Willy Lam writes on Asia Sentinel:
President Hu Jintao and his “Tibet Faction” have turned out to be the biggest losers in the wake of the most horrendous disturbances in Tibet and adjacent provinces since the 1959 Tibet Insurrection.
By Sunday, March 16, more than 10,000 lamas and other Tibetans had staged rallies and demonstrations – and clashed with Chinese police, soldiers and People’s Armed Police (PAP) officers in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and the nearby provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu. The Xinhua News Agency and Hong Kong newspapers have quoted authorities, including the Mayor of Lhasa, Duoci Cizhu and Gansu Governor Xu Shousheng, as saying that things are back to normal in these areas. After mass arrests of alleged ringleaders in Lhasa and other cities, virtual martial law has been imposed on the Tibet capital.
While the first wave of the “Free Tibet in the Olympics Year” campaign has apparently subsided, Hu, also the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary and commander-in-chief, may have suffered the most devastating blow to his career.
