The propaganda department of China's State Council, its central government, last week released a white paper on "Governance of Xizang in the New Era." Though the term "Tibetan" is used to refer to the region's people and geographical features like the Tibetan Plateau, Xizang is used exclusively when referring to the southwestern region's official name.
"The Chinese government was desperate enough to propagate Xizang to create a Tibet of Chinese characteristics which is unknown to the world," Tenzin Lekshay, a spokesperson for the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government-in-exile, said of Beijing's report.
Lekshay said the Sino-Tibet conflict was long-running and that changing the name would complicate rather than improve the situation.