The ****trait of a Bloody Faced "Olympic Host" -- China's tough line in
Tibet is seen to have brought only resentment/IHT
International Herald Tribune
China's tough line in Tibet is seen to have brought only resentment
By Jim Yardley
Monday, March 17, 2008
BEIJING: Champa Phuntsok, the taciturn chairman of Tibet's government,
left no doubt Monday morning on whose shoulders the Communist Party
places blame for the violent Tibetan protests that have become a
domestic political crisis and an Olympic-year public relations
nightmare: the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, and
"splittist" forces colluding to splinter China.
Speaking at a hurriedly organized news conference, Phuntsok described
the violence that erupted Friday in Lhasa and is still spreading to
other Tibetan regions as if it were a meticulously orchestrated surprise
attack.
But to many Tibetans and their sympathizers, the unleashed fury is sad
and shocking yet not a complete surprise. Tibetan anger has simmered
over Chinese policies on the environment, tightening religious
restrictions and a harder political line from Beijing. Ethnic tensions
and economic anxiety have also sharpened as Chinese migrants have poured
into Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
"Why did the unrest take off?" asked Liu Junning, a liberal political
scientist in Beijing. "I think it has something to do with the long-term
policy failure of the central authorities. They failed to earn the
respect of the people there."
For now, Beijing's hard line on Tibet is only likely to get harder.
Military police officers are pouring into Tibetan regions to stifle new
protests. Nor are the demonstrations winning sympathy in a nation that
is 94 percent Han Chinese. State media have tightly controlled coverage
to focus on Tibetans burning Chinese businesses or attacking and killing
Chinese merchants. No mention is made of Tibetan grievances or re****ts
that 80 or more Tibetans have died.
With less than five months before the opening of the Olympics, Beijing
is acutely worried about an international backlash and is arguing that
its response to the protests has been reasonable. No one mentions the
bloody 1989 crackdown against pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen
Square, but its shadow is obvious. Phuntsok said the military police and
other officers were not carrying lethal weapons and had not fired a
single shot - despite many witnesses re****ting gunshots.
"What democratic country in the world could tolerate this violent
behavior?" Phuntsok asked Monday, framing the crisis as a law-and-order
issue.
Eventually, the protests will be extinguished and China's leaders will
be left with a shattered Tibet. One foreigner who witnessed the violence
in Lhasa said Tibetans were covering the streets in white toilet paper.
Traditionally, Tibetans offer white silk scarves to welcome guests. But
the toilet paper was intended to symbolize that the Chinese were no
longer welcome - even though there is no possibility they will leave.
In recent years, China tried to soften its image on Tibet by holding
back-channel reconciliation talks with emissaries of the Dalai Lama. The
Dalai Lama, in turn, has explicitly stated that he is interested only in
greater autonomy for Tibet within China, not independence. But some
analysts believe China's true goal was simply to keep talking and wait
for the Dalai Lama, 72, to die.
The talks broke down last summer, and Beijing infuriated many Tibetans
by inserting itself into the metaphysics of Buddhism: It announced that
the Communist Party held the authority to approve incarnations - the
divine process by which a "living Buddha" is chosen in boyhood. Beijing
had already selected a boy as its own Panchen Lama, the second-ranking
figure in Tibetan Buddhism, and re****tedly jailed a boy chosen by the
Dalai Lama.
Last November, the Dalai Lama countered with his own surprise. He
proposed altering the ancient practice of choosing his own
reincarnation. Usually, this would happen after his death; senior
religious figures would search out his incarnation following proscribed
guidelines. But the Dalai Lama has raised the possibility that he can
choose his own reincarnation - a possibility that has enraged Beijing.
Meanwhile, Beijing has steadily been taking a tougher line on religious
practices and cultural expressions of Tibetan pride. In November 2005,
Zhang Qingli was appointed Communist Party secretary of the Tibet
Autonomous Region. Zhang came from the Communist Youth League
organization that forms the political base of President Hu Jintao, and
has made no attempt to disguise his paternal attitude toward his charges.
