Protests May Only Harden Chinese Line

Dialogue Over Tibet Grievances Seems Increasingly Less Likely, Analysts Say

By Jill Drew
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 24, 2008; A09

BEIJING, March 23 -- To many Chinese, it was a brutal, unprovoked attack against innocent civilians by Tibetan hoodlums bent on breaking China apart. To many Westerners, it was an eruption of anger provoked by harsh crackdowns on peaceful protests against authoritarian Chinese rule.

The two starkly different views of the March 14 riot in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, are being reinforced each day. And a dialogue to cool the passions that sparked the demonstrations, which have spread to other Tibetan areas in western China, "seems less and less likely," said Rebecca MacKinnon, a media studies professor at the University of Hong Kong.

"There are two alternate realities that are not connecting," she said.

When the Olympic torch begins its 130-day, 85,000-mile journey on Monday from Greece's Ancient Olympia to Beijing, this clash of views is likely to be exacerbated as international advocacy groups vow to spotlight several high-profile grievances against Chinese policy in protests planned along the relay route. At least 1,000 police officers are expected to ring the 2,600-year-old Temple of Hera to protect the lighting ceremony, but controversy has already marked the run. A Thai torchbearer announced Sunday that she was pulling out to protest China's actions in Tibet.

China analysts say such protests will probably push China to adopt more hard-line positions to salve its national pride. Protests will not "spark more subtle policy debates in China," MacKinnon said. "The regime will go more and more on the offensive."

"Sovereignty and control is more important to them than international image," a Western academic who looks closely at Chinese politics said on condition of anonymity. The Tibet crackdown is a "sign to other opposition groups that this is what happens if you make problems."

Among many Chinese here and overseas, resentment is building over Western media portrayals of the Lhasa unrest. Although China blocks most of the reports, many people access them by getting around the government's online firewalls.

Rao Jin, 24, the founder of a small technology company in Beijing, said he was so angry about what he sees as foreign journalists' prejudice against China that last week he created a Web site, http://www.anti-cnn.com, to document what he calls mistakes and bias in Western media. He said more than 1,000 people have e-mailed, volunteering to spot errors.

"They said that we should hit back," Rao said. "The untrue reports triggered a lot of anger because it is not what really happened in China."

On Sunday, government-controlled media began running videotaped interviews with foreign tourists who witnessed the March 14 riot in Lhasa. The interviews included descriptions of that day's violence but did not discuss the protests led by monks and nuns that began March 10 and were broken up by police. Several monks and nuns were arrested, and police confined thousands of others to their monasteries.

"Thank you, the West, your fair news media had never stop attacking other countries' sovereignty," wrote one Internet user who posted a seven-minute video, in English, challenging the coverage. The video, titled "Tibet was, is and always will be part of China," attracted almost 1.2 million viewings and more than 72,000 comments in three days, according to a blog monitoring site.

Kang Xiaoguang, a sociology professor at Beijing's Renmin University, said, "Many foreigners understand this event in Tibet as an anti-Communist Party or anti-government event. But Chinese people don't think so. Chinese people regard this event as anti-China."

An Internet user identified as Si Si said in a comment posted on a Chinese site, http://tv.huo360.com, "Several innocent girls were burned by those mad people. We drove away people who hurt the innocent; the U.S. calls it a crackdown. When the U.S. invaded other countries, ordinary people were also killed by soldiers. Isn't this a double standard?"

As international advocacy groups step up their protests against Chinese policies, the government might soon find itself fighting over its image on several fronts.

"I have been telling my students for years that as China becomes a world power, there is going to be a lot more scrutiny and criticism," said Michael Pettis, a professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management. "Just as Americans have learned to deal with it, the Chinese are going to have to learn to deal with it. My hope is that after the anger there will be some reflection on the complexity of these issues."

Researcher Zhang Jie contributed to this report.

As Tibet Erupted, China Wavered

By JIM YARDLEY

BEIJING — In the chaotic hours after Lhasa erupted March 14, Tibetans rampaged through the city’s old quarter, waving steel scabbards and burning or looting Chinese shops. Clothes, souvenirs and other tourist trinkets were dumped outside and set afire as thick gray smoke darkened the midday sky. Tibetan fury, uncorked, boiled over.

Foreigners and Lhasa residents who witnessed the violence were stunned by what they saw, and by what they did not see: the police. Riot police officers fled after an initial skirmish and then were often nowhere to be found. Some Chinese shopkeepers begged for protection.

“The whole day I didn’t see a single police officer or soldier,” said an American woman who spent hours navigating the riot scene. “The Tibetans were just running free.”

Lhasa is now occupied by thousands of paramilitary police officers and troops of the People’s Liberation Army. But witnesses say that for almost 24 hours, the paramilitary police seemed unexpectedly paralyzed or unprepared, despite days of rising tensions with Tibetan monks.

The absence of police officers emboldened the Tibetan crowds, which terrorized Chinese residents, toppled fire trucks and hurled stones into Chinese-owned shops. In turn, escalating violence touched off a sweeping crackdown and provided fodder for a propaganda-fueled nationalist backlash against Tibetans across the rest of China that is still under way.

“I really am surprised at the speed with which these things got out of control,” said Murray Scot Tanner, a China analyst with a specialty in policing. “This place, this time, should not have surprised them. This is one of the key cities in the country that they have tried to keep a lid on for two decades.”

What happened? Analysts wonder if the authorities, possibly fearing the public relations ramifications of a confrontation before the Beijing Olympics in August, told the police to avoid engaging protesters without high-level approval.

Timing also may have contributed to indecision; Tibet’s hard-line Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, and other top officials were attending the National People’s Congress in Beijing when the violence erupted.

The full explanation could take years to emerge from China’s secretive Communist Party hierarchy. But the Lhasa unrest, not entirely unlike the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests of 1989, may be remembered as much for poor police work — faulty crowd control and political indecision followed by a large-scale response — as for the underlying grievances of protesters.

Lhasa now has created far more than a public relations problem for Beijing. It has unleashed widespread Tibetan resentment over Chinese rule. Antigovernment demonstrations have spread to Tibetan areas of western China. Military convoys and trucks of paramilitary police officers are streaming westward to quell the protests.

International leaders are alarmed at the continuing violence and have called on China to exercise restraint. But domestic opinion is inflamed with nationalist anger as state television is repeatedly showing images of Tibetans rioting in those early, unfettered hours.

“Our government should take a bloody suppression on these separatists!” blared one posting among the legion of enraged postings on Chinese Internet chat rooms. “We cannot hesitate or be too merciful, even at the cost of giving up the Olympics.”

The police hesitation did not last long. The crackdown began within 24 hours, on March 15. Witnesses described hearing the thud of tear gas projectiles and the crackle of gunshots as paramilitary police officers gradually took control of the riot area. By March 16, the paramilitary police were searching Tibetan neighborhoods and dragging away suspects. One foreigner saw four Tibetan men beaten so savagely that the police sprinkled white powder on the ground to cover the blood.

Lhasa’s death toll remains in sharp dispute. The Chinese authorities say 22 people died, including a police officer killed by a mob and shopkeepers who burned to death in the violence. The authorities also claim security forces did not carry lethal weapons or fire a shot. But the Tibetan government-in-exile, in Dharamsala, India, said at least 99 Tibetans have died in Lhasa.

Foreign journalists are now forbidden to enter Tibet. But interviews with more than 20 witnesses show that Lhasa was boiling with Tibetan resentment even as authorities believed they had the situation under control. Protests broke out at three monasteries beginning March 10, the anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, which forced the Dalai Lama to flee to India. The police arrested more than 60 monks and confined the rest inside their monasteries. Tibetans say the police also beat monks during peaceful demonstrations.

James Miles, a Beijing-based reporter for The Economist magazine, had gotten a reporting trip to Lhasa approved by authorities before the demonstrations. When the protests started, Mr. Miles wondered if he would be notified that his trip had been canceled. But no call came. He arrived March 12, and on March 13 officials took him to dinner, signaling their confidence by making no attempt to hide the recent demonstrations.

“I was assured that the situation in Lhasa was stable,” Mr. Miles recalled.

But the next day, March 14, would prove otherwise. At Ramoche Temple, monks left the monastery about midday to protest and were immediately met by police officers. Unlike the other monasteries, Ramoche is in the heart of Lhasa’s old Tibetan quarter, so the confrontation attracted a large crowd.

Unconfirmed reports about the earlier protests had been swirling among Tibetans for days, according to several people, including that monks and Buddhist nuns had been killed. Many Tibetans were angry when they saw the police clash with the Ramoche monks. Quickly, the crowd attacked the police.

