‘What I Saw in Xizang Was a Proactive, Well-Funded and Systematic Commitment to Heritage Preservation’

By Arnold August – Jul 29, 2025

In 2023, I had the honor of visiting China’s Xizang Autonomous Region as a delegate in the autumn cohort of scholars and journalists, alongside representatives from the Americas, Europe, and Australasia. I am deeply grateful to have been invited to visit Xizang. There are various reports from the ground to share. This is just one.

As someone born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, I have a deep appreciation for issues of language, identity and cultural preservation. This personal background made me particularly sensitive to what I observed in Xizang.

I am deeply interested in how China strives to integrate the most dynamic aspects of the religious features of culture into its thinking and actions. This applies locally to Buddhism in Xizang. However, despite my extensive education and subsequent studies on language and culture, the contrast in Xizang between US-led misinformation and the truth is so blatant that it left me positively bewildered every step of the way.

I am confronted with so much misinformation in the West regarding Xizang. This disinformation primarily centers on two issues: culture in the broad sense (including religion) and language. I did not expect the inconsistency between falsehood and reality, witnessed firsthand, to be so evident. It is so outrageous when you see it for yourself. The deceit is so outlandish in contrast to the facts that it becomes glaringly obvious.

My visit to the heart of Lhasa’s old town was a powerful reminder of China’s unique experiment in merging language and culture with modernity while fully safeguarding old traditions. You have to “see it to believe it.”

Yes, this is a popular, overworked phrase. However, when one is immersed in Lhasa, it fully applies. For example, by mingling in Lhasa with the Tibetans, we see most people dressed in traditional garments, witness hundreds of Buddhist monks in their religious garb while walking and/or praying, traditional Buddhist architecture side by side with modern malls, kids rollerblading, others enjoying themselves with their families in an amusement park, or the less timid approaching our group to practice their English and satisfy their curiosity.

There is a wealth of prominent content to explore when diving into Lhasa. For example, we visited Jokhang Temple in the old town, which features traditional Tibetan architecture. What attracted my attention was that it houses the Gelug school monastery (Gelug means “virtuous”), the most recent of several vital schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The teaching language, of course, is Tibetan.

The visit to the imposing Potala Palace, which has overlooked Lhasa, offers another perspective on Tibetan Buddhism. What impressed me most was its key role not only in religion but also in Xizang’s traditional political administration and thinking. The Palace contains nearly 700 murals and 10,000 painted scrolls, as well as an impressive collection of important historical documents. If the Western-driven fable of Tibetan “suppression” is true, then how can we explain China’s dedication to the history of the Xizang region?

The same applies to the Tibetan language. At Xizang University, established in 1985 in Lhasa, courses are mainly taught in Putonghua and Tibetan. We were told that the university had more than 20,000 students, an internationally renowned department of Tibetan studies and a majority-Tibetan student body. The university focuses on local communities and cultures. Far from being marginalized, the Tibetan language is an integral part of higher education and public life in Xizang.

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The special visit to the Tibetan ancient documents research center on the Lhasa campus, which focused on the Phuri Manuscripts, was impressive. They constitute China’s most ancient and extensive collection of ancient Tibetan literature. The Phuri manuscripts were uncovered in 2002 in the rural Tibetan village of Phuri. The ancient documents offer insights into a kingdom established around the 13th and 14th centuries. The manuscripts portray the natural environment, traditional customs, social structures and history.

If the Western anti-China narrative of “cultural genocide” in Xizang had any truth to it at all, then China would need to “root out” these seeds of the Tibetan people to erase their collective memory. However, on the ground, we witnessed that the opposite is the case.

The Xizang Museum, completed in 1999, is the first large, modern museum in Xizang. It features a collection of more than 520,000 artifacts, focusing on the various dynastic periods of Tibetan history. The museum boasts numerous volumes, official documents and gifts from various emperors in history. It is widely accepted that to commit genocide against a people, the very roots of their civilization and history must be eradicated. However, under the Chinese government’s leadership, Tibetan culture has been well preserved.

When I thought we had seen it all, the best was yet to come. We visited the Tibetan Autonomous Region intangible cultural heritage preservation center. Since 2012, the central and local governments have invested a total of more than 400 million yuan ($55.7 million) in protecting Tibetan intangible cultural heritage through this center. It proved to be a highlight of the entire trip for me. How refreshing!

To claim that a culture is being “eradicated” while its language is taught, its religion practiced, and its history displayed and studied is a contradiction too glaring to ignore. It raises the uncomfortable question: Who gets to define what cultural survival looks like?

Too often, the Western gaze projects its own anxieties and strategic narratives onto others.

In contrast, what is the situation in Quebec, whose distinct cultural heritage goes back to 1618? Unlike the situation for Tibetans, our music, film, journalism, novels and poetry remain just an obscure footnote to Anglo-American cultural and linguistic domination. Despite protection efforts, the pressures of assimilation are a real concern.

By comparison, what I saw in Xizang was a proactive, well-funded and systematic commitment to heritage preservation.

In Xizang, I saw the truth—and it was thriving. My main message is to visit Xizang and experience the contrast between fact and fiction.

 

(Global Times)