RANEY ARONSON-RATH: This year marks 75 years of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule of Tibet.

VICTOR GAO: For the Chinese government, for the Chinese nation, the thing is very simple. There is only one China, and Tibet is part of China.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH:  FRONTLINE’s new film Battle For Tibet goes inside the long running struggle over the future of the region.

GREG WALTON: Surveillance is at the heart of this process of subjugating the Tibetan people.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: It’s a critical moment. This year, Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, turns 90.

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: What will happen when the time comes, regarding his succession?

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Director Gesbeen Mohammad joins me today to talk about the film. I’m Raney Aronson-Rath, editor in chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE. And this is the FRONTLINE Dispatch.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Gesh, thank you so much for joining me again on The Dispatch.

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: Thank you so much for having me, Raney.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: So you’ve reported on China for us in the past about the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, the plight of the Uyghurs in China. What turned your focus to Tibet, and why now?

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: Well, as a journalist, I find China’s policies fascinating to examine, to some extent, because it’s just such a hidden world, and there’s obviously censorship, and under President Xi Jinping it has become more difficult to report from there. When we were making China Undercover, which investigates the communist regime’s mass imprisonment of Muslims in Xinjiang and its use and testing of sophisticated surveillance technology against the Uyghur community, many experts told us that some of the policies implemented in Xinjiang originated to some degree from Tibet. And I suppose I want to just be clear that, you know, what’s happening in Xinjiang and Tibet are not exactly the same, but there are similarities, and Tibet is one of the world’s most tightly guarded regions. So, it felt like an important area to examine and investigate to see what’s happening, particularly, you know, as there are various allegations that some of the policies are infringing on Tibetans’ religion and unique culture.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Right, and you really explore and report on that in the film itself. And I want to first of all talk to you about the challenges of making a film in a country that you can’t actually yourself as a filmmaker go to. Tell me about how you approached this and how you were able to do reporting.

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: Well, every time, as you know, when you can’t actually access a place, it becomes sort of hugely labor intensive to do the reporting because you have to sort of take a multi-sort-of-track approach, and one of the sort-of approaches that we used here is undercover filming inside Tibet, which obviously, you know – there were huge safety considerations because if caught the reporter could be detained and at worst, obviously, imprisoned. So, and the reason why we really went undercover is because China has increasingly restricted access to journalists into Tibet, or at least journalists that are fully independent. Alongside that, we also have firsthand accounts, and we obviously did a lot of in-depth research, and also looked at some of China’s statements and claims about what’s happening in Tibet.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Right. So, let’s talk about the documentary itself and the characters that you had in it. I want to talk in particular about the Tibetan woman who opens your documentary and how she recounts her story of escape from Tibet. Her name is Namkyi. Can you tell us a little bit about her story and her journey?

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: Yes, so Namkyi is a young woman in her 20s, and I suppose her story and experience is an example of that struggle that has raged between Tibet and China. At the young age of 15, she protested calling for the Dalai Lama’s return to China, but was sentenced to three years imprisonment for separatist acts against the nation, and she says that the authorities subjected her to political re-education while she was in prison. And after her release from prison, she says her life became unbearable, and she eventually made the dangerous journey across the Himalayas and now she lives in India.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: When Namkyi was arrested, as you mentioned, she was involved in a protest demanding the return of the Dalai Lama. So tell me about how she expresses how and why he’s so important to her and so many of the Tibetan people.

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: Yes, I mean, I think coming from a secular society, it can be hard – well, for a lot of people maybe – to relate to what the Dalai Lama means to Tibetans, but obviously having spoken to, you know, probably a hundred Tibetans by now who come from Tibet and are now in exile. I mean, the Dalai Lama has been, you know, the living symbol of their resistance to China, and –  but it’s also, it’s more than that. It’s about the spirituality and, you know, Tibet has often been defined by this unique culture and religion, and really the Dalai Lama is also a symbol of that. Buddhism is very, a very important component of life to many Tibetans, not all, but many. So, you know, for them, the Dalai Lama is their spiritual leader. He is who many follow and many Tibetans’ loyalty lie with him based on what I understand, but he’s also obviously elevated their cause to a global platform. So I suppose, you know, the question now is really, as he approaches 90, what is next for Tibet? And what is China going to do when the Dalai Lama eventually passes away? And what is life going to be like for Tibetans, both inside Tibet, but also those living in exile?

