In keeping with its ongoing new vigour to  Sinicize Tibet in the mould of President Xi Jinping’s vision, China has been asked at a seminar organized by it in Beijing to use its own name for Tibet – Xizang – when referring to the so-called autonomous region in English to help “reconstruct” its image.

The Chinese term “Xizang” refers to Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) demarcated as such by China in the 1960s and which constitutes roughly the western half of Tibet proper. China also alternatively refers to TAR as “Tibet” in English.

To the Tibetan people in general, however, “Tibet” includes not only TAR but also Tibetan territories that today make up the Qinghai Province as well as parts of it that have today been merged with Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces of China.

The call by Chinese academics came during an official seminar on Tibet that was held in Beijing from Aug 14 to 16, noted the scmp.com Aug 17, citing a report on Tongzhan Xinyu, a WeChat account run by the Communist Party of China’s United Front Work Department, which oversees ethnic and minority affairs.

“To establish China’s dominant position in the international discourse related to Tibet, there is an urgent need for an English translation of ‘Tibet’ that can accurately describe China’s position,” Wang Linping, a professor at Harbin Engineering University’s College of Marxism, was quoted as saying.

Wang has claimed that the use of the name “Tibet” had “seriously misled the international community” over the “geographical scope” of the region.

He has said TAR should instead be referred to as Xizang – the pinyin, or Chinese romanisation of Mandarin script for TAR or Tibet.

The report is said to complain that when “Tibet” is used outside China, it “includes not only Tibet but also covers areas in Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan provinces”.

“This overlaps greatly with the so-called Greater Tibet long advocated by the 14th Dalai Lama,” the Tongzhan Xinyu report was quoted as saying.