Witnesses say police reinforcements who arrived with shields and riot gear were overwhelmed. “Almost immediately they were rushed by a massive group of Tibetans,” said one witness. Police officers fled, and a mob of Tibetans poured out of the old quarter onto Beijing Road, a large commercial street. A riot had begun.

Angry Tibetans attacked a branch of the Bank of China and burned it to a blackened husk. Photos and video images show Tibetans smashing Chinese shops with stones and setting them on fire. Witnesses described Tibetans attacking Chinese on bicycles and throwing rocks at taxis driven by Chinese. Later, crowds also burned shops owned by Muslims.

“This wasn’t organized, but it was very clear that they wanted the Chinese out,” said the American woman who witnessed the riots and asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals. She said Tibetan grievances exploded in anger. Crowds tied ceremonial silk scarves across the threshold of Tibetan shops to indicate they should not be damaged.

Mr. Miles, the journalist, found himself the only Western reporter on the scene. He spent the next several hours carefully walking around the old Tibetan quarter as rioters burned buildings and overturned cars. “I was looking around expecting an immediate, rapid response,” he said. “But nothing happened. I kept asking people, ‘Where are the police?’ ”

Protests are common in China and clashes can occur between demonstrators and police officers. Beginning the early 1980s China created a paramilitary force, known as the People’s Armed Police, to deal with domestic unrest and other crises. Mr. Tanner, the specialist in Chinese policing, said the People’s Armed Police had developed tactics over the years to defuse protests without resorting to violent crackdowns. But riots of this scale are rare, and if violence erupts, policy dictates a firm response, Mr. Tanner said.

“There is no suggestion that they are supposed to sit back and let a riot burn itself out,” he said.

Tibetans also say the security forces were unusually passive. One monk reached by telephone said other monks noticed that several officers, including some undercover, were more interested in shooting video of the violence than stopping it. “They were just watching,” the monk said. “They tried to make some videos and use their cameras to take some photos.”

Ultimately, the man responsible for public order in Lhasa is Mr. Zhang, Tibet’s party chief. Mr. Zhang is a protégé of President Hu Jintao, who saw his own political career take flight after he crushed the last major rebellion in Tibet in 1989.

According to one biographer, Mr. Hu actually made himself unavailable during the 1989 riots when the paramilitary police needed guidance on whether to crack down. The police did so and Mr. Hu got credit for keeping order, but he also assured himself deniability if the crackdown had failed, the biographer wrote.

Mr. Zhang also has an excuse; he was at the National People’s Congress in Beijing. When the violence started, Mr. Zhang had just completed a two-hour online discussion about China’s Supreme Court, according to a government Web site. It is unclear when Mr. Zhang was told of the violence, or if he made the final decision on how to respond.

But that decision became clear on March 15, the day after the riots. During the riots, the police had been armed with shields and batons, several witnesses said. But overnight, the People’s Armed Police had created a perimeter encircling the riot areas. Armed vehicles also were in position. By the afternoon, witnesses saw small teams of paramilitary officers armed with high-powered weapons moving into the old quarter.

The Chinese authorities have also confirmed that army troops had arrived in Lhasa by March 15, but say their role was limited to traffic control and securing military property. But many people also wonder if some of those troops were involved in the crackdown. Several armored vehicles had their license plates removed or covered in white paper.

Mr. Miles noticed that many of the People’s Armed Police officers actually appeared to be wearing irregular uniforms. One military analyst who studied photographs of the scene concluded that some armored vehicles belonged to an elite military unit. Witnesses reported hearing the sounds of gunshots throughout that Saturday afternoon.

The crackdown was only one part of the new strategy. The Chinese news media initially had not been allowed to cover the Lhasa violence. But by March 15,, that had changed. There, broadcast on state television, was video of Tibetans raging through Lhasa.

Zhang Jing, Huang Yuanxi and Chen Yang contributed research.

Chinese Patrol Restive Areas Bordering Tibet

Pelosi Meets With Dalai Lama in India

By Maureen Fan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 22, 2008; A08

BEIJING, March 21 -- Chinese troops and police continued to patrol restive areas in provinces bordering Tibet on Friday, as calls mounted for China to allow foreign observers access to affected areas.

The official New China News Agency reported that the death toll from rioting in Tibet a week ago had risen to 19. China had previously reported that 16 people were killed; the Tibetan government-in-exile, relying on witness testimony, puts the figure at 80.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a critic of Chinese rights abuses, met with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, in the Indian city of Dharmsala, "to shed the bright light of truth on what is happening in Tibet."

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

Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said in an interview with the Bild newspaper that he would urge his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, to clarify the situation. "We want to know exactly what is going on in Tibet," Steinmeier said. "China is only hurting itself by preventing foreign observers from seeing what is going on."

Anti-Chinese protests exploded a week ago in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and spread to other provinces of China with large Tibetan populations. The Chinese government responded with a crackdown by security forces.

On Friday, several of the areas were calm and the heavy police presence had diminished somewhat, witnesses said.

But truckloads of troops continued to converge on the Tibetan autonomous areas in the provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan.

In northwest Yunnan province's Zhongdian county, the owner of a guesthouse said police were patrolling the streets in groups of five or six; last week, they were patrolling with more than 10 officers at a time.

"Domestic tourists can enter, but foreigners cannot. Since 99 percent of my business is foreigners, my business is suffering," said the owner, who gave only his surname, Jiang.

A motorcycle shop owner in Zhongdian said many of the troops he saw Friday were passing through on the way to Tibet. "There are police patrolling the streets and many army trucks transporting soldiers," said the shop owner, who gave only his last name, Hu.

State media described a controlled situation and continued vigilance against the Dalai Lama's political supporters, whom the government calls "separatists."

The People's Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, reported that in Lhasa traffic had returned to normal Friday, most shops and schools had reopened and "the social order was back to normal."

Meanwhile, CCTV, the government-run network, broadcast a program Thursday night with 15 minutes of footage from the crackdown, the longest released so far by government officials.

"I personally tried to guarantee that we didn't cut any violence made by the police toward Tibetans," said Tao Yueqing, who produced the program. "We only cut scenes such as the burned bodies, which belong to five dead girls working for a clothes shop."

Researcher Zhang Jie contributed to this report.

Bush Silent, but Others Speak Out on Tibet

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and SOMINI SENGUPTA

WASHINGTON — China’s violent crackdown on protesters in Tibet is having powerful political reverberations in Washington, where the White House is weighing how far to go in condemning the Chinese government, even as it defends President Bush’s decision to attend the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Mr. Bush has long said the United States and China have “a complex relationship,” and that complexity was on full display this week. While his administration has called for an end to the violence, and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, phoned her Chinese counterpart to urge restraint, Mr. Bush himself has remained silent.

In the meantime, the presidential candidates are speaking out, as is the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. On Friday, Ms. Pelosi visited the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, at his headquarters in Dharamsala, India — and poked a finger in the eye of Beijing.

Describing the clashes in the past week between Chinese security forces and Tibetan demonstrators as “a challenge to conscience of the world,” Ms. Pelosi, Democrat of California, said, “If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression in China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world.”

If it seemed like a direct challenge to Mr. Bush, he did not take the bait.

“At this point, there is no doubt that the Chinese government knows where President Bush stands,” said Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman. He said the White House had no comment on Ms. Pelosi’s visit.

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since 1959, when China crushed an uprising in Tibet, his homeland. He has been pressing, without success, to return to China to advocate for greater cultural and religious freedom for his followers. China, though, has branded him a “splittist” and has accused him of masterminding the current wave of protests — a charge Ms. Pelosi dismissed as nonsense on Friday.

It was unclear what Ms. Pelosi’s visit would yield for Tibetans. But for Ms. Pelosi, the timing was propitious. In front of a horde of television news cameras that had decamped all week to cover the Dalai Lama, she and her husband, Paul, descended the stairs of the main temple to huge applause, the 72-year-old Buddhist monk between them, holding their hands.

Nuns and schoolchildren waved American flags. The Dalai Lama ordered his followers to rise and offer Ms. Pelosi a standing ovation. One man held up a homemade placard that read, “Thank you for recognizing nonviolent struggle.”

The visit provoked a tart response from the Chinese ambassador to India, who depicted it as American interference. “We don’t allow anybody to meddle in China’s internal affairs,” the ambassador, Zhang Yan, told reporters in New Delhi, according to The Press Trust of India. “Any attempt to cause trouble to China is doomed to fail.”

