Monk protest scuppers controlled media tour of Tibet - CHINA

Monk protest scuppers controlled media tour of Tibet – CHINA

Asia Time Online - Daily News

Greater China

Mar 28, 2008

Tibet, China and the West: Back to stereotypes
By Kent Ewing

HONG KONG - For China watchers who hope that mutual understanding and tolerance between Beijing and its Western counterparts will both broaden and deepen as China's international coming-out party - the Summer Olympic Games - approaches, the riots in Tibet have proved a sobering disappointment. And for all those hoping that the Beijing Olympics will not be politicized - it's too late, they already have been.

Once again, Chinese and Western leaders have shown us that when things get really tough in China - and the separatist-inspired riots targeting not just the central government but also innocent Han Chinese now living in Tibet and nearby provinces qualify as just that - both parties revert depressingly to form.

The Chinese government has attacked the Western media, the Dalai Lama and all those taking part in the protests in language reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution while Western powers, led by Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, have used the violence in Tibet as yet another excuse to demonize China's leaders.

Where we go from here is crucial for both sides, and China clearly has a plan: control Tibet and welcome the world to a peaceful, orderly and, yes, more open China for the Games. "Give us a break," the rising but troubled country all but cries out to the world. "Let us find our own way," pleas the nation of 1.3 billion. But is anybody in the West listening?

Western-inspired protesters, not to mention election-year politics in the largely China-ignorant United States, could very well derail the Chinese plan. Let's hope not. China has earned - and should be granted - its international debut at the Olympics, which can serve not only as a grand entertainment for the sporting world but also as an education to the ignorant about the daunting challenges it faces as a still-developing nation with its massive population. Meanwhile, however, Chinese leaders need to drop the throwback language of Mao Zedong and truly engage the West.

The trouble in Tibet reportedly started with a protest on March 10, the anniversary of a failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, at Tibet's most sacred shrine, the Jokhang Temple in the capital of Lhasa. After riots broke out in the Tibetan capital on March 14, Tibet's China-appointed governor, Champa Phuntsok, got the rhetorical ball rolling for Beijing, denouncing the protestors as a "small group of separatists and criminals" and threatening harsh penalties for those who did not turn themselves in by a deadline established last week.

"No country would allow those offenders or criminals to escape the arm of justice, and China is no exception," said Champa Phuntsok, an ethnic Tibetan.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao went a step further, characterizing the protests as "atrocities of the Tibetan independence forces" revealing "the hypocrisy and deceit of [their] peace and non-violence propaganda".

In case anyone was wondering to whom Liu had referred, Premier Wen Jiabao clarified in remarks of his own. "There is ample fact and we also have plenty of evidence proving that this incident was organized, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique," the premier said at a televised news conference on March 18.

Before that, the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, had condemned China's crackdown on the protesters as part of the ongoing "cultural genocide" perpetrated by Beijing in Tibet, an autonomous region that he fled during the 1959 insurrection for exile in India. Chinese leaders have seized on the violence in Tibet, the worst in 20 years, as another opportunity to vilify the Dalai Lama, whom they regard as a dangerous "splittist". The Dalai Lama has employed some incendiary language of his own, but has also repeatedly called for peace in the region and made a point of supporting the Beijing Olympics despite the crackdown.

After rounding on the Dalai Lama, Beijing condemned the Western media for "biased reports" on Tibet and has done its best to push its own version of the story, which goes like this: a small, extreme group of splittists - organized by the Dalai Lama and his followers - sparked a hate-filled rampage in Lhasa, smashing vehicles and looting and burning more than 100 stores; the violence in Lhasa then led to a few copycat incidents in three neighboring provinces: Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu. Reports in state media, supported by photographs and TV footages, described angry Tibetan crowds in Lhasa attacking innocent bystanders who were Han Chinese.