"The Communist Party is like the parent to the Tibetan people, and it is
always considerate about what the children need," Zhang said last year.
He later added: "The Central Party Committee is the real Buddha for
Tibetans."
Robert Barnett, a Tibet specialist at Columbia University in New York,
said Zhang had overseen a tough crackdown on many facets of Tibetan
life. Tibetan government employees faced requirements to write
denunciations of the Dalai Lama. Zhang reintroduced a policy that
forbade Tibetan students and government workers to visit monasteries or
participate in religious ceremonies.
By 2006, Zhang had revived an "anti-Dalai" campaign and intensified
"patriotic education" at Buddhist monasteries. Monks are now required to
attend long sessions listening to recitations of China's interpretation
of Tibetan history and to denounce the Dalai Lama.
"The party must surely know these monks are not going to change their
minds" about the Dalai Lama, said Tsering Wangdu Shakya, a Tibet
specialist at the University of British Columbia. "So the whole point of
the meetings is to intimidate the monks."
Last Monday, the anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising against
Chinese rule, an estimated 400 monks left the Drepung Monastery and
marched toward Lhasa to protest the religious restrictions. The police
arrested 40 or 50 monks while the rest of the group held the equivalent
of a sit-down strike. Hours later, the episode ended, but it helped
spark other protests that ultimately led to the violence Friday.
Shakya said Beijing must be stunned by the Lhasa riots because Tibet,
under Zhang's firm hand, was thought to be pacified. In 2006, China
opened the world's highest railroad, which cost $4.1 billion and
traverses the Tibetan plateau to connect isolated Lhasa with the rest of
the country. Beijing described the railroad as a vital tool in
developing the Tibetan economy, the poorest in China.
But many Tibetans regard the railroad as a threat. China has poured
money into Tibet in hopes that economic development would dilute Tibet's
religious fervor and win over a younger generation. For many Tibetan
families, life has improved; trade and tourism are also rising. But
Beijing has also encouraged huge numbers of Chinese migrants and traders
whose presence has diluted the Tibetan majority.
"That is one of the biggest sources of resentment," Shakya said of the
Chinese migration. He said Tibetans believe Chinese are given more
op****tunities for jobs and Tibetan unemployment is high. Beijing surely
noticed that the younger generation it hoped to entice with its economic
policies was rampaging on the streets of Lhasa.
Economic development has also raised fears of environmental
exploitation. The railroad is regarded as a critical spur for China to
extract rich deposits of copper, iron, lead and other minerals in Tibet.
Faced with limited natural resources, China has hailed Tibet's minerals
as critical to national development.
Environmental pressures are already being felt in other Tibetan regions.
Last year, Tibetans in Ganzi in Sichuan Province held angry protests to
stop a mining company that was shearing off a mountain considered sacred
by Buddhists. That tension never dissipated. Eleven days ago, before the
Lhasa riots, about 100 monks and other Tibetans attacked Chinese cars
and shops and clashed with the police - an incident censored in the
Chinese press.
Today, the obvious question is what sort of policy Beijing will pursue
next. Demands from overseas pro-Tibet groups for independence do not
even get consideration. Several analysts say Beijing cannot win the
hearts of Tibetans if it continues to demonize the Dalai Lama - but
Beijing's rhetoric about a sinister "Dalai clique" is only hardening.
Shakya said restricting the flow of Chinese migrants would be a major
concession. But few analysts believe Beijing is in any mood to make
concessions.
Chu Shulong, a political scientist at Tsinghua University, said the
leader****p truly believes that a "Dalai clique" or other overseas groups
are coordinating to overthrow its authority. He said Beijing regards the
timing of the pro-Tibet independence marches in India - only days before
the Lhasa uprising - as proof.
"The government's interpretation is that this is organized activity from
inside India," Chu said, referring to the India headquarters of the
Tibetan government-in-exile. He added that Beijing's leaders were
probably also mystified at any suggestion that their policies have been
unfair.
"They think they are doing something right, something good, because they
give a lot of financial aid to the Tibetan region," he said.
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