What’s In The News?
Posted by MyLaowai on Saturday, March 15, 2008
From our good friend over at The Opposite End of China, this compilation showing recent events in Tibet, which has been ruled by China since being annexed in 1951…
And from the Peking Duck, this collection from various news sources:
From the NYT:
Chinese security forces were reportedly surrounding three monasteries outside Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, on Thursday after hundreds of monks took to the streets this week in what are believed to be the largest Tibetan protests against Chinese rule in two decades.The turmoil in Lhasa occurred at a politically delicate time for China, which is facing increasing criticism over its human rights record as it prepares to play host to the Olympic Games in August and is seeking to appear harmonious to the outside world.
Beijing has kept a tight lid on dissent before the Games. But people with grievances against the governing Communist Party have tried to promote their causes when top officials may be wary of cracking down by using force.
Qin Gang, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, confirmed Thursday that protests had erupted in Lhasa, but declined to provide details. He described the situation as stable.
Reuters also reports, citing sources who contacted the London-based Campaign for a Free Tibet, of other demonstrations being suppressed in ethnic Tibetan areas in Qinghai and Gansu:
Another rights group said about 400 monks from Lutsang monastery in the northwestern province of Qinghai, known in Tibetan as Amdo, protested on Monday and shouted slogans for their exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to return.
About 100 monks from Myera monastery in the neighboring province of Gansu also protested on Monday, the rights group said, adding that police were investigating who was involved.
A source with knowledge of the protests quoted monks and witnesses as saying the sound of gunfire was heard outside the walls of monasteries. But no casualties have been reported.
The Christian Science Monitor has a reporter on the ground:
On most nights, Barkhor Square is full of ancient-looking pilgrims on a Buddhist kora around Jokhand temple, a 1,400-year old World Heritage Site.But last Tuesday around 9 p.m., it was unusually quiet when about 30 police officers wearing riot helmets sped into the cobblestone streets in vehicles resembling golf buggies. In front of a few foreign tourists, the police grabbed two young men in street clothes, put them in headlocks, and hauled them away to a nearby police station…
In Barkhor Square, police officers shooed the group of foreign tourists out of the square and back to their hotels. The officers were smiling, as if this was for the foreigners’ safety. Clearly, something was going on in the latest hot spot of Asian tourism.
A young European backpacker, gasping for breath in Lhasa’s 3,650-meter altitude, came running into a hotel looking for an Internet connection.
“There’s a big protest going on in the road to Sera monastery,” he said. “There are hundreds of people in the street, howling like wolves. They look like local people and they’re angry because the police have arrested some monks. I didn’t see them fighting with police. It didn’t look violent. The police chased some of them into small alleys to arrest them.”
The tourist said police picked up him and other foreigners, questioned them, and escorted them to the hotel district in unmarked cars, warning them to stay inside. The backpackers sent out personal reports on the Internet, even as uniformed police and men believed to be spies stood outside cafes watching them.
This follows other news this week that Indian authorities have blocked Tibetan demonstrators who planned a march to the Chinese border, and reports that the Chinese government is restricting access to Mt. Everest this year, a move widely seen as a response to an incident last year when a pro-Tibetan independence banner was displayed on the summit of the world’s highest peak.
– Peking Duck
The latest image, from today (March 15th), showing an armoured column moving through Lhasa, Tibet’s capital city:
Qiangba Pingcuo, Red China’s top official in Tibet, has denied that Lhasa is under martial law.
Wo Shi Laowai - Wo Pa Shui 
Miscel said
From what I have read, a lot of these pictures and news items are blocked by the Nanny. That means the situation must be serious, and all these pictures are real. THIS IS no Cardboard Baozi or South China Tiger.
Neddy said
You can say that again, Miscel. Forgive my egocentricism, but I just got myself “harmonised” out of TPD for saying:
“What a lovely “debate” this is, with all the China blogosphere’s trolls pitching in! Which part of “The Dalai Lama is right. The Chinese are wrong. The Tibetan people are not happy.” do you not understand?
I do not condone violence in any form or shape, but what do you expect from a little guy when you push him in the corner with no way out? Use your brains, stop parroting the CCP drivel! The Party is reaping what it has sown for half a century, and everyone can see it, except the “useful idiots” and shills.”
Yes, this is (or may be) IT! Read also SchizOlympics
at Mutant Palm. I liked this comment: “Watching the build up to the Olympics has been, for me, like watching the world’s biggest, slowest traffic accident.”
Enjoy.
MyLaowai said
Well, I for one do approve wholeheartedly of violence, if that is the way your enemies insist on playing it.
Imagine if it were your country [not directed at you, Neddy, but to the wider audience] – you are invaded, half your population brutally murdered, your culture taken apart, the jobs and educational opportunities given to newly arrived immigrants from your conquerors country… Wouldn’t you be pissed off? Red China was built on violence, grew through violence, continues to exist through violence, uses violence in a casual way against the people in it’s annexed territories on a daily basis, and threatens violence against it’s neighbors regularly… Oh yes, I certainly do approve of the use of violence against these people.
Unfortunately, it won’t work here and now, but I applaud the Tibetan people for trying.
$0.02
MyLaowai said
Here’s a fairly typical response from a Han Chinese netizen:
嗨 真不知道西藏哪几头家伙一直在作祟 好想灭了他们啊
[Sigh, really don’t know why these Tibetan guys constantly make trouble, best exterminate them]
– katly58@shippo7 [http://jiwai.de/katly58]