Beijing has also gone out of its way to underscore factual errors committed by Western news organizations, including the BBC, CNN, Fox News and the Washington Post. For example, state media pointed out that the BBC mistakenly described an online photo of an ambulance as a police vehicle involved in the crackdown on rioters in Lhasa. And The Washington Post was pilloried for running a photo of Tibetan protesters battling with police in Nepal's capital of Katmandu with a caption describing Chinese police thwarting demonstrators in Lhasa. Germany's RTL TV was forced to apologize for a similar error.

This has further fueled nationalistic sentiments among Chinese (presumably the majority Han people). Many Chinese netizens, in China and overseas, have expressed their support of the crackdown on riots in Tibet, condemning Western media for its "biased" reports to demonize their country.

"I was angered, as a media researcher, by their reporting," Zhang Kai, a professor at Communication University of China, told the official Xinhua News Agency. "They violated the fundamental journalistic principle of truth ... I was ashamed of my Western counterparts."

Indeed, the official Beijing line on the Tibet story involves two putative conspiracies, one propagated by the immoral "Dalai clique" pushing for an independent Tibet and the other supported by Western governments and media who want to sabotage the Olympics. The palpable anger that bubbles to the surface of remarks made by Chinese officials can, in part, be explained by the fact these embarrassing protests occurred during the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's Parliament, in Beijing.

While admitting that factual errors have been made in their reporting on Tibet, Western media executives also complain about the news blackout imposed by the Chinese government on the story, which they claim has made such errors almost inevitable. If Chinese leaders want accurate reporting, they say, then let the international press in and show them what is really happening.

Beijing has responded by organizing a tour of Lhasa for a dozen overseas news organizations, most of which are located in Hong Kong and Taiwan. But the reporters are restricted to visits to burnt-out shops and damaged schools, temples and infrastructure, and their interviews will go no further than injured policemen and civilians and families of those killed in the violence.
But that did not stop a group of about 30 Buddhist monks from disrupting the tightly controlled tour of Jokhang Temple on Thursday by shouting out complaints about their lack of religious freedom. "Tibet is not free! Tibet is not free!" screamed one young monk, the Associated Press reported.

Nowhere is Beijing's distrust of Western media better illustrated than in the reporting on those killed in the riots. Beijing says 22 civilians died in the violence, but Tibetan exile groups, widely quoted in the West, claim up to 140 were killed. State media also report that more than 600 rue-stricken protesters, hoping for leniency, have turned themselves into police in Lhasa.

As for Western governments, while condemnations of China's crackdown have been the norm, no government has even mentioned boycotting the Olympics, although France raised the prospect of boycotting the opening ceremony, to be held August 8. The George W Bush administration has been remarkably restrained in its response to the violence, with the president reaffirming his plans to attend the games, but that has not stopped other prominent American politicians from speaking out.

If you are running for president in the US during a Chinese crackdown on anything - from democracy advocates to separatists to Falungong worshippers - the script is the same, no matter your party: stern condemnation is required. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, along with the two remaining Democratic candidates - fellow senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama - have followed that script, winning easy applause along the campaign trail but doing nothing to help America understand its increasingly important and rapidly changing relationship with China.

To most Americans, China represents two things: totalitarian oppression and loads of cheap, often tainted and dangerous manufactured goods. After that, there is a huge void that needs to be filled, but don't count on that happening in an election year.

The most strident American response to the crisis in Tibet came from House Speaker Pelosi, long a fierce critic of China on trade and human-rights issues. Last week, Pelosi was the first major foreign official to meet with the Dalai Lama at his headquarters-in-exile in Dharamsala, India.

"If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China's oppression in China and Tibet," she told thousands of cheering Tibetans in Dharamsala in India, "we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world."

Pelosi called for an international investigation into the violence in Tibet, but clearly she thought the Chinese government was responsible for most of it. "Nothing surprises me about the use of violence on the part of the Chinese government," she said.

Such remarks, of course, greatly pleased her host while absolutely infuriating Beijing, which denounced her through Xinhua as "a defender of arsonists, looters and killers". The prominent coverage given Pelosi's comments helps to explain the conviction of Chinese leaders that the Western media game is a losing proposition for them, especially in times of crisis. It is no wonder they expel foreign reporters from troubled areas, call news blackouts and then mount their own media campaign against Western powers. To the West, this is a gross violation of the basic principles of a free press. To the Chinese, it is a simple matter of protecting national interests from attacks that are rooted in ignorance and prejudice.

