India - China: Relations And Developments-2

[Guest]

In Tibetan Areas, Parallel Worlds Now Collide - The New York Times
March 20, 2008

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

GABU VILLAGE, China — For farmers whose lives in this traditionally Tibetan area revolve around its Buddhist temple, an aluminum smelter that belches gray smoke in the distance is less a symbol of material progress than a daily reminder of Chinese disregard.

<b>“Look at the walls of our temple, they have all gone grimy with the smoke that pollutes our air,” said a 40-year-old Buddhist peasant named Caidan. The big factory, said a man sitting next to him, benefits only members of the Han Chinese majority.

“Tibetans get the low-income and the hard-labor jobs,” the man said. The Han, he said, “are all paid as technicians, even though some of them really don’t know anything.”</b>

In Tibet and the neighboring provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan, Tibetans live in closer proximity than ever with the Han, who have flooded in with a wave of state-driven investment. But they occupy separate worlds. Relations between the two groups are typically marked by stark disdain or distrust, by stereotyping and prejudice and, among Tibetans, by deep feelings of subjugation, repression and fear.

After decades of heavily financed efforts on the part of China to strengthen its control over Tibet and to tame the country’s far west through gigantic infrastructure projects and resettlement of Han Chinese from the east, the outbreak of protests and a fierce crackdown by Chinese security forces in and around Tibet have laid bare a harsh reality of policy failure.

There is no legalized ethnic discrimination in China, but privilege and power are overwhelmingly the preserve of the Han, while Tibetans live largely confined to segregated urban ghettos and poor villages in their own ancestral lands.

Chinese news programs on the events in Lhasa have reinforced an impression of separate universes that scarcely intersect — one Han and one Tibetan. The programs were clearly intended as propaganda to place the blame for riots on Tibetans and rally Han Chinese in support of a government-led suppression. Over and over, television broadcasts have repeated the same scenes of rampaging Tibetans smashing shop windows and of injured, hospitalized Han, while making no mention of the widely reported deaths among Tibetans during the police crackdown that followed, nor of the underlying grievances that sparked them.

Since the last widespread unrest in Tibet two decades ago, Beijing has sought to undermine separatists in what it calls the Tibetan Autonomous Region. It has invested billions of dollars, encouraged an influx of Han Chinese and inserted itself deeply into the mechanics of Tibetan Buddhism to eliminate the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, who fled China for exile in India in 1959 after a failed uprising. But real assimilation, if it were ever the goal, remains elusive.

Caidan, the peasant in Gabu Village, part of Qinghai Province, said there was only one way to solve the grievances of Tibetans under Chinese rule: allow the Dalai Lama to return.<b> “We are unhappy that the state suppresses us, and as long as the Dalai isn’t allowed to return, we will remain unhappy,” he said. “Tibet is the Dalai’s home.”</b>

In the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, Han shopkeepers, hostel owners and others who are picking up the pieces of their lives after riots that destroyed many Chinese-owned business there spoke with scarcely concealed condescension, and often with outright hostility, of Tibetans whom they described as lazy and ungrateful for the economic development they have brought.

“Our government has wasted our money in helping those white-eyed wolves,” Wang Zhongyong, a Han manager of handicraft shops, said in an interview in Lhasa. Mr. Wang’s shops sell Tibetan-themed trinkets to tourists. One of his shops was smashed and burned in the riots. “Just think of how much we’ve invested in relief funds for monks and for unemployed Tibetans,” he said. “Is this what we deserve?”

Among Han in Lhasa, comments like these stood out for their mildness.

<b>“The relationship between Han and Tibetan is irreconcilable,”</b> said Yuan Qinghai, a Lhasa taxi driver, in an interview. “We don’t have a good impression of them, as they are lazy and they hate us, for, as they say, taking away what belongs to them. In their mind showering once or twice in their life is sacred, but to Han it is filthy and unacceptable.

“We believe in working hard and making money to support one’s family, but they might think we’re greedy and have no faith.”

<b>Even among long-term residents in Lhasa, Han Chinese said they had no Tibetan friends and confessed that they tended to avoid interaction with Tibetans as much as possible.</b> “There’s been this hatred for a long time,” said Tang Xuejun, a Han resident of Lhasa for the last 10 years. <b>“Sometimes you would even wonder how we had avoided open confrontation for so many years. This is a hatred that cannot be solved by arresting a few people.”</b> Tibetans, meanwhile, complain that they have been relegated to second-class citizenship, that their culture is being destroyed through forced assimilation, that their religious freedoms have been trampled upon.

