“It’s a sad thing that happens. Of course it’s very very sad. In the meantime, I express I doubt how much effect (there is) from such drastic actions,” the Dalai Lama told reporters during a visit to Australia.

[...] The Dalai Lama said the immolations were a sensitive political issue, but said Tibetans were not sacrificing their lives because of simple social or family grievances.

“I express this as a symptom of some causes of Chinese officials. They must investigate what is the cause of this symptom, of these events. It’s not the solution just to blame someone, including the Dalai Lama,” he said. [Source]

The Dalai Lama called the self-immolations “understandable” but denied recent claims by Chinese state media that he encourages the protests. His comments come in the wake of yet another incident, the 119th to take place in the Tibetan region since 2009, as Voice of America reports that a Tibetan nun set herself on fire near a monastery in Sichuan Province on Tuesday afternoon. The woman remained alive and in a hospital on Wednesday, according to Edward Wong of The New York Times.

Meanwhile, Radio Free Asia reports that a court in Qinghai province has jailed a Tibetan student leader for allegedly organizing a demonstration late last year:

Wangchuk Dorje, a student at the Middle School of Nationalities in Malho (in Chinese, Huangnan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, was handed a four-year term for being one of the “main organizers” of the student protest, a local source told RFA’s Tibetan Service on Wednesday.

“He was detained after several thousand students launched a peaceful rally,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Details concerning Dorje’s age, the identity of the sentencing court, and the date of his sentencing were not immediately available.

Several thousand students took to the streets in Malho’s restive Rebgong (Tongren) county on Nov. 9, 2012, to demand greater rights, including the right to use Tibetan as their language of instruction in the schools. [Source]

See also CDT’s coverage of the Voice of America documentary titled Fire in the Land of Snow, which explores the causes of Tibetan self-immolations.

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Post tags: Dalai Lama, qinghai, self-immolations, Sichuan, state media, Tibet, tibet politics, Tibet protests
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Voice of America’s piece follows the recent release of CCTV’s own documentary, which bluntly blamed the “Dalai clique” and other influences outside of China for manipulating Tibetans into self-immolation. CCTV English has an archived collection of documentary reports on Tibetan history, and the state broadcaster’s English-language political talkshow “Dialogue” has run Tibet-focused episodes since the 2008 Tibet protests.

Beijing’s ongoing crackdown has, for the most part, kept Tibetan regions far out of reach for foreign journalists since 2008. In an interview with Voice of America’s director of Tibetan service and producer of Fire in the Land of Snow, the LA Times asked where the powerful footage that makes the film came from:

Q: With journalists largely prevented from visiting Tibet, how do you go about getting visual images from the region?

Gyatso: With great difficulty. What photos and pictures and video that exist today of self-immolation or the security buildups in Tibet, the images used in the film, came from individuals who took great risks to get them. They are from cellphones, primarily. Some of the footage in the film, of the security in a village outside Lhasa showing people being beaten, that actually came from Chinese security footage that leaked out. [Source]

From elsewhere in the English-language media, Radio Free Asia reports on the court-ruled jailing of two Tibetan monks who organized prayer services for a deceased protester:

Tsondru, 27, and Gendun Tsultrim, 30, were sentenced on April 18 to three years each for their role in leading funeral services for Wangchen Norbu, who burned himself to death on Nov. 19 in Yadzi (in Chinese, Xunhua) county, a monk living in South India told RFA’s Tibetan Service on Tuesday.

“They had no legal representation, and their family members and other relatives were not present,” Yarphel said, citing sources in the region.

News of their jailing was delayed apparently due to a clampdown on information on self-immolations. [Source]

In a special report, Reuters follows up on Kalkyi, the now-deceased mother of four who became the 111th Tibetan self-immolator in March:

On the chilly afternoon of March 24, Kalkyi – who like some Tibetans went by just one name – stood outside the monastery gates with about 200 to 300 other worshippers. She doused herself with gasoline and lit a match. Flames instantly engulfed her, and as they did, she shouted words that no one could make out.

Witnesses say it took less than 15 minutes for the blaze to kill Kalkyi. She was 30 years old.

