on his birthday, Tenzin Dorjee, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, called on U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to impose sanctions on Chinese officials under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act for perpetrating religious freedom violations.
He also called for the continued implementation of the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act of 2018 to seek access to the lama and press for his “immediate and unconditional release.”
ICT’s call for the Panchen Lama’s release came as the International Tibet Network (ITN)—a global coalition of Tibet-related non-governmental organizations—unveiled a reconstructed image of how the lama would look at the age of 30, as part of a bid to draw international attention to his case and assist in the ongoing search for him.
The image, created by a British forensic artist listed with the U.K. National Crime Agency, “sends a message to Beijing that the world has not forgotten about Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, despite all of their efforts to erase him from our history,” said ITN Asia regional coordinator Lobsang Yangtso.
“It also allows Tibetans to continue to hope that he will one day be free again,” he added.
A day earlier, 30 Tibetan activists from the Tibetan Youth Congress set off on a car and motorcycle rally from the seat of the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, India to raise awareness about the Panchen Lama on his birthday.
The activists, who say the rally is in support of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the Panchen Lama and call for his release from captivity, plan to ride through Chandigarh and Sonipath and arrive on April 25 in the Indian capital Delhi, where they will take part in an event to honor the spiritual leader.
The Tibetan Women’s Association (TWA) also plan to hold simultaneous peace marches in five regions across India to highlight the Panchen Lama’s incarceration, beginning on April 25.
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana University has closed the Confucius Institute of Indianapolis on the IUPUI campus. In a statement to Inside Indiana Business, IU said the decision “ensures ongoing operations of some programs within IU impacted by federal changes surrounding Chinese language programs.”
The university would not provide any additional information on the closure.
Confucius Institutes are located at dozens of universities throughout the country. Several Indiana schools have hosted Confucius Institutes in the past but many no longer have information available, including the University of Notre Dame, Purdue University and the University of Southern Indiana.
Valparaiso University still hosts a Confucius Institute. The university’s website describes the institute as a nonprofit “dedicated to the teaching of the Chinese language and the understanding of Chinese culture among world Chinese language learners and Chinese culture lovers, thus to help build friendly relationships with other countries.”
Confucius Institutes have been criticized for their alleged efforts to spread propaganda through their programming. Indiana Congressman Jim Banks (R-3) released a statement Friday praising IUPUI’s move, saying, “The Chinese Communist Party in Beijing knows that U.S. universities are home to important research, some of which involves sensitive national security information funded by U.S. federal departments. By using businesses and cultural exchanges as fronts, the Chinese government infiltrates these institutions and steal our nation’s intellectual property and secrets. Thanks to the necessary steps by IUPUI and MIT, more schools are waking up to this reality, and I suspect many more will follow their lead.”
I am excited to announce that the SFT East Coast Conference 2019 will be organized by SFT International and SFT UMass Amherst on April 13-14! East Coast Conference is a great opportunity for youth activists to network and develop their skills through trainings. I hope to see you there!
Please see the attached flyer for more information. The deadline to register is Monday, April 1. Thank you!
In solidarity,
Pema Doma
USA Grassroots Coordinator
PORTLAND, Ore. — An hour-long panel discussion at Portland State University followed the March 4 screening of In the Name of Confucius, a 2016 documentary about the Chinese government-run and funded language programs that are named for the ancient teacher and philosopher.
Scores of people attended the afternoon event in the university’s Urban Center, where four panelists weighed in on the controversies surrounding the Confucius Institutes (CI), as well as the pending renewal of a 5-year contract for the local CI chapter at PSU.
Since 2004, over 1,600 Confucius Institutes and related Confucius Classrooms have been set up in colleges and schools around the world, representing at least US$2 billion in investments from the Chinese state.
While Confucius Institutes are presented as a benign facilitation of cultural exchange, activists, security agencies, and experts believe that the program helps the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) extend its political censorship and undermine academic freedom in democratic countries.
Confucius Institutes forbid their teachers from talking about topics the CCP deems sensitive or unflattering, such as the issues of ethnic and religious human rights, the political status of Taiwan, or the 1989 June 4 Massacre at Tiananmen.
In the Name of Confucius, released in 2016, tracks the ideological agenda and financial influence associated with the Confucius Institutes through a collection of interviews and on-the-scene footage at protests and meetings. The documentary follows the story of Sonia Zhao, a Mandarin teacher who, upon completing her training in China and prior to leaving for work in Canada, was compelled to sign a contract that discriminated against her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that is banned and persecuted by the CCP. It also shows the process by which the world’s largest CI was shut down in Toronto.
Zhao eventually defected to Canada and filed a complaint that, in 2013, resulted in the termination of the Confucius Institute at Ontario’s McMaster University where she was employed.
The panelists at the PSU screening, expanding on the themes featured in the documentary, cited multiple concerns with the way Confucius Institutes are operated, as well as the Chinese government’s motives in their worldwide promotion.
