Dharamshala — Chinese authorities in central Tibet continue to force Tibetan children to undergo military training in the name of "education for the national defence". Children aged five to eleven are forced to run long distances, climb mountains, jump over high barriers, and perform other training exercises.
Tibetan children at Nyima Jag Ragshag Central Primary School (Nyimajangra Township Central Primary School) in Meldro Gungkar County, Lhasa, Central Tibet, were forced to undergo military training in mid-October 2025. Chinese soldiers of the 18th Group Army forced the Tibetan children to run long distances, climb mountains, jump over high fences, and carry out other training exercises.
Teachers or school staff and Chinese soldiers also brainwashed Tibetan children with stories about the Chinese Communist Party and forced them to learn the so-called Chinese constitution and law, which exist only on paper and not in practice.
According to this source, in 2025, Chinese authorities in central Tibet organized military training in primary, secondary, and higher education institutions throughout the region under the slogan “education for the national defence.”
China-Tibet: The one-thing you need to know:
Over the past 70 decades, there has been ongoing political repression, social discrimination, economic marginalization, environmental destruction, and cultural assimilation, particularly due to Chinese migration to Tibet which is fueling intense resentment among the people of occupied Tibet.
The communist-totalitarian state of China began its invasion of Tibet in 1949, reaching complete occupation of the country in 1959. Since that time, more than 1.2 million people, 20% of the nation's population of six million, have died as a direct result of China's invasion and occupation. In addition, over 99% of Tibet's six thousand religious monasteries, temples, and shrines, have been looted or decimated resulting in the destruction of hundreds of thousands of sacred Buddhist scriptures.
Until 1949, Tibet was an independent Buddhist nation in the Himalayas which had little contact with the rest of the world. It existed as a rich cultural storehouse of the Mahayana and Vajrayana teachings of Buddhism. Religion was a unifying theme among the Tibetans -- as was their own language, literature, art, and world view developed by living at high altitudes, under harsh conditions, in a balance with their environment.