And it's true: not many in the West understand China's concern that separatists in Tibet could feed the flames of separatism in other places, such as the large northwestern autonomous region of Xinjiang, which borders Tibet.

Xinjiang, despite years of Han Chinese migration to the region, still has a majority Muslim population and a sometimes violent independence movement. Earlier this month, again according to state media, authorities foiled a terrorist attack on a China Southern Airlines flight that took off from the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi for Beijing. Details of the alleged attack were maddeningly sketchy, however, so it is hard to say what really happened.

Nevertheless, it is clear that Chinese leaders live in constant fear of those who would break up a nation that it has taken so much work (and so many lives) to put back together - and those fears are not confined to sprawling autonomous western regions but also include Hong Kong, which returned to the motherland in 1997 after more than 150 years of British rule. Taiwan - which Beijing claims as another stolen child and where China-friendly Ma Ying-jeou won a landslide victory in the presidential election last weekend over his more independence-minded rival, Frank Hsieh Chang-ting - also figures into the Tibet equation.

How much of this complex story will figure into the ongoing US presidential debate? Obama has courageously called for an honest national dialogue on racial differences. Who will be brave enough to call for an equally honest dialogue on US-China relations?

Meanwhile, China's glorious plan for the Olympic torch is under threat. The torch's 137,000-kilometer journey began on Monday in Olympia, Greece - accompanied by protests, of course - and will continue for another 130 days. In June, it will pass through Tibet and the three neighboring provinces affected by the violent protests of the last 17 days.

It could be a long, hot summer in Beijing. And 30,000 foreign journalists will be there to record the daily temperature.

Kent Ewing is a teacher and writer at Hong Kong International School. He can be reached at kewing@hkis.edu.hk.

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing .)






Times Online

From Times Online

March 27, 2008
Monk protest scuppers controlled media tour of Tibet

A group of monks disrupt a government-managed tour by foreign reporters to Jokhang Temple in Lhasa

(Andy Wong/AP)

These monks from the main temple in Lhasa ambushed the official tour of journalists to protest against Chinese rule

Jane Macartney in Beijing

Tibetan monks staged a daring protest against Chinese rule, disrupted an official government tour for foreign journalists with screams that the Dalai Lama was not to blame for violence and demands for religious freedom.

The astonishing outburst by about 30 monks came as the first group of journalists to visit Lhasa since the violent March 14 riot was being shown around the Jokhang temple, the holiest shrine in the Tibetan canon.

An Associated Press reporter, Charles Hutzler, described one young Buddhist monk who yelled “Tibet is not free! Tibet is not free!” and then burst into tears.

He described how the monks had rushed over to stop the reporters from being taken into an inner sanctum of the temple, saying they were upset that a government administrator was telling the journalists that Tibet had been part of China for centuries.

About 30 monks, speaking first in Tibetan and then in Mandarin Chinese so that the reporters could understand them, said they knew that they almost certainly faced arrest for their action but that they were willing to take the risk.

One monk said: “They want us to crush the Dalai Lama and that is not right.”

China has renewed its vilification campaign of Tibet’s exiled temporal leader, accusing him of orchestrating the riot when hundreds of Tibetans rampaged through the streets of Lhasa in a frenzy of ethnic violence, stabbing and beating ethnic Han Chinese and setting fire to Chinese shops and offices.

China says 22 people died, while Tibetan exiles say the violence, plus a harsh crackdown afterwards, have left nearly 140 people dead.

Another monk in the Jokhang said: “This had nothing to do with the Dalai Lama.” Government handlers shouted to the journalists to leave and tried to pull them away during the protest, the Associated Press journalist reported.

