Beijing
The Chinese government has announced plans to relocate over 100,000 Tibetans from their homes by 2030, aiming to end their traditional way of life and bolster its control over border areas including with India.
This is part of China’s strategy of aggressively constructing new villages in disputed border areas to extend or consolidate its control over these areas that India, Bhutan and Nepal maintain to be within their national territories, the source reported.
As per a recent report in Hong Kong-based publication quoting Chinese government document, China intends to build 624 border villages in disputed Himalayan areas.
This new measure is part of China’s larger strategy, launched in 2018 by the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) Communist Party Committee, designed to relocate the Tibetans living in very high altitude regions throughout Tibet, defined as 4,800 meters high or above under its so-called very high-altitude ecological relocation plan.
Although China claimed that its move was to conserve the environment but there is no scientific evidence as to how relocation would have a positive impact on the environment.
According to the publication, the actual reason was to end the Tibetan traditional way of life. Notably, Tibetans in these regions have been nomads for generations who have been living cordially with nature high on the Tibetan Plateau for centuries. It is estimated that the forced relocation and settlement would lead to the displacement of about 2 million Tibetan nomads, who would lose their livelihood and be pushed into, poverty and get marginalized.
