Numbers of Tibetan exiles plummet as China tightens grip

Fewer Tibetans are seeking exile, as escaping Beijing-controlled Tibet has become more complicated and dangerous. The drop raises questions about preserving the future of Tibetan culture. For decades, the steady flow of Tibetans escaping across the Himalayas into India and Nepal served as a barometer of conditions inside Tibet. From the late 1990s through the mid‑2000s, several thousand Tibetans sought exile every year, bringing firsthand accounts of political restrictions, cultural pressures and daily life under Chinese rule. But data from the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, the de facto capital of Tibetans in exile where the 14th Dalai Lama also resides, has revealed a collapse in the number of newly arrived Tibetans Between 1995 and 1999, more than 12,000 Tibetans successfully sought exile. In the past five years, that number has plummeted to just 81. With fewer Tibetans able to leave, independent information is becoming scarcer, making Beijing's policies, like religious regulation, language reforms, or rural relocation, more opaque to the outside world. This comes as Beijing increasingly promotes its own narratives on development and stability in Tibet. Lobsang, a middle-aged man who left Tibet in 2010, said the drop in the number of exiles comes as China has tightened its grip. "Since 2008, the security architecture within Tibet has undergone a total transformation," he told DW. "What we see now is a high-tech surveillance web where every village, every monastery, and every household is monitored. Reaching the border is now nearly impossible for the average Tibetan," he added. China's development and control The data suggests that the steepest drop in exiles began after large-scale protests in 2008 that spread across Tibet ahead of the Beijing Olympics, prompting a heavy security response from Chinese authorities. In the years that followed, Beijing expanded policing, digital surveillance and border enforcement across the Tibetan Plateau. Chinese authorities say their policies in Tibet have improved living standards, expanded infrastructure and reduced poverty, leading to fewer people leaving. The Chinese government has invested heavily in infrastructure, urban development and public services across Tibetan regions. In the eyes of Beijing, the porous border was a liability. "The young Tibetan population … is increasingly migrating to larger [Chinese] cities and seeking to benefit from the growing Chinese economy," said Atul Kumar, a fellow with the strategic studies programme at the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation (ORF) think tank. Observers admit that socioeconomic conditions in many Tibetan areas have changed significantly over the past two decades, even as political controls have tightened in Tibet and Xinjiang. Despite recent developments, human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have regularly documented increased restrictions on movement, religious activity and communication in Tibetan regions alongside Beijing-backed development. A new solar-panel-powered residential area in Tibet [FILE: March 2019] Image: Zhang Rufeng/picture alliance Nepal aligns more with China Along with changes within Tibet, the geopolitical calculations of neighboring Nepal have also had an effect on the number of exiles, said ORF's Kumar. The Himalayan mountain crossings in the Tibet-Nepal border were once a key transit route for Tibetans heading to India. Under an informal agreement mediated by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Nepal allowed Tibetans safe passage to India. However, as China's economic and geopolitical influence over Nepal has grown through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Nepal has increasingly aligned its border policies with Beijing's preferences. Nepalese authorities have repeatedly stated that they respect a "One China” policy and do not allow "anti-China" political activity on their territory. "Crossing the border today is fundamentally different and harder from what it was 20 years ago. Since 2008, Beijing has exerted heavy diplomatic pressure on Kathmandu. Consequently, since then, surveillance activity on China Nepal border has increased significantly," Kumar said. Nepal's border police forces and security agencies "are closely cooperating and drones, CCTV cameras and other electronic methods for tracking Tibetans intending to exile have gained increased momentum," he said, adding that the effect of these measures is seen in the data after 2008 Nepal has repeatedly denied accusations of mistreating Tibetans, but rights groups and exiled Tibetan organizations say Nepal has increasingly restricted the movement of Tibetans and tightened enforcement along the Himalayan frontier. One newly arrived Tibetan woman, who requested anonymity, told DW she managed to escape a few years ago. She said the "cost of escape has shifted from a physical risk to a total social and familial erasure." Beijing has also strengthened border enforcement alon