Ms. Pelosi is hardly the only American politician taking China to task. On Friday, Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, traveling in France, warned that China’s behavior was “not acceptable” for a world power. Earlier in the week, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, the two Democratic presidential contenders, issued strong criticisms of China.

Mr. Bush, too, has made a strong show of solidarity with the Dalai Lama. In October, he met privately with the Tibetan leader at the White House and then attended a ceremony at the Capitol, where the Dalai Lama was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. It was the first time the two had appeared in public together, and the White House was well aware of the symbolism.

China analysts say the violence in Tibet demands that the president chart a careful course. “I think to the extent that he can work the issue privately, it’s better, frankly,” said Jeffrey A. Bader, an Asia specialist who worked at the National Security Council under President Clinton. “The public statements just make the Chinese dig in their heels all the more, make them more resolute in their repression.”

American presidents have historically found relations with China to be a delicate dance. But none more so than Mr. Bush, especially since September, when he met with China’s president, Hu Jintao, in Sydney, Australia, and accepted Mr. Hu’s invitation to attend the Beijing Olympics.

Mr. Bush has said that he wants to support American athletes and views the Games as a sporting event, but that he will use his attendance to put pressure on China to improve its human rights record. But human rights advocates have linked the Olympics with violence in the Darfur region of Sudan and have accused Mr. Bush of giving his imprimatur to a country that, in their view, is not exerting enough influence as a major buyer of Sudanese oil to stop what the White House has termed a genocide.

On Capitol Hill, two representatives, Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, and Neil Abercrombie, Democrat of Hawaii, are leading a push for a boycott of the Beijing Games. China analysts, though, say Mr. Bush has little choice but to attend, even if it means a political backlash at home.

“This is China’s coming out party,” said Michael Green, an Asia expert and former Bush administration official. “If he were to cancel, it would be such a loss of face for China that it would make working with them on issues from North Korea to human rights much more difficult.”

So far, Mr. Bush has stood firm.

“I’m going to the Olympics,” the president said last month, when Steven Spielberg, the filmmaker, announced that he was dropping out as an artistic adviser for the Games. “I view the Olympics as a sporting event. On the other hand, I have a little different platform than Steven Spielberg, so I get to talk to President Hu Jintao.”

If the violence in Tibet grows, however, the pressure could increase for Mr. Bush to take some kind of symbolic stand. The French foreign minister said this week that he would entertain the idea of skipping the Olympics opening ceremony — a symbolic gesture that would be less than a full boycott. Mr. Johndroe said such a step was not under discussion at the White House.

“We’re focused on ending the violence now,” he said, “not an event six months from now.”

Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported from Washington, and Somini Sengupta from Dharamsala, India.

Witnesses to Tibet violence describe scenes of horror

Protesters in Lhasa randomly beat and killed ethnic Chinese, and troops fired live ammunition into mostly defenseless crowds.

By Barbara Demick
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

March 22, 2008

BEIJING — On a cloudless day near the top of the world, Swiss tourist Claude Balsiger had just finished a late-morning cup of tea and stepped out onto the streets of Tibet's capital. Buddhist monks had been marching against Chinese rule all week, but today seemed calmer.

Suddenly, Tibetan youths started hurling paving stones at police, who tried to protect themselves with their riot shields.

Over the next few hours, the odor of tear gas and fires replaced the scent of incense wafting from backpacker cafes. The intense Himalayan light was blacked out by smoke. And in the days that followed, violence would spread beyond Lhasa to ethnic Tibetan villages deep inside China and to Chinese embassies worldwide.

China has barred Western journalists from entering Tibet and ethnic Tibetan areas. But interviews with foreign witnesses and Chinese residents, as well as blog postings by Tibetans too frightened to be interviewed, show that during three crucial hours on March 14, woefully unprepared police fled, allowing rioters to burn and smash much of Lhasa's commercial center.

Tibetans randomly beat and killed Chinese solely on the basis of their ethnicity: a young motorcyclist bludgeoned in the head with paving stones and probably killed; a teenage boy in school uniform being dragged by a mob. When authorities did regroup, paramilitary troops fired live ammunition into the crowds. Witnesses did not see protesters armed with anything other than stones, bottles of gasoline or a few traditional Tibetan knives.

Despite a massive deployment of Chinese forces, the protests show no signs of abating. In New Delhi on Friday, Tibetan exiles stormed the Chinese Embassy. And China posted a "most wanted" list of 21 alleged rioters, featuring grainy photographs taken from video shot by a hidden camera.

The death toll of Tibetans had risen to 99 as of Friday, with a 16-year-old girl being shot by police in China's Sichuan County, the Tibetan government in exile said.

Chinese authorities say 19 Chinese have been killed in Lhasa: one police officer and the rest civilians.

Since their homeland was invaded by Chinese communists in 1951, Tibetans have risen up periodically against Beijing's rule. Led by the Dalai Lama, a Buddhist monk and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, their movement has been largely nonviolent. There hadn't been a substantial uprising in Lhasa since the late 1980s, giving the city a reputation as a laid-back Shangri-La.

"Tibetans usually are so calm and friendly, but suddenly they were insane," said Balsiger, 25, a teacher. "They were howling like wolves. . . . It was so brutal, so violent."

March 10, Monday

Everybody is girded for demonstrations today. It is the 49th anniversary of the failed Tibetan revolt in which their leader, the Dalai Lama, fled into exile in India. This year the protests are expected to be bigger because activists hope to use the upcoming Summer Olympics in Beijing to press their case.

Tibetan demonstrations are well-choreographed: Monks, who ran Tibet in pre-communist times, usually take the lead while laypeople try to protect them.

At 6 p.m., a parade of about 300 red-robed monks leaves the 15th century Drepung Monastery, five miles west of downtown Lhasa. Blocked by police from reaching the city, the monks sit for several hours at a checkpoint before dispersing.

At dusk, students and monks stage a second demonstration in the center of Lhasa, making a circle around Barkhor Square and joining hands. The square is filled with uniformed and plainclothes security officials. A young Dutch couple watch police take away six or seven demonstrators.

"Everybody is afraid to speak," the Dutch tourists, Steve Dubois and Ulrike Lakiere, write later on a blog. "Even us, free-born people, not for our sake, but for that of the Tibetans who can get in trouble just by speaking with us."

Balsiger recalls meeting a young Tibetan brother and sister at a cafe. Although he and they have no common language, he understands that they live in fear of Chinese undercover police. They nervously show him that they wear images of the Dalai Lama, which are banned, on strings around their necks, hidden under their clothes.

March 11, Tuesday

Nine monks emerge from the Sera Monastery north of Lhasa carrying a banned Tibetan flag and are almost immediately dragged away by police.

Several hundred more monks come out to demand their release. The paramilitary Chinese People's Liberation Army police disperses the crowd with tear gas.

March 12, Wednesday

Many stores in Lhasa are closed. Tsering Woeser, a Tibetan poet who writes a blog, says two monks at Drepung Monastery slit their wrists in suicide attempts, and monks at Sera Monastery start a hunger strike. Water supplies are cut to many of the monasteries.

A foreign tourist wanders into Sera Monastery at 3 p.m., just as hundreds of monks are rushing out, their hands in the air and in obvious distress. Police surround them.

"They were grabbing monks, kicking and beating them. One monk was kicked in the stomach right in front of us and then beaten on the ground," the tourist later tells BBC.

Paramilitary forces block roads leading out of the remote Ganden Monastery. The Chutsang Nunnery is also surrounded.

March 13, Thursday

Roadblocks are in place around Lhasa. Thousands of paramilitary forces are reported to be searching houses for photographs of the Dalai Lama.

March 14, Friday

Stores reopen. The trouble appears to have passed. But about 11:30 a.m., as the morning prayer finishes at Ramoche Temple, a small Buddhist shrine up a pedestrian street from the main square, police block monks from marching. This time, onlookers start throwing stones at police.

Trucks carrying reinforcements speed down Beijing East Street, the main drag. As soon as police climb out, the stones start flying again. About 20 protesters in their teens and 20s are cheered on by several hundred older Tibetans.

Rioters use their bare hands to pry paving stones loose and hurl them with such ferocity that they crack police shields. The police officers, some of them teenagers themselves, hurry into an alley for cover. The enraged crowd begins to vent its anger on ethnic Chinese passersby.

"At first it was sort of a game. You throw the rocks and you run away," Susan Witmore, a Canadian business consultant who had given herself a trip to Tibet as a 60th birthday present, later recalls. "But then the scene turned incredibly ugly."

