XI JINPING'S TIBET CHALLENGE: ONE YEAR ON - Recommendations

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR XI JINPING:

Xi Jinping and 5th generation leaders must adopt a paradigm shift in the Chinese Communist Party's approach to Tibet that gives full agency over formulating future policies to the Tibetan people, by first acknowledging its failures and the illegitimacy of its military rule over Tibet.

Xi Jinping must commit to a just and lasting resolution that recognizes the Tibetan people's right to self-determination under international law.

Xi Jinping must implement the following recommendations immediately:

1. Stop the Chinese government's use of military force to crackdown on the Tibetan people. As a matter of urgency, withdraw all security forces from monasteries and places where protests have taken place.
2. Allow immediate and unfettered access to Tibet by foreign media, diplomats, international observers and foreign tourists.
3. Cease the harsh and systematic repression of religious and cultural life in Tibet, and suspend with immediate effect the Chinese government's patriotic education programme.
4. Remove all Party cadres from monasteries in Tibet with immediate effect, and suspend policies concerning interference by Chinese authorities in the selection of reincarnate lamas.
5. Ensure the Tibetan people's right to practice and promote their language is respected by restoring the Tibetan language as the primary medium of instruction in schools and universities.
6. Halt all economic and development policies detrimental to safeguarding the prospects and livelihood of the Tibetans.
7. Reduce the dependency of the Tibetan economy on Chinese government subsidies by favouring bottom up, sustainable development models that offer opportunities to disadvantaged Tibetans and cease all financial incentives for Chinese settlement onto the plateau.
8. End and reverse the coercive policy of nomad settlement; suspend all ongoing settlements and allow those nomads already settled to return to their land and way of life if they wish, and their cancelled long term land leases restored.
9. Allow the Tibetans to be full partners in all decisions over land use in Tibet.
10. Stop environmentally destructive mining and damming projects, and engage with downstream nations to implement bottom-up participatory management of Tibet's water resources.
11. Release all political prisoners detained for engaging in peaceful protest, arbitrarily detained or sentenced without a just trial in accordance with international law immediately and unconditionally.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR WORLD GOVERNMENTS & INSTITUTIONS:

1. Establish and participate in a contact group or multilateral forum by world governments to devise and implement new, more robust, coordinated strategies for resolving the Tibet crisis.
2. Vigorously pursue actions in appropriate international forums that will focus the attention of the government of the PRC on the severity of the situation in Tibet and on the legitimate concern of the international community that Tibetans enjoy the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international covenants to which China is a party.
3. Utilize all opportunities to raise bilateral concern about Tibet in the context of China's Leadership handover, emphasizing the failure of security, economic and development policies to achieve stability in Tibet and urge the immediate adoption of measures to address the legitimate grievances of the Tibetan people.
4. Express strong public condemnation of China's intensifying religious and cultural repression in Tibet, with specific reference to widespread programmes of "patriotic education" and harsh measures to punish individuals for peaceful expression of their cultural and political freedom.
5. Urgently seek to send diplomats to affected areas and demand from China assurances that foreign journalists be allowed unfettered access to the TAR and Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan.
6. Expand capacity to monitor the situation in Tibet, including continuing to push for greater access to Tibet. Initiate or elevate efforts to establish a diplomatic presence in Lhasa, and expand existing resources within Beijing embassies for monitoring.
7. Raise strong concerns over the failure of economic and development policies in Tibet, including the lack of Tibetan participation in shaping these policies.
8. Call for a halt to the forced resettlement of Tibetan nomads and the loss of an ancient, sustainable way of life and urge China to adopt best practice models of participatory governance of Tibet's fragile environment and water resources. Increase programmatic support for Tibetans in Tibet and for programmes that facilitate information exchange between Tibetans in exile and in Tibet.