On behalf of the Living Tibetan Spirits, I pray for the Resurrection of American Values, the foundational values that define America as a nation. My concern is not about the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. The United States must overcome fear to expose evil actions of People’s Republic of China to occupy Tibet through acts of military aggression.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada

Special Frontier Force-Establishment N0. 22-Vikas Regiment

US Wants UN To Take Up Dalai Lama Succession: Envoy

The United States wants the United Nations to take up the Dalai Lama’s succession in an intensifying bid to stop China from trying to handpick his successor, an envoy said after meeting the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Sam Brownback, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, said he spoke at length about the succession issue with the 84-year-old Dalai Lama last week in the monk’s home-in-exile of Dharamsala, India.

Brownback said he told the Dalai Lama that the United States would seek to build global support for the principle that the choice of the next spiritual chief “belongs to the Tibetan Buddhists and not the Chinese government.”

The Dalai Lama arrives for prayers wishing him a long life at the Tsuglagkhang temple in McLeod Ganj, India in September 2019 — the US wants the UN to look at the issue of who will succeed him Photo: AFP / Lobsang Wangyal

“I would hope that the UN would take the issue up,” Brownback told AFP after returning to Washington.

He acknowledged that China, with its veto power on the Security Council, would work strenuously to block any action, but he hoped countries could at least raise their voices at the United Nations.

“I think it’s really important to have an early global conversation because this is a global figure with a global impact,” he said.

“That’s the big thing that we’re really after now, to stir this before we’re right in the middle of it — if something happens to the Dalai Lama, that there has been this robust discussion globally about it ahead of time,” he said.

US religious freedom envoy Sam Brownback, seen here at a July 2019 ministerial meeting in Washington, is raising pressure over the Dalai Lama’s succession Photo: AFP / MANDEL NGAN

“My estimation undoubtedly is that the (Chinese) communist party has thought a lot about this. So they’ve got a plan and I think we have to be equally aggressive with a plan.”

The Dalai Lama once traveled incessantly, drawing huge Western audiences with his good-humored lectures on compassion and happiness.

But the Nobel Peace Prize winner has slowed down and earlier this year suffered a chest infection, although he is not known to have serious health issues.

Brownback said he found the Dalai Lama “quite jovial” and that the monk had told him, “‘Look, I’m going to live another 15, 20 years; I’m going to outlast the Chinese government.'”

A Tibetan-in-exile carries a photograph of the Dalai Lama during celebrations marking the Lunar New Year in Kathmandu in February 2018 Photo: AFP / PRAKASH MATHEMA

But Beijing has indicated it is waiting out the Dalai Lama, believing his campaign for greater Tibetan autonomy will end with him.

China, which argues that it has brought modernization and development to the Himalayan region, has increasingly hinted that it could name the next Dalai Lama, who would presumably be groomed to support Chinese rule.

In 1995, the officially atheist government selected its own Panchen Lama and detained a six-year-old identified for the influential Buddhist position — whom rights groups called the world’s youngest political prisoner.

Indian police detain Tibetan students as they protest against the visit of China’s President Xi Jinping in Chennai in October 2019 Photo: AFP / STR

Mindful of Beijing’s plans, the 14th Dalai Lama has mused about breaking with the centuries-old tradition in which wandering monks look for signs that a young boy is a reincarnation.

He has said that he could pick his own successor, possibly a girl, or even declare himself the final Dalai Lama.

The US Congress has also stepped up efforts, including by mandating visa denials by the end of the year for Chinese officials unless Beijing eases restrictions on US diplomats, journalists and ordinary people seeking to visit Tibet.

Brownback said he would like access to Tibet, “but I want it unfettered.”

He said he similarly hoped to visit the western region of Xinjiang, which has drawn intense US scrutiny over the incarceration of one million Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking Muslims.

“It is part of the same war on faith,” Brownback said of Tibet and Xinjiang.

Brownback also visited Nepal, historically the gateway for Tibetans fleeing to India but which has increasingly clamped down under pressure from its giant northern neighbor.

Brownback said he raised fears for Tibetans with Nepal’s foreign minister, Pradeep Gyawali.

But he acknowledged Nepal’s difficult situation and said: “I would hate to be very harsh on the Nepalese because they’ve been so good over so many years to help the Tibetans.”

Brownback said that the burden was ultimately with China to allow freedom of movement — and not to interfere in Tibetan Buddhism.

“A government doesn’t own a religion,” he said. “A religion runs itself.”

