lacks amenities,138 the authorities also imply that the need for better housing is but one more reason why "transients" (i.e. Tibetans) must be kept out of the city. Asia Watch believes that recent moves aimed at expelling Tibetans from Lhasa are unfairly designed to shape the ethnic and national make-up of the city in favor of the Chinese population. The formation of a professionally capable and strategically placed Chinese population seems to be the key element in the Chinese government's plans for the integrated economic and military development of Tibet—a goal pursued through sometimes romantic and idealistic appeals aimed at attracting everincreasing numbers of Chinese settlers to Tibet. 139 The recent round of riots in the region has underscored the profound unwillingness of at least a significant portion of the Tibetan population to go along with such plans.

Asia Watch does not believe that the influx of Chinese into Tibet has meant that most parts of the region are swamped with newcomers. On the contrary, most of the TAR and the neighboring Tibetan areas still remain almost exclusively Tibetan-inhabited areas. The Chinese population is concentrated in urban areas, and in places of strategic interest as regards security, communications, military, and other concerns. However, to say that most of the large tracts of nomadic grasslands or isolated agricultural areas have very few Chinese in them is hardly to say that the Chinese presence in Tibet is not problematic; such areas, especially in the western part of Tibet, also have relatively few Tibetans. The problems arise from Chinese settlement and domination of those places of greatest significance for the economic, social and cultural life of Tibetans. Chinese domination of those places threatens to marginalize much of Tibetan life and culture. Asia Watch is concerned at what appears to be a deliberate policy to accomplish such marginalization, as well as at the inherently discriminatory aspects of policies that are aimed at keeping non-resident Tibetans out of Lhasa while allowing non-resident Chinese the right to settle freely in the city.

9. Educational Discrimination

China's population policies in Tibet, particularly its encouragement of Chinese migration into the region, have generated inequalities that have put the Tibetan populace at a clear disadvantage. It is commonly known that the educational opportunities afforded Tibetans and Chinese in Tibet differ markedly, not least because of the language advantage Chinese have under the current system. Education beyond the elementary level generally requires a good knowledge of Chinese, since most of the instruction offered above that level is in Chinese. Chinese are also at a clear advantage in obtaining employment in positions linked to state-run enterprises, as they have the better language skills when it comes to taking requisite examinations that are generally in Chinese.

In recent years there has been some official recognition given to the lack of sufficient educational facilities in Tibet. In July 1988, Li Tieying, a member of the Communist Party Politburo noted the insufficiency of good schools, bilingual education, and trained teachers in Tibetan regions. 140 In December of that year the Panchen Lama commented that the study and development of the Tibetan language and of Tibetan Buddhism had become "a life and death problem" for Tibetans. 141 Previously the Panchen Lama had noted that resolutions aimed at strengthening the position of the Tibetan language in Tibet had been passed by Tibet's Regional People's Congress, but that no moves to implement them had ever been made. 142

Official Chinese sources claimed in the fall of 1988 that 70% of school-age children in Qinghai Province were enrolled in schools. 143 Tibetans from the area cannot give specific figures for the number of schoolchildren, but they have noted that elementary education is reasonably widespread, and that in Tibetan areas it is usually carried out in the Tibetan language. This seems to be the case in the TAR too, and there appears, to be an adequate number of elementary school textbooks available to Tibetans inside and outside the TAR. It is when one goes above the elementary school level that one finds an increasing decline in the status of the Tibetan language.

138 Luo Ga, "Lhasa: Growing Pains," Beijing Review, August 28-September 3, 1989; "Tibetan CPPCC Member on Reasons for Riots," March 22, 1989; in FBIS, March 28.

19.

139 Human Rights in Tibet, p. 44-45.

140 "Li Tieying Discusses Promoting Tibetan Education," Xinhua, July 15, 1988; in FBIS, July

141 "Ngapoi, Bainqen Talk About Tibetan Studies," December 6, 1988; in FBIS, December 12. 142 Evading Scrutiny, pp. 15-16.