It was the ninth time in just over a year that a Tibetan mother had set herself on fire, an especially startling statistic to emerge from a grisly campaign of suicidal political defiance that shows no sign of ending. [Source]

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Tibet has been off-limits to journalists since the Chinese government brutally suppressed riots in the region five years ago. France 24′s regional correspondent Cyril Payen managed to get a seven-day visa to enter the region. What he saw lends weight to the complaints of the Dalai Lama and human rights organisations, who say Tibetan culture is being erased.
[Source]

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In his meeting with Singh, Premier Li said China and India are important neighbors and partners by nature.

He noted that remarkable advancement has been made in bilateral ties, political mutual trust deepened, fruitful results made in the cooperation of every field, and people-to-people exchanges constantly expanded.p China and India have made satisfactory coordination and cooperation on major regional and international affairs, and achieved positive progress on border negotiations, Li added.

[...]Li said choosing India as the first leg of his maiden overseas tour as Chinese premier demonstrated the sincerity of China’s new leadership and the great importance that it attaches to developing ties with India.

China is willing to join efforts with India to seize the opportunities to deepen cooperation and let the two peoples benefit from the development of the China-India ties, Li said.

[Source]

After their talks, the two leaders signed numerous agreements on trade and resources. The Times of India reports:

To enhance trade, both the sides decided to set up three working groups under the Joint Economic Group. The three groups are Services Trade Promotion Working Group, Economic And Trade Planning Cooperation Group and Trade Statistical Analysis Group.

[...]In 2012, bilateral trade between the two countries was $66 billion, a decline from over the $74 billion mark in 2011. The two countries have set a target of $100 billion by 2015 for bilateral trade.

[...]Another pact was signed between the two sides under which China will provide information of water level, discharge and rainfall twice a day from June 1st to October 15th each year in respect of three hydrological stations on the mainstream Brahmaputra river.

[...]An agreement was also signed between Export Inspection Council of India (EIC) and AQSIQ on trade and safety of feed and feed ingredients.

[Source]

Last month, the long disputed and heavily militarized border between Tibet and the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh came into attention as Chinese soldiers set up camp in northern India, hundreds of miles from the disputed region. During today’s talks, the border dispute was identified as an impediment to a healthy and productive bilateral relationship. From Reuters:

The number two in the Chinese leadership offered New Delhi a “handshake across the Himalayas” and said the world’s most populous nations could become a new engine for the global economy if they could avoid friction on the militarized border.

“Both sides believe that we need to improve the various border-related mechanisms that we have put into place and make them more efficient. We need to appropriately manage and resolve our differences,” Li said at a joint news conference with India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

[...]Among the measures being looked at to reduce the risk of confrontation is allowing higher level meetings between regional military commanders, an Indian official said.

[Source]

Despite Li’s extension of a pan-Himalayan “handshake,” the New York Times reports on Indian concerns that China may have gained more from the talks, and mentions unease over China’s damming plans for the Brahmaputra River:

[...]Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, said that India had so far gotten little of value out of the visit, including no reassurance about the border.

“My assessment is that China has gained more from these meetings than India,” he said. “The Chinese side conceded nothing.”

[...]The two sides discussed India’s growing alarm over China’s plans to build a series of dams on the Brahmaputra River, which flows into India’s northeast provinces.

India has repeatedly asked China to provide more information about its plans and the effects they will have on India, but China has so far resisted. In a statement, Mr. Li said China was willing to “strengthen communication” with India over its dam developments.

[Source]

Meanwhile, Australian think-tank the Lowy Institue for International Policy recently released a study surveying the Indian public on their global outlook. China and Pakistan — whose longtime strategic partnership has been warming over recent years — were both identified as security threats by large portions of respondents. The Hindu reports:

Not surprisingly, Indians see Pakistan and China as the biggest foreign threats to their nation. Only nine per cent of Indians believe China does not pose a threat, while 84 per cent believe it does, with 60 per cent identifying it as a major threat. Seventy per cent of the respondents agreed that China’s aim is to dominate Asia. The responses were roughly equal, however, between those who believed that India should join with other countries to limit China’s influence (65 per cent), and those who believed India should cooperate with China to play a leading role in the world together (64 per cent). In fact, some Indians clearly hold both views at once, an interesting sign of the tensions or indeed duality within Indian foreign policy expectations.