The monks said troops who had been guarding the temple since the riot had been removed the night before the reporters’ visit. One monk said they were upset that some of the people brought to worship at the temple were not true believers but were Communist Party members.

The outburst of anger at the Jokhang temple is particularly unusual since the 120 or so monks who live there are among the most carefully watched and best cared-for of any Tibetan religious institution.

The monks at the Jokhang, the focus of every Tibetan pilgrim, are believed to be the only ones in Tibet who receive a government stipend. In addition, their income is supplemented by the huge donations received from the numerous pilgrims who pour into the temple each day, coming from all Tibetan regions.

One Tibetan resident told The Times he happened to enter the temple just before the protest. The resident, who declined to be identified for fear of retribution, said he had noticed that the armed security forces guarding the temple had disappeared this morning.

He saw several people burning incense at two sacred altars outside the temple and, recognising them as plainclothes police, asked if he could enter the temple. One said to him: “Go in, go in quickly. It’s open now.”

He made his way into the temple with a group of nomad pilgrims from the Amdo region of Tibet to pay ritual morning obeisances at the temple’s many altars.

He said he had been astonished to see one monk shouting and then weeping in front of a group of foreigners. “I never expected that the Jokhang temple would have so many brave monks.”

The reputation of the monks who serve in the Jokhang is not high in Lhasa, many of whose residents regard them as government employees who want a good salary.

The worshipper said that as soon as the monks began shouting he was ordered to leave the temple. Temple officials said to him “The temple is closed now. Now more worship. Please leave.”

China rarely allows foreign reporters into Tibet under normal circumstances, so the media tour that began yesterday was meant to underscore the communist leadership's determination to contain any damage ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August are intended to celebrate China as a modern, rising power.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported on the action by the monks, but did not say what the monks yelled out. It said: “The media tour soon resumed.”

The rioting and four days of protests that preceded it were the worst anti-Chinese demonstrations in Lhasa in nearly two decades and they sparked protests in Tibetan areas across a vast portion of western China.







latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-fg-embattle27mar27,1,7655423.story



From the Los Angeles Times
West's Tibet 'bias' galls many in China

The coverage, only the latest bad publicity, is making people feel their huge Olympic effort is unappreciated.

By Mark Magnier
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

March 27, 2008

BEIJING — It wasn't supposed to be this way.

When China seven years ago won the right to hold this summer's Olympics, the nation erupted in joy, confident it would finally receive the accolades it deserved as an emerging global power after a century of isolation and humiliation.

In recent months, however, China has battled criticism of its food and toy safety, been hit with director Steven Spielberg's high-profile withdrawal as Olympic advisor over its Darfur policy, weathered athlete complaints about pollution and faced global criticism over its crackdown against the Tibet uprising.

Add it up and some Chinese are feeling under siege. Few nations have spent more effort to showcase their country than China has in organizing what are shaping up to be the most expensive Olympic Games in history. Spending is estimated at $40 billion, including related infrastructure projects such as a new airport terminal, subway system and even sewage systems.

"Chinese have given so much to the Olympics, but we're criticized so harshly by foreigners," said Hu Xijin, editor in chief of Global Times.

A growing object of Chinese anger and frustration in recent days has been the Western media. Many Chinese feel that foreign sympathy for Tibetans is biased given that Chinese were killed at the hands of what many here consider a rioting minority.

CNN has become a particular target of anger, even though the cable news network is available only in a few diplomatic compounds and high-end condominiums. A website called anti-CNN.com, with the slogan "The World's Leader of Liars," has sprung up in recent days. A particular focus has been a photo that CNN ran on its website showing green security trucks passing an overturned car. Off to the right, the rock-throwing Tibetan protesters were cropped out.

"Your feeling about this manipulated photo?" the website asks.

The website also criticizes several other U.S., British and German media for running shots of Nepalese police identified as Chinese battling rioters. CNN staff members were forced to leave their Beijing office late last week and retreat to a nearby hotel after they were inundated by complaint calls, including some threatening violence.

In Brussels on Wednesday, the head of the European Parliament questioned whether European leaders should attend the opening ceremony of the August 8-24 Games and invited the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, to brief lawmakers.