143 Cheng Gang, "Qinghai Province's Tibetans," Beijing Review, October 17-23, 1988.

In late 1988 China published statistics dealing with the educational situation in the TAR in 1987, and listed 121,000 elementary school students out of which 90% or 109,000 were Tibetan; 22,000 middle school students, of whom 65.2% were Tibetan; 3060 vocational middle school students, of whom 69.6% were Tibetan; and three institutes of higher learning with 2860 students, of whom 66.4% were Tibetan. The same statistics also noted the presence of some 200 students in the region's Academy of Tibetan Buddhism and 5278 students scattered in middle schools in various provinces and regions of the PRC outside Tibet. The total number of students adds up to 154,398, but the same source also gave the "present" total (that is, as of late 1988) as 166,000, said to be 41.5% of the youth of the TAR.144

The decline in the percentage of Tibetans among postelementary school students in the TAR is clearly due to the decreased emphasis on the Tibetan language in middle and higher educational institutes. As one Tibetan student stated in January 1989 in an official Chinese publication, most middle school teachers in her area are from China proper; that is, they are non-Tibetans who undoubtedly cannot teach in Tibetan.145 Similarly, Punkang Tsering Shondup, a Tibetan member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, described the quality of teaching in Lhasa's schools as low. His solution was to call for more Chinese intellectuals to come to Tibet and work in the schools, regardless of the fact that this would constitute a further increase in China's dispatch of Chinese settlers into Tibet. 146

That the authorities to some extent do acknowledge the inequities in this situation is implied in the promulgation in March 1989 of a set of Regulations of the Tibet Autonomous Region on the Study, Use and Development of the Tibetan language. Official reports about the regulations noted, among other things:

Schools in rural areas should concentrate on the Tibetan language, though standard Chinese is also required to be taught.

Because of an inadequate supply of teaching materials and a shortage of teachers, the regulations pointed out the urgent need to make up this shortfall.

By 1993 textbooks for middle schools should all be written in Tibetan; by 1997 most of the subjects in senior middle and technical schools should be taught in Tibetan; and alter the year 2000, institutes of higher learning should gradually start to use the Tibetan language, the regulations state. 147

These regulations were drawn up by the TAR government on the initiative, reportedly, of the Panchen Lama and Ngapo Ngawang Jigme. As we have already noted, the Panchen Lama had previously commented on the fact that earlier resolutions aimed at strengthening the position of the Tibetan language had received no more than lip service, so far as the actual situation in Tibet was concerned. Asia Watch's interest in this issue stems from the de facto discriminatory conditions that are produced when Tibetans are forced to compete for jobs and positions against native speakers of Chinese on the basis of their abilities in what is at best a second language for most of them. The awareness of the problem implied by the adoption of the regulations in question is laudable. But the extent to which they will be actually implemented, given China's previous track record on the issue and its adoption of harsher policies of control following the period of martial law, remains seriously in doubt. Although the regulations were announced alter the proclamation of martial law and the riots that preceded it, they had obviously been prepared before that time, and undoubtedly reflect thinking that may now be considerably altered. More recently, high ranking officials in the TAR have begun to echo an older line linking the issue of access to education at certain levels more tightly to political considerations. They assert, for example:

We must settle the issue of what kind of people should be trained, and this issue carries a special and important significance in Tibet. We must train qualified personnel who love the motherland and maintain national unity, and by no means should we train people who seek to practice splittism. In weighing education in our region, we must see whether the students we train are politically qualified. 148

144 "Xizang jianqi minzu jiaoyu tixi dazhongxiao xuesheng yiyu shiliu wan," Renmin Ribao, December 1, 1988. Most of the same figures for students in the TAR are given in Jing Wei, 100 Questions About Tibet, pp. 42-43, but the percentage of school-age children in schools is given as 54.4%. A Radio Lhasa broadcast of April 21, 1989 gave the TAR's student population as being 165,000: "Editorial Cited on Tibet's 30th Reform Anniversary," FBIS, April 27, 1989.