A Tibetan university student in her early 20s who declined to give her name explained relations this way: “I really don’t want to talk about politics, saying whether or not Tibet is part of China. The reality is that we are controlled by Chinese, by the Han people. We don’t have any say, so in my family we don’t even talk about it.”

Although the young woman said that her family was relatively well off and that she was receiving a good education, the future was bleak here even for someone like her because the system favors the Han.

“I’m not even sure I can get a job after graduation,” she said. “For rich Tibetans and for officials, they send their children out to Chengdu or Beijing.”

A sense of the fear many Tibetans live with could be heard in the comments of a religious leader in Aba Prefecture in Sichuan Province, the site of a protest by monks and others this week in solidarity with the Lhasa demonstrations, and the scene of a subsequent fierce crackdown.

“I only know that the Communist Party is good, that they are good to us,” said the religious leader, Ewangdanzhen, when asked about official explanations that have blamed the Dalai Lama for the protests. “I only believe in the Communist Party. Splitting is bad. We want unity and harmony. We don’t have any contacts with him and we don’t need to contact him.”

Far from giving up on their way of life, though, or renouncing their attachment to the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader whom the Chinese government has long vilified as a separatist, or “splittist,” most Tibetans interviewed while dodging heavy police checks during a 450-mile road trip through Tibetan areas in Gansu and Qinghai Provinces professed near-universal devotion to the Dalai Lama, and vowed to continue resisting government attempts to control their faith.

<b>“All Tibetans are the same: 100 percent of us adore the Dalai Lama,”</b> said Suonanrenqing, a 40-year-old resident of a Tibetan village in Jianzha County, in Qinghai Province. Asked about China’s decision to commandeer an ancient Tibetan religious rite and select the Panchen Lama, the second highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism, in 1995, and the implications for how Beijing would manage things after the Dalai Lama, who is 72, dies, Suonanrenqing’s response suggested indefinite tensions between Chinese and Tibetans.

“We’re not sure if it’s true that the Panchen was appointed by the government, but if it is true, we cannot support him,” he said. “We wouldn’t support a Dalai Lama appointed by the government either. These people should be chosen by monasteries.”

Although Suonanrenqing spoke candidly, worrying only at the end of a lengthy conversation if his comments could bring him trouble, many conversations with Tibetans began with nervous denials that they knew anything at all of the events of Lhasa. Their wariness was warranted by a severe security crackdown in clear evidence wherever Tibetans live in large numbers.

After dodging one police roadblock, a reporter making his way late at night toward a town in Gansu Province where Tibetans had protested in sympathy with the Lhasa demonstrators the day before was set upon by plainclothes police officers at a highway tollbooth and forced into a nearby building for questioning before being turned away.

The following day, when visiting Taersi, an important Tibetan monastery in Qinghai Province, the reporter was closely followed by plainclothes police officers who were seen videotaping his conversations with local monks.

“I have no idea what’s happening in Lhasa,” said one 32-year-old monk, who agreed to sit and chat in a small restaurant with a foreign visitor but apparently felt the topic was too dangerous to touch upon. “We don’t have anything to do with that.”

Despite the vigilant police, the nearby Lijiaxia Valley, a starkly beautiful area dominated by the Yellow River with craggy, desiccated mountains and wind-swept farmland, Tibetan villages were easy to spot by the colorful prayer flags that flew from roofs and hilltops.

Here, many initially claimed to know nothing of the events in Lhasa. But some quickly dropped this cautious pose. One poor villager, who rolled homemade cigarettes using old newspaper, was aware that Chinese news broadcasts were showing scenes of Tibetans rioting in Lhasa.

“Have there been any pictures of Tibetans getting killed?” he asked. When told no, he nodded and said, “Of course not.”

[Guest]

<b>China announces arrests in Tibet crackdown</b>

Mar 20, 2008

<b>BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese authorities arrested 24 suspects for "grave crimes" after troops cracked down on anti-Chinese riots that swept the mountain region, casting a shadow over preparations for the Beijing Olympic Games.</b>

The prosecutor's office in the local capital Lhasa said the suspects were arrested for "endangering national security as well as beating, smashing, looting, arson and other grave crimes" in bloody riots on Friday, the Tibet Daily reported on Thursday.

