INSIDE a small monastery in China’s Qinghai province, a red-robed
monk looks around to see if he is being watched, then begins sobbing.
“We just want the Dalai Lama to come home”, he says. His words echo
those of dozens of Tibetans seeking to explain why they have set
themselves on fire in public places across the Tibetan plateau in the
past two years. Desperation is growing among the Dalai Lama’s followers
in China. So, too, is the government’s effort to silence them.
Since an outbreak of unrest swept the Tibetan plateau five years ago
this month, including anti-Chinese riots in the Tibetan capital Lhasa
and protests in numerous towns and monasteries, the party has tried to
control Tibetan discontent by means of carrot and stick. The stick has
involved tighter policing of monasteries, controls on visits to Lhasa,
denunciations of the Dalai Lama and arrests of dissidents. The carrot is
visible not far from the crying monk’s monastery: new expressways
across the vast grasslands, new roads to remote villages, better housing
for monks and restorations to their prayer-halls. Yet the spectacle of
more than 100 Tibetans setting themselves alight, mostly in the past two
years, in one of the largest such protests in modern political history,
suggests that neither approach is working.
Despite, or perhaps because of, intense crackdowns in the affected
areas of the Tibetan plateau, the burnings in recent months have spread
across a wider area (the plateau is one-third the size of America) and
involved more people without links to monasteries. The government’s
growing worry is evident in the intense security in the worst-affected
areas, mostly in Tibetan-populated parts of the provinces of Sichuan and
Qinghai, as well as in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous
Region (TAR). Since last year the government has begun rounding up those
deemed to have encouraged Tibetans to burn themselves. Dozens have been
detained. Several have been jailed for terms ranging from a few months
to life.
All of the TAR, as well as trouble spots in neighbouring provinces,
are off limits to most foreign journalists. But tension is palpable even
in the few areas that remain accessible. During celebrations of the
Tibetan new year in late February, at least three fire engines were
parked inside Kumbum monastery compound near Xining, the capital of
Qinghai. Dozens of police with extinguishers and fire blankets stood
among the crowds of pilgrims and holidaymakers. West of Xining in Hainan
prefecture, a Tibetan-majority area about the size of Switzerland, no
one has been reported to have set themselves on fire. But the
authorities are worried. In November hundreds of medical students
protested in Gonghe county against the circulation of a government
leaflet disparaging the immolators and the Dalai Lama. Residents say the
police used tear-gas to break up a demonstration in the county town and
arrested several participants. The prefectural authorities called the
demonstration “illegal” and demanded that young people in Hainan form a
(metaphorical) “wall of copper and rampart of iron against splittism,
infiltration and self-immolations”.
Though most minority groups live fairly peacefully under Chinese rule (see
article),
the Tibetans cite many reasons for the renewed unrest: the continuing
influx of ethnic-Han migrants (encouraged by huge government investment
in transport infrastructure); environmental damage caused by mining and
construction; the marginalisation of the Tibetan language in schools.
The ageing of the Dalai Lama (he is 77) and his announcement in 2011
that he was retiring as head of Tibet’s government-in-exile in India are
also factors. A growing sense that this incarnation of the Dalai Lama
might not have much longer is fuelling demands for his return to the
land that he fled after a failed uprising in 1959.
Too long in exile
“[In] this life…service at least in the field of Tibetan struggle now
already end”, says the Dalai Lama in his halting English in the Indian
town of Dharamsala that is his home. He is now, he says, devoting
himself to the promotion of religious harmony and a dialogue between
Buddhism and modern science. China is not convinced. Robert Barnett of
Columbia University says that in recent weeks Chinese officials have
increasingly accused the “Dalai Lama clique” of organising the burnings.
Mr Barnett says it is possible that China will try to defuse the
tensions by reopening talks with the Dalai Lama’s representatives. There
have been no such meetings since January 2010, when the two sides
reached an impasse over differences relating to the envoys’ call for
“genuine autonomy” for Tibet, while accepting that it remain part of
China. (Other Tibetans in India still want independence, a cause of
dispute among the exiles.) Chinese officials denounce even the
compromise of autonomy as a scheme for achieving full independence.
Among China’s other concerns is a proposal that Tibet be defined as the
TAR plus the Tibetan-inhabited areas of neighbouring provinces, an area
one quarter the size of China (see map).
Sleeping demon
The Dalai Lama’s retirement could make a resumption of talks more
difficult. In August 2011, after winning an election in which nearly
50,000 Tibetan exiles voted, Lobsang Sangay, a Harvard academic, took
over as head of the exiled government and assumed the political role
once played by the Dalai Lama (“now demon peacefully sleeping”, the holy
man quips, referring to a word he says Chinese officials have used to
describe him). Mr Sangay says that China can still hold talks if it
wants with the Dalai Lama’s representatives. But those envoys resigned
in June, citing the “deteriorating situation” in Tibet and China’s
failure to “respond positively” to autonomy proposals. Among the powers
Mr Sangay has taken on is the right to appoint the envoys’ successors,
who have yet to be chosen. This will make China wary of beginning talks,
for fear of conferring legitimacy on the new exile administration.