On the panel were Doris Liu, the Chinese-Canadian director of In the Name of Confucius, PSU film professor Jennifer Ruth, Tibetan human rights activist Dorjee Tseten, and Rachelle Peterson, research director of the National Association of Scholars (NAS).
Rachelle Peterson, who authored the 2017 study Outsourced to China: Confucius Institutes and Soft Power in American Higher Education, investigated 12 Confucius Institutes across the United States and came to what she said were similar conclusions as the documentary. “Academic freedom is compromised” when local schools accept funding to set up CIs, she said.
Citing a U.S. Senate report from Feb. 27 saying that the Chinese government had given US$158 million to American schools and colleges since 2016, Peterson observed that “it’s a lot of money, especially at liberal arts programs, where US$100,000 can make a big difference.”
Jennifer Ruth, who has worked at PSU for 20 years and is a member of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), said that it is very difficult for host schools to accept Chinese money for the Confucius Institutes and also guarantee academic freedom, as the financial incentive creates powerful conflicts of interest.
“Once the money’s there, it’s extremely hard to take it away,” she said.
Dorjee Tseten, executive director of Students for Free Tibet, spoke about how expanding Chinese influence in Western academia was effective in putting pressure on Tibetan activists. He cited examples of how the Dalai Lama, the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, was barred from giving speeches at universities due to Beijing’s threats that it cut off funding for Confucius Institutes.
Tibetans are one of China’s most persecuted minorities, with their religion and culture being under close control by the CCP since it annexed Tibet in 1950. The Chinese authorities label all attempts by Tibetans in and outside the autonomous region to agitate for their rights as “separatism.” Many Tibetans, like Tseten, were born in refugee camps outside China.
An article published by Inside Higher Ed last year cited PSU’s CI as an example of communist censorship in action. The article quoted a former CIPSU director as saying that “we try not to organize and host lectures on certain issues related to Falun Gong, dissidents and 1989 Tiananmen Square protests,” because “these are not topics the Confucius Institutes headquarters would like to see organized by the institutes.”
Yu Xiao, a Chinese-American professor of urban planning who hosted the March 4 screening, said she had invited the Confucius Institute to join, but received no response.
Confucius Institutes are staffed and directed by the Chinese government’s Office of Chinese Language Council International, abbreviated in Mandarin as Hanban.
Doris Liu, adding to Peterson’s comments, pointed out that the Hanban was under the direct control of the Chinese central authorities. “Above Hanban there is a council, and the head of the council is the current vice-premier of the People’s Republic of China,” she said, referring to Liu Yandong, who is also a member of the 25-strong CCP Politburo and a former head of the United Front Work Department (UWFD).
The UFWD was founded in the early years of the Chinese communist movement and played a strong role in subverting the Nationalist Chinese government before the CCP seized victory in the civil war in 1949.
United Front work continues today, both inside Chinese society and abroad. According to Peterson, CIs are part of the modern united front efforts to establish influence abroad and legitimize Beijing’s authoritarian power.
“The Chinese government works in a way to build relationships, to encourage people to have friendly feelings toward China, and one of the main priorities of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department is to make the foreign serve China,” she said.
Ruth, the film professor, noted that academics often self censor in order to stay in Beijing’s good graces, lest they risk research and travel opportunities in China or ostracization from peers. “So our scholars on China, whether they’re of Chinese descent or not, they have to think twice before they talk about any of these issues,” she said. “That’s part of why you’re not hearing as much from scholars on China as you might think we should be.”
Peterson noted that there has been a shift in attitude in recent years to the Confucius Institutes, or a “waking up to China’s subtle aggression.” Combatting the CCP’s soft power and roundabout censorship has become a bipartisan issue, particularly under the Trump administration.
The recent Senate report, while urging universities to continue their partnerships with Chinese schools so as to offer “students unique international learning experiences and enhance research opportunities,” said that this goal should be advanced only on the condition that U.S schools “never, under any circumstances, compromise academic freedom.”
The report also recommended that Congress require U.S. academic institutions to publish all their contracts with foreign governments, which would include agreements for Confucius Institutes.
At PSU, Ruth said that more efforts are being made to take the Confucius Institute and the university administration to task. The current 5-year contract for the CIPSU expired on February 5, and a resolution was passed by the PSU Faculty Senate to recommend that no new contract be made unless the language was changed to give the school more control over hiring and academic freedom.
However, both Ruth and Peterson have doubts about how much the relationships with Hanban can be salvaged. Ruth said that in order to fully comply with American standards of academic freedom and nondiscrimination in hiring, funding for the Confucius Institutes “would ultimately have to turn into money with no strings attached.”
“It would have to turn into something that I don’t think the [Communist] Party would be comfortable with,” she said.
Peterson said that even if language was introduced to the written contracts to protect academic freedoms, it would be in practice difficult to ensure that Hanban would keep up its end of the deal.
Meanwhile, Ruth was not optimistic about the way negotiations were going for the CIPSU contract renewal, although she said it was still possible for the Faculty Senate to “do due diligence.”
“It’s pending right now, we’ll see,” said Ruth.