“We hope we’ll get a number of other communities around the world to express similar positions and concerns.”

In my analysis, the Tibetan God of Snow, Khawa Karpo is insulted by the military occupation of Tibet. The eviction of the military occupier of Tibet is the only solution to save “The Third Pole” of the world.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada

Special Frontier Force

The world has the third pole – and it’s melting quickly

 Gaia Vince

Many moons ago in Tibet, the Second Buddha transformed a fierce nyen (a malevolent mountain demon) into a neri (the holiest protective warrior god) called Khawa Karpo, who took up residence in the sacred mountain bearing his name. Khawa Karpo is the tallest of the Meili mountain range, piercing the sky at 6,740 meters (22,112ft) above sea level. Local Tibetan communities believe that conquering Khawa Karpo is an act of sacrilege and would cause the deity to abandon his mountain home. Nevertheless, there have been several failed attempts by outsiders – the best known by an international team of 17, all of whom died in an avalanche during their ascent on 3 January 1991. After much local petitioning, in 2001 Beijing passed a law banning mountaineering there.

However, Khawa Karpo continues to be affronted more insidiously. Over the past two decades, the Mingyong glacier at the foot of the mountain has dramatically receded. Villagers blame disrespectful human behavior, including the inadequacy of prayer, greater material greed and an increase in pollution from tourism. People have started to avoid eating garlic and onions, burning meat, breaking vows or fighting for fear of unleashing the wrath of the deity. Mingyong is one of the world’s fastest shrinking glaciers, but locals cannot believe it will die because their own existence is intertwined with it. Yet its disappearance is almost inevitable.

Khawa Karpo lies at the world’s “third pole”. This is how glaciologists refer to the Tibetan plateau, home to the vast Hindu Kush-Himalaya ice sheet because it contains the largest amount of snow and ice after the Arctic and Antarctic – about 15% of the global total. However, a quarter of its ice has been lost since 1970. This month, in a long-awaited special report on the cryosphere by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scientists will warn that up to two-thirds of the region’s remaining glaciers are on track to disappear by the end of the century. It is expected a third of the ice will be lost in that time even if the internationally agreed target of limiting global warming by 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is adhered to.

Whether we are Buddhists or not, our lives affect, and are affected by, these tropical glaciers that span eight countries. This frozen “water tower of Asia” is the source of 10 of the world’s largest rivers, including the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Yellow, Mekong and Indus, whose flows support at least 1.6 billion people directly – in drinking water, agriculture, hydropower and livelihoods – and many more indirectly, in buying a T-shirt made from cotton grown in China, for example, or rice from India.

Joseph Shea, a glaciologist at the University of Northern British Columbia, calls the loss “depressing and fear-inducing. It changes the nature of the mountains in a very visible and profound way.”

Yet the fast-changing conditions at the third pole have not received the same attention as those at the north and south poles. The IPCC’s fourth assessment report in 2007 contained the erroneous prediction that all Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035. This statement turned out to have been based on anecdote rather than scientific evidence and, perhaps out of embarrassment, the third pole has been given less attention in subsequent IPCC reports.

There is also a dearth of research compared to the other poles, and what hydrological data exists has been jealously guarded by the Indian government and other interested parties. The Tibetan plateau is a vast and impractical place for glaciologists to work in and confounding factors make measurements hard to obtain. Scientists are forbidden by locals, for instance, to step out on to the Mingyong glacier, meaning they have had to use repeat photography to measure the ice retreat.

There is also a dearth of research compared to the other poles, and what hydrological data exists has been jealously guarded by the Indian government and other interested parties. The Tibetan plateau is a vast and impractical place for glaciologists to work in and confounding factors make measurements hard to obtain. Scientists are forbidden by locals, for instance, to step out on to the Mingyong glacier, meaning they have had to use repeat photography to measure the ice retreat.

One reason for the rapid ice loss is that the Tibetan plateau, like the other two poles, is warming at a rate up to three times as fast as the global average, by 0.3C per decade. In the case of the third pole, this is because of its elevation, which means it absorbs energy from rising, warm, moisture-laden air. Even if average global temperatures stay below 1.5C, the region will experience more than 2C of warming; if emissions are not reduced, the rise will be 5C, according to a report released earlier this year by more than 200 scientists for the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). Winter snowfall is already decreasing and there are, on average, four fewer cold nights and seven more warm nights per year than 40 years ago. Models also indicate a strengthening of the south-east monsoon, with heavy and unpredictable downpours. “This is the climate crisis you haven’t heard of,” said ICIMOD’s chief scientist, Philippus Wester.

