This isn’t that hard to figure out. People want to rule their own country, have their own religion, and support their own rulers. From the International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/17/asia/beijing.php
China’s tough line in Tibet is seen to have brought only resentment
By Jim Yardley
Published: 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 reports 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 reporting 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 reportedly 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 opportunities 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 leadership 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.