Communist Party Newspaper Issues Local Tibetan Version

A notice board with content to strengthen the party ideology in both Chinese and Tibetan languages at the Tibet University. (Feng Li/Getty Images)

According to the regime’s state run media, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) newspaper The People’s Daily, started distributing its Tibetan version on August 1. This is to emphasize the propaganda of the “party’s ethnic ideology and policy.”

One expert believes the uprising in Tibet, like the one that happened last year, posed a substantial challenge to Beijing. But, Beijing responded with brutal suppression and an information blockade, to destroy the resistance without outside knowledge of its human toll.

The Xinhua News Agency said all Tibetan editions of the People’s Daily will be distributed free of charge, and are printed locally in large cities such as Lhasa, Chengdu, and Xining.

According to some sources, the Tibetan version of the newspaper distributes 50,000 copies in each printing. The newspaper is distributed to 1,100 primary and secondary schools and 1,700 temples, as well as 5,216 villages.

Tenzin Tsundue, General Secretary of Friends of Tibet (India) told Voice of America that he is not surprised with the move, “The People’s Daily existed in Tibet through the Tibetan Daily all the time. It is the Chinese government’s main mouthpiece in Tibet.”

Tenzin said that the CCP has never stopped strengthening its propaganda tools or control of people’s minds. The Tibetan version of the People’s Daily signals the further strengthening of the regime’s propaganda, especially in the ethnic minority areas where there have been uprisings in recent years.