145 Degyisangmo, "Tibetan Student in Beijing," China Reconstructs, January 1989. 146 "Tibetan CPPCC Member on Reasons for Riots," March 22, 1989; in FBIS, March 28. 147 “Legislation Encourages Use of Tibetan Language," Xinhua, March 17, 1989; in FBIS, same date. See also "Law on Wider Use of Tibetan Language Promulgated," Xinhua, March 16, 1989; in FBIS, March 21.

148 "Tibet Secretary Speaks at Education Forum," Radio Lhasa, September 11, 1989; in FBIS, September 14,.

The emphasis on Chinese as the language of instruction in Tibetan education and as the primary language for those aspiring to middle and higher level jobs in the TAR's infrastructure acts as an invisible but insuperable barrier to many Tibetans. The results of the Chinese-based educational system were described by a British teacher who went to Tibet as an English teacher at Tibet University in Lhasa from February 1987 to January 1988. She noted that the university's first class of English majors, which graduated in the summer of 1988, had been composed exclusively of Chinese students, the result of a system in which Tibetans must first master Chinese before they can study English (or most other subjects). Although she herself was part of an effort to ameliorate this situation, even in the work of that project resources meant for the advancement of Tibetan education were in fact diverted for the benefit of Chinese students. 149 More recently, the renewed emphasis upon "political qualifications" will undoubtedly cut opportunities even further. In short, Asia Watch considers current educational conditions in the TAR to be biased against Tibetans, and to form part of a situation in which Tibetans are seriously threatened with marginalization within their own areas.

III. THE U.S. RESPONSE AND ASIA WATCH'S RECOMMENDATIONS

The response of the Administration to human rights abuses in the PRC on and since June 4, 1989 has been described in our recent report on China: Punishment Season: Human Rights in China After Martial Law. 150 In the aftermath of China's violent suppression of the prodemocracy movement in Beijing and elsewhere, it has become increasingly obvious to most observers that the Bush Administration, like the Reagan Administration before it, has placed a low priority on making the Chinese government's adherence to basic standards of respect for human rights an objective of US foreign policy. The failure of successive US administrations to acknowledge the severity of human rights violations in China as a whole applies also to the specific case of Tibet.

In October 1989, the Dalai Lama was present in the US when he was awarded the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, but the Bush Administration, true to a policy that places a high priority on not offending the sensibilities of the Chinese government over Tibet, avoided all contact with the new Nobel laureate.

The U.S. Congress, by contrast, has not hesitated to express its abhorrence at the continuing grave human rights violations in Tibet. Over the last three years Con gress has adopted several strongly-worded resolutions concern about Chinese gov ernmental repression in Tibet 151 and calling upon the Chinese authorities to cease the repression. In 1989, the House and the Senate both passed resolutions condemn. ing the imposition of martial law in the Lhasa area and continued human rights abuses in Tibet. A limited number of sanctions was formulated by the Bush Administration in June, but it included no reference to Tibet. However the sanctions bill that was passed by the Congress on January 30, 1990, included the following language on Tibet:

(6) United States policy toward the People's Republic of China should be explicitly linked with the situation in Tibet, specifically as to whether

(A) martial law is lifted in Lhasa and other parts of Tibet:

(B) Tibet is open to foreigners, including representatives of the international press and of international human rights organizations:

(C) Tibetan political prisoners are released; and

(D) the Government of the People's Republic of China is entering into negotiations with representatives of the Dalai Lama on a settlement of the Tibetan question

*

Despite this legislation, human rights abuses in Tibet have not affected either the Reagan or the Bush Administration. From 1987, when China's leaders began publicly implementing the recent series of violent and repressive measures against Tibetan demonstrators, the U.S. continued to allow military supplies to go to China, even though evidence suggests that at least some have been used to support the implementation of repressive measures. Sikorsky helicopters were used by the PLA in overseeing operations against Tibetan demonstrators in the fall of 1987,1 152 and were

149 Julie Brittain, "Britain Bows to Chinese in Tibet Teacher Project," The Hongkong Standard, August 6, 1988.

150 Published by Asia Watch, March 1990.

151 These resolutions include the Amendment to H.R. 1777, December 22, 1987 (Foreign Relations Authorization Act); S Congressional Res. 129, September 16, 1988; Senate Resolution 82, March 15, 1989; House Resolution 63, May 16, 1989.