A young Chinese motorcyclist is struck by stones. Witmore utters a silent scream to the man, "Keep moving!" but the motorcyclist stops, as if to reason with the mob. Soon his flashy gold helmet is off and the mob is pounding his head with stones and pipes. Witmore, who was watching from the lobby of her hotel, retreats into the courtyard in horror. Other tourists say later that they believe the man was killed.

Balsiger sees the crowd pull a Chinese-looking man off a bicycle. A teenage boy is bludgeoned on the head, but as he staggers, bleeding on the pavement, barely conscious, a tall foreign man steps in and pulls him to safety.

Police flee, and by early afternoon the mobs have the run of the city. They go after Chinese shopkeepers, who these days dominate the commercial life of Lhasa.

"They thought we Han Chinese people were coming to steal from their rice bowls," says the manager of Top of the World Hotel on Ramoche Street, near the temple. She cowers in her courtyard as the crowd sets fire to many of her neighbors' businesses.

The mob is more interested in destroying than looting. Witnesses see cellphones, bicycles, clothing, food and furniture smashed along Beijing East Street. Cars are overturned and set on fire, often topped with burning Chinese flags.

Riots spread to the Muslim quarter, targeting the Hui, Chinese Muslims who have been opening businesses in Tibet. Rioters smash holes through metal shop gates and pour in gasoline. A Muslim family later describes to Chinese journalists how they hid in a bathroom as flames spread around them. The main gate of the mosque is set on fire, but the mob doesn't get inside.

It is not until 4 p.m. that Chinese authorities venture back into the center of Lhasa. What happens next is unclear, because by this time the city is under a strict curfew. According to Tibetan sources, the Public Security Bureau lifts an order restricting the use of live ammunition by the paramilitary forces.

Tibetans say many people are killed in front of the main temple, the Jokhang, and that families come to collect the bodies late at night, offering prayers and strewing traditional white prayer scarves.

"Many of those killed were young Tibetans, both boys and girls," a rioter tells Radio Free Asia. "Those who are dead sacrificed their lives for 6 million Tibetans. My disappointment is that we were not armed."

Amid the raging violence, some Tibetans do step in to help the beleaguered ethnic Chinese.

A 24-year-old Chinese assistant at an optometry shop recalls how a teenage neighbor escorted her home, only to be chastised by a Tibetan security guard who asked, "How can you come back with a Han Chinese?"

The Tibetan girl "was horrified," recalled her Chinese friend. "In her eyes were confusion, perplexion, sorrow and mostly astonishment."

March 15, Saturday

Overnight, soldiers move into the center of Lhasa. By the end of the day, they have the city under control. But protests break out elsewhere. At Labrang Monastery in Xiahe, 750 miles to the northeast, more than 1,000 Tibetans march against the Chinese.

March 16, Sunday

Protesters carrying photos of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan flag stage protests in Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces. In remote Aba County in Sichuan, Tibetans attack a police station and set fire to a market, firetrucks and police cars. Police reportedly fire into the crowd, killing at least eight.

March 17, Monday

Protesters try to storm Chinese embassies and consulates around the world.

"Chinese people have to realize we can't bear any more," says Tenzin Lama, 25, a Tibetan student demonstrating in London. "We will give up our lives to fight for our beliefs. Tibetans won't stop."

barbara.demick@latimes.com

Jia Han, Cathy Gao and Eliot Gao of The Times' Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.

China Tensions Could Sway Vote in Taiwan

By KEITH BRADSHER

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Violent unrest in Tibet has created shock waves in another volatile region on China’s periphery, shaking up the presidential election in Taiwan and sapping support for the candidate Beijing had hoped would win handily.

The suppression of Tibet protests by Chinese security forces, as well as missteps by the Nationalist Party, which Beijing favors, have nearly erased what had seemed like an insuperable lead for Ma Ying-jeou, the Harvard-educated lawyer who has been the front-runner in the race.

Concern that China’s crackdown could herald a tougher line on outlying regions that Beijing claims as sovereign territory, including Taiwan, has become the most contested campaign issue ahead of Saturday’s election.

On Thursday, China acknowledged for the first time that security forces had opened fire on Tibetan protesters in Sichuan Province, while also saying that protests had spread to several areas of China where ethnic Tibetans live.

Even if Mr. Ma wins, the election may now give him a weaker mandate for his goal of pursuing closer economic ties and reduced diplomatic tensions with China.

A loss by Mr. Ma, which campaign analysts say is unlikely but now possible, would be a major setback for China’s leaders. They have cultivated the Nationalists in recent years to undermine Taiwan’s current pro-independence president, Chen Shui-bian, and reduce the chances that his Democratic Progressive Party will hold the presidency after Mr. Chen’s mandatory retirement.

The stirring up of the election on Taiwan, which Beijing has long considered its top national security priority, is a potentially heavy price for the Tibetan unrest and the ensuing police action. Beijing also faces a stronger international outcry over its human rights record and scattered calls to boycott the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games, which China hopes will showcase the country’s rapid development.

Both the Nationalists and the Democratic Progressive Party promise to reduce tensions between Taiwan and China. But China has been wary of the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate, Frank Hsieh, who inherits a volatile coalition that includes many native Taiwanese who favor outright independence from China.

Mr. Hsieh and his party, with help from Mr. Chen’s ministers, have moved swiftly to turn Tibet into a central campaign issue. They contend that Tibet’s fate is a warning of Taiwan’s future if it does not stand up to Beijing.

“What has happened in Tibet in the past three decades, and what is going on now, is a warning to us,” said Shieh Jhy-wey, the minister of information and a Democratic Progressive Party member who takes a hard line toward Beijing. “We don’t want to have the same fate as Tibet.”

Mr. Hsieh abruptly turned a campaign rally in Taipei on Wednesday night into a candlelight vigil for Tibetans who have been killed, injured or detained during the Chinese crackdown. Party activists unfurled a huge Tibetan flag, and Tibetan students sang a Tibetan anthem.

A huge television screen at the rally showed a documentary on Tibetan history provided by the Taiwan office of the Dalai Lama, as well as a short video of Chinese soldiers mistreating Tibetans. Mr. Hsieh’s running mate, Su Tseng-chang, has scheduled a “Support Tibet” rally for Friday morning while Mr. Hsieh has scheduled a “Protect Taiwan Democracy” election-eve rally in Taipei for Friday.

With politicians from both parties concluding that the Tibet issue is hurting the Nationalists, Mr. Ma has focused on damage control. To the surprise of many even in his own party, he warned this week that Taiwan might boycott the Olympics if the Chinese crackdown in Tibet turned more draconian and if conditions there deteriorated further.

Known for his gentlemanly style, his reluctance to engage in personal attacks on political adversaries and his long-held desire for more cordial relations with the mainland, Mr. Ma has also rushed to distance himself from Beijing by using uncharacteristically harsh language.

When Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China said Tuesday that Taiwan’s future should be decided by people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and not just by Taiwan residents, Mr. Ma condemned what he described as a “ruthless, irrational, arrogant, foolish and self-righteous comment.” Mr. Hsieh has rejected any boycott of the Olympics.

Opinion polls showed Mr. Ma with a lead of up to 20 percentage points last week; Taiwan’s election laws do not allow the release of polls during the final 10 days before voting.

But surveys by both parties show that more than half of that lead has evaporated. Mr. Ma is now ahead by a more slender margin because of Tibet and because of an embarrassing incident in which four Nationalist lawmakers were caught roaming through the Democratic Progressive Party’s headquarters, politicians and political analysts said.

The closer race has reinvigorated the Democratic Progressive Party, which had been deeply gloomy after badly losing a January vote for the legislature. “We have narrowed the gap significantly since January and I believe the final outcome will be very close,” said Hsiao Bi-khim, the international affairs director of Mr. Hsieh’s campaign.

Su Chi, a Nationalist lawmaker and deputy campaign manager for Mr. Ma, said that Mr. Ma’s lead had narrowed in the last few days, but added that this was to be expected.

Many Democratic Progressive Party supporters did not vote in the legislative elections because they were disillusioned with corruption cases involving the current government, but they are now becoming more active as Mr. Hsieh has campaigned aggressively, Mr. Su said, adding that he still thought Mr. Ma would win.

Government ministers have helped Mr. Hsieh by repeatedly drawing attention to the difficulties in Tibet.

At a news conference on Thursday, Chen Ming-tong, the chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, the ministry responsible for relations with the mainland, called for the international community to put more pressure on China to begin a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, the leader of Tibet’s government in exile.

Mr. Hsieh received an influential endorsement on Thursday. Lee Teng-hui, a former Nationalist president of Taiwan who now favors much greater political independence from the mainland, said he would vote for Mr. Hsieh.

