In order to strengthen surveillance, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has implemented a systematic policy of “assimilation” in Tibet, aiming to eradicate the language, culture, and religion of the Tibetan people. A report released by the international non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday revealed that the CCP has carried out large-scale forced resettlement and relocation plans, affecting nearly all Tibetan people in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
The 71-page report titled “‘Education Campaign’ Targets Thought: China’s Coercive Labor Program in Tibet” shows that since 2016, during the leadership of Xi Jinping, the CCP has significantly accelerated the relocation of Tibetan farmers and herders, often moving them hundreds of kilometers away. Official Chinese media reports indicate that those being relocated are coerced by authorities, contrary to the CCP’s claim that the relocation is “completely voluntary.”
The report is mainly based on more than a thousand Chinese official media articles, publications, and academic research reports from 2016 to 2023. It includes coverage on relocation activities, implementation of relocations, number of relocated individuals, initial resistance from residents, official door-to-door persuasion, and residents’ relocation.
Official media reports show that officials use extreme forms of persuasion, including intrusive home visits – “going door-to-door to conduct ideological work,” coercion, and pressure, forcing farmers and herders to agree to collective relocations. Those who refuse face various punishments, including cutting off basic services like water and electricity. Authorities openly threaten villagers who oppose relocation, commanding officials to swiftly and decisively crack down, employing administrative and criminal penalties.
The report points out, “These coercive measures can be traced back to the pressure exerted by higher-level departments on local officials. Higher-level departments often present relocation plans as a non-negotiable, politically crucial policy directly from the CCP Central Committee or regional capital. This leaves local officials with no flexibility in implementation, requiring unanimous consent from villagers for relocation. … officials must exert increasing pressure on villagers until they acquiesce.”
Since 2017, more than 500 villages and over 140,000 residents in the Tibet Autonomous Region have been subject to collective resettlement. In addition to collective relocations, there is another form of relocation called “scattered resettlement.” According to official definitions, this practice involves moving designated impoverished Tibetan households to locations deemed “more suitable for income generation.” From 2016 to 2020, around 567,000 people in Tibet were relocated under such programs.
Official statistics show that from 2000 to 2025, the CCP’s relocation plans have affected over 930,000 rural Tibetan residents. Among them, 709,000 people (approximately 76%) were relocated after 2016.
Whether through collective or scattered resettlement, authorities require relocated households to dismantle their old homes to prevent them from returning. In many past projects, a significant number of relocated rural residents struggled to find sustainable livelihoods in new environments.
A review of early relocation projects in eastern Tibet in 2014 found that even after a decade, 69% of relocated households still faced economic difficulties, with 49% expressing a desire to return to their original livelihoods on the grasslands.
In addition to forced relocation, the CCP has also implemented population resettlement programs such as “rural house transformation” and “sedentarization of nomads.” These programs have affected approximately 4.5 million Tibetans nationwide, with 3.36 million farmers and herders compelled to settle in locations designated by the CCP, abandoning traditional farming and herding lifestyles passed down through generations. Many individuals have experienced multiple relocations or have had to rebuild their homes repeatedly.
According to Chinese official reports, by the end of 2013, the Tibet Autonomous Region’s rural resettlement project initiated in 2006 had resettled 2.3 million Tibetan herders. According to the 2021 census, the region’s permanent population is approximately 3.64 million, with around 3.13 million Tibetan residents. Of these, urban residents number around 1.3 million, accounting for 35.7% of the total population, while rural residents amount to around 2.3 million.
The CCP’s policies in Tibet have virtually impacted the entire Tibetan population, overturning Tibetan livelihoods and lifestyles through changes in housing and living conditions.
Under the guise of poverty alleviation, the CCP has implemented the so-called “agricultural and pastoralist settlement project” in rural Tibet. In most cases, forced relocations and resettlements have resulted in increased poverty. Despite this, the CCP has neither reflected on nor halted these plans, nor provided economic assistance to Tibetans in distress.
The report states that the CCP’s relocation plans aim to “strengthen political control over Tibet.” While conducting relocation efforts in Tibet, authorities have expanded extensive data collection and other administrative and technological controls. Concurrently, they have intensified policing at village level in Tibetan areas, with many villages hosting “police-station-style” outposts.
In 2011, the Hong Kong political magazine “Frontline” published an article titled “The Destructive Mission of Tibet’s ‘Settlement Project,'” citing a statement from a CCP Tibetan official to overseas Tibetans. The official revealed, “Previously, nomads roamed vast lands on the plateau, but the CCP’s political measures were ineffective in managing devout Tibetan believers. Now, by settling Tibetans in convenient urban areas, they can be enclosed for easier management, allowing CCP public security to monitor them at will.”
The article also quoted CCP-affiliated scholar Zhang Jiali from the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences in her essay on “The Position of the Tibetan Agricultural and Pastoralist Settlement Project in Economic and Social Development,” stating that after Tibetan migration, “there are fewer prayers to gods and Buddhas,” and Tibetans can now “hear the voice of the Party Central Committee.” The CCP utilizes relocation as a means to diminish the influence of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibetan minds, serving the purpose of ideological control.
Additionally, besides political motives, another significant aim of the CCP is land grabbing. A Tibetan individual remarked, “Our land is very valuable and rich in natural resources, they want to obtain these resources.” Relocation leads Tibetans into poverty, while CCP officials at various levels profit from land transactions.
The report also notes that this report differs from HRW’s previous reports on relocation and resettlement in Tibet in 2007 and 2013. The previous reports were primarily based on interviews with Tibetans who had fled Tibet after participating in relocation projects. This time, the information was primarily gathered from a vast amount of Chinese official reports, coverage, and data.
The CCP strictly restricts research on human rights situations in Tibet. Independent researchers are not allowed entry into Tibet, and even in extremely rare cases where permission is granted, they are severely constrained in non-sensitive or non-critical areas of CCP governance. During the current leadership of Xi Jinping, such restrictions have become more severe.