There is another culprit besides our CO2 emissions in this warming story, and it’s all too evident on the dirty surface of the Mingyong glacier: black carbon or soot. A 2013 study found that black carbon is responsible for 1.1 watts per square meter of the Earth’s surface of extra energy being stored in the atmosphere (CO2 is responsible for an estimated 1.56 watts per square meter). Black carbon has multiple climate effects, changing clouds and monsoon circulation as well as accelerating ice melt. Air pollution from the Indo-Gangetic Plains – one of the world’s most polluted regions – deposits this black dust on glaciers, darkening their surface and hastening melt. While soot landing on the dark rock has little effect on its temperature, snow and glaciers are particularly vulnerable because they are so white and reflective. As glaciers melt, the surrounding rock crumbles in landslides, covering the ice with dark material that speeds melt in a runaway cycle. The Everest base camp, for instance, at 5,300 meters, is now rubble and debris as the Khumbu glacier has retreated to the icefall.

The immense upland of the third pole is one of the most ecologically diverse and vulnerable regions on Earth. People have only attempted to conquer these mountains in the last century, yet in that time humans have subdued the glaciers and changed the face of this wilderness with pollution and other activities. Researchers are now beginning to understand the scale of human effects on the region – some have experienced it directly: many of the 300 IPCC cryosphere report authors meeting in the Nepalese capital in July were forced to take shelter or divert to other airports because of a freak monsoon.

But aside from such inconveniences, what do these changes mean for the 240 million people living in the mountains? Well, in many areas, it has been welcomed. Warmer, more pleasant winters have made life easier. The higher temperatures have boosted agriculture – people can grow a greater variety of crops and benefit from more than one harvest per year, and that improves livelihoods. This may be responsible for the so-called Karakoram anomaly, in which a few glaciers in the Pakistani Karakoram range are advancing in opposition to the general trend. Climatologists believe that the sudden and massive growth of irrigated agriculture in the local area, coupled with unusual topographical features, has produced an increase in snowfall on the glaciers which currently more than compensates for their melting.

Elsewhere, any increase in precipitation is not enough to counter the rate of ice melt and places that are wholly reliant on meltwater for irrigation are feeling the effects soonest. “Springs have dried drastically in the past 10 years without meltwater and because infrastructure has cut off discharge,” says Aditi Mukherji, one of the authors of the IPCC report.

Known as high-altitude deserts, places such as Ladakh in north-eastern India and parts of Tibet have already lost many of their lower-altitude glaciers and with them their seasonal irrigation flows, which is affecting agriculture and electricity production from hydroelectric dams. In some places, communities are trying to geoengineer artificial glaciers that divert runoff from higher glaciers towards shaded, protected locations where it can freeze over winter to provide meltwater for irrigation in the spring.

Only a few of the major Asian rivers are heavily reliant on glacial runoff – the Yangtze and Yellow rivers are showing reduced water levels because of diminished meltwater and the Indus (40% glacier-fed) and Yarkand (60% glacier-fed) are particularly vulnerable. So although mountain communities are suffering from glacial disappearance, those downstream are currently less affected because rainfall makes a much larger contribution to rivers such as the Ganges and Mekong as they descend into populated basins. Upstream-downstream conflict over extractions, dam-building, and diversions has so far largely been averted through water-sharing treaties between nations, but as the climate becomes less predictable and scarcity increases, the risk of unrest within – let alone between – nations grows.

Towards the end of this century, pre-monsoon water-flow levels in all these rivers will drastically reduce without glacier buffers, affecting agricultural output as well as hydropower generation, and these stresses will be compounded by an increase in the number and severity of devastating flash floods. “The impact on local water resources will be huge, especially in the Indus Valley. We expect to see migration out of dry, high-altitude areas first but populations across the region will be affected,” says Shea, also an author on the ICIMOD report.

As the third pole’s vast frozen reserves of freshwater make their way down to the oceans, they are contributing to sea-level rise that is already making life difficult in the heavily populated low-lying deltas and bays of Asia, from Bangladesh to Vietnam. What is more, they are releasing dangerous pollutants. Glaciers are time capsules, built snowflake by snowflake from the skies of the past and, as they melt, they deliver back into circulation the constituents of that archived air. Dangerous pesticides such as DDT (widely used for three decades before being banned in 1972) and perfluoroalkyl acids are now being washed downstream in meltwater and accumulating in sediments and in the food chain.