The Nationalists and two affiliated minor parties captured three-quarters of the seats in the legislature in January’s elections, in a crushing defeat for the Democratic Progressive Party. The Nationalists’ capitalized on voters’ concerns about stagnant household incomes and paralysis in contacts with the fast-growing mainland economy — two potent issues that could still produce a victory for Mr. Ma on Saturday.

But the incident at Mr. Hsieh’s offices last week helped his party warn voters against giving too much power to the opposition. Four Nationalist lawmakers roamed through Mr. Hsieh’s offices in an attempt to document whether the building lease complied with election laws.

Mr. Hsieh’s aides trapped the four in an elevator, accused them of trespassing and called the police. A crowd of Democratic Progressive Party supporters formed and smashed the windshield of one of the police cars that rescued the four; Mr. Ma has apologized repeatedly since then.

Mr. Hsieh has staked out a more moderate position toward Beijing than Mr. Chen has. Mr. Ma has taken positions similar to Mr. Hsieh’s on economic issues, and he said that he would not seek political reunification with the mainland, still the goal of many Nationalists.

Many of the two men’s proposals, like direct flights to China, would require talks with Beijing, and are more likely to happen if Mr. Ma is elected because mainland officials have been reluctant to have formal contacts with the Democratic Progressive Party.

China's Patchy Tibet Blackout

Officials Control Domestic News, Hasten to Spin Outside Reports

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 20, 2008; A08

BEIJING, March 20 -- As news reverberated around the world that bloody disturbances had erupted in Tibet, a star journalist for a leading Chinese newsmagazine was asked if he had any good sources in the remote mountain region. "Why?" he asked, unaware that anything was going on.

The reporter's reaction was not unusual. When rioting by outraged Tibetans shook Lhasa last Friday, the Communist Party's censorship apparatus tamped down news of the rampage, leaving most of China's 1.3 billion people in the dark. Government-controlled television news ignored the crisis for the first few days, and Chinese newspapers were restricted to skeleton dispatches from the official New China News Agency.

The immediate clampdown illustrated the party's abiding determination to control the flow of information in China, which officials regard as an important way for President Hu Jintao and his lieutenants to retain their monopoly on power.

But the party's subsequent moves, loosening controls this week to allow officially supervised reporting, also showed how difficult traditional censorship has become in an age of cellphones, Internet connections and satellite TV.

The Tibetan crisis, which drew global attention, in some ways constituted a test case for the Chinese government, which in January last year issued a regulation allowing foreign correspondents to report without official interference until after the Beijing Olympics this August. For human rights and press freedom activists, the results were disappointing.

Domestic reporting was first blocked by censors, they noted, then carefully oriented to depict Tibetan protesters in a bad light and the exiled Dalai Lama as a hypocritical agitator willing to spill blood to further his political aims, despite his advocacy of nonviolence. Reporting by foreign correspondents, which is not censored, was nevertheless restricted by security forces, who sealed off travel to Tibet and expelled foreign reporters from other areas where ethnic Tibetans mounted protests, including Beijing's Central University for Nationalities.

A dozen Hong Kong television reporters who made it into Lhasa on the strength of their Chinese passports were expelled Sunday after local officials burst into their hotel rooms and demanded they turn over all photographs and video footage of what was going on in the streets. But by then, they had transmitted images to their stations back in Hong Kong, which were then relayed on television news around the world.

"China has not kept any of the promises it made in 2001 when it was chosen to host these Olympics," said Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based press freedom advocacy group. "Instead, the government is crushing the Tibetan protests and is imposing a news blackout."

People's Daily, the main party newspaper, set the tone for the first stage of censorship. On Saturday, the day after 13 Han Chinese were killed by pillaging Tibetan monks and lay youths in Lhasa, it published two paragraphs on its back page under the headline, "Tibet Autonomous Region's authorities respond to New China News Agency reporter's questions."

"In the last few days, an extremely small minority of people in Lhasa carried out beating, smashing, robbery and burning activities, disrupting social order, endangering the lives, property and safety of the people and the masses," the dispatch quoted officials as saying. "There is ample proof that this was organized, plotted and masterminded by the Dalai Lama clique."

The next day's People's Daily carried no news at all on Tibet. China Daily, the party's English-language newspaper aimed at foreign residents, followed suit in its weekend edition, blaming the Dalai Lama and quoting an official saying, "The sabotage has aroused the indignation of, and is strongly condemned by, the people of all ethnic groups in Tibet."

Many Chinese, including those who had learned of the extent of the violence from foreign reports, seemed to take the censorship as a matter of course. Inured after years of such controls, most Chinese long ago lost any sense of indignation at being deprived of straight news by party censors.

Those who want more information -- and who have the means -- have learned to seek outside reporting on the Internet or to watch the news on Phoenix TV, a Hong Kong-based satellite station that broadcasts into China in Mandarin. Phoenix news programs have traditionally maneuvered between Hong Kong's free press atmosphere and the realities of Beijing's power over the owners. The result has been broadcasts that skirt the most sensitive issues but report more thoroughly than mainland television.

"We saw it all on Phoenix TV, burned shops and everything," said a retired hospital director whose Beijing home has cable service on a limited basis and who, like others questioned about censorship, was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Despite the party's strictures at home, reporting from abroad filtered into China swiftly. Broadcasts by CNN and the BBC, available in hotels and in apartment complexes housing foreigners, were cut off only sporadically by Chinese authorities, including a news conference by the Dalai Lama on Sunday from Dharmsala, India.

By Monday, in the face of the crescendo of news from abroad over the weekend, the party had changed tactics and gone on the offensive.

Champa Phuntsok, the Tibetan regional governor, was flown to Beijing to meet with reporters in a hastily organized news conference. He blamed the Dalai Lama for the outburst and urged those who had committed arson and pillaging to turn themselves in.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao held a second news conference Monday evening, using identical language to excoriate the Dalai Lama and reiterate that the issue was not Tibetan human rights and freedom of expression but Chinese territorial sovereignty.

Newspapers were authorized to report on the comments by Champa Phuntsok and Liu, and the official Central China Television began broadcasting images of the damage, with emphasis on the injuries to Han Chinese and the damage to their businesses. By Thursday, Chinese state media were reporting that protests had spread to provinces beyond Tibet.

Resorting again to what appeared to be coordinated language by Beijing officials stepping up to the cameras, Premier Wen Jiabao pressed the offensive Tuesday in his annual news conference at the close of the National People's Congress's two-week session. "They wanted to incite the sabotage of the Olympic Games to achieve their unspeakable goal," he said of the rioters.

Asked by a foreign correspondent why journalists were not allowed to travel to Tibet to cover what was happening, Wen assured his questioner that everything was returning to normal and suggested that, soon, the government would organize a reporting trip for correspondents.

Tibet unrest tests India

New Delhi's delicate balance between relations with China and ties with the Dalai Lama is unsettled.
By Henry Chu
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

March 20, 2008

NEW DELHI — One party feels caught in the middle amid the heated clashes and the battle for public opinion between the Chinese government and pro-Tibet activists: India.

The crisis in Tibet has forced New Delhi into a difficult diplomatic balancing act that pits its improving ties with Beijing against its longstanding relationship with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who has made India his base of operations for more than half a century.

The Dalai Lama's presence, and that of the Tibetan government in exile, in the Himalayan city of Dharamsala has long been a source of friction between the two Asian giants. New Delhi's cautious solution has been to provide sanctuary to what the Beijing government insists on calling the "Dalai clique," but to demand that the Tibetans refrain from anti-China activities on Indian soil.

That fragile formula has come under increasing strain from the violent protests that have erupted in Tibet against Chinese rule and the bloody crackdown unleashed in response. India is now under competing pressure to speak out against the clampdown, on the one hand, and, on the other, to restrain some of the rhetoric and activities of Tibetan exiles here.

So far, critics say, India's official statements have been tepid.

The Foreign Ministry says it is "distressed" by the violence in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and has called for the crisis to be resolved "through dialogue and nonviolent means." At the same time, it has reminded activists here that they, "while they are in India, are expected to refrain from political activities and those activities that affect our relations with other friendly countries."

On Wednesday, the Tibetan parliament in exile, fresh from a meeting in Dharamsala, converged here in the Indian capital and held a one-day fast to focus attention on the plight of those back in their homeland.

One parliament member, Youdon Aukatsang, urged India, as the world's most populous democracy, to take a stronger stand.

