中国、チベットでも新疆同様の職業訓練強制か　報告書

【北京ＡＦＰ＝時事】中国西部のチベット自治区で、農業や畜産業の従事者らを対象に、新疆ウイグル自治区内と同様の職業訓練が強制されていると、米研究機関が22日、報告書で明らかにした。（写真は資料写真）
　仏教徒が多数を占めるチベット自治区の当局は、地方部の労働者を工場での作業に従事させるこの計画について、貧困緩和策の一つと主張。習近平国家主席が掲げる、極度の貧困を年内に撲滅するという目標に沿ったものだと説明している。
　しかし米国のジェームズタウン財団の研究員らは、今回発表した報告書の中で、この「軍隊さながらの職業訓練」は、同自治区の９０％を占めるチベット人に対するイデオロギーの教化と同化の一形態でもあると指摘。
　今年１～７月に訓練を受けた人は、地方部の労働者、主に畜産業者らや自給自足の農家ら５０万人以上に上り、各地区に人数のノルマが課されていたとしている。
　報告書に引用されている中国政府の昨年の行動計画によると、この職業訓練計画は「労働規律、中国語、労働倫理」を教え込むことを目的にしているとされる。
　同報告書には、訓練する人数のノルマを達成した企業に５０万元（約７７０万円）が支給されることや、畜産業者や農家に対し、家畜や農地を国営の大規模な協同組合に譲渡することが奨励されていると記されている。
　報告書の執筆者で、在米の共産主義犠牲者記念財団の研究員のエイドリアン・ゼンツ氏は、「中国政府による少数民族の同化推進政策という文脈で見ると、これらの政策は、言語、文化、宗教上の遺産の消滅をもたらす可能性がある」と懸念を示している。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/09/23-13:15）

China is forcing Tibetan farmers and herders into labour programmes similar to those used in troubled Xinjiang, a US research institute alleged Tuesday.
The moves risk a loss of cultural heritage in the politically sensitive region, the group's report warned.
Authorities in Tibet, a predominantly Buddhist area in China's far west, have touted the scheme -- which puts rural workers to task in factories -- as a tool for poverty alleviation.
They say this is in line with President Xi Jinping's goal of eradicating extreme poverty by the end of 2020.
But researchers at the Jamestown Foundation said militarised vocational training is also a form of ideological indoctrination and assimilation towards ethnic Tibetans, who make up 90 percent of the remote border region's population.
It said more than 500,000 rural labourers -- mainly herders and subsistence farmers -- were trained in the first seven months of 2020, with each county assigned quotas.
It didn't cite any comparable figures for previous years.
The training schemes aim to instil work discipline, Chinese language and work ethics, according to a 2019 Chinese government action plan quoted in the report.
A 2018 report by the Nagqu city government also states that the purpose of the labour transfer scheme is to effectively eliminate lazy people.
Companies that fulfil the hiring quota for workers are offered up to 500,000 yuan (about $75,000), the report said, while herders and farmers are also encouraged by the scheme to hand over their livestock and land to large state-run cooperatives.
In the context of Beijing?s increasingly assimilatory ethnic minority policy, it is likely that these policies will promote a long-term loss of linguistic, cultural and spiritual heritage, wrote the report's author Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the US-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
Nearly 50,000 people have been transferred to other areas of Tibet, and more than 3,000 sent to other parts of China, the report said.
The report claims there are similarities with labour schemes in the troubled Xinjiang region.
The scale of the Tibetan work scheme is still dwarfed by that of Xinjiang -- which trained an average of 1.29 million workers each year between 2014 and 2019, according to a government white paper released last week.
Both the EU and the US have raised concerns this year over China's treatment of minorities in the Himalayan region.
Beijing says its troops peacefully liberated Tibet in 1951, but many exiled Tibetans accuse the central government of religious repression and eroding their culture.
Foreign journalists have been largely barred from visiting the region since 2008, making it difficult to independently investigate reports from researchers and rights groups.