The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has adopted a purposeful, slow plan to undermine the sovereignty of countries in the Tibetan Plateau with an emphasis on infrastructure development as a means of control and coercion. The CCP has consistently weakened Tibetan autonomy and culture since its military conquest of eastern Tibet in 1950 and the annexation that followed with the 1951 Seventeen Point Agreement. This strategy includes enforcing a settler-colonial system designed to uproot Tibetans and integrate them into a Chinese identity, as well as outlawing religious activities during the Cultural Revolution.
China’s emphasis on strategic infrastructure in Tibet is viewed as a strategy for regional supremacy, allowing Beijing to expand its influence over the area and its neighbours. Water control initiatives in Tibet present a serious risk to regional water security by granting China the ability to control the distribution and availability of water for nearly 1.8 billion people living downstream across South and Southeast Asia. The Tibetan Plateau serves as the origin for some of Asia’s most important rivers, including the Mekong, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, and Yellow Rivers, which are essential for agriculture, drinking water, and industrial activities in numerous countries. China’s refusal to share crucial hydrological data and its antagonistic approach toward regional water-sharing agreements deepen mistrust, obstruct cooperation, and escalate the risk of water conflicts, undermining regional stability and security.
As per the article published in turquoiseroof.org, as part of extensive hydropower development strategy, China has built about 200 hydroelectric dams in Tibet since 2000. The enormous 2,240-megawatt Khamtok (Gangtuo) dam in Derge County, eastern Tibet, is one of the major projects. It has devastated cultural sites and forced thousands of Tibetans to relocate. Two more noteworthy hydropower facilities that were given priority in China’s Five-Year Plans are the Lawa Hydropower Station on the Drichu River and the Bathang Hydropower Station close to Batang County. Tensions in the region are also being exacerbated by China’s construction of massive dams on important rivers like the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) and the Machu (Yellow River), including a newly finished dam close to the Tibet-Nepal-India trijunction.
China’s rail and transportation initiatives in Tibet are a deliberate attempt to increase regional control at the expense of serious socioeconomic and environmental damage. Beijing has praised the Qinghai-Tibet Railway as an engineering wonder, but it has hastened ecological degradation, broken up delicate ecosystems, and interfered with wildlife migration around the plateau’s distinctive wetlands and permafrost. China’s transportation infrastructure in Tibet is strategically designed to enhance military advantage, enabling rapid troop deployment and logistical support along contested borders. The Qinghai-Tibet and Sichuan-Tibet railways, along with road networks, allow the People’s Liberation Army to quickly mobilize forces and transport military equipment near the Line of Actual Control. These projects also facilitate the relocation of Tibetans and influx of Han settlers, tightening Beijing’s authoritarian control.
China employs gray zone strategies in Tibet, combining coercive methods and settler colonialism to weaken Tibetan autonomy without resorting to open warfare. Beijing has manipulated demographics under the pretense of development since 1950 by encouraging Han migration through government initiatives like the Tibet-Aid Project. By imprisoning religious leaders, eradicating Tibetan language and culture, and limiting religious activities, it imposes governmental control with the goal of eradicating the influence of Tibetan Buddhism. While avoiding outright conflict, these small, gradual steps compel integration into a Han Chinese context. The profound oppression brought about by China’s strategic, ambiguous drive to rule and assimilate Tibet is highlighted by Tibetan resistance, including self-immolation. China’s “whole-village relocation” programs in Tibet involve forcibly moving entire rural Tibetan communities, often hundreds of kilometers away from their ancestral lands. Since 2016, more than 140,000 people have lived in more than 500 villages that have been forced to evacuate under the guise of ecological preservation and poverty reduction.
China’s digital infrastructure expansion in Tibet is also a central element of its gray zone tactics. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) deploys advanced surveillance technologies, including facial recognition, biometric tracking, and AI-powered data analytics, to monitor and suppress Tibetan populations. Through companies like Huawei, China spreads this digital repression outside of Tibet by installing monitoring systems in nearby nations like Nepal to keep an eye on Tibetan refugees and dissidents overseas. On the Tibetan Plateau, these digital networks are combined with other coercive infrastructure, such as highways that facilitate troop movements, railways that allow for quick military deployment, and dams that regulate water flow, to create a holistic coercive architecture.
The CCP will intensify its slow, relentless campaign to erode sovereignty across the Tibetan Plateau, targeting democracies and hybrid regimes resisting its expansionist agenda. Only a coordinated, robust, and multifaceted response can effectively safeguard the Tibetan Plateau’s freedom and ensure long-term regional stability against China’s calculated and aggressive expansionist policies. This requires close collaboration among nations, particularly India and Nepal, to strengthen border security and enhance intelligence sharing to pre-empt Chinese incursions and influence operations. Investments in advanced cybersecurity defenses are critical to counter Beijing’s pervasive digital surveillance and propaganda campaigns. Additionally, economic strategies must reduce regional dependence on China, limiting its leverage. Upholding Tibetan sovereignty demands sustained diplomatic pressure, military preparedness, and support for Tibetan cultural preservation, collectively resisting China’s attempts to dominate the plateau and its neighboring regions.
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