"They should strongly condemn what's happening inside Tibet. They haven't done that. This is a gross human rights violation," she said. "I don't expect them to take any covert action or anything like that, but at least [make] forceful statements. It's their moral duty."

At least 100,000 Tibetan refugees live in India, more than anywhere else in the world, with thousands more arriving every year. Beyond sheer numbers, the Indian government also is struggling with the fact that many Tibetans here, especially youths, have grown increasingly militant in favor of independence for their homeland. The Dalai Lama, however, endorses greater autonomy for Tibet under Chinese suzerainty.

In recent days, protesters have mounted raucous anti-China protests in Dharamsala, at times burning the Chinese flag and cursing the Beijing government on national television.

Aukatsang acknowledged the increasing polarization of opinion within the Tibetan diaspora, which the Dalai Lama has struggled to hold together with his message of nonviolent dissent. The government in exile announced Wednesday that it was creating an umbrella "Tibet Crisis Committee" to oversee pro-Tibet movements worldwide.

"We are concerned about the growing frustrations among younger Tibetans especially, but the government [in exile] will never endorse violence," Aukatsang said. "Nonviolence is our philosophy."

The Indian government is eager not to upset the small gains it has made in recent years in improving ties with China. Hostility stemming from a border war in 1962 and ongoing territorial disputes has gradually eased as trade grows between the two booming economies.

In 2003, the Indian government recognized Tibet as part of China in exchange for Chinese recognition of the contested state of Sikkim, adjacent to Tibet, as part of India. Two years ago, the historic road linking the two sides, high on a mountain pass, was reopened as a trading route.

"Relations with China are improving. We're making some cautious moves in settling our issues," said Mohan Guruswamy, director of the Center for Policy Alternatives here.

The Indian government has "a carefully calibrated policy" on Tibet, he said. "We don't want something small to snowball into something big."

Last week, Indian authorities arrested a group of Tibetan activists who had vowed to march all the way to Tibet to protest the Olympic Games due to be held in Beijing in August. Aukatsang said that Indian police had also detained demonstrators who protested outside the Chinese Embassy here.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, while acknowledging Tibet as a sensitive bilateral issue, publicly thanked New Delhi for the "steps taken by the Indian government in handling Tibetan independence activities masterminded by the Dalai clique."

Not just Tibetan activists but some Indian leaders as well have accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of being soft on China.

Thupstan Chhewang, a member of parliament from the Himalayan region of Ladakh, bordering China, called on the government to press the United Nations to mount an international inquiry on the situation in Tibet.

"India should come out very strongly in support of the Tibetan people," Chhewang said. "Most of the people in India support the cause of freedom."

henry.chu@latimes.com

China plays victim for its audience

Government media images of Tibetans as the aggressors stoke support at home.

By Mark Magnier
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

March 17, 2008

LANZHOU, CHINA — Even as China faces global criticism for its crackdown on Tibetan Buddhists, it's winning the battle that it most cares about: support for its policies among Chinese back home.

One key factor is a media strategy that, while still blunt and heavily reliant on censorship and propaganda, shows more nuance than usual for the lumbering Communist Party.

This last week the government has used something it traditionally viewed as a big negative, any suggestion that it's not in total control, to its advantage by going large with print, still and video coverage of Tibetans attacking Han Chinese in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, and destroying their property.

Not only does this rather ironically paint the Chinese state and its massive police force as something of a victim, analysts said, but it also stirs up feelings of fear and anger among many Han, the nation's majority population, that add a personal dimension to the riots.

At a political level, the coverage has also bolstered the government's assertion that its archenemy, the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, is masterminding the protests from abroad and the atheist government's long-standing contention that Tibetan monks are anything but neutral, nonpolitical and peace-loving.

Many of the videos of the riots on the state-run CCTV website have been shot and edited to point up crimson-robed monks bashing and burning with the best of the mob. And to the extent the Dalai Lama has stopped short of outright condemning the monks and the protest, China gains points.

"In this crisis, their strategy has been pretty effective," said Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at UC Berkeley. "They've been able to portray it as 'we Chinese' versus 'they Tibetans' and seen public opinion go their way."

This policy is a case of making a virtue of necessity given that absolute control of information has become increasingly difficult.

The state's information guardians have also picked up a few other tricks. They're using more individual stories of Han families who were victimized in Tibet, aware that a personal narrative is far more powerful than vague propaganda language. And they've sprinkled their official dispatches with such terminology as "bloggers," "netizens" and "blogosphere" to look more current and inclusive.

At the same time, the approach is more of a paint job than a renovation as China's propaganda ministry continues to use many traditional tactics honed in dusty Soviet offices decades ago.

Unrest is blamed on "outside" elements, Tibetans are urged to report on other "troublemakers" and there are hints, although no guarantees, of leniency for those who turn themselves in.

On other fronts, the "Great Firewall," China's Internet filtering and monitoring system, has been in overdrive during the last week, deleting comments furiously and blocking Internet searches of such terms as "Tibet," "Lhasa," "demonstration" and "March 14" -- the day of protests in which at least 10 people were killed.

Some pro-government comments have found their way onto the Internet, though many are anonymous and there is no fast way to determine their origin.

"I strongly condemn the Dalai clique trying to undermine China's prosperity," said an anonymous posting from the southern city of Guangzhou on the popular Sohu portal.

Independent views opposing the government are strongly discouraged. The government has banned travel by foreigners to Tibet.

"The control strategy comes from the very top and it's well orchestrated," Xiao said. "It's more intense than I've ever seen."

Although international opinion is important, particularly as Beijing prepares to hold the Olympics in August, all politics are local, even in China. And for the party, maintaining its monopoly political grip on its far-flung empire is central to its strategy and continued existence, underscoring its vow that Tibet will never be allowed independence.

The strategy has been well received among members of the country's often strongly nationalist Chinese-language community. The government "should send more auxiliary police and arm each one with a rubber stick" against protesters, said a post on the Internet bulletin board Douban.

The themes of national unity and respect for the integrity of the motherland have also struck a chord with many in the more sophisticated overseas Chinese Internet community.

"The government has done well," said Robert Liu, a blogger who has been studying economics in the U.S. for the last six months. "They're doing better and have a more mature approach, although they still have a long way to go."

Growing domestic support of its policies gives the Chinese government political cover to restore order to the restive ethnically Tibetan areas of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai and Gansu provinces as it sees fit, knowing that accounts of heavy-handed tactics will inevitably surface in an increasingly porous society.

This is a different dynamic than in 1989 when many Chinese identified with the students rather than the government in Tiananmen Square.

Images of Tibetan rioting are also being employed to bolster the government's core message that foreign human rights groups and activists such as the Dalai Lama are bent on ruining the Olympics to keep China down. The Dalai Lama said Sunday that China deserves to host the Olympics and that the Games should not be boycotted.

Although China lacks the democratic institutions, vocal critics or opinion polls that would gauge the effectiveness of its strategy and public perception of its Tibet policies, one indicator may be its censorship of coverage by television networks BBC and CNN inside the country.

Instead of blacking out all such Tibet reports, leading to long and annoying instances of blank screens early in the week, the government allowed more of them to air as the week wore on. A BBC report that aired Sunday in Beijing ran 20 minutes, including a five-minute excerpt with the Dalai Lama.

"The government is showing more confidence and learning more about spin," said Michael Anti, a well-known Chinese blogger on a Nieman fellowship this year at Harvard. "They've learned more PR tactics from Western people. They see the way the White House and the Pentagon do it."

mark.magnier@latimes.com

Gao Jing of The Times' Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.

China declares "people's war" for stability in Tibet

By Chris Buckley and Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters) - China gave Tibetan independence protesters an ultimatum to surrender on Saturday after riots in Lhasa which killed at least 10 people in the worst unrest in the region for two decades.

The tough response by the Chinese authorities came after fierce protests on Friday which contradicted China's claims of stability and tarnished a carefully-nurtured image of national harmony as it readies to stage the Olympic Games in August.

Official Tibetan judicial authorities gave protesters until Monday night to turn themselves in and benefit from leniency.

"Criminals who do not surrender themselves by the deadline will be sternly punished according to the law," said a notice on the Tibetan government Web site (www.tibet.gov.cn).

International pressure mounted on Beijing to show restraint. Australia, the United States and Europe urged China to find a peaceful outcome, while Taiwan, which China claims as its own, predictably condemned Beijing for launching a crackdown.

Xinhua news agency said 10 "innocent civilians" had been shot or burned to death in the street clashes in the remote, mountain capital which has been sealed off. The dead included two people killed by shotguns.