Some Tibetans in India see a glimmer of hope in China’s ten-yearly
change of leadership which will be completed with the appointments of Xi
Jinping as president and Li Keqiang as prime minister shortly before
the end of the annual session of China’s parliament, the National
People’s Congress, on March 17th (see
article).
Mr Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, was party chief in Tibet during an
outbreak of unrest in the late 1980s which he resolutely suppressed
(just as he suppressed the far bigger eruption in 2008). Mr Xi, goes the
thinking, could be different. In the 1950s the Dalai Lama got to know
Mr Xi’s late father, Xi Zhongxun, who was one of Mao Zedong’s comrades.
The elder Xi received a watch from the Dalai Lama, which he wore long
after the flight to India. If the father had a soft spot for the Dalai
Lama, optimists think, so might the son.
In recent months the birthplace of the Dalai Lama in Hongya village,
about 30km (20 miles) south-east of Kumbum monastery, has been given a
makeover, though no one is sure why. Despite a crackdown on Dalai Lama
worship elsewhere on the plateau, visitors to the grey-walled compound
can see photographs of him, as well as a golden throne intended for him
to sit on should he ever return. A caretaker says money for the recent
improvements (including new bricks and a coat of paint) came from the
government. She says foreigners are not allowed inside, but gladly shows
around a group of Tibetan pilgrims who have driven hundreds of
kilometres to see the site. But exiled officials are unimpressed and the
Dalai Lama is cautious. “Better to wait till some concrete things
happen, otherwise…some disappointment”, he says with a chuckle.
Indeed, disappointment still appears likely. Mr Xi is under little
pressure from other countries to change Chinese policy on Tibet. The
unrest in 2008 broke out as China was preparing to host the Olympic
games. It wanted the event to mark the country’s emergence as an
open-minded world power. Despite that, it cracked down hard on the
protests, but in a concession to international demands, resumed talks
with the Dalai Lama’s representatives less than two months later. Two
rounds were held before the games started, but with no obvious progress.
Since 2008 the West’s economic malaise has made China even less
amenable to foreign persuasion on Tibet. Britain, hoping to reduce
China’s prickliness on the issue, announced in October that year that it
was abandoning its century-old policy (unique among Western countries)
of merely recognising China’s “suzerainty” over the region rather than
its sovereignty. It has reaped no obvious reward. Britain’s relations
with China were plunged into a prolonged chill by a meeting last May
between the Dalai Lama and the British prime minister, David Cameron.
Global Times,
a Beijing newspaper, said last month that China had “more leverage than
Britain” in the two countries’ relations, adding with some
justification: “Few countries can afford to really be tough against
China.”
One nation indivisible
Mr Xi faces little pressure from public or elite opinion inside
China, other than to maintain a firm grip. Some Chinese intellectuals
have questioned whether the government’s heavy-handedness in Tibet will
bring about long-lasting stability. A small but seemingly growing number
of Han Chinese, the country’s ethnic majority, are attracted by Tibetan
Buddhism (Han visitors to Kumbum Monastery thronged around its statues
and clasped their hands in prayer during the recent festivities). But
concessions to the Dalai Lama on autonomy have little support in China.
Few observers expect any relaxation of what seems to be a stepped-up
effort to stop Tibetans fleeing to India. Before 2008, 2,000-3,000 a
year were doing so. This fell to a few hundred after the unrest that
year. A new refugee centre opened in Dharamsala in 2011, with American
funding and the capacity for 500 people. In 2012 fewer than 400 escaped.
At the beginning of March only two people—a couple from a Tibetan area
of Sichuan province—were there. Before they left their village, they had
to sign a document saying they would not go to India. For Tibetans,
even visiting Lhasa needs a permit. Last year hundreds were detained,
some of them for months, after returning from legal trips to India in
which they surreptitiously attended teachings by the Dalai Lama in Bodh
Gaya, a holy Buddhist site.
Heavy security in Tibet, including riot police patrolling the streets
of Lhasa, may help prevent another plateau-wide explosion like that of
2008. But the sight of Tibetans setting themselves on fire, and official
attempts to denigrate them, are deepening the region’s wounds. Little
chance of resolution is in sight. The weeping monk recalls that, after
an earthquake in 2010 in Qinghai’s Yushu county, officials asked some
victims what they needed. They replied that they just wanted the Dalai
Lama back. “They can control us,” the monk says, “but they can’t control
our hearts.”
中国军力的每一次提升，总是有俄罗斯的影子
生意能否能谈成？
高性能低温引擎是隐形飞机的关键技术之一
简氏集团的约翰逊指出："引擎一直是中国航空工业的致命弱点。"许多专家认为，俄罗斯新一代战机拥有比苏-27更先进，动力更强劲的引擎。能够有效提升战机的机动性能和作战能力。
