Original subtitles

This is Tibet, China, the roof of the world.

Its cultural heritage is well protected.

Freedom of religion is fully guaranteed.

THEY SHOUT IN OWN LANGUAGE

CHEERING

SHOUTING

MAN:

It's a momentous struggle between a Communist Party

and Tibetan civilisation.

It's a mystery.

The story of that disappearance,

not only of an individual, but of a culture.

MAN: Tibet is almost forgotten.

It's almost impossible to get information out.

ARJIA RINPOCHE:

CAROLINE CATZ: Arjia Rinpoche is a senior Buddhist monk from Tibet.

Living under Chinese rule, he was made to serve the Communist Party

until he fled.

Tibetan Buddhists have two leaders, regarded as the nation's kings.

The Dalai Lama is the most famous.

Less well known is his counterpart, the Panchen Lama.

Tibetans believe they are reborn or reincarnated after they die.

But 30 years ago, when he was just six years old,

the Panchen Lama mysteriously disappeared.

The missing boy is at the heart of Beijing's long battle

to control the Dalai Lama's succession,

and, with it, the fate of Tibet.

GYAL LO:

Gyal Lo is an academic who fled China in 2020.

He now campaigns for the survival of Tibet's culture and language.

The current Dalai Lama was discovered by the Panchen Lama

in 1937.

He led Tibet from his residence, the Potala Palace in Lhasa.

In 1950, the Chinese Communist Party invaded Tibet...

..and took control.

Within a decade, fearing for his life,

the Dalai Lama escaped across the Himalayas to India,

where he's lived ever since.

APPLAUSE

Today, Tibet is ruled as a so-called autonomous region...

..under the leadership of China's president Xi Jinping.

China has almost 60 ethnic minorities, including Tibetans.

But President Xi's mission is to forge a national identity,

centred on the Han Chinese majority.

XI JINPING:

GYAL LO:

In the past decade,

around 100 Tibetans are reported to have been detained

for contacting the outside world with their views about China's rule.

But last year,

rare, though unverified, voice recordings made it out...

MUFFLED RECORDING:

SHOUTING

..along with videos showing hundreds of Tibetans

protesting against a Chinese dam that would submerge villages

and Buddhist monasteries.

SHOUTING

Many were rounded up and beaten. Hundreds were detained.

IN VIDEO:

It's a reminder that those living in Tibet

are under constant surveillance...

..with journalists unable to work freely.

CHANG:

A journalist we're calling Chang

has agreed to take the risk to go undercover.

Some seven million Tibetans live across the part of China

that Chang is investigating, roughly a quarter of the country.

It's made up of parts of what are now Chinese provinces

and the Tibet Autonomous Region.

If caught filming secretly,

Chang could be imprisoned or disappear without trace.

He's on his way to Tibet's capital, Lhasa.

There are police posts equipped with high-tech surveillance

every 500 metres.

Chang is filming people secretly

because those living in Tibet can't speak freely to the media.

For their safety, their identities have been disguised.

To even talk about the Dalai Lama here is risking trouble.

Tibetans who worship the Dalai Lama risk imprisonment.

The roots of this religious ban date back to the 1990s,

and an event surrounding their other Buddhist king, the Panchen Lama.

MAN: 30 seconds to air.

Important enough to make British news,

its impact in Tibet would be profound.

One of Tibet's most senior religious leaders,

the Panchen Lama, has died of a heart attack.

He was second only to the Dalai Lama,

who's lived in exile in India for 30 years.

Arjia Rinpoche had high Buddhist positions,

but also had to work with the Chinese government.

This was the first time since China invaded Tibet

that one of the two highest spiritual leaders had died.

With the Dalai Lama in exile,

the Chinese government created a search team,

including religious leaders, to select a new Panchen Lama.

Their search would take half a decade.

In '94,

a few documents are reaching us in London.

This was almost the last moment

when we did receive documents from Tibet.

It became too dangerous later.

In the 1990s, Robert Barnett was running

a news and research organisation about Tibet...

..when a Chinese government document was leaked to him.

It revealed Beijing's real plans for Tibet's Buddhist leaders.