From all those who had identified China as a threat, over 80 per cent agreed that threat was for the following reasons: China possesses nuclear weapons, it was competing with India for resources in other countries, it was strengthening its relations with other countries in the Indian Ocean Region, and it was claiming sovereignty on parts of India’s territory. Only a slightly smaller number believed that the threat was because of China’s stronger military, its bigger economy, its military assistance to Pakistan, and because it does not “show respect” to India.

[Source]

The Wall Street Journal’s look at the Lowy report shows the same anxieties, but also mentions a public desire for India to increase cooperation with China:

The survey revealed that – like its government – Indians are perhaps unclear about how to respond to China’s growing power. About two-thirds of respondents said India should ally with other nations to limit China’s influence.

A similar portion of those interviewed also said India should cooperate with China to play a leading role in the world. Two-thirds of respondents said they would like relations with China to strengthen.

And there was some admiration for the way China does things. Just under half of those surveyed thought that India could learn from the way the Chinese government functions.

[Source]

Another point of contention in the Sino-Indian relationship deals with the Tibet question. India has provided refuge for the exiled Central Tibetan Administration since the Dalai Lama fled Chinese-controlled Tibet in 1959. While Tibet protests were suppressed in the lead-up to the New Delhi talks, The Hindu reports on the bilaterally strategic decision to leave the “T-word” out of the joint Li-Singh statement:

India’s decision to once again avoid reaffirming its commitment to a ‘One China policy’ has raised eyebrows in Beijing but Indian officials are playing down the omission of “Tibet” from the joint statement issued after talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

[...]The first time India dropped the reference to ‘One China policy’ was during Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit in 2010. India made the point then that Kashmir was as much a core concern of India’s as Tibet was to China, and that China’s policies of issuing stapled visas and carrying out projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir violated this core concern.

This is the point that Indian officials sought to make again. “If they had insisted on Tibet, then [we] would have asked for something else [Kashmir] to be included,” an official said, pointing out that there were enough indirect references in the joint statement to make good the exclusion of the T-word.

[Source]

China is currently India’s largest trading partner. Premier Li is set to depart India for Pakistan on Wednesday, followed by visits to Switzerland and Germany.

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A documentary by State broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) has revealed how the Dalai Lama clique manipulated self-immolations in China’s Tibetan-inhabited areas.

The documentary, which was aired on Thursday evening, was created through in-depth research and interviews conducted by CCTV reporters in areas where the incidents took place.

In March, Banmajia, a 26-year-old villager, attempted to carry out a self-immolation in Seda county, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, but was stopped by police.

Local police found a suicide note written by him together with dozens of photocopies of the note. Banmajia said he wrote the suicide note in accordance with the so-called Self-immolation Guide, which circulated on the Internet.

[...]CCTV said there is no doubt that the guide is irrefutable evidence of the Dalai clique’s manipulation of self-immolations.

[Source]

Back in February, CCTV aired a report blaming U.S.-government funded Voice of America for “fomenting” Tibetan self-immolations with their broadcasts. By citing Tibetan blogger Woeser and looking to the CCTV special report, The South China Morning Post shows how CCTV’s media campaign is an effort to gain leverage in global perception of the Tibet situation:

The half-hour news feature is part of recent efforts by Chinese state media to change the narrative of Chinese control over Tibet. It is the fifth such video aired over the last year, writes Beijing-based Tibetan activist Tsering Woeser in a tweet.

[...]The report also accuses foreign media of perpetuating the symbolic suicides. “By continuing to speculate about immolations, Radio Free Asia and other foreign media participate in their propagation in Tibetan areas,” it claims.

To back up its claims, it – somewhat bizarrely – quotes a German language lecturer at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.

