Tibetan exile leader warns of Chinese aggression: 'China will transform you'

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Tibetan Prime Minister opens up about China's aggression

Prime Minister Lobsang Sangay speaks to Fox News' Benjamin Hall.

The oppression of Tibetans by the Chinese government is well documented – but new reports show that it's getting worse.

China is ramping up its abuses and 500,000 Tibetans are now being held in labor camps as part of a systematic genocidal campaign that has one aim. "They want to make Tibet into a Chinese province and they want to make Tibetans into Chinese," outgoing Tibetan president-in-exile, Lobsang Sangay, told Fox News.

The Chinese military has recently increased its presence in the country; forced sterilization is being reported, while people are routinely arrested and known to be tortured and killed. Sangay said it must be stopped.

Lobsang Sangay, prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, right, smiles as he listens to spiritual leader the Dalai Lama at the Tibetan Children’s Village School in Dharmsala, India, Thursday, June 5, 2014. (AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia) ( )

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"The challenge before the world, as far as China is concerned, is either you transform China or China will transform you," he said.

Sangay recently visited Washington, to press the Biden administration for more support. Under former President Trump, the State Department passed the Tibetan Policy and Support Act and appointed a special coordinator for Tibetan issues. Sangay hopes the new administration will do the same.

But time is short. Inside Tibet, the abuse is getting worse – even poets, artists and singers are arrested for creating Tibetan art – while others are tortured simply for displaying pictures of the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader who is unable to return. 

According to Freedom House, a  non-governmental organization (NGO),  Tibet is now ranked as the least-free country in the world, tied with Syria.

Across Tibet most Buddhist practices are banned, their flags torn down, nuns and monks locked up in camps, as China tries to wipe out this millennia-old culture. 

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Still, Sangay said there is hope.

"If you compare communist ideology with Buddhist civilization, Buddhism is 2,500-plus years old," he said. "So it has gone through ups and downs, but it has survived … Communism is only 100 years old. So they are just a child compared to our philosophy and ideology."

The model China is using in Tibet is the same one it is using against the Uighurs in Xinjiang. The same Chinese party official who now oversees the genocide of Uighurs, Chen Quanguo, was formerly the Communist Party secretary in Tibet. It’s said that is where he refined his methods.

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China seized control over Tibet in 1950 in what it describes as a "peaceful liberation." However, in that "liberation" the Chinese Communist Party destroyed 98% of monasteries and nunneries. In addition, more than 1 million people have been killed.

Monks have protested the occupation throughout, including by self-immolation – 155 monks have set themselves ablaze in the last decade. To this day though, in line with their Buddhist teachings, protests have remained peaceful.

China’s foreign ministry has said America should immediately stop interfering in its internal affairs, and that it puts Tibetans into camps simply to alleviate poverty.  This is widely rejected and fears are growing that this old culture might soon be lost.