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Mmhmm. And what are the various things being spoken of? I know in the film, it’s mentioned that even the idea of perhaps not having a successor is being raised. And why would that be?

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: The Dalai Lama has said in his, in interviews, in previous interviews that given, you know, the modern world, that the institution of the Dalai Lama may not be needed anymore, and that it might be more, I guess, pragmatic not to have that institution. You know, having spoken to a lot of Tibetans, they seem to think that the most likely scenario is that there’s going to be two Dalai Lamas— one approved by the Chinese government and one approved by Tibetans in exile, essentially.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Well, tell me what happened with the Panchen Lama. And for those who are listening who don’t know about the Panchen Lama, try to help us understand the significance of the Panchen Lama.

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: Yes, I guess what might be called the 11th Panchen Lama dispute is really important because it’s a sort of examination of China’s efforts to choose the next Dalai Lama. So, in 1995, the Dalai Lama chose a six year old boy called Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th Panchen Lama. And in religious terms – and this is strictly in religious terms– the Panchen Lama plays a critical role in identifying the successor to the Dalai Lama when he passes away. So, obviously the role has extreme significance. But China at the time said that the Dalai Lama’s announcement was essentially invalid and illegal, and the boy who was selected by the Dalai Lama along with his family were taken away by the Chinese government. And we spoke to a sort of a senior Buddhist lama called Arjia Rinpoche, who was a witness to the events that unfolded at the time, and who is now in exile running a monastery in Indiana, and he says the Chinese government wants to control the next reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. And as part of this Buddhist senior leadership, Arjia Rinpoche was in 1995 summoned to Beijing and he and others were ordered to take part in a ceremony organized by the Chinese government to select a new Panchen Lama. Um, and Gyaltsen Norbu, who is the son of two Communist Party members, was selected as the Chinese approved 11th Panchen Lama, the figure who, according to Tibetan Buddhism, could one day determine the next Dalai Lama. Um, so for our Arjia Rinpoche and many of our background interviewees, this was essentially an unacceptable way to select the Panchen Lama, but the Chinese government do claim that they follow Buddhist tradition and I suppose this is the worry that, you know, something like this will unfold again when the Dalai Lama passes away.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: I mean, that is something that is just why this film coming at this critical moment is so important. So as you were, um, approaching the idea of reporting, let’s just talk a little bit more about that. You, uh, you worked with an undercover reporter inside Tibet. Tell us where they were able to go and what they were able to report on and what were they able to reveal to us about what life is like for Tibetans living in Tibet right now under Chinese rule.

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: Yes, I mean, obviously, there’s a limited amount that, you know, that we can share about exactly where they went, but they did go to Tibetan regions and they talked to both Tibetans and Han Chinese living in that region. I guess one of the things that we found critical was, a Han Chinese man telling our reporter that self-immolations continue. So, the act of setting oneself on fire –  that they continue. And this was critical because the news rarely now reaches the outside world, but I suppose it suggests to some degree that there are maybe some that are not happy with China’s policies in Tibet and some of those policies that our reporter found on the ground was how much surveillance there is. That includes surveillance cameras, police posts. We spoke to Greg Walton, who’s a cyber security expert who’s done research and what he explains is that the whole set of systems – some of which are not so obvious to the human eye– such as like live facial recognition systems or scanning systems that monitor mobile phone signals, and internet surveillance are sort-of—  he says, you know, surveillance is at the heart of this process of subjugating the Tibetan people. And our reporter found that people in Tibet, both Han Chinese and Tibetans, not just Tibetans have a sort of built in self-censorship mechanism in them and our reporter, he felt that this was because of the surveillance, and that it makes people sort of very vigilant and fearful of speaking freely, essentially

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: How do the Chinese see this – what you’ve just been sharing with me about surveillance, about the protests, about the sort of amalgamation of reporting that you were able to find from the inside of Tibet?

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: China’s perspective is obviously very different to, you know, what Tibetans view these issues as and, you know, in its responses to us, the Chinese government said human rights in Tibet are at their historical best. We did manage to interview Victor Gao, who works at a Beijing based think tank, um, called the Center for China and Globalization, and he doesn’t see that the Chinese government would have any interest in conducting surveillance on Tibetan people. He believes that, you know, surveillance is there to prevent terrorist activities. So, if you speak to, you know, Tibetans, and if you speak to the Chinese government, there are two very different worldviews.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Take me to the story of the boarding schools. You spoke to a sociologist named Gyal Lo who is looking very closely into the schools. Can you tell us about him and then how he came to do this research and what he learned?

