Latest satellite images are stated to confirm reports that China has been carrying out large-scale demolitions at the famed – and the world’s largest Buddhist learning centre – located in a Tibetan County and prefecture in Sichuan Province. This has come as China began implementing its so-called Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law in its latest forced assimilation move that targets ethnic minorities and their cultural roots. Such demolitions have especially meant the expulsion of large numbers of various categories of students – monks, nuns and lay students and practitioners from other parts of the PRC as well as from other countries.
Citing satellite imagery analyzed by Radio Free Asia (RFA), rfa.org said Aug 18 that Chinese authorities had over the past month continued and expanded demolition at the Larung Gar Buddhist Academy, located in Serthar County of Kardze Prefecture, which at its peak in the early 2000s was stated to be home to 40,000 Buddhist monastics.
