This is the second of a series of four articles examining the political risk concerns related to human rights abuses in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Since its annexation by the PRC in 1950, Tibet has attracted widespread attention from the international community. While the question of sovereignty remains contentious (the Dalai Lama himself does not seek independence, advocating instead for a “Middle Way”), the numerous human rights abuses perpetrated in the region have been documented by NGOs and subsequently denounced by a multitude of actors.

The repression exerted by the PRC permeates the everyday lives of Tibetans. In their motherland, Tibetans are being constantly monitored (especially online via the WeChat platform), which enables the authorities to rapidly identify and suppress any form of political criticism. This type of censorship also contributes to forced cultural assimilation through vast “re-education” campaigns, the eradication of Tibetan language, the outlawing of Tibetan Buddhist practices, and the destruction of monasteries. Concurrently, the PRC is seeking to capitalise on the region’s touristic potential: one of the only ways to access Tibet is through a government-approved tour of Lhasa, where every detail is a carefully designed element of propaganda. It thus appears that the Chinese government is distorting Tibetan culture in order to showcase it as a spectacle for tourists (“Disneyfication”) – in what is often framed as a colonial enterprise. For expressing concerns over the destruction of Tibetan culture, or even for merely chanting in Tibetan or possessing a picture of the Dalai Lama, Tibetans are routinely subjected to arbitrary detention, torture, and other forms of ill-treatment. Furthermore, the PRC’s surveillance and censorship apparatus extends to Tibetans living in exile, using the threat of harming their relatives in Tibet if they refuse to cooperate – a mechanism conceptualised as transnational repression.

Investment in Tibet is typically portrayed as contributing to the region’s development, and the Chinese government has sought to attract FDI through tax concessions. However, the developmental narrative is used to justify the exploitation of local resources with little to no benefits (and rather disastrous consequences) for local populations. These resources include water, ore reserves, but also the Tibetan population itself, part of which is subjected to forced labour at the hands of the PRC. Examples of the negative impact on Tibetans include forced displacement induced by the damming of major waterways, as well as environmental deterioration and life-threatening landslides caused by excessive mining. To some extent, the voices praising the government’s investment in railways connecting Tibet to other Chinese regions evoke the discourse seeking to justify British colonialism in India.

As is often the case when dealing with the Chinese government, foreign companies seeking to benefit from conducting business within the PRC must refrain from formulating any political criticism vis-à-vis the ruling party. Typically, after showing support for the Tibetan cause (e.g., by excluding Tibet from maps of China), a certain number of foreign companies (including Marriott, Delta Airlines, and Audi) were made to give public apologies to the PRC as a sine qua non condition for the pursuit of their joint business activities.

Activist groups have been denouncing the ethical dimension of FDI in Tibet for decades, as exemplified by calls on foreign-managed hotels in the 1990s, or on foreign mining companies in the 2000s. Human rights concerns were magnified following the 2008 Lhasa protests, with activists lobbying businesses to retire from the region. For example, in 2015, Starbucks was criticised for opening stores in Tibet without carrying out an adequate human rights due diligence assessment. In the same report, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) made the claim that  

“Aside from having yaks on mugs and serving Tibetan butter tea, there is no indication that Starbucks has done anything to benefit or protect Tibetan culture. Instead, Starbucks seems to be feeding a policy of trivialising and undermining Tibetan culture for commercial gain”.

It has been argued that preventing foreign companies from operating in Tibet is counter-productive, insofar as it would only create more space for Chinese investors, who are portrayed as less likely to employ Tibetans and generally less sensitive to the needs of local populations. As an alternative to boycott, the TCHRD published a Code of Conduct for Business Operating in Tibet, laying out guidelines that enable multinational companies to operate ethically in Tibetan areas – while satisfying the competing obligations of international law as well as the laws of the regions they work in. These guidelines draw upon international norms, such as the United Nations’ Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. The TCHRD particularly enjoins their enforcement of tech companies, who are at a risk of strengthening the PRC-led online surveillance of the population. 

Another example comes from Rukor, a discussion website on the fate of Tibetan nomads, which also published a series of case studies analysing the impact of foreign-led business decisions on local livelihoods. This allows for businesses to potentially still expand into Tibet while maintaining ethical and CSR standards.