EVENTS

Since 2024, the Chinese Party-state has significantly upgraded its external communication strategy, and by extension, the external “propaganda” system, concerning Tibet. It has launched dedicated regional institutions including the Tibet International Communication Centre (TIC Centre), the Tibet Daily Society External Communication Centre, the “Xizang” International Communication Think Tank, among other initiatives, over the past three years. The upgraded system has been driven by strategic partnerships between regional authorities and national bodies – most notably the China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration (China International Communications Group). This institutional momentum has been accompanied by recurring high-profile events, primarily the Tibet International Communication Conference (TICC) series, the second instalment of which was held in June 2026. These entities have been operationalised through framework agreements with various partner institutions. Evidently, there is an overarching shift in Chinese external communication strategy characterised by a proactive, multi-tiered framework. The presentation investigates whether these initiatives represent an ad hoc regional development or a systematic implementation of a national strategic vision. In this context, the presentation looks at how Tibet-focused external communication aligns with broader national communication strategies in the Xi Jinping era. In a nutshell, the presentation will examine the institutional evolution and the policy drivers of China’s external communication strategy regarding Tibet.

Speaker

Tshering Chonzom Bhutia is Associate Professor at the Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Prior to her current position, Dr Bhutia served as Associate Editor, India Quarterly for a period of about 5 years. Alongside, she was Advisor at Unit for International Cooperation, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA). And before that, she was an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS). Her areas of interest include negotiation theory, Sino-Tibetan negotiation, domestic sources of China’s foreign and security policy, and China’s nationality policy, among others. She has been a recipient of a major ICSSR Project and a China India Scholar-Leaders Initiative (CISLI) Fellowship. She has also been a recipient of other short-term fellowships in China, US and Taiwan.

Chair

Siddiq Wahid’s most recent appointment was as Distinguished Professor at Shiv Nadar University where he taught the History of Central Eurasian History (1200 –1800 CE) on Tibetan and Mongolian medieval history, and the early modern history (1600 – 1900 CE) of Tsarist Russia and Qing China. Some other recent positions he has held are Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) in New Delhi; Director of Madanjeet Singh UNESCO Institute of Kashmir Studies at the University of Kashmir; the Founding Vice Chancellor of Islamic University of Science & Technology, Kashmir and the Maharaja Gulab Singh Chair Professor of Modern History at the University of Jammu. Prof. Wahid is also associated with the Tibet Policy Institute (TPI) and the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). He received his PhD in the field of Inner Asian and Altaic Studies and Masters in Education from Harvard University and his A.B. in Political Philosophy from Gustavus Adolphus College. He has taught and published widely in his fields of interest in India and the United States.

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