Weeks after a Tibetan-speaking five-year-old started preschool, she had “completely stopped speaking Tibetan”, according to her mother. Nine months later, although the child could still understand Tibetan, she only answered in Mandarin, and at best a few single-word answers in Tibetan after some time.

Instead the girl “keeps saying that she can only speak Chinese … that she is Chinese and not Tibetan”, according to a researcher who met the family. “The mother thinks that the daughter is just repeating what she is constantly told at school and that the government aims to eradicate Tibetan.”

In a new report published by Human Rights Watch (HRW), researchers say the account is part of a pattern of Beijing’s attempts to forcibly assimilate Tibetans, starting with children.

Tibet – which came under China’s control in 1950 – saw a series of mass protests against Chinese occupation in 2008, followed by heavy censorship and imprisonment.

Children are now taught to identify with the Chinese Communist party, idolise the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and identify themselves as part of the Chinese nation, says Maya Wang, from HRW.

Recent videos from Tibet showed young children were not even able to say their names in Tibetan, pronouncing them as if they were Chinese.

This is breaking children’s link to their language and culture and severing their connection to their families, says Lhadon Tethong, director of Tibet Action Institute.

“China has built a machine that reaches into the mouths of toddlers and pulls out their mother tongue. As a Tibetan, I can tell you what language loss means for a people. It is not just words. It is everything. China is now engineering that loss before children are old enough to know what is being taken from them,” says Tenzin Rabga Tashi, from the London-based advocacy group Free Tibet.

In 2021, the Chinese Ministry of Education started requiring Mandarin to be used as the medium of instruction and care in all schools across the country, taking precedent over minority ethnic languages such as Tibetan, Uyghur and Mongolian.

The Chinese government has also required kindergartens to encourage or put pressure on parents and children to speak Chinese at home, says Human Rights Watch, as Mandarin is promoted as the “civilised” language over Tibetan, which is implied to be inferior.

Parents and elders say they are trying their best to instil Tibetan in children before they go to school, fearing that Chinese-medium preschools would eradicate their mother tongue and culture.

Some parents have sent their children to Tibetan language classes during holidays and school breaks, but the authorities have been cracking down on these efforts by banning unsanctioned schools and classes in many places.

“After they go to these preschools, they become reluctant to speak in Tibetan, even at home, including with their parents. Because grandparents often don’t speak anything other than Tibetan, the loss of language also has a cascading effect,” says Wang.

Tethong adds: “Not only can children and their families not speak to each other, they no longer know how to relate to each other, and the transmission of culture and identity through the generations is cut.”

In 2024, children at a kindergarten in Gertse county dressed up as the Chinese red army – the precursor of the PLA – as they reenacted resisting the invasion of imperial Japanese forces.

“The result is that when the children come out of kindergarten at age six, even if both parents are Tibetan, the children think they are Chinese,” a Tibetan official involved in the implementation of cultural policy told Human Rights Watch.

“Day by day, the children are coming back and acting in bizarre ways. And no one can tell where this will lead to in the future for the culture.”

Tibetan parents face a dilemma, as some Chinese education is desirable as it makes it easier to find employment. But as a result, some Tibetans, especially young people, have started to associate Chinese language and culture with opportunity, and Tibetan with social disadvantage, say activists.

Wang says Tibetans should have the right to educate their children about their language, culture and religion in a way that they choose.