More arrests are likely to follow, although <b>some outside groups say hundreds of Tibetans may have already been detained.</b>

China's unyielding response to the unrest has brought demands for a boycott of the Games opening ceremony in August. The Olympic torch relay across 19 countries that starts next week, and which will also pass through Tibet, is likely to be dogged by protests.

<b>Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his government was considering whether to send a delegation to the ceremony to start the Aug. 8-24 Games.

"If the situation does not change, we will want to express our criticism in regards of what is going on in China. I do not exclude that (shunning) the inauguration celebrations of the Olympics would be a way to mark this," Tusk said.</b>

U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama urged the United States to speak out for human rights in Tibet following the crackdown. The Bush administration has urged China to show restraint, as has the European Union.

The eruption of Tibetan discontent against the Chinese presence brought bloody rioting to Lhasa on Friday, and ripples of unrest have continued across Tibet and neighbouring areas.

Beijing launched a sweeping counter-offensive in Tibet and neighbouring provinces that are home to many ethnic Tibetans. Troops have poured into isolated towns on winding mountain roads, and foreign reporters are barred from the area.

"The facts of the crimes are clear and the evidence is solid, and they should be severely punished," a Lhasa deputy chief prosecutor, Xie Yanjun, said, according to the news report carried on the Tibet government Website.

Beijing responded with clear irritation to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's plan, announced on Wednesday, to meet the Dalai Lama on a visit to Britain in May.

China's Foreign Ministry said it was seriously concerned by the planned meeting, urging Britain to recognise the Dalai Lama was trying to divide China "under the camouflage of religion".

<b>Minxin Pei, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank in Washington, called the unrest a "nasty surprise for Beijing" after 20 years of relatively untroubled control in Tibet.</b>

"The Chinese government is now engaged in a damage control PR campaign...the last thing the Chinese government wants to see is some eruption of similar violence or protest closer to the Olympics," he said.

<b>China Human Rights Watch, a New York-based monitoring group, said it had unconfirmed reports suggesting hundreds of arrests.</b>

State media have poured vitriol on the Dalai Lama, using language that echoes past political purges in the Communist country. The Tibet Daily said Buddhist monks who joined the riots had betrayed their faith.

"They are not real followers of Buddha but hidden separatists," the paper said, calling the Dalai Lama a "running dog of Western anti-China forces."

[ramana]

<!--QuoteBegin-"ramana"+-->QUOTE("ramana")<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pioneer, 21 March 2008

<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
India paying for China's hubris

Kanwal Sibal

<b>The Chinese had made themselves and most others believe that the Tibetan issue had been more or less settled on their terms. Progress, modernisation and prosperity in Tibet were supposed to have eliminated any serious resistance to Chinese rule. Their grip on the territory had become tighter with Han migration, enhanced military presence and quicker means of communications like the railway line, a show-piece of their engineering skills and political determination to fully control their periphery. Because of intolerance of any public expression of dissent, the authorities presumably depend on diverse agencies for assessment of the public mood. A people's pulse cannot always be reliably felt this way. Errors of judgement can also come from a deeply materialistic regime believing that prosperity trumps all non-material aspirations of a people.</b>

The Chinese had, in recent years, opened up Tibet to foreign visitors and tourists, including Indian, in a show of self-confidence. Tibet had long ceased to be a real political pressure point on China in foreign policy terms. <b>India gave up its Tibet card decades ago, even when the Chinese have played the Tibetan card against us all these years. Their claim to Arunachal Pradesh or, at a minimum, Tawang, and their occupation of more territory than they themselves have claimed in the past in Ladakh, are extensions of their own claim on Tibet as an integral part of China historically.</b>

<i>{He was Foreign Secy and yet does not show any sense of how and why that card was given up!}</i>

<b>The West has also long spurned the cause of the Tibetan people. </b>Even when the Chinese were considered a Communist threat, the West had ignored Tibet's plight. <b>Now that the West has manifold interests locked up in a country set to be the world's second power, it would have even less reason to actively promote the Tibetan dossier and derail existing relations.</b> China can live with pinpricks over Tibet by odd US Congressmen, and take in their stride the increasing willingness of Western political leaders to receive the Dalai Lama officially in order to satisfy human rights lobbies at home, not to mention the publicity oriented activities of Hollywood personalities.