Protests by ethnic Tibetans started in Lhasa on March 10, the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule, and spread over a wide area. China says 19 people have been killed by mobs in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet region.The Tibetan government in exile puts the death toll at 140.

President Bush "raised his concerns about the situation in Tibet" during a telephone conversation with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said.

Bush encouraged the Chinese government to conduct a "substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama's representatives" and allow journalists and diplomats into Tibet, she said.



In a country with limited political polling, it is hard to tell how much concern over Western bias has been fanned by the Chinese government.

Prominent newspapers that have given play to the bias issue in recent days include the People's Daily, China Youth Daily, Southern Metropolis Daily, Global Times and the International Herald Leader.

Compounding the perception gap between China and the outside world may be different cultural approaches.

Challenging authority and openly criticizing the leadership are far less accepted in China's top-down system, which from early childhood places a premium on deference to parents, obedience to teachers and respect for officials. Society has loosened up a great deal in the last two decades, but the government has been slow to change.

There's also a different view of Tibetan history. Many foreigners see Tibetans rising up in spontaneous frustration after decades of religious and cultural containment. But some Chinese see an ungrateful population on the rampage despite Beijing's efforts to develop the local economy.

"I'm very worried about splittism," said Wu Lisheng, 40, a salesman in Beijing. "If we have more trouble, no one will be able to function."

Many Chinese see Tibet as an inalienable part of their country. Schoolchildren are taught to love the motherland and are steeped in the shame of the Opium Wars. They're taught to keep the country whole and resist outside pressure.

"There is still a fear of intervention by foreign forces," said Yuan Weishi, a history professor at Sun Yat-sen University in the southern province of Guangzhou.

The idea that Tibet's vast area, equivalent to about 14% of China's territory, might become independent would, for many here, be akin to the U.S. facing the prospect of losing California or Texas. One Chinese blogger jokingly called for the formation of a "Free Vermont" group.

Also at play are differences in a system that has not traditionally worried too much about public opinion. China's leaders often seem to expect domestic and foreign audiences to take their statements on faith.

Thus, even as Chinese authorities say they have used "maximum restraint" in subduing rioters, most outside observers have been blocked from entering the affected areas of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan provinces to see for themselves.

And though officials blame unrest on a well-coordinated plot by the "Dalai clique," there is little corroboration other than reported confessions from suspects interrogated without access to lawyers.

Also missing is much discussion of China's carefully controlled coverage.

On Wednesday, for instance, the People's Daily and the English-language China Daily made no mention of protesters having attempted to disrupt the start of the torch relay in Greece a day earlier.

Nor has there been any meaningful discussion of possible underlying causes for the riots, whether a new Tibet strategy is needed and whether the government crackdown is correctly calibrated.

"The Chinese media have said the police have done a great job and everything is calm, but I'm not sure it's that easy," said Zhang Hao, 26, a salesman in Beijing.

"It would be good to know something about [Tibetans'] grievances, hunger, whether they're desperate -- but that's not reported because of the Olympics."

But some analysts note that China is becoming less reflexively nationalistic as more people travel overseas and are exposed to foreign values.

"There's been significant improvement," said Xiao Gongqin, a history professor at Shanghai Normal University.

"Outsiders should avoid pressuring China too much or it will return to radicalism," Xiao said. "China will improve and enjoy more democratic rights, but it needs time."

mark.magnier@latimes.com

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Washington contributed to this report.



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Dalai Lama's threat shakes Buddhism

Dalai Lama

Email Picture

Gurinder Osan / Associated Press

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama gestures during a press conference in Dharamsala, India, Sunday.

If he quit as political leader but still headed the faith, it would go against his religion's centuries-old tenet of church-state unity.

By Ching-Ching Ni, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 26, 2008

BEIJING -- As the world's most famous Buddhist, the Dalai Lama is a monk juggling two jobs. One is the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, and the other is the political head of his government in exile.

