The Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s (CECC) 2025 report, released on December 10, 2025, documents egregious human rights violations perpetrated by the Chinese state in Tibet, including the mass expulsion of monks from Larung Gar, the closure of Tibetan schools, and the arrest of rights advocates – including the death of Gonpo Namgyal, a language rights advocate who died from torture while in custody.
The report highlights China’s numerous broken promises on human rights, noting that China’s promise of autonomy to Tibetans has yielded “mass detentions and omnipresent surveillance” instead of a system that protects and upholds human rights and Tibet’s unique religious, linguistic, and cultural heritage.
“China is going to extreme lengths to hide the situation in Tibet from the world,” said International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) President Tencho Gyatso. “International media outlets alternate between being banned entirely and being taken on highly choreographed Potemkin tours, while Tibetans face draconian punishment for sharing information with the outside world. We are grateful to the commissioners and staff of the CECC for their continuing efforts to document the reality of China’s abuses in Tibet.”
Wide range of violations
The CECC found that China “continued to restrict and seek to control the religious practices of Tibetans,” including by seeking to assert control over the selection of Tibetan Buddhist religious leaders.
The report further notes that Chinese authorities continue to penalize Tibetans for expressions of reverence for the Dalai Lama, “including through harassment and surveillance, detention, and imprisonment.”
In line with the findings of ICT’s recent report on language rights in Tibet, the CECC found that Chinese authorities are undermining the use of the Tibetan language, including through “implementation of policies promoting or enforcing the use of Mandarin Chinese instead of Tibetan or other local languages, as well as policies of neglect with regard to minority languages.”
In a section focusing on the colonial boarding school system established by Chinese authorities in Tibet, the report states that Tibetan children have experienced “abusive and neglectful conditions” in the schools, citing several escapees who described the experience as “like a prison” with discriminatory treatment, beatings, the denial of adequate food, and forced “political education.”
The CECC also refers to the State Department’s recent reporting on access to Tibet and concludes that access to Tibet remains heavily restricted, with US officials denied entry to Tibet and conspicuous surveillance used to “intimidate, monitor, and harass travelers.”
International Campaign for Tibet reports cited by CECC
ICT’s reports are repeatedly cited by the CECC, including in a section on the arrest of an activist for releasing a video criticizing officials for failing to address the environmental damage caused by the mining of a local river.
Another citation comes in a section on the environmental and geological implications of China’s hydropower construction in Tibet:
The PRC government’s building of hydropower dams in Tibet and along the Mekong River has contributed to the displacement of local Tibetan communities, rising water levels, and increased the risk of landslides and earthquakes. According to the International Campaign for Tibet, at least 193 known hydropower dams have been “built or planned across Tibet” since 2000. Reports from international media this past year discussed China’s previously approved plans to construct the Yarlung Tsangpo dam—the “world’s largest hydropower dam”—and raised concerns about further exploitation of Tibetan land and downstream effects on the livelihoods of local communities in India and Bangladesh.
Lack of dialogue
The Tibet section of the report opens by noting that the CECC “did not observe any interest or progress on the part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) toward resuming formal negotiations with the Dalai Lama or his representatives” during the reporting period.
The gap in dialogue between the Chinese government and the Tibetan side – which last took place in 2010 – poses a serious challenge to the peaceful resolution of the dispute over Tibet’s future and the realization of self-determination for the Tibetan people. In light of this gap, it is crucial for the international community to elevate calls for Beijing to resume negotiations with representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration in the interest of finding a mutually agreeable solution.
Full report
The CECC’s 2025 annual report can be read in full here.