Xinhua said 12 police officers had been "gravely injured" and 22 buildings and dozens of vehicles were set on fire.

A source close to the Tibetan government-in-exile, however, questioned the official death toll of 10. He said at least five Tibetan protesters had been shot dead by troops.

Some Tibet monitoring organizations outside the country put the death toll at up to 32.

The riots emerged from a volatile mix of pre-Olympics protests, diplomatic friction over Tibet and local discontent with the harsh ways of the region's Communist Party leadership.

The protests, the worst since 1989 in the disputed region, have thrust China's role as Olympic host and its policy towards Tibet back into the international spotlight.

A rash of angry blog posts appeared after the deaths were confirmed. Hollywood actor Richard Gere, a Buddhist and an activist for Tibetan causes, urged an Olympics boycott.

Official statements suggested the government reaction in coming days would be tough, with Tibetan Buddhist monasteries -- traditional focal point of opposition to Beijing's rule -- and nunneries being brought under tighter control.

PUNISHMENT AND REWARDS

The regional communist-controlled government said those who harbored protesters would be punished and offered rewards and protection to informers. Tibet television urged residents to denounce the "malicious intent" of the Dalai Lama.

Tibetan crowds in Lhasa attacked government offices, burned vehicles and shops and threw stones at police in Friday's confrontations. Many people were injured.

Chinese television showed footage of rioters trashing shops and trying to break down the entrance of a bank, and plumes of smoke floating above the city.

A Reuters picture showed a protester setting on fire a Chinese national flag. Another depicted security personnel shielding themselves against rocks hurled by protesters.

Qiangba Puncog, the top government official in Tibet, told reporters in Beijing that Tibetan authorities had not fired any shots to quell the violence.

John Ackerly, of the International Campaign for Tibet, said in an e-mailed statement he feared "hundreds of Tibetans have been arrested and are being interrogated and tortured".

Hundreds of angry young Tibetans protested on Saturday in Dharamsala, home to Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and the refugees' "government-in-exile".

Not far from where the Dalai Lama was recovering from a cold and keeping up his lifetime routine of praying for peace, the crowd of young Tibetans gathered to vent their rage.

The crowd tore apart a flaming effigy of Chinese President Hu Jintao in normally peaceful Dharamsala in the Indian Himalayas and the protesters decided to march to New Delhi.

A Western tourist said that Lhasa itself was like a ghost town on Saturday, though it was packed with Chinese soldiers.

China has accused followers of the Dalai Lama of engineering unrest in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. The Olympic torch relay will pass through Tibet in a few weeks time.

Although the Dalai Lama was resting after falling ill with a cold, he released a statement condemning the "brute force" of China on Friday and will meet with journalists on Sunday.

"He is a monk so he follows his routine," explained Chhime Chhoekyapa, the Dalai Lama's spokesman. That includes listening to news on the radio. "He said it's very sad," said Chhoekyapa. "As a Buddhist he prays for peace."

The Free Tibet Campaign organization cited eyewitnesses as saying that thousands marched on government buildings in Xiahe, an ethnic Tibetan area of China, and raised a Tibetan national flag at a school.

In Lhasa, Danish tourist Bente Walle, 58, said: "Today Lhasa is completely closed and there is Chinese military all over."

(Additional reporting by Guo Shipeng, Nick Mulvenney, Ben Blanchard and Lindsay Beck in Beijing, John Ruwitch in Chengdu and Sophie Taylor in Shanghai)

(Editing by Peter Millership)

Chinese Forces Say They’ve Secured Tibet’s Capital

By JIM YARDLEY

BEIJING — Thousands of Buddhist monks and other Tibetans clashed with the riot police in a second Chinese city on Saturday, while the authorities said they had regained control of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, a day after a rampaging mob ransacked shops and set fire to cars and storefronts in a deadly riot.

Conflicting reports emerged about the violence in Lhasa on Friday. The Chinese authorities denied that they had fired on protesters there, but Tibetan leaders in India told news agencies on Saturday that they had confirmed that 30 Tibetans had died and that they had unconfirmed reports that put the number at more than 100.

Demonstrations erupted for the second consecutive day in the city of Xiahe in Gansu Province, where an estimated 4,000 Tibetans gathered near the Labrang Monastery. Local monks had held a smaller protest on Friday, but the confrontation escalated Saturday afternoon, according to witnesses and Tibetans in India who spoke with protesters by telephone.

Residents in Xiahe, reached by telephone, heard loud noises similar to gunshots or explosions. A waitress described the scene as “chaos” and said many injured people had been sent to a local hospital. Large numbers of military police and security officers fired tear gas while Tibetans hurled rocks, according to the Tibetans in India.

“Their slogans were, ‘The Dalai Lama must return to Tibet’ and ‘Tibetans need to have human rights in Tibet,’ ” said Jamyang, a Tibetan in Dharamsala, India, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, who spoke to protesters.

The violence in Lhasa and Xiahe has created a major political and public relations challenge for the ruling Communist Party as Beijing prepares to play host to the Olympic Games in August. The demonstrations are the largest in Tibet since 1989, when Chinese troops used lethal force to crush an uprising by thousands of Tibetan protesters.

China’s response to this week’s demonstrations is being watched carefully by the outside world. The European Union and the United States have both called on China to act with restraint. The White House called on China to “respect Tibetan culture” and issued a renewed call for dialogue between Beijing and the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

The tumult also undercuts a theme regularly promoted by China’s propaganda officials — that Tibetans are a happy minority group, smoothly integrated into the country’s broader ethnic fabric.

“What we see right now, what is happening in Tibet, blows the whole propaganda strategy in Tibet wide open,” said Lhadon Tethong, an official with the advocacy group Students for a Free Tibet.

On Saturday the Chinese authorities defended their response to the violence in Lhasa. “We fired no gunshots,” said Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Government, according to state media.

But Tibetan advocacy groups and witnesses in Lhasa offered contradictory accounts. The Tibetan government in exile said at least 30 Tibetans died in the protests, according to Agence France-Presse. Witnesses told Radio Free Asia, the nonprofit news agency financed by the United States government, that numerous Tibetans were dead. A 13-year-old Tibetan boy, reached by telephone, said he watched the violence from his apartment and saw four or five Tibetans fall to the ground after military police officers fired upon them.

Foreign journalists are being restricted from traveling to Lhasa, and the precise death toll remains unknown. State media reported 10 deaths and characterized most of them as shopkeepers. The government’s official news agency, Xinhua, reported that the victims had been “burned to death.”

The demonstrations in Lhasa began Monday and continued through Wednesday as peaceful protests by Buddhist monks from three different monasteries. Some monks protested against religious restrictions while others demanded an end to Chinese rule and even waved the Tibetan flag. The police arrested scores of monks and then reportedly tightened security around the three monasteries so that monks could not leave.

Initially, the protests were largely ignored in the Chinese media, which was providing blanket coverage of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, the Communist Party-controlled national legislature. When reports of violent riots began trickling out of Lhasa on Friday afternoon, the Chinese media was silent.

But with growing international concern about the protests, and reports that Chinese security forces had attacked monks, the Xinhua news agency issued a short statement blaming rioters for the violence. By Saturday morning, China’s state television network, CCTV, was broadcasting video of Tibetans burning buildings as anchors read directly from a Xinhua report that blamed the Dalai Lama for the violence.

Chinese officials demanded the surrender of the “lawbreakers” in Lhasa and offered leniency to people who turned themselves into the authorities by midnight Monday. Senior officials described the unrest as “sabotage” orchestrated by the Dalai Lama and credited the military police for rescuing 580 people from banks, schools and hospitals that were set afire by rioters.

Gen. Yang Deqing of the People’s Liberation Army said Chinese soldiers would not be deployed and the protests were being handled by local police officers and the country’s paramilitary force, the People’s Armed Police.

“We’ll let the police and the military police handle the disturbance,” General Yang said at the National People’s Congress, where he was a delegate. “We won’t be involved.”

Witnesses in Lhasa on Saturday reported seeing large numbers of military police, armored vehicles and, according to a few reports, tanks.

Several residents, reached by telephone, said that an uneasy calm had settled over the city. Tibetans living in the suburbs said officers were blocking people from entering the city center. Local television broadcast instructions. Power and telephone service, suspended in some neighborhoods on Friday, were being restored on Saturday. Traffic was light on city streets, while most shops were closed.

“It is all under control now,” said one resident, who identified himself as Mr. Liu and who lives near the old part of the city where the violence started. “We were notified to stay at home last night.”

It is still uncertain what set off Friday’s unrest. Tibetan advocates say ordinary Tibetans began rioting after military police officers attacked monks trying to protest outside a monastery in the center of the city.