“It’s a problem of the Western media and it’s a problem of the interests of the exiled Tibetans who … it’s a fact, the more trouble there is in Tibet, the more money they get,” says Otto Kölbl.

[Source]

More on the contents of this newest CCTV report and its aspirations to reach a global audience from the BBC:

The documentary, which will also be released in English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian, is aimed at letting “the international community recognise the truth about self-immolation incidents”, CCTV says.

A transcript of the documentary outlines how “Dalai clique” members of the Tibetan government-in-exile in India allegedly posted “self-immolation instructions” on the internet to incite Tibetans in China to set themselves alight.

[...]“There is no doubt that this ‘self-immolation guidebook’ is irrefutable evidence on the Dalai clique planning and inciting Tibetan self-immolations,” the documentary asserts.

[Source]

The Dalai Lama himself has made efforts not to comment either for or against the practice of self-immolation, which has been used in Beijing’s campaign to emphasize the spiritual leader’s responsibility. A post from the Council on Foreign Relations “Asia Unbound” blog looks at the politics behind the Dalai Lama’s decision:

If the self-immolations have failed to galvanize international support, why hasn’t Dalai Lama used his moral authority to issue a public statement asking for Tibetans to stop the practice? It is widely believed that self-immolation cases would drop significantly if he makes such a move.  But Dalai Lama is facing a major dilemma over this issue. As a voice of peace and reason, he privately does not support self-immolation. Indeed, from the outset, he was said to be skeptical of how effective this approach would be.  But he has refrained from calling for an end of self-immolation. While he is still the unrivaled spiritual leader among Tibetans, his Middle Way Approach to resolve the Tibetan issue—which does not accept the status quo or political independence—through nonviolent means is increasingly challenged by the young generation, as represented by the Tibetan Youth Congress, the largest NGO in the exile community.  They are increasingly frustrated and many have been radicalized by the lack of breakthrough in the negotiation between Dalai Lama’s representative and the Chinese central government that began in 2002.  Against this backdrop, self-immolation has been viewed by some as an extreme form of collective frustration and anger among the Tibetans.  Unless Dalai Lama is able to offer a viable alternative, his call for ending the practice would likely alienate his supporters, even draw backlash from the radical wing of his own constituency.  It’s because of this that he has expressed respect for the courage and motives of the self-immolators, despite his general disapproval of their behavior.[...]

[Source]

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Has the fact that you are no longer pushing for full separation resulted in any dissatisfaction among Tibetan exiles?

There are some Tibetans who believe independence is our birthright, and historically speaking, they are right. How we deal with that is that we are a democratic society, and we are all entitled to our own views — we try to maintain it as difference of views, but not divisions.

Do you think there will be a solution to the Tibet issue within the lifetime of the current Dalai Lama?

Yes. Otherwise why would I leave my job at Harvard and go to Dharamsala? You have to always walk with hope that tomorrow will be different and better. If that hope disappears, then I think it’s a very lonely place. You have to believe that he will be able to return to Tibet during his lifetime.

[...]It sounds like you were subject to Chinese phishing attempts via email attachments? Does that happen often?

Yes, all the time. They try to monitor me, destroy my computer, make my life difficult.

It’s where the Buddhist philosophy comes in — don’t have attachments!

[Source]

Earlier this month, the Council on Foreign Relations posted video footage of a lengthy conversation between Sangay and NYU law professor and expert on Chinese law Jerome A. Cohen:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In their conversation (0:27:00), Sangay spoke about the constitutional legality of autonomy in the PRC, looking for comparison to the Hong Kong Basic Law that guarantees the “one country, two systems” principle. From the interview transcript:

[...]SANGAY: Because interests of Tibetans inside Tibet is our primary concern. So how to empower them, how to put them in leadership positions so they can administer their own interests, you know, as per the Chinese constitution.

That is — that is what we seek. Now, you raised a very important question, whether Hong Kong be a solution. As per Article 31, a specially administrated region is allowed in the Chinese constitution based on that — basic law was drafted, and one country, two system was allowed. And that is allowed for Macau.