Among those documents was a little booklet,

and it was called A Golden Bridge Leading Into A New Era.

We gradually realised this is extraordinary,

this is exceptional.

This was directly saying what policies were going to be,

and they were new policies.

This paragraph says,

"The focal point in our region's fight to oppose separatism

"is to oppose the Dalai clique.

"As the saying goes,

"to kill a serpent, we must first chop off its head.

"If we don't do that,

"we cannot succeed in the struggle against separatism."

So, this is basically saying, "We can only destroy that movement

"by eliminating the Dalai Lama's strength,

"by destroying him as a political force."

And their method of destroying him

was the demonisation of the Dalai Lama.

DEEP CHANTING

Suddenly, people who respected the Dalai Lama

are deemed to be enemies.

So, that's what we see in the succession debate.

The most significant turning points are this 1994 decision,

and the 1995 decision over the Panchen Lama.

Though China's attitude towards the Dalai Lama was hardening,

the search committee secretly sent him notes

about the candidates for the next Panchen Lama.

A high-profile documentary revealed

how one boy stood out to the Dalai Lama.

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Voice Of America in Tibetan.

REPORTER:

Arjia Rinpoche says the Panchen Lama and his family

were whisked away in a Communist Party plane.

Never to be seen in public again,

the fate of Tibet's 11th Panchen Lama

would be the start of a decades-long mystery.

CAROLINE CATZ: Since the 11th Panchen Lama disappeared in 1995,

Tibetans around the world have called on Beijing

to provide answers about their missing spiritual leader.

He'd been chosen by the Dalai Lama, until China intervened.

Tibet's Panchen Lama plays a critical role

in the Dalai Lama's succession.

This boy was forcibly disappeared,

caught up in this intense spiritual geopolitical struggle.

Part of very elaborate plans

to control the Dalai Lama's succession

and, therefore, to ensure control of Tibet.

Kate Saunders is a leading Tibet specialist,

who's been researching China's policies

towards its religious leaders.

If you do an online search

for Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the missing boy,

it's almost impossible to find out anything

about who he is.

We've only been able to piece together

a few things about his background.

He was born in a nomadic village of Lhari, in Nagqu,

which is in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

This is a slightly grainy photograph

of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and his family.

We think that his father is a doctor

and his mother a nurse.

We know that he has siblings, a brother and a sister.

And he's wearing a traditional brown brocade,

with the orange signalling his status.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was taken from his home,

together with his family.

There could have been an attempt to separate him

from his parents and his siblings,

but apparently, the family resisted that,

according to some accounts,

and he was taken to Beijing, as far as we know,

and that's where the trail stops.

When China wants someone to disappear,

that person can disappear like a stone.

This really is a story of that disappearance,

not only of an individual, but of a civilisation.

If Gedhun Choekyi Nyima hadn't been abducted,

he would have gone here, the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Tibet,

to receive a lifetime of spiritual education.

Chinese soldiers now surrounded it.

We found one of the monks present at the time.

Even now, it's not safe for him to speak openly.

The monastery's leadership

had helped identify Gedhun Choekyi Nyima

as the Panchen Lama.

We tried to find those who'd met the boy,

but they were all either imprisoned or had disappeared from public life.

Over 50 people were arrested

for opposing China's interference over the Panchen Lama.

It set the tone for Beijing's future rule.

Despite the risks,

our journalist Chang is secretly filming a Chinese taxi driver.

He says many Tibetans face severe travel restrictions.

Few Tibetans are allowed to leave China.

But some still risk their lives to escape across the Himalayas...

..just as the Dalai Lama did over 65 years ago.

The Tibetan uprising of 2008

was the biggest protest against China's rule in two decades.

The Chinese government suppressed the protests with force.

It blamed the Dalai Lama for the uprising...

..and clamped down further on his supporters.

SHOUTING

But in the years since...

..some have taken extreme measures to protest.

CROWD SHOUTING

Since 2009, around 160 Tibetans

are believed to have set themselves on fire as an act of resistance...

HORNS BEEPING

..some speaking out, despite their horrific injuries.

Namkyi was only 15 years old at the time.