152 Craig Covault, "Tibetan Flight Operations Face Challenges in Remote Regions," Aviation Week & Space Technology, October 12, 1987, p. 54.

part of the support force for the PLA troops moved into the Lhasa area in March 1989.153 The Administration also approved the sale of Boeing jets to China in spite of the fact that such aircraft have been used to ferry troops into Tibet. The airplanes in question were equipped with navigational technology would allow them to be used for military purposes. 154 The sanctions bill passed by the Congress in response to the Tiananmen Square crackdown, banned all further sales of military equipment to China.

On a more positive note, the Administration's 1989 Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1989, released in February, contained a detailed and condemnatory description of human rights practices in China and Tibet.155 In documenting its assertion that "the human rights climate in China deteriorated dramatically in 1989," the report cited the continuing political imprisonment and torture of Tibetans in 1989.156

Asia Watch believes that legislation and sanctions, by the US and other countries, aimed at curtailing human rights abuses in the PRC are apt and appropriate; such moves should treat human rights violations in Tibet as a central concern, and not as a side issue. Many of those who now realize that there are serious human rights problems in Tibet have come to this understanding only out of shock at the June 1989 violence in China; they tend to view conditions in Tibet simply in terms of their awareness of what is transpiring in China. It was this widespread reluctance to consider the situation in Tibet on its own terms that led many people (and most governments) to ignore or discount earlier instances of human rights violations in Tibet, when the visibility of such violations in the PRC as a whole was low.

In the current context, to allow the Chinese authorities to be brought back into the good graces of the international community (the obvious thrust of the Bush Administration's desire not to see China "isolated" on any account), on the basis of a possible amelioration of the situation outside of Tibet, would be a mistake. Moreover, systematic human rights violations cannot be quarantined within one part or region of a state's territory; inevitably, such abuses exert a corrupting influence throughout the society. Indeed, Tibet appears in retrospect as having been something of a testing ground for the PRC authorities in the 1980s, in terms of their experimentation and self-education in how best to forcefully suppress dissent and then deal with the international reaction.

A further international tendency has also been evident, namely, the downplaying of human rights violations in Tibet out of suspicion of or disagreement with the main objective of Tibetan protesters: the independence of Tibet. The Bush Administration has consistently reiterated its opposition to this objective-as have members of the Chinese prodemocracy movement. The absolute right of Tibetans to peacefully protest on this issue is guaranteed by provisions on freedom of expression and assembly in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other internationally recognized human rights covenants.

As this report makes clear, China's record in Tibet is in clear violation of accepted international norms of respect for human rights. Although the PRC condemns all criticism of its human rights record as unwarranted interference in its internal affairs, the PRC's accession to international instruments concerning human rights contradicts that position. Chinese actions and practices in Tibet, including discriminatory practices in furthering Chinese settlement in Tibet, arbitrary political arrests and imprisonment, restrictions on free speech and the use of torture, have placed the PRC in clear violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. China has assumed an international responsibility to adhere to the standards set in these agreements, and is thus-despite its frequent protestations of "interference in China's internal affairs", "violations of sovereign

153 "170,000 Troops Deployed Near Lhasa," The South China Morning Post, March 8, 1989; in FBIS, same day.

154 State department officials denied the equipment would have any important military value. The New York Times, July 8, 1989.

155 Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1989 (Washington, D.C., 1990), pp. 802-825.