Hence, what I say is that Tibet is not a constitutional challenge for China, because there is already a constitutional provision — Article 31, or even if they want, they can look at Article IV, the minority nationality act or Article XII of the Chinese constitution and be there as a basis of solution.

[Source]

In a recent letter to U.S. Congress appealing for increased pressure on China, Sangay again cited Article 31 of the PRC Constitution and China’s unwillingness to negotiate the Tibet issue as they have other politically sensitive regions:

With foresight and conviction, Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have legislated over the years to help Tibet. This has given political, moral and financial support to the His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s vision of a peaceful solution to the Tibet problem though the “Middle Way” approach that would provide for genuine autonomy for Tibet within the framework of Chinese constitution. Tibet is not a constitutional or an institutional problem for the government of the People’s Republic of China. As per Article 31 of the PRC Constitution, China has created a separate institutional mechanism of one country, two systems for Hong Kong and Macau. The Chinese leadership has also displayed the political will by forming a cabinet level committee to deal with Taiwan. However, when it comes to Tibet, the Chinese leadership has neither employed the available constitutional mechanism at its disposal, nor has it shown the political will to resolve the issue peacefully.

[Source]

Opposition to the Article 31 policy goal does exist among Tibetans due to concerns over the temporary nature of Hong Kong’s status under the Basic Law.

In a recent interview with C-SPAN, Sangay talked about the structure of the Central Tibetan Administration, his own position within, engagement with the international community, and tensions with China (among other topics):

* This post was edited on May 17 to include the opposition to the Article 31 policy goal.

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Until recently studies of the Third Pole were piecemeal—not surprising, given its remoteness, the altitude, the harsh weather and the fact that little love is lost between the countries among which it is divided. In 2009, however, Yao Tandong of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, in Beijing, Lonnie Thompson of the Ohio State University and Volker Mosbrugger of the Senckenberg World of Biodiversity, in Frankfurt, started an international programme involving these countries, called the Third Pole Environment (TPE). Last month, its fourth workshop met in Dehradun, India.

[…] One outcome of the workshop […] has been to establish that the overall ice cover of the Third Pole, like that of the two real poles, is shrinking. Another is to show how precarious and piecemeal data about the area are. Its role as the source of so many rivers means that absence of data matters. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, of which both Dr Yao’s and Dr Wu’s institutes are part, has therefore set up a fund of 400m yuan ($65m) for research on the Third Pole and, crucially, a quarter of this is earmarked for work outside China. [Source]

At Tea Leaf Nation (via CDT), Hongxiang Huang reported this week that scrutiny of environmental issues in Tibet is often affected by the region’s political sensitivity. For more information on the Third Pole, see thethirdpole.net, an offshoot of chinadialogue.

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In early April, several satellite images were sent to Southern Weekly; the pictures suggested that the fatal landslide in a Tibetan mining site on March 29 — labeled a “natural disaster” — might be related to inappropriate and illegal operations. However, Southern Weekly did not pursue the matter further, believing that the evidence was “still not strong enough” for them to address such a sensitive topic, although several Chinese and international experts believed otherwise.

[…] While foreign media and NGOs are virtually banned from entering Tibet, domestic media and NGOs are also aware that they should stay out, or at least keep quiet even on environmental challenges in Tibet.

“Different parties, including both the Chinese government and overseas ‘human rights’ activists, always politicalize problems in Tibet, making real environmental challenges untouchable,” said Gao, an environmental NGO worker in western China.

Also see “Landslide Draws Attention to Toll of Mining on Tibet” for more information on mining operations in the area.

It is not only Tibet’s natural environment that is at risk from development. At South China Morning Post, Amy Li describes writer Woeser’s shock at changes to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa after a visit to her mother last year:

Once home, Woeser said she was astonished by both the scale and the nature of commercial developments going on in the ancient part of the Tibetan capital.

“Lhasa is being destroyed by excessive commercial development,” she wrote in the headline of a petition on Saturday that was quickly censored after it went viral on Weibo. […]

[…] “I therefore plead to Unesco and other international organisations, Tibetan scholars and experts, and all of you, please stop this horrible modernisation from committing unforgettable crimes to Lhasa’s old town environment, culture and architecture,” she wrote.