He was chosen to serve these dual callings through an arcane process based on signs that he was reincarnated from a long line of Dalai Lamas who were considered embodiments of the Buddha of Compassion, the holder of the White Lotus.



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So when the 14th Dalai Lama threatened last week to resign in response to the violence in Tibet, he seemed to throw into question the ancient process that gave him power.

Whether he can quit and what that would mean remain unclear.

The only known case of a Dalai Lama who didn't want to be one was the sixth incarnation, a man who supposedly preferred romantic poetry and courtesans over scriptures and chastity.

Staff members of the current Dalai Lama were quick to explain that the 72-year-old monk had no plans to abandon his people at a time of crisis. The revered god-king was merely expressing his commitment to peace, they said, and saying that if his people continued to commit violence he would have no choice but to relinquish his secular duties.

"He would resign as the political leader and head of state, but not as the Dalai Lama. He will always be the Dalai Lama," said Tenzin Taklha, a top aide.

That would suggest breaking from Tibetan Buddhism's centuries-old tradition of church and state as one and, more important, would open the possibility that a Dalai Lama could choose his own successor.

"These institutions are made by people; the rules can change from time to time," said Lee Feigon, author of the book "Demystifying Tibet: Unlocking the Secrets of the Land of the Snows." "If he were to resign in frustration, it will create worldwide sympathy for him. If he could choose his own successor, he would be around to help train him and give him legitimacy. Even the threat of doing it should give the Chinese government pause."

The government in Beijing, which is officially atheist, has the final say in the appointments of high lamas and their reincarnations, a source of Tibetans' simmering resentment of Chinese rule.

A 6-year-old boy recognized by the Dalai Lama to be the second-highest priest in Tibetan Buddhism vanished in 1995, and another child handpicked by Beijing was appointed in his place.

The Chinese government could install its own puppet after the death of the Dalai Lama, whom it blames for masterminding this month's uprising, Tibetans' largest and most sustained anti-China protests in decades, and for promoting "splittism." The exiled Tibetan leader has long contended that he advocates greater autonomy for Tibet, not independence.

If the Dalai Lama could designate his own successor, however, it would be difficult for a competing Chinese candidate to win much legitimacy, observers say.

"The whole world knows the Chinese communist government doesn't believe in religion. How can these atheists be expected to select a Tibetan lama?" said Tsering Tashi, the London representative of the Tibetan government in exile.

The current Dalai Lama was chosen at age 2 by a team of high lamas because he identified items that belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama. Since fleeing to India in 1959 after a failed Tibetan uprising, he has embraced Western democratic values and built the government in exile, with an elected parliament and prime minister.

The Nobel laureate, who always seems open to new ideas, has even suggested injecting an element of democracy into the tradition of reincarnation.

"The Dalai Lama has said before, 'If the people decide there will be a reincarnation of me in the form of the 15th Dalai Lama, then there will be a 15th Dalai Lama. If the majority does not want a reincarnation of me, then there will not be a 15th Dalai Lama,' " said Tendon Dahortsang of the Tibetan Youth Assn. in Europe. "I can't imagine the people won't wish for a 15th Dalai Lama."

Some observers say he can't resign.

"If the Dalai Lama is a reincarnation, then he can't really change that," said Justin Wintle, London-based author and cultural historian. "It's like a woman saying you are giving up being a woman."

If he chooses to keep his role as a spiritual leader and give the political mandate to someone else, Wintle says, he also risks undermining a pillar of Tibetan Buddhism.

"He is acknowledging the political leadership is a secular concern," Wintle said. "That's a major shift from Tibetan history, where the spiritual and the political leaderships are assumed by the same person."

Either way it will be a challenge to fill the shoes of the charismatic holy man whose full name is Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (Holy Lord, Gentle Glory, Compassionate, Defender of the Faith, Ocean of Wisdom). Even if he could choose his replacement, it could take years to identify a boy and wait for him to grow up, leaving a potential power vacuum and no clear form of alternative leadership.