Ultimately the future of this vast region, its people, ice sheets and arteries depends – just as Khawa Karpo’s devotees believe – on us: on reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. As Mukherji says, many of the glaciers that haven’t yet melted have effectively “disappeared because, in the dense air pollution, you can no longer see them”. 

I CHAT, YOU CHAT, AND WE CHAT FOR FREE TIBET. THE CHAT FOR TIBET.

I chat, you chat, and We chat for Free Tibet and not to conquer Tibet. CHAT FOR TIBET.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

How “WeChat” Conquered Tibet | The Diplomat

Clipped from: https://thediplomat.com/2019/07/how-wechat-conquered-tibet/

Jamyang Palden, a 30-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monk uses the WeChat app on his iPhone to leave a voice message for a friend in Tibet, in Dharmsala, India, Nov. 10, 2014.

Image Credit: AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia

Tibetans know the surveillance risks, but many choose to give up privacy for convenience.

The digital revolution has emerged as a key factor in the rapid dissemination of news and broadcasting views. Within the last decade, social media has replaced print media, signaling a paradigm shift in how we consume and convey information. Due to advances in science and technology, sharing news and information has become less time-consuming, more convenient, and more decentralized.

But many people don’t realize that convenience has cost them their privacy. As you flow through your daily routine on a smartphone, you inadvertently share more data than you realize. This tradeoff between convenience and privacy illuminates the case of WeChat with respect to Tibetans and the larger Tibetan issue. In my research, I have found that Tibetan netizens generally give up privacy for the sake of convenience when using WeChat, operated by the Chinese company Tencent.

WeChat, the world’s largest standalone messaging app, is constantly refining their technology to monitor — and censor — content from its more than 963 million monthly active users. But still, 70 percent of Tibetans in the diaspora use the application. Overseas Tibetans or anyone with family or relationships associated with Tibet tend to download the messaging app to stay in contact, since other global social media applications are banned in the region. Tibetans who want to communicate with their relatives have no other choice but to use this means of contact.

In the eight years since Tencent debuted WeChat, it has become the dominant social networking platform in China as a whole, including in Tibet. The app has grown into an internet behemoth with over 1 billion registered users worldwide and 902 million daily users. Last year, 45 billion messages were being sent on the platform every day, 18 percent more than in 2017. The reason behind this meteoric rise is the official ban on global social media platforms in China, aided both by censorship of foreign apps – WeChat’s competitors — and subsidies from the Chinese government. This also means that WeChat’s information technology services and software are fundamentally insecure. The Chinese government claims sweeping powers over any matter considered relevant to China’s national security and pressures Chinese firms not only to censor content but, when needed, hand over user data.

Yet for many Tibetans, mobile apps like WeChat have become indispensable in their social life. News and information spreads like wildfire on WeChat and Facebook feeds, even as the mainstream media struggles to catch up with the pace.

In an interview with Tibetans recently arrived in India, one woman told me, “WeChat is set to become more obligatory in the daily lives of many Tibetan people.” At the same time, there is scrutiny of WeChat, which has been linked to an alarming rise in arrests of Tibetans. That, combined with the implementation of the recent cybersecurity laws, makes many Tibetans practice self-censorship on WeChat: discussing more about social matters and reposting and forwarding messages that are nonpolitical.

This Tibetan told me that she realized her phone was tapped, and her calls and text messages were under surveillance. Before she left Tibet, the Internet Security Bureau surprised her with their ability to repeat her words and voice messages precisely when they called her in for interrogation.

WeChat in Exile

In every nook and corner of Tibetan communities in India, many Tibetans are becoming addicted to Tencent apps, which they use extensively. People glued to their phone screens are a common sight, and many are sending voice or video messages, playing PubG, or using other functions to communicate.་ The popularity of WeChat stems from the ease of use, as well as the fact that voice messages do not require literacy in Tibetan. This means that Tibetans who may not be able to read Tibetan can still participate in groups and share their views and ideas confidently.

In a field survey with 550 participants from across India conducted by the author in 2018, 70.90 percent of Tibetans reported using the WeChat app extensively to connect with their family in Tibet, diaspora and abroad. And WeChat is reportedly only gaining popularity in Tibetan communities in exile.

Fig 1. The most popular social media platforms among Tibetans. Data from author field survey.

