Chinese state media drops ‘Tibet’ for ‘Xizang’ after release of Beijing white paper

Use of the name ‘Xizang’ when referring to the Tibet autonomous region has risen dramatically in English articles by China’s official media
It comes after the State Council releases a white paper on November 10 which replaced ‘Tibet’ for pinyin term ‘Xizang’ in most instances

Tibet

Yuanyue Dangin Beijing

Published: 2:00pm, 10 Dec 2023

Why you can trust SCMP

China’s official media has dramatically increased its use of the term “Xizang”, rather than “Tibet”, when referring to the autonomous region in western China in English articles, after a white paper on Tibet was released by China’s cabinet, the State Council, in early November.

The white paper, titled “CPC Policies on the Governance of Xizang in the New Era: Approach and Achievements”, outlines developments in Tibet since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012.

It is the latest in a series of white papers on Tibet issued by the State Council Information Office, usually designed to showcase Tibet’s economic, livelihood and cultural development under Communist Party leadership. But it was the first in the series to use “Xizang” as the English translation for the Tibet autonomous region.

“Xizang” is the pinyin, or Chinese romanisation, of the Mandarin script for “Tibet”.

Since the release of the November white paper, “Xizang” has largely replaced “Tibet” in several official Chinese media reports, with “Tibet” now used only in a few scenarios, including translations of already established geographical terms and names of institutions.

Between November 10, the date of the white paper’s release, and Friday, the English-language website of state news agency Xinhua used “Xizang” in 128 articles, while only five used “Tibet”, all of which were in reference to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the geographic term covering most of the Tibet autonomous region.

Lhasa in Tibet autonomous region. Experts say Beijing’s change in use of the term “Xizang” instead of “Tibet” is to do with sovereignty. Photo: EPA-EFE

But before that, through 2023 up to November 10, search results on Xinhua’s English website showed more than 700 results with the word “Tibet”, suggesting that the term was used in a variety of scenarios, including political and economic coverage, while “Xizang” appeared only around 30 times.

Likewise, before November 10, the English website of People’s Daily, the party’s mouthpiece, used both “Xizang” and “Tibet”, with the former appearing less than one-fifth as often as the latter. But from the release of the white paper until Friday, “Tibet” appeared only only in one reposted article from another media outlet and in scenarios where English translations were already fixed, such as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Tibet University, while “Xizang” was used more than four times as often as “Tibet”.

China Daily, the English-language mouthpiece newspaper, used “Xizang” along similar lines to the two media outlets after November 10.

Experts say the change reflects Beijing’s emphasis on the sovereignty of Tibet and its efforts to exercise discourse power, but it is likely to have little impact on how the international community refers to the region.

Tibet was incorporated by China in 1950, a year after the Communist Party won the civil war. The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 and remains Tibet’s spiritual leader in exile.

Beijing blamed the Dalai Lama for unrest in Tibet in the late 1980s and also in 2008, calling the Nobel Peace Prize winner a “separatist” seeking independence for Tibet, a claim the Dalai Lama has denied.

The Tibet autonomous region is home to 3½ million people and will be the focus of international attention after death of the Dalai Lama, now 88, and the search for his successor.

The Dalai Lama has said he will address the question of his reincarnation when he turns 90, but Beijing insists it has jurisdiction over the matter.

In August, a group of Chinese scholars called for the official use of “Xizang” as the English name for Tibet, saying it would help “reshape” the region’s image.

Also in August, the United Front Work Department, which deals with non-party individuals and groups inside and outside China, said on its WeChat account that the term “Tibet” was misleading to the international community because it could be confused with the Dalai Lama’s term “Greater Tibet”, which encompasses areas in provinces neighbouring Tibet, including Sichuan, Yunnan, Qinghai and Gansu.

In October, China’s foreign ministry used “Xizang” as the English translation for Tibet when it published a speech by Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a regional forum in Tibet, but previously it used “Tibet” in most English readouts.

Ecommerce provider Weidian then advised merchants on its platform to use “Xizang” when translating Tibet, otherwise their products may be removed.

The moves by China’s media come as Beijing seeks to foster what Xi has called a “sense of community for the Chinese nation”. This is intended to strengthen national identity in ethnic minority regions, and one way to achieve this is to promote what Beijing calls “standard spoken and written Chinese” – Mandarin.

Barry Sautman, an emeritus professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said the change had little to do with ethnicity.

02:45

Tibetans in exile march in solidarity with Dalai Lama in India

“The Chinese government’s change in Tibet’s English name does not reflect a stance on ethnicity but on sovereignty,” he said.

“It is to vindicate the sovereign right to use a term derived from China’s official language for a part of China’s territory.”

But he added that the region’s international image “will not likely be affected”.

Robert Barnett, a professor and senior research fellow at SOAS University of London who specialises in contemporary Tibetan history and culture, said the attempt to change Tibet’s English name was part of Beijing’s policy drive to exercise its “discourse power” by “insisting on Chinese terms and frameworks” in media discussions.

Barnett also stressed that the term “Xizang” might not be popular outside China.

Most places in China are referred to in English by the pinyin of Chinese characters, but the minority language pronunciation or internationally known names are also used in some ethnic minority regions.

This scenario includes the use of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region instead of the pinyin, Nei Menggu, and Urumqi and Kashgar, instead of Wulumuqi and Kashi in pinyin, for the cities in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

108