Namkyi's protest defied China's plans

to eradicate the Dalai Lama from Buddhism.

These dated back decades,

to when the government removed the Panchen Lama

and set out to select their own replacement.

China summoned the Panchen Lama search team

to an emergency meeting in Beijing.

Arjia Rinpoche felt forced to attend.

Even China's president was involved.

Beijing was now taking control of the reincarnation process.

Arjia Rinpoche says he was made to take part in the crucial ceremony

that would decide the new Panchen Lama.

CHANTING

IN ENGLISH:

He says China forced the selection committee to choose

by drawing lots from an ancient golden urn.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

ARJIA RINPOCHE:

Another young boy, Gyaltsen Norbu,

the son of two Communist Party members,

was selected and enthroned as the 11th Panchen Lama,

the figure who would, in future, choose the next Dalai Lama.

It was a victory for China and its rule over Tibet.

Arjia Rinpoche says he was asked by the Chinese government

to tutor the new Panchen Lama they'd appointed.

Fearing the consequences of refusing...

..in 1998, he escaped.

The fate of the disappeared Panchen Lama remains a mystery.

The Panchen Lama is treated as a matter of national security,

and that's tied to the survival and legitimacy

of the Chinese Communist Party.

We've tried over the years to track family members,

but no-one has been prepared to speak.

The level of fear is overwhelming.

We are in an era where there is one disappeared Panchen Lama

and one official Panchen Lama,

groomed as a patriotic figurehead

to be the representative for the Chinese Communist Party.

In the years since,

the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama, Gyaltsen Norbu,

has grown up under their control,

publicly supporting their official line.

Today, undercover inside Tibet,

it's too risky for Chang to ask about the missing Panchen Lama.

But the state-appointed one comes up.

Images of the Dalai Lama were once commonplace in Tibet,

but now these have been replaced by portraits of Chinese leaders.

It's certainly the case now

that they think that loyalty should be to the party,

especially under Xi Jinping.

They're gradually reducing the content of the religion,

but not eliminating.

This is what they call Sinicisation of religion,

so that it becomes less Tibetan.

MUSIC PLAYS

Forging a common consciousness of a Chinese nation

is the key formula for all Xi Jinping's policy

towards the ethnic minorities in China.

The battle is now over culture.

They're all gonna become more Chinese.

CAROLINE CATZ: Namkyi is one of an estimated 5,600 Tibetans

who've been detained or sentenced for their political views

since 1990.

In 2015, she took to the streets with a photograph of the Dalai Lama.

Soon after, she was imprisoned.

Namkyi says she was forced to undergo political re-education,

studying frequently with a Chinese government officer.

She spent three years in prison,

and says she was released with strict conditions.

In 2023, she fled Tibet,

making the dangerous escape across the mountains.

Like many Tibetans,

Namkyi is now separated from her family.

Because of the advanced surveillance systems

that enable the Chinese government to spy on everyone.

Surveillance systems are fundamental

to the way in which the Chinese Communist Party rules Tibet.

Everyday life in Tibet is monitored in ways

that no-one outside of North Korea, probably, can really understand.

There's also concern about the use of a new Chinese anti-fraud app.

The data it collects could be used to monitor Tibetans.

People are being encouraged and, in some cases,

coerced into installing the anti-fraud app.

Data being collected is being fed into central systems

that are used to identify people of interest.

There's an emphasis, certainly, on any contact with people abroad,

and then there are everyday activities

the government considers to be suspicious.

Chang, undercover inside Tibet, asks locals about the app.

Tibet's 4,000 Buddhist monasteries and temples

have been a traditional focus of resistance.

Chang discovers that places of worship

are now under heavy surveillance.

He feels it's too risky to film while going into the monasteries.

But once inside, he notices many surveillance cameras.

The government has concentrated surveillance resources

on having facial recognition cameras in monasteries

like no other aspect of Tibetan life.

There's obviously a focus

on supervising and monitoring religious life.

The desire to control...

..to instil a sense of fear.

Very deliberately, society-wide.

Chang meets one Tibetan,

a high-ranking Chinese government employee,

who makes an admission about the strict controls imposed on religion.

