As the Chinese government celebrates “Serf Liberation Day” to mark the 50th anniversary of its takeover of Tibet, two violent incidents in Tibetan areas have been reported by Chinese media. In Leshan, a soldier was stabbed at army barracks, China Daily reports:
A senior police official in Leshan told China Daily yesterday on condition of anonymity that the attack might be connected to Tibetan separatists, without giving the reason.
The Leshan barracks and the army barracks in Chongqing both belong to the same division of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
“If the two attacks are linked, they are definitely terrorist attacks,” said the source.
This attack follows another incident in which a soldier was attacked and killed in Chongqing. Earlier this month, a bomb was thrown at a police station in Ganzi, Sichuan as well.
Meanwhile, while police hint that the Leshan attack “might” have been carried out by Tibetans, officials in Xining, Qinghai Province, which borders Tibet, say an attack on a police station there appears to have been carried out by drunken revelers and was not targeted. From AP:
Li Weijun, a spokesman with the public security bureau in Xining, the capital of Qinghai province, said the first group of people that attacked the station late Saturday were drunk and had been hauled in to stop them from fighting with their neighbors.
Qinghai has a large ethnically Tibetan population and has been under tight security as Beijing tries to head off trouble during sensitive anniversaries, including of last year’s anti-government riots in Lhasa.
But Li said the people involved in the rampage were not Tibetan. He said they were a married couple and four men who were mostly from Henan in central China.
The group reportedly returned to the station later. From China Daily:
However, Li Zuchao called 30 to 40 of his Henan friends who staged a siege at the police station.
A local special police team dispersed the mob but two police officers received ear and foot injuries.
“The two policemen are still at Xining Red Cross Hospital for treatment,” he said.