Woeser’s letter received thousands of comments and reposts from supporters on Weibo before it was taken down by censors on Monday.

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“For a ruling party which follows Marxism, we need to help people establish a correct world view and to scientifically deal with birth, ageing, sickness and death, as well as fortune and misfortune, via popularising scientific knowledge,” [Wang] said, in rare public comments on the government’s religious policy.

“But we must realise that this is a long process and we need to be patient and work hard to achieve it,” Wang added in the latest issue of the Study Times, which reached subscribers on Sunday.

“Religion has been around for a very long time, and if we rush to try to push for results and want to immediately ‘liberate’ people from the influence of religion, then it will have the opposite effect and push people in the opposite direction.”

[...]“Religion basically upholds peace, reconciliation and harmony … and can play its role in society,” Wang said.

“But due to various complex factors, religion can become a lure for unrest and antagonism. Looking at the state of religion in the world today, we must be very clear on this point.”

Wang’s statement did not specifically address CCP concerns regarding the regions of Xinjiang – predominately muslim; and Tibet – predominately Buddhist, where the suppression of distinct religious and cultural identities has long stimulated political unrest. For an overview of the play between religion, politics, and the state in western China, see the report “Uighurs and China’s Xinjiang Region,” or the podcast “China, Tibet, and Religious Oppression,” both via the Council on Foreign Relations.

Looking at the ongoing wave of protest by self-immolation on the Tibetan Plateau, Elliot Abrams and Azizah Al-Hibri of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom suggest that greater religious freedom, rather than the gradual disappearance of religious ideas as expressed by Wang Zuoan, would more effectively quell unrest and enhance security. From the Wall Street Journal:

Silence is inexcusable. We must consistently and persistently call for Beijing to uphold religious freedom for the sake of human rights and stability alike. President Xi must hear repeatedly from U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders that China’s policies ignore mounting evidence that freedom, not repression, creates peaceful and prosperous societies. Such societies are secured by honoring the dignity and worth of people, empowering and encouraging their participation in civil society, protecting their liberties in law and practice, and allowing them the fundamental right to practice their faith and live their lives according to their conscience.

In a country as vast, diverse and globally engaged as China, lasting stability is impossible when people are denied religious freedom. If Beijing guarantees freedoms for all, from Tibetan Buddhists to Uighur Muslims, and from Christians to the Falun Gong, it will help, not hinder, China’s quest for security.

As constitutionally defined since the founding of the PRC, official policy guarantees religious freedom, but human rights groups have long documented the state’s exercise of strict control over religion.

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The wind-scoured desert valley here, just south of Tibet, was once a famed transit point for the Tibetan yak caravans laden with salt that lumbered over the icy ramparts of the Himalayas. In the 1960s, it became a base for Tibetan guerrillas trained by the C.I.A. to attack Chinese troops occupying their homeland.

These days, it is the Chinese who are showing up in this far tip of the Buddhist kingdom of Mustang, northwest of Katmandu, Nepal. Chinese officials are seeking to stem the flow of disaffected Tibetans fleeing to Nepal and to enlist the help of the Nepalese authorities in cracking down on the political activities of the 20,000 Tibetans already here.

[…] For decades, there had been an understanding that Nepalese border guards would allow refugees they encountered to continue on to sanctuary. But now Tibetans suspect that the low numbers of refugees reaching Katmandu could be in part a result of guards sending back Tibetans they catch, especially since China is now involved in border security training programs.

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[…] For nearly two decades after the 1950 Chinese takeover of Tibet, the CIA ran a covert operation designed to train Tibetan insurgents and gather intelligence about the Chinese, as part of its efforts to contain the spread of communism around the world. Though little known today, the program produced at least one spectacular intelligence coup and provided a source of support for the Dalai Lama. On the eve of Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 meeting with Mao, the program was abruptly cancelled, thus returning the US to its traditional arms-length policy toward Tibet. But this did not end the long legacy of mistrust that continues to color Chinese-American relations. Not only was the Chinese government aware of the CIA program; in 1992 it published a white paper on the subject. The paper included information drawn from reliable Western sources about the agency’s activities, but laid the primary blame for the insurgency on the “Dalai Lama clique,” a phrase Beijing still uses today.

