A German sinologist and ethnologist has refuted the Dalai Lama's claim that the Chinese government has conducted "cultural genocide" in Tibet and criticized some Western media for not letting the voices of ordinary Tibetans be heard.
"The concept of 'cultural genocide' is completely wrong," said Ingo Nentwig, who chairs the research department of the Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig, in a written interview last Wednesday with Xinhua.
"The Tibetan culture flourishes and prospers in China,including language, literature, study of oral literature, everyday life and traditional architecture," he said.
Nentwig said that China has published a vast collection of books, newspapers and magazines in the Tibetan language, and "there are a lot of Tibetan publishing houses, not only in Tibet but also in the neighboring provinces and even in Beijing."
Tibetan authors write in the Tibetan language and Chinese, Tibetan translation of foreign books are also available in China, and "there is an academy for traditional Tibetan medicine in Lhasa," he said, illustrating his point.
The scholar said that unlike "some representatives of the clerical elite demanding independence for Tibet or just wanting to exert political power" who describe the modernization of the Tibetan society as "cultural genocide," "most Tibetans recognize the opportunities in a modern Tibet, which is part of China and open to the modern world."
Nentwig said a systematic immigration and assimilation of Tibet "through a Han Chinese (China's majority ethnic group) settlement invasion is just out of the question."
"If you come to Lhasa, you actually have the impression that there are many Han Chinese who account for more than 50 percent of the population in Lhasa for sure," he said, but noted the majority of them, however, stay there only temporarily.