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: So Gyal Lo, as you mentioned, Raney, is a Tibetan sociologist and he himself speaks very, you know, very good Chinese because he went through the boarding school system himself. And I guess the recent development is really under President Xi Jinping is that children as young as four are being placed into boarding schools. So, that’s the sort of new development and Gyal Lo, he had a call from his brother about his brother’s grandchildren and they had suddenly sort of stopped communicating properly with the family members because they had been in one of these boarding schools. One was at the time only four years old and the other, I think, I believe was five years old at the time. So, they were very young children and Gyal Lo went to meet, his own grandnieces, and as a sociologist he found it worrying that the family and the children weren’t connecting as they might have done in the past. So he began to investigate what was causing this, I guess, what one might call a rupture. And he went around 50 kindergarten boarding schools in the Tibetan regions. And what he found as an academic was that children were being taught in Mandarin, but he also talks about how the subject areas were there to, what he calls, instill communist ideology and Chinese culture. And he worries, as a sociologist, that their own unique Tibetan culture and language will be destroyed in the next 20 years if these boarding schools continue.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: On the boarding school side, what would you say is the response from the Chinese perspective – or, Chinese government perspective, I should say?

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: Well, the Chinese government told us that the boarding schools are important in a region with a highly scattered population, because it’s a vast, you know, vast land and that the boarding schools are also examples of human rights and cultural heritage protection. So that’s the way that the Chinese government would see it. And Victor Gao tells us that, you know, learning Mandarin is really important for one’s survival in, you know, in China.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: You were able to surface a video from social media which had a child and their mother and they were shopping in a store and it’s just a remarkable moment. Can you talk about that?

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: This video, I mean, we don’t know the exact details of it, but we know that it was uploaded on Chinese social media, and reportedly part of a boarding school assignment, and this young Tibetan girl in this video says she has a message for other children, and her video contains these scenes of her with her mother going to the supermarket, and her mother, she says, kept speaking Tibetan, um, and the owner couldn’t understand her. And her message to other Tibetan children is that we should teach our parents Mandarin, as she puts it. And we’re not sure if this is propaganda or if it’s promotional material, but it does speak to some of the patterns that we found in the making of this documentary.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Right. So, Gesh, you’ve been reporting from this region for a long time. What did you find to be the most surprising as you were reporting?

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: Um, well, I think as a journalist, I think the thing I found actually most surprising was, having investigated what’s happening in Xinjiang, was just how much more difficult it is to examine what’s happening in Tibet. It was very difficult and actually it’s been one of the most difficult projects I’ve ever worked on.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: So, Gesh, I mean, these stories, these films that you make, you know, they really are open ended. Tell us what you’ll be looking out for as you watch the Tibet story unfold.

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: Obviously this film and the reporting in it is part of a larger conversation. And there are critical questions that, you know, both the Chinese and the Tibetans have about the future, um, especially at this sort of point when the Dalai Lama approaches his 90th birthday. The key sort of things that interest me and that going into the future are, you know, how the negotiations with, between the Dalai Lama and China unfold, whether the Dalai Lama will be allowed to return to Tibet, and China and what will happen, um, when the time comes regarding his succession. And those are, you know, critical questions that will really shape this battle.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Well, I’m glad you’re on the front lines looking at this for us, and I

appreciate your work, and thank you so much for being on The Dispatch with me.

GESBEEN MOHAMMAD: Thank you, Raney. Great talking to you.

RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Thanks again to Gesh Mohammad for joining me on the Dispatch. You can stream Battle for Tibet on  frontline dot org, FRONTLINE YouTube Channel, and the PBS app. This podcast is produced by Emily Pisacreta. Jim Sullivan is our audio engineer. Editorial support on this episode comes from Amy Rubin. Lauren Ezell is our Senior Editor of Investigations. Andrew Metz is our Managing Editor. I’m Raney Aronson-Rath, editor in chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE. Music in the episode is by Stellwagon Symphonette. The FRONTLINE Dispatch is produced at GBH and powered by PRX. Thanks for listening.