The extent of the violence was evident in photographs and video shown on the Internet: fires raging from rooftops and from charred vehicles, shattered storefronts and huge crowds trolling city streets.

News agencies reported that foreign tourists are now being prohibited from entering Tibet. The United States Embassy in Beijing issued a new warning on Saturday advising American citizens about danger in Lhasa and other regions.

Huang Yuanxi and Zhang Jing contributed research from Beijing.

Violence in Tibet as Monks Clash With the Police

By JIM YARDLEY

BEIJING — Violence erupted Friday morning in a busy market area of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, as Buddhist monks and other ethnic Tibetans brawled with Chinese security forces in bloody clashes. Witnesses said angry Tibetan crowds burned shops, cars, military vehicles and at least one tourist bus. State media said at least 10 people died.

The chaotic scene was the latest, and most violent, confrontation in a series of protests that began on Monday and now represent a major challenge to the ruling Communist Party as it prepares to play host to the Olympic Games in August. By Saturday morning, Chinese armored vehicles were reportedly patrolling the center of the city.

Beijing is facing the most serious and prolonged demonstrations in Tibet since the late 1980s, when it suppressed a rebellion there with lethal force that left scores, and possibly hundreds, of ethnic Tibetans dead. The leadership is clearly alarmed that a wave of negative publicity could disrupt its elaborate plans for the Olympics and its hopes that the games will showcase its rising influence and prosperity rather than domestic turmoil.

Thousands of Buddhists in neighboring India and Nepal took to the streets Friday in solidarity. Concerned that the protests might spread elsewhere in China, the authorities appeared to be moving the military police into other regions with large Tibetan populations.

Roughly 1,000 special police officers were deployed in the town of Bamei, in Sichuan Province, the site of a temple sacred to Tibetans, witnesses said by telephone on Friday. Residents in Lhasa, reached by telephone, said the authorities had placed much of the city under a curfew by Friday night while military police officers were blocking many city streets. One resident reported seeing armored vehicles in the center of the city.

The United States Embassy in Beijing warned American citizens on Friday not to travel to Lhasa. The embassy said it had “received firsthand reports from American citizens in the city who report gunfire and other indications of violence.”

In a meeting in Beijing on Friday, the United States ambassador to China, Clark Randt, urged Chinese officials to act with restraint, “and not resort to use of force in dealing with the protesters,” the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, told reporters.

The Chinese authorities blamed the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, for the violence and said the government would maintain stability in Lhasa. “The government of Tibet Autonomous Region said Friday there had been enough evidence to prove that the recent sabotage was ‘organized, premeditated and masterminded’ by the Dalai clique,” reported Xinhua, the Chinese government’s official news agency.

The Dalai Lama released a statement on Friday calling on both sides to avoid violence and appealing to China’s leaders to “address the long simmering resentment of the Tibetan people through dialogue with the Tibetan people.” A spokesman for the Dalai Lama called China’s accusations “absolutely baseless.”

The situation in Lhasa represents a complicated predicament for the Communist Party, which is now holding its annual meeting of the National People’s Congress in Beijing. Party leaders are already grappling with growing criticism of China’s domestic human rights record and its ties to Sudan, which the United States has accused of waging a genocidal campaign in its Darfur region.

In the past China has not hesitated to crush major protests in Tibet or to jail disobedient monks. President Hu Jintao, who is also the general secretary of the Communist Party, served as party boss in Tibet during a violent crackdown in 1989. His support for the bloody suppression of unrest that year earned him the good will of Deng Xiaoping, then the paramount leader, and led directly to his elevation to the Politburo Standing Committee and eventually to China’s top leadership posts.

But Chinese leaders may be more reluctant to order such heavy-handed tactics as Beijing prepares for the Olympics. On Friday, different accounts emerged about how the Chinese military police in Lhasa handled the demonstrations.

Radio Free Asia, a nonprofit news agency financed by the United States government, quoted Tibetan witnesses who described police officers firing into crowds of protesters and killing at least two people in the city’s ancient Barkhor area. On Saturday morning, Radio Free Asia quoted witnesses who described seeing dead bodies around Lhasa.

Later on Saturday Xinhua reported 10 deaths had been confirmed.

A Chinese resident in Lhasa, reached by telephone, said stories were circulating among local Chinese that soldiers had been wounded and had not been allowed to fight back against Tibetans throwing rocks. Another Chinese man living near the Barkhor area said family members had told him that two soldiers died and that Tibetans were beating Chinese residents with iron rods.

Friday’s sharp escalation in violence, and the sense of dread described by several residents, came a day after China’s Foreign Ministry told reporters that the situation in Lhasa had stabilized. The protest started Monday when Buddhist monks began peaceful protests against religious restrictions by Chinese authorities. The police arrested 50 or 60 monks, but other protests followed Tuesday and Wednesday as monks in two different monasteries took to the streets.

The apparent epicenter of Friday’s protests was the Tromsikhang Market, a large, concrete structure built in the Barkhor area by the Chinese authorities in the early 1990s. “It’s chaos in the streets,” said a person who answered the telephone at a bread shop near the market.

What actually set off the violence is unclear, as accounts differed between Chinese and Tibetan residents. Monks from the Ramoche Temple, a short walk from the market, reportedly began to march in the Barkhor area. The Ramoche monks intended to protest the rough treatment of monks who had marched earlier in the week, according to a Tibetan rights advocate in the United States who has communicated with people in Lhasa.

When police officers began beating the monks, Tibetans rioted in the Barkhor area, the advocate said. Angry mobs set fire to a police car and a store owned by a Chinese shopkeeper, said the advocate, who refused to be publicly identified for fear of reprisals.

But a Chinese travel agent in Lhasa, reached by telephone, said Tibetans had instigated the violence and set fire to an empty tour bus parked outside the Ramoche Temple. Another Chinese resident described 50 or 60 young Tibetans burning stores owned by Chinese merchants as well as two fire trucks and two police cars.

“I saw someone who was dead and covered in a sheet,” the Chinese resident said in a telephone interview. “The Tromsikhang market was destroyed, except for the shops owned by Tibetans. I heard a soldier shouting, ‘Please go home and stop fighting!’ ”

News agencies also reported clashes between monks from Ramoche Temple and military police officers. “The monks are still protesting,” one witness told The Associated Press. “Police and army cars were burned. There are people crying. Hundreds of people, including monks and civilians, are in the protests.”

Radio Free Asia reported that Tibetan protesters were waving traditional white scarves and shouting, “Free Tibet.” The agency said the riots began about 10 a.m. and had largely quieted down by 3:30 p.m., after the paramilitary police were mobilized.

Meanwhile, anxious tourists stranded in Lhasa posted worried comments on online forums for travelers. “The situation seems to be very nervous and paranoid up here,” wrote one person in broken and misspelled English in a chat room sponsored by the Lonely Planet tour guide. “There is police and military everwher. Suddenly you would see policeman running and rushig somewhere”

The ethnic friction evident in Friday’s violence has long simmered just below the surface in Lhasa. For more than two decades, a steady influx of Chinese migrants has transformed and stratified the city. A newer, Chinese section of Lhasa is focused along Beijing Road and is lined with shops and concrete buildings.

But the older Tibetan neighborhoods emanate from the Jokhang, the most sacred temple in Tibet, and the Potala Palace, the former residence of the Dalai Lama. Tibetans also have complained that Chinese merchants now control most of the tourist shops in the Barkhor area.

The protests in Lhasa coincided with the anniversary of a failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule that forced the Dalai Lama to flee to India. Groups that promote Tibetan independence have marked the anniversary with demonstrations around the world, including in India, where a group of advocates tried to march to Tibet.

But the unexpected demonstrations in Lhasa are the largest Tibetan protests against Chinese rule since 1989. Military police officers and soldiers are now reportedly surrounding the three monasteries that were at the center of the protests earlier this week. Two monks have reportedly tried to kill themselves, while pro-Tibetan groups say others have started a hunger strike.

In its travel warning, the United States Embassy in Beijing advised American tourists in Lhasa to “seek safe havens in hotels and other buildings and remain indoors.”

“All care should be taken to avoid unnecessary movement within the city until the situation is under control,” it said.

On Friday night, the Chinese resident living in the Barkhor area said his family was huddled at home with the lights turned off. He said he could hear shouting on the streets outside and feared for the safety of his family.

Huang Yuanxi, Zhang Jing and Jake Hooker contributed research from Beijing, and Steven Lee Myers and Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York. Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from New Delhi.