The sinicization of Tibet includes the programs and laws of the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to force cultural assimilation in Tibetan areas of China, including the Tibet Autonomous Region and the surrounding Tibetan-designated autonomous areas. The efforts are undertaken by China in order to remake Tibetan culture into mainstream Chinese culture.
Monument to the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, Potala Square, Lhasa in 2009 celebrating the People's Liberation Army entering Tibet, built just outside the protective zone and buffer zone of the World Heritage Site.
Mao Zedong receives a Tibetan Buddhist prayer scarf from Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet in 1954
A sign (in Tibetan and Chinese) indicating surveillance cameras near the Monument the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, Lhasa, Tibet, 2018
Market in Lhasa, 1993
Cultural genocide or culturicide is a concept described by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, in the same book that coined the term genocide. The destruction of culture was a central component in Lemkin's formulation of genocide. Though the precise definition of cultural genocide remains contested, the United Nations makes it clear that genocide is "the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group... it does not include political groups or so called 'cultural genocide'" and that "Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group" thus this is what "makes the crime of genocide so unique". While the Armenian Genocide Museum defines culturicide as "acts and measures undertaken to destroy nations' or ethnic groups' culture through spiritual, national, and cultural destruction", which appears to be essentially the same as ethnocide. The drafters of the 1948 Genocide Convention initially considered using the term, but later dropped it from inclusion.
Looting of Polish artwork at the Zachęta building by German forces during the Occupation of Poland, 1944