A Tibetan roadside vendor at McLeodganj explains:

My parents are in Tibet and calls are expensive. Being deprived of formal education, I was introduced to a software called WeChat by my friend in 2012. I found it is just user friendly and does not necessarily require a fast internet connection and literacy. Since then I have been using this application. I can hold a button and talk to my family and relatives in any way at any time. I can get updates on many news and information. I even joined some chat groups and actively participated during the 2016 Tibetan election by airing my views. 

 But I strongly believe that I am under surveillance since the application is made in China. I rarely talk about and post any political related messages and images on my feed.

Another Tibetan man I spoke to explained to me how his family in Tibet would talk with him on WeChat almost daily. But surprisingly, one day he found that he had been removed from the family group chat, and that his parents had blocked him without any further explanation. He was notified that they were changing their profile pictures and status on WeChat but was unable to send a message or get in touch with them thereafter. This incident has left him with questions — he assumes that the Chinese cyber police might have warned his family against contacting someone outside of Tibet.

WeChat and Beijing

Tencent has officially denied any government involvement in privacy matters several times. It is, however, an accepted reality that Chinese officials censor and monitor WeChat users. WeChat also states in its privacy policy that it may share users’ data with “government, public, regulatory, judicial and law enforcement bodies or authorities” to “comply with applicable laws and regulations.” On a technical level, thus, WeChat does not offer users much protection against government surveillance. Cases of Tibetans being arrested for circulating messages that have been deemed politically sensitive evince this.

As a company based in China, WeChat is subject to state laws on content control, and while WeChat claims to be end-to-end encrypted, there is a significant evidence to suggest that client-side censorship based on keyword and surveillance is prevalent, including erasing messages that are deemed politically sensitive issues.

One Tibetan girl, who went from Lhasa to study abroad in Europe, told me why she quit WeChat. When she was at home, she created a chat group and invited 30 of her classmates on it for a dinner party. Soon after, to her horror, she was called in by government officials for severe interrogation and warned against creating any future chat groups for classmates. Later, out of frustration with the lack of privacy, she eventually quit WeChat. She further explains, “I felt insecure after the interrogation and became very cautious. I realized that the Chinese apps are absolutely not safe.”

The problem is larger than WeChat. In some villages in Tibet, police are taking away people’s phones and secretly installing an app that extracts data from emails, texts messages, and contacts. The surveillance app searches for information on a range of material, including literature by the Dalai Lama and messages that are deemed politically sensitive.

Tibet continues to witness a severe clampdown on WeChat, part of a broader crackdown on social media throughout China. Users face the threat of imprisonment if they are found responsible for “online rumors.” China has been cracking down hard on WeChat users who demonstrate sympathy and support for the Tibetan cause and blocking any avenues for the spread of relevant information. Restrictions and fines have thus been on rise for sharing “illegal” content on WeChat.

In addition to the notorious firewall, the government can censor specific words to try and control the narrative of any given incident by pushing their own agenda and restricting citizens’ freedom of expression. However, many Tibetan and Chinese netizen use images and memes to portray a serious topic in a lighthearted manner, and further increase the spread of information.

“Fake News”

The influx of information has led to a preponderance of news about conditions in Tibet. However, the catch is that false rumors are hard to tell apart from real news. Due to the security risks involved, it is difficult to validate news on Tibet, which primarily comes by way of social media.

The spread of “fake news” has become a global concern. False, misleading, or confusing online content created by fake accounts can harm the unity and harmony of any society. Unfortunately, lies and rumors are often taken seriously, and baseless allegations among Tibetans have the serious potential to affect the struggle to advocate the cause of Tibet.

Through my research, I found that some of the key factors behind growing paranoia and possible divisions in the Tibetan movement are lies and unverified rumors created by many fake accounts on popular social media outlets like WeChat and Facebook. These platforms raise concerns surrounding the dissemination of false or misleading information, as they lack the gatekeeping and verification processes that traditional media have. The convergence of traditional and new media as a means of information dissemination has raised questions regarding where to draw the line between regulation and censorship, and how to balance freedom of expression with inflammatory and provocative speech.

While enjoying the benefits of WeChat, we should be wary of the negative effects. In short, while WeChat has become and continues to be a popular medium for social interaction and bridging private and public lives, the safety of the application and security of shared content remains a legitimate concern for everyone.

Tenzin Dalha is a research fellow at the Tibet Policy Institute, doing research on Chinese cybersecurity policy and the social media landscape of Tibetan society.