But the threat of the Dalai Lama leaving his political post is real, according to Robbie Barnett, Tibetan expert from Columbia University.

"He's always said he prefers to get out of politics, go into a cave and meditate," Barnett said. "He's talking to people inside Tibet, asking will they please give up violence.

"The question is how the Chinese government can clear the static in the air so people in the rural areas inside Tibet can hear him."

chingching.ni@latimes.com







washingtonpost.com

China Moves to Tighten Control Over Religion in Tibet

By Maureen Fan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 26, 2008; A11

BEIJING, March 25 -- China's security chief called for stepping up "patriotic education" in Tibet's monasteries, the state-run Tibet Daily said Tuesday, as prosecutors for the first time charged demonstrators in the largely peaceful, monk-led protests that later exploded into riots in the region.

Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu led the first high-level central government visit to Tibet since the riots broke out this month. In the face of international criticism of China's crackdown, he stressed that the government would "fight an active publicity battle" and solicit the help of Communist Party cadres.

His call for broader "patriotic education" indicated the party would also move to exert greater control over religion in Tibet, requiring more Tibetans to accept the region as an inalienable part of China, denounce the Dalai Lama as a separatist and recognize the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama. Such campaigns were first launched in 1996.

Angered by foreign sympathy for the protesters and support for the Dalai Lama, China is bearing down hard on the exiled Tibetan religious leader, blaming him and his followers for stirring up trouble in an effort to sabotage the Beijing Olympics in August.

The Chinese crackdown has drawn international concern, with some government leaders suggesting a boycott of the opening ceremony of the Games. On Tuesday, when asked about the possibility, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, "All options are open, and I appeal to the Chinese leaders' sense of responsibility." He added that he had sent a message to Chinese President Hu Jintao noting his concern over the violence.

The European Parliament, whose president has said a boycott should be considered, has scheduled a special debate on the Tibet situation for Wednesday in Brussels.

Despite a heavy police and military presence across China, protests continue to spread through regions that border Tibet. On Tuesday in Sichuan province, where at least one policeman had been killed in clashes between security forces and protesters a day earlier, an estimated 400 to 500 Tibetan monks and others gathered in the main street of Luhuo, a restaurant owner said in a telephone interview.

According to the owner, who gave his surname as Yan, police quickly disrupted the gathering, but the atmosphere was still "very tense."

"Most shops are closed, including my restaurant," he said. "I have been here for 17 years and I have never seen anything like this."

The New China News Agency identified the policeman killed Monday in Sichuan's Garze prefecture as Wang Guochuan. Wang was killed by a mob wielding stones and knives, according to the report.

"The police were forced to fire warning shots, and dispersed the lawless mobsters," the agency said.

The government says at least 22 people have died in Tibet since the violence broke out; Tibetan rights groups say nearly 140 Tibetans have been killed in Tibet and surrounding provinces.

In Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, state prosecutors on Tuesday charged 13 people with "illegal assembly." They were among the 15 people originally detained for protesting in front of the Tsuklakhang Temple on March 10, the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese communist rule.

The protesters shouted anti-government slogans and held up illegal, homemade Tibetan flags, symbols of independence. They made their way to the Jokhang Temple, using their slogans and flags "to gather a crowd and stir up trouble," the Tibet Daily said.

Fear over the crisis in Tibet has extended to Beijing. More than a week after students at the Central University of Nationalities held a candlelight vigil to commemorate the dead in Lhasa, a heavy contingent of security guards patrolled the campus, which remains closed to outsiders.

Tibetan students said they had all been forced to attend a meeting the day after the vigil. They were told not to speak to outsiders and banned from assemblies of any kind.

"I'm so afraid that they will stop me from getting a job or prevent me from graduating," said a Tibetan computer science student.

At the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, one expert would speak only on condition of anonymity.

"If you want to listen to the government's voice, I can recommend a lot of people," the academic said. "But if you want to listen to the truth, it is really too sensitive for many academics to speak right now."

Correspondent Molly Moore in Paris and researcher Zhang Jie in Beijing contributed to this report.