Nicholas Kristoff managed to get into Tibet recently.

I sneaked through these Tibetan areas in Gansu and Qinghai Provinces, eluding the troops by taking a local car with curtains pulled over the windows, and it became clear that the recent anti-Chinese protests spread across a larger area in traditional Tibet than is sometimes realized. This was, in effect, a popular uprising against Chinese rule throughout Tibetan areas, and the region is still seething.

In addition, for good background on recent events in Tibet, under the guise of reviewing Pico Iyer’s new book, The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Robert Barnett has a good piece in the New York Review of Books. Thunder from Tibet. Recommended.

The young monks of Drepung Mon-astery meet each afternoon to practice their skills in philosophical debate, and it was one such session that spilled out into the protest on March 10. They had several reasons to be antagonized about China’s policies in Tibet, besides what some probably see as nearly sixty years of foreign occupation. Many of these reasons can be traced to restrictions on religion and culture introduced in 1994 in order to erode the suspected sources of Tibetan nationalism.

Such measures include campaigns forcing Tibetans to denounce the Dalai Lama; an unprecedented ban on pictures or worship of him; a prohibition on the construction of new monasteries and on any increase in the number of monks; and a ban on students and government employees having religious possessions or carrying out religious practices. During the last two years, tension has been further increased by the forced relocation of 250,000 farmers to roadside houses, partly at their own expense; the much-publicized opening in 2006 of the Chinese railway line connecting Tibet to neighboring Qinghai Province, with its implicit encouragement of yet more Chinese migration to Tibetan towns; and the announcement by the Chinese government of a plan for the settlement of 100,000 Tibetan nomads. It was made clear by the Chinese authorities that public criticism of any of these policies would be unwelcome if not dangerous.

Print PDF