[…] While the CIA effort never produced a mass uprising against the Chinese occupiers, it did provide one of the greatest intelligence successes of the Cold War, in the form of a vast trove of Chinese army documents captured by Tibetan fighters and turned over to the CIA in 1961. These revealed the loss of morale among Chinese soldiers, who had learned of the vast famine that was wracking China during The Great Leap Forward. Over the next decade, however, there was growing disagreement in Washington over the CIA’s activities in Tibet, and in 1971, as Henry Kissinger prepared for Nixon’s meeting with Mao, the program was wound down.

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THE ecology of the Tibetan plateau, noted the Ministry of Land and Resources two years ago, is “extremely fragile”. Any damage, it warned, would be difficult or impossible to reverse. But, it went on, the China National Gold Group, a state-owned company, had achieved “astonishing results” in working to protect the environment around its mine near the region’s capital, Lhasa. On March 29th at least 83 of the mine’s workers lay buried under a colossal landslide. Its cause is not yet certain, but critics of Tibet’s mining frenzy feel vindicated.

[…] Foreign reporters are rarely allowed into Tibet, least of all to cover sensitive incidents. The official media have avoided speculation about any possible link between the landslide and mining activities in the area. They say the landslide covered a large area with 2m cubic metres of rubble. By the time The Economist went to press, 66 bodies had been pulled out by teams of rescuers with sniffer dogs. The high altitude and lack of oxygen made rescue work hard.

A deputy minister of land and resources, Xu Deming, said preliminary investigations had shown that the landslide was caused by a “natural geological disaster”. Fragments of rock left behind by receding glaciers are being blamed, though officials do not explain why the workers’ camp was set up so close to such an apparent hazard.

The Dharamsala-based Central Tibetan Administration has suggested that the disaster “could be a result of the aggressive expansion and large-scale exploitation of mineral in the Gyama Valley—a man-made phenomenon rather than just a ‘natural disaster’.” State media reports on Friday, on the other hand, reiterated the initial conclusion that it was an act of nature. At chinadialogue, Gabriel Lafitte was dismissive of this official explanation:

With indecent haste, the subsidiary of state-owned China Gold International that operates the Gyama mine announced that the landslide was natural. This rush to excuse themselves of culpability is not backed by any scientific monitoring of earthquake activity.

The fact is that this huge mine, despite extremely steep mountainous terrain, is open cut, avoiding the expense of tunnelling. The walls of an open pit mine are prone to collapse, especially in a young and unstable land such as Tibet which is still rising.

The mining company took a calculated cost-cutting risk, and the mine workers paid the price. Open pits mean much blasting to loosen rock, a risky strategy. Now the mine, if it is to operate as planned for the coming seven decades, will have to go underground.

[…] CGI and its parent China Gold Group are in a tight spot. If the landslide is to be passed off as natural, it makes highly questionable the capacity of mine waste tailings dams to withstand earthquakes and debris flows, and the many extremes of climate at an altitude close to 5,000 metres. If, on the other hand, the landslide was not natural, but due to cost cutting, cavalier blasting, and a desire for quick profits, CGI’s corporate strategy is in tatters.

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Post tags: landslides, lhasa, mining, mining accidents, natural disasters, Tibet
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At The New York Times, Edward Wong summed up the sensitive social and environmental issues surrounding the mine, from which a leaked propaganda directive issued on Saturday warned domestic media away:

Ethnic tensions have played into the outrage over mining. Most of the mines in Tibet belong to large state-owned enterprises based in eastern China, and they mostly bring in ethnic Han managers and workers, shutting Tibetans out. Of the 83 miners buried by the Gyama avalanche last week, only two were Tibetan, according to official news reports.

Environmental concerns, though, have dominated. Scientists have documented significant problems brought by the ravages of the Gyama mine, which belongs to China Gold International Resources Corporation, a company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is a unit of the state-owned China National Gold Group.

