Chinese authorities are carrying out a campaign to dismantle dwellings in Larung Gar, a mountainside settlement in southwestern Sichuan province that is home to some 10,000 Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns although some estimate the population at 20,000. Reports from the region state the Chinese government plans to limit the population to 5,000. But there is more to the conflict than overpopulation of one small mountainous village.
Photo: Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times
Elliot Sperling, the world-renowned Tibet scholar who died in February 2017, saw an ulterior motive in these activities which began after widespread Tibetan uprisings in 2008, according to The New York Times. “The party sees Tibet, inside and outside the Tibet Autonomous Region, as one of the more volatile regions and does not take kindly to alternate sources of authority, including moral and behavioral authority, and clearly the growth of Larung is problematic,” Sperling said.
The Times also reports that hundreds of Buddhists have already been forced out of the area. “Many Tibetans say they fear the erosion of their language, traditions and ways of worship. China still denounces the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, and bans his image throughout the region…Buddhist practitioners who are Han, the dominant ethnicity in China, live alongside Tibetans in the settlement, which is a winding 16-hour drive from the provincial capital, Chengdu.”
Human Rights Watch China director Sophie Richardson states “China is aggressively dismantling religious freedom along with religious life at Larung Gar by subjecting many expelled monks and nuns to forced re-education. The restrictions imposed on former residents should be removed so they can exercise fully their rights to religious practice, including freely joining religious institutions and observing religious rituals.”
