Xizang trip proves Western accusations really ridiculous

China-bashing has been the favorite pastime for some Western politicians, many of whom have rarely, if ever, set foot in China.

Their latest target is China's ethnic minority policy, including the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, which came into effect on July 1 after being adopted by the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, in March.

Predictably, many of the loudest critics have never visited China's ethnic minority regions, from the Xizang autonomous region to the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Yet they continue to make sweeping accusations about the lives, cultures and traditions of ethnic groups there.

Over the past four weeks, I have traveled through the Tibetan-inhabited regions from Xizang to Sichuan province.

Along the way, I kept asking Tibetan men and women whether they felt their language, culture, religion or other aspects of their lives were being suppressed, as alleged by Western politicians year after year.

Each and every one of them laughed off those Western accusations. A young Tibetan man named Tenzing offered the most representative response.

Those Westerners, he said, simply don't understand the reality on the ground. There are no restrictions on learning the Tibetan language or engaging in cultural and religious activities, he said.

The truth, as I witnessed in the region, is that nearly all Tibetans speak their mother tongue. That certainly does not look like a language being erased.

In fact, the preservation of the Tibetan language is far more robust than the protection of the Shanghai dialect in my home city, Shanghai.

Tibetan monasteries were among the highlights of my four-week driving trip.

From the magnificent Jokhang Temple in Lhasa to the Samye Temple in Lhoka and the smaller Chonggu Temple in Yading, Sichuan province, they are all splendid. The monks were friendly and welcoming. At the former residence of the 7th Dalai Lama in Litang, Sichuan province, a monk even invited me to see the rooms upstairs.

I was ignorant on some issues, so I asked a young man named Tsering whether Tibetans are allowed to marry people of other ethnic groups.

He said marriage was a personal choice that everybody is completely free to make. His own aunt married a Han Chinese in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.

Tenzing was proud that Tibetan society doesn't have the tradition of dowry unlike elsewhere in the country. He was surprised when I told him that Shanghai and several other Chinese cities also don't have such a practice.

I was equally surprised to learn that there is no preference for sons in Tibetan families, unlike in some other communities in rural areas.

Our one-hour conversation was a learning experience for both of us. Tenzing, who had studied medicine in Chengdu, was thankful for the government policy on college enrollment that supports students from ethnic minority groups.

China's ethnic population reached 125 million, or nearly 9 percent of the national population, according to the 2020 census.

Every Tibetan I spoke to said life was steadily improving every day and was far better than it was for their parents and grandparents.

Take Yading, a small mountainous village of more than 30 Tibetan families, in the Ganzi Tibetan autonomous prefecture. Once isolated and inaccessible, it has now become a popular tourist resort.

The village has transformed from one of the poorest communities in the area into one of the most prosperous in the region. The road to the village, at an altitude of 4,000 meters above sea level, is arguably better than those leading to many Alpine villages that I have visited in Switzerland.

Tsering emphasized that the 56 ethnic groups in China are one family. That sense of shared identity is something Western politicians would never understand given their deep-rooted prejudice against China.

I also spent time reading all the 65 articles of the new Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law. Far from being a tool of suppression, it is a law to promote ethnic harmony and prosperity, with particular emphasis on protecting and promoting the culture and tradition of all ethnic groups.

Those who question why people from ethnic minority groups in China should be required to learn Mandarin are making an absurd argument. They never ask the same question about learning English in the United States or the United Kingdom.

The Tibetans I spoke to had a pragmatic answer: learning Mandarin gives young people more employment opportunities.

I seriously doubt whether any of those Western politicians have read the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, or even its summary. The irony is that many in the US Congress don't read the bills, even some important ones, before they vote on them.

That is not only absurd but also highly irresponsible.

The author is a China Daily columnist.

chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn