Allen Carlson, Associate Professor of Government, Cornell University - In recent months China’s detention centers in Xinjiang have attracted considerable attention. However, the challenge in Tibet to China’s leaders is arguably of a longer duration and even more intractable. Moreover, in the aftermath of the 2008 Lhasa demonstrations, and the more recent wave of self-immolations by Tibetans, their approach to the region has placed an increasingly heavy emphasis on assimilation. This talk will place such a development into historical context, and focus upon analysis published within the China’s minority nationality establishment which argues for placing the practice of Tibetan Buddhism within a more rigorous and comprehensive legal framework with the intention of making it more “Sinicized”.