Everyday activities such as language preservation,

passing on traditional Tibetan practices,

these are being criminalised.

Surveillance is at the heart of this process of...

subjugating the Tibetan people,

of making them Chinese.

China's tightening grip doesn't just affect religious life.

As Chang later finds out from a Tibetan mother,

it starts early, with its children.

In one video,

uploaded on Chinese social media as part of a school assignment,

a young Tibetan girl has a message for other children.

Under President Xi Jinping,

Tibetan children as young as four are placed into boarding schools,

separated from their families, and taught in Mandarin.

A Tibetan academic,

Gyal Lo began researching what was happening in these schools.

He documented his secret visits to more than 50 boarding kindergartens.

State media presents these schools

as the best way for Tibetan children to thrive in modern China.

Little is known about what life is really like in boarding schools.

But Gyal Lo has found rare footage

showing how some Tibetan children are treated.

The headmaster of a boarding school in eastern Tibet.

And a teacher in another one.

Human rights groups are concerned

that abuses like these are widespread.

It's estimated that up to 1 million Tibetan children

are now taught in boarding schools.

Endorsing them, President Xi Jinping visited one last year.

Now in exile,

Gyal Lo has been cut off from his family inside Tibet

for speaking out about these schools.

The longer he's in Tibet,

the more Chang hears about the repression of its culture.

This Han Chinese man describes what he sees

as the government's long-term objectives.

Though news of it rarely reaches the outside world,

Chang finds out how Tibetans continue

to sacrifice themselves for their cause.

Soon after, Chang leaves Tibet.

30 years after the succession dispute,

the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama continues to tour Tibet.

The Dalai Lama's choice for the Panchen Lama,

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, remains out of sight.

Very little is known about the village

where the boy was raised and last seen.

He was taken from his hometown of Lhari, deep inside Tibet.

We managed to recruit another journalist

prepared to make the trip, despite the risks.

Visitors are checked on arrival and under constant surveillance.

It's not safe to ask any questions about the missing Panchen Lama.

She tries to find some evidence of his life here...

..but there is none.

Just very heavy security.

Lhari was a traditional nomadic settlement,

and it's now one of the most heavily securitised areas in Tibet.

Only one image of the boy has surfaced

since he was abducted from here 30 years ago.

Kate Saunders received a copy.

It's never been broadcast before.

The Tibetan script at the top reads, "Photograph of a family reunion."

She believes it's a photograph of the missing Panchen Lama,

the only image since he disappeared.

It seems to show Gedhun Choekyi Nyima.

He's got a toy helicopter, he's sitting on his father's lap.

He could be around ten, around 11.

This looks as though it's in some sort of official compound,

and it does show us

that the family was still together at that point.

I believe it's genuine,

but we still haven't been able to fully confirm that.

It shows how successfully China has been able

to disappear not only the child,

but also his entire family,

and to exclude them from any sort of public gaze whatsoever.

Then, in the early 2000s,

when Kate Saunders was working for a Tibetan rights group,

she says she had an encounter with a Chinese official in London,

where she asked about the fate of the missing boy.

It was interesting because her face lit up and she said,

"Oh, he's so handsome now, and he's so tall,

"and he's doing really well."

But then it was as if she suddenly shut down.

You know, "Oh, you people are always asking,

"but he wants to be left alone,

"and he wants to be with his family."

In the years since the boy disappeared,

the Chinese government has only responded with its official line.

China refuses to give any further information,

saying it's to protect him from abduction by Tibetan nationalists.

But in 2019, on his 30th birthday,

a forensic artist created an image of what he might look like.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is centre stage

in that fundamental struggle for survival,

not only between Buddhism and China's Sinicisation campaign,

but also between our values

and the values that other authoritarian powers

seek to impose upon us,

which matters to the world in the 21st century.

After decades of enforced rule,

China has all but ensured

it can now choose who succeeds Tibet's supreme leader.

At stake for millions of Tibetans around the world...

..their connection to a unique culture and civilisation.

Like the boy still held prisoner, and the Dalai Lama who chose him,

Tibet faces being slowly wiped away.