156 Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1989 (Washington, D.C., 1990), p. 802. The report wrongly describes Tibetan Buddhism as currently "thriving" (albeit under tight controls). This clearly reflects the outsider's perception of external appearances, rather than being based upon the needs and perspectives of Tibetan Buddhist practitioners themselves. While it is true that there has been a considerable relaxation in restrictions on religion since the early 1980's, the natural vigor (intellectual and otherwise) of Tibetan Buddhism is still subject to serious checks and restraints.

ty" and the like-directly accountable on these issues to the international community.

The PRC authorities insist that China fully adheres to human rights standards in Tibet, while at the same time refusing human rights workers access to the region. Asia Watch strongly urges that in addition to trying to secure Chinese adherence to minimal standards of human rights, the US should press the Chinese authorities for access to Tibet by independent human rights monitors so that they can directly observe conditions in Tibet. It is surely time that the PRC is put on notice that grave abuses will no longer be tolerated by the international community.

FORCED LABOR IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

(By the Law Library of Congress)

Since its founding, the People's Republic of China has placed individuals into forced labor camps and factories. There are a number of separate routes that lead to such placement, some of them extrajudicial. It is not possible to calculate the number of people who have passed through such camps or the number there now; there have doubtless been millions involved. The Chinese claim that the accomplishments of labor reform and labor reeducation make this system second to none in the world.

I. THE JUDICIAL ROUTE TO FORCED LABOR: LABOR REFORM

One major source of laborers in these institutions is the convict population. Under the Criminal Code, all able-bodied convicts are to work, so that they can be "reformed through labor." In theory, laboring will "remake" them into people who will uphold the law and contribute to socialist construction. In the early years of the People's Republic, this labor reform (laogai) program was a part of the class struggle efforts, targeting landlords and "counter-revolutionaries," as well as ordinary criminals. By the late 1980's, at least in the period before the June 1989 crackdown at Tiananmen, most convicts were young, working-class offenders. In part because of this change in the convict population, several Chinese jurists writing in the late 1980's proposed replacing the 1954 Regulations on Labor Reform with a new law, to be enacted by the National People's Congress.

In addition to the 1954 Regulation and other administrative measures, labor reform has been governed by a series of policy decisions formally announced at major national conferences on public security and labor reform. Among them was the policy, first proclaimed in 1956, that labor reform units were to stress "reform first and production second." By overworking and underfeeding the convicts, howev er, the labor camps for decades in effect put production goals first, ahead of both ideological reform and humanitarian concerns. Chinese writers from the late 1980's were quite open in denouncing past harsh treatment of inmates, citing in particular the extremely high goals set for 1958, during the Great Leap Forward, and the extremely poor living standards of the "the three hard years," 1956-1961, which were a period of famine and hardship throughout China.

All the Chinese jurists who discuss the labor reform program stress the impor tance of continuing to have convicts perform labor, both for their own "reform" and because of the wealth created for the state. Most of the writers have boasted of the great achievements of labor reform production units, claiming to have contributed both to the state's coffers and to the technological development of the country. Labor reform units cover a broad range of types of enterprises, from agricultural, fishery, and mining to steel, coal, chemicals, and metals. Barren areas of north and northwest China have, it is claimed, been converted into fertile farms, and hundreds of new products have been developed through labor reform efforts. Generally, the camp itself will have one name and the production unit as an enterprise will have

another.

Labor reform enterprises have consciously looked for foreign markets for their goods. In particular, Chinese writers suggest, labor-intensive industries, such as textiles, carpets, and arts and crafts goods, may have a competitive advantage. The enterprises have been advised to consult market surveys prepared by other government agencies to determine where it is best to attempt to sell their goods. Business can be conducted as direct exports, indirect exports through trading companies, or processing work to refine or assembly products from abroad. Among the products of convict labor that have achieved some success in foreign_markets, Chinese writers claim, are clamps produced by the New Birth Machinery Factory of Hebei Province, diesel motors from the Gold Horse Diesel Machine Factory in Yunnan, machinery