A paper published in 2010 by Science of the Total Environment, a journal, discussed the impact of mining activities on the surface water in the valley, including on streams that feed the Lhasa River. The researchers found elevated concentrations of six metals in the surface water and streambeds in the middle and upper reaches of the valley. These “pose a considerably high risk to the local environment,” according to a summary; meanwhile, pools of heavy metals were “a great potential threat to downstream water users.”

Establishing the mine at Gyama resulted in the relocation of nomads who had roamed the valley and grazed their animals there. The forced settlement of nomads is a policy that Communist Party officials have been pushing for years in many parts of Tibet, despite the widespread resentment it causes.

chinadialogue, meanwhile, highlighted its own article from 2011 reporting local Tibetans’ protests at the mine’s environmental impact, and warning of the area’s seismic instability.

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Post tags: migrant workers, mines, mining, mining accidents, natural disasters, nomads, Tibet, Tibet environment, water pollution
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Given the incredible diversity of China, the strategy of rule sketched out above has never worked for everyone or applied equally to all parts of the country. Many Chinese in rural areas have been frustrated by how long it has taken for the rising tide that was supposed to lift all boats to reach them, and large numbers of members of ethnic groups, most famously Tibetan and Uighurs, have never accepted the mythic notion that in 1949 the Communist Party, whose leaders treated them much like colonized subjects, had gloriously “liberated” all citizens of the People’s Republic of China from foreign control. A third key grievance driving the protests of 1989—anger at corruption and nepotism—has never gone away.

Most recently, an additional challenge has emerged: discontent among many of those who once seemed most ready to accept the post-1989 consumerist bargain, as long as it meant that life kept improving materially. After a series of tainted-food scandals and an ongoing pollution crisis, epitomized by the wretched smog that blanketed many cities this past winter, many who have been doing relatively well materially in recent years are now questioning whether their quality of life really is improving. They hunger for a government they can trust.

How can we move beyond the tendency either to underestimate the resilience of the Chinese Communist Party or fail to understand the important challenges it faces? Helen Gao, Leta Hong Fincher, Alec Ash, and Ross Perlin show us a valuable way to proceed, charting out an alternative path of analysis that will also be explored in later contributions to Dissent, which is committed to publishing similar behind-the-headlines reportage and analysis on China in future issues. These four deeply informed writers pay attention to the attitudes of ordinary people; to individuals who are neither part of the government nor locked into a directly antagonistic relationship to the regime; to women as well as men; to the young as well as the old, keeping in mind that for two thirds of China’s 1.3 billion inhabitants, Chairman Mao has always been dead.

Specific articles include:

- Land of Many Nationalisms by Helen Gao
- Women’s Rights at Risk by Leta Hong Fincher
- China’s Youth: Do They Dare to Care about Politics? by Alec Ash
- Chinese Workers Foxconned by Ross Perlin

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ethnic minority, migrant workers, quality of life, social unrest, Tibet, wealth gap, women's rights, Xinjiang
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“He was limping and reported having heart problems and high blood pressure,” a friend, Jamyang Tsultrim, told Radio Free Asia. “His vision was also weak.”

A former monk, Jigme Gyatso was initially given a 15-year sentence for “leading a counterrevolutionary organization” after he and a group of friends secretly advocated Tibetan independence. The crimes he was accused of by a Chinese court in 1996 included his role in distributing pro-independence leaflets and hanging a banned Tibetan flag at the Ganden monastery near Lhasa, capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region.

[…] The authorities, in fact, added three years to Jigme Gyatso’s sentence after he joined other inmates in shouting out the name of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader, as a delegation from the European Union toured their prison in 2004. According to Amnesty International, prison guards later retaliated by severely beating Jigme Gyatso and killing nine inmates.

Jigme Gyatso should not be confused with the monk and filmmaker of the same name who has been missing since last September.

Dechen Pemba of High Peaks Pure Earth contributed to this post.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: european union, monks, prisoners, prisons, Tibet, Tibetan independence
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