The earthquake
Just got back from there and will try and post something meaningful on it in the next few days. A lot to process. Thanks, Clifford.
China faces its biggest crisis since Tiananmen Square
As protests against Chinese rule spread to Tibetan communities within Chinese provinces bordering Tibet, the government in Beijing tried to contain the most powerful threat to its international reputation since the Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy activists in 1989.
With the Beijing Olympic Games just five months away, the government is defending its crackdown on Buddhist monks and Tibetan citizens in Lhasa and other Tibetan centres, by accusing the Dalai Lama of organised insurgency and insisting its security forces acted with restraint in the face of attack by angry mobs.
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Return to Xiahe
Near a bridge in the centre of Xiahe, where the Labrang monastery is located, a shaven-headed young monk cautiously approached, looking all the time to see if he was in the eyeline of the unmarked police car at the bottom of the street.
“Four people were shot dead by the police,” said the monk, crossing his arms across his heart and rolling his eyes back. “There was lots of trouble yesterday, and I’m going back there right now. I have to go.”
This picture shows Xiahe in happier times, with a monk making yak butter sculptures.
Tibet protests descend into violence
China is facing the biggest challenge to its rule over Tibet in two decades after clashes between angry demonstrators and police in Lhasa left four people dead and dozens more injured. Hundreds of protesters shouting “Free Tibet” yesterday took the place of Buddhist monks who had been marching peacefully over the past two days.
The demonstrators set fire to shops and cars and police opened fire on the crowds prompting a warning by the Dalai Lama to the Beijing government to stop using “brute force”. One witness in Lhasa said: “The situation is very tense. Everyone is very afraid.” Major monasteries in the city were surrounded by soldiers and police last night.
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Kundun in crisis - DL profile
This profile of the Dalai Lama ran in The Irish Times
The world’s most recognisable monk is either a powerful ambassador for peace or, in the eyes of his enemies, ‘a wolf in monk’s robes’. But nearly 50 years after fleeing Tibet, it is still unlikely he will ever return
‘I AM just a simple Buddhist monk - no more, nor less.” He is one of the world’s most powerful and influential religious figures, but Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has turned understatement into an art form. With his maroon robes and distinctive glasses, the Dalai Lama has become an icon in the international peace movement, a symbol of peaceful opposition and a struggle for freedom, Nobel Peace Prize winner and a wandering soul who travels the globe drumming up support for his cause. And for the Chinese government, he is a reviled separatist who wants to take Tibet away by whatever means necessary.
China admits sending in troops to quell Tibetan monk demos
Chinese troops and police have been deployed at important monasteries in Tibet to quell the biggest protests by Tibetan Buddhist monks in the Himalayan region for nearly 20 years.
Witnesses have reported trucks full of troops surrounding Drepung monastery in Lhasa, while Sera monastery was ringed by hundreds of police.
These two sites have strong symbolic significance, as they were the training grounds for the monks who led Tibet before the People’s Liberation Army came in 1950 and ousted the Dalai Lama.
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And so it starts
This was the first report on the Tibetan stuff on March 12, in The Independent, under the headline “A reminder to China that the world has not forgotten Tibet”
It has been decades since calls for greater independence in Tibet have been so vocal. Now acts of defiance against Chinese rule in the region are springing up all over the world.
Red-robed Tibetan Buddhist monks have taken to the streets of the capital Lhasa to mark the 49th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army crushing an uprising in Tibet against Chinese rule, which forced the Dalai Lama into exile. It appears to be the largest open protest in Lhasa since demonstrations in the late 1980s led to imposition of martial law in Tibet in 1989, when China’s current president, Hu Jintao, was Communist Party chief there.
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China blacklists Tang Wei over Lust, Caution
This is a bit rough on Tang Wei. As the actress, she’s the weakest link in the food chain, but Ang Lee and Tony Leung are pretty untouchable because of their nationality. In the latest sign of tougher censorship in China, regulators have blacklisted rising starlet Tang Wei for her steamy role in the Ang Lee movie Lust, Caution, months after it screened in the country, because the film supposedly glorifies traitors.
The ban on Tang Wei comes as censorship, stopping smut and the need for a stricter moral code in an Olympic year are high on the agenda at China’s annual parliament, the National People’s Congress, which is meeting in Beijing.
China’s top regulator of the entertainment industry, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (Sarft) has issued a memo stating the actress has been blacklisted and pulled a cold-cream commercial she made.
Bjork’s protest a sign of things to come for China
Bjork is better known as a pop eccentric than as a political force, but the Icelander showed she can still raise establishment hackles when she caused a storm in Shanghai by crying “Tibet! Tibet!” at the end of her protest song, “Declare Independence”.
Discussing anything to do with Tibetan calls for greater autonomy is one of the great taboos in China but Bjork lived up to her billing in the Chinese financial capital – local media had called her the “Queen of the Wildly Unpredictable” and flagged the show as “Bjork’s Shanghai Surprise”.
Her comments, low key as they were, illustrate the kind of problems the Chinese government is going to have keeping a lid on athletes and other visitors making political statements during August’s Olympic Games in Beijing. Bjork, who performed in the ceremonies at the Athens Games, has used the song “Declare Independence” to highlight political issues during her current tour, including backing Kosovo’s independence.
Steven who? China shrugs off Spielberg’s stand
We regret Steven Spielberg’s decision but we don’t need him to stage an excellent Olympics, was China’s defiant response to the film-maker’s resignation as artistic director of the Beijing Olympics this summer.
In line with previous comments about human rights defenders trying to tie political issues to the greatest sporting show on Earth, Beijing officials blamed activists with unspecified “ulterior motives” for trying to spoil the Games.
