Political Support and Language Choice of TibetanPolitical Communities

The legitimacy of Chinese Community Party rule overTibet is one of the most sensitive political issuesfor China. Despite the claim of historicalsovereignty by the CCP and China's egalitarianpolicies over ethnic minorities, the legitimacy ofthe CCP's rule of the area is still questioned. Thelegitimacy of rule lies in people's trust and supportof the regime. Voluminous research seeks todemonstrate the political support that Tibetan peoplehave for the CCP regime. Little of it, however, isbased on public opinion through empirical studies.Empirical studies are needed to explain the originsof community identity and political support in Tibet.This book suggests that language choice is a reliableindicator of community identity in Tibet fortheoretical, historical, and practical reasons.Tibetan, Mandarin, and English are three languagechoices that are used to indicate three identitiesand three political communities in this paper. Usingthe data, this book demonstrates the patterns ofidentity of Tibetan students with survey data. I alsouse empirical evidence to test the attitudinal anddemographic sources of the students' variation intheir community identities.

Yiyang Hu is a fellow of the Center for the Study of Democracy(CSD), and Ph.D. student in Political Science, University ofCalifornia- Irvine, United States. His research focuses onpolitical support and public opinion with empirical method.