<i>{Maybe they take their cue form the West? Once the West gave up GOI also gave up? The West gave up so they could play the China card in the Cold War. But what about India why did it give up the Tibet card? If a Foreign Secy cannot expalin who can? Is he implying it was political decision? Then what explains the Sunmdrongchu in 1987? When was the Tibet card really given up? }</i>

The current events in Tibet have exposed the fiction that the Tibetans have found contentment under Chinese rule. The Han settlers in Lhasa have been attacked. Riots have engulfed other provinces with a Tibetan population. <b>The Tibetans have an identity and a culture different from the Chinese.</b> In a democratic polity that respects diversity and does not feel threatened by difference, regional aspirations can be accommodated without endangering central control. An authoritarian system is by definition intolerant of demands that diversity makes on governance.

<i>{But PRC is not a democratic system. So why this surprise at what happened in Tibet? Was the MEA swallowing its own lies and led to this lack of response to the Tibet atrocities?}</i>


There is no external threat to Tibet. India has legally accepted the Tibetan Autonomous Region as part of China. <b>Unless India is supportive, no other power can destabilise China's rule in Tibet. India's own vulnerabilities and China's considerable capacity to create problems for it within and around it are powerful arguments against any Indian adventurism in Tibet.</b>

China has got the rest of the world to adhere to the 'One-China' policy. While China itself makes territorial demands on others, it demands from others recognition of its own territorial indivisibility. India has once again during the current violence in Tibet underlined its support for the 'One-China' principle. <b>India should not fish in the troubled Taiwan waters, but to go out of the way to show respect for China's territorial integrity when China shows little for India's territorial integrity, whether in its claim to Arunachal Pradesh or its unwillingness to take a position in our favour on the legality of the Jammu & Kashmir issue with Pakistan, is to give it one-sided advantage.</b> <b>The West can hardly support separation of Tibet when it rejects separation of Taiwan, a politically and economically sustainable democratic entity that is geo-politically much more important. Tibet for the West is an NGO issue, not a hard political one.</b>

<b>There is no internal threat to China's sovereignty over Tibet either. </b>The Dalai Lama himself is against Tibetan independence, and has said so repeatedly. He seeks genuine autonomy, which the Chinese are legally committed to. The political jargon resorted to by the Chinese Prime Minister in his latest remarks shows China's unwillingness to face the reality in Tibet. To say that China is ready to have a dialogue with the Dalai Lama if he gives up his position for "Tibetan Independence" and recognises "Tibet and Taiwan as inalienable parts of China" is wilful disregard of the Dalai Lama's position on independence at one level, and a desire to humiliate him at another.

<b>The current unrest has refuted China's propaganda about normality in Tibet, but is unlikely to materially change the long-term scenario. The Dalai Lama is right in saying that the Tibetan deer is in the grip of a tiger. </b>China is relatively vulnerable in the run-up to the Olympics as it would not want to tarnish its image by being embroiled in a controversy over an issue of human rights and suppression of domestic dissent. The Tibetans seek to use this occasion to draw attention to their cause and mobilise sympathy for it across the world. It is doubtful whether they can sustain their protests for too long in the face of repression.

The Dalai Lama has called for an end to violence. This is consistent with his philosophy, but the moral impact of this on the Chinese leadership would not be much. <b>The younger Tibetan generation may be more aggressive, but their capacity to support the struggle inside Tibet is very limited. The Chinese will have no qualms about quelling any serious unrest with the required use of force. Once the Olympics are over, the Chinese will have a freer hand.</b>

The Chinese Prime Minister has spoken about the sensitivity of the Tibetan issue in the India-China relationship, praising India's position on the current uprising. <b>This is also a subtle warning to India to put restraints on the Tibetans. The irony is that the Chinese are deliberately keeping both the border problem with India and the Tibetan issue unresolved. The two are interlinked.</b> The landscape of Asia can change if China settles the border issue with India. Perhaps China feels it can continue to soar even with the weight of Tibet and India on its wings, but India cannot in equal measure. We will continue to pay a price for China's hubris.
-- The writer is a former Foreign Secretary

<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

ITs amazing that all MEA personnel become wise beings who comment on affairs but do nothing to develop any capabilities whil they are in the service. There is something rotten in the way the MEA adn the foreign policy is run and kept out of bounds of common people.

Kanwal Saab is wrong. Tibet can unravel PRC to its historical boundaries and pull it down from its primacy. Its a Western controlled lizard and hence the silence on the Western part. Kissinger's China opeing was to make them pliant to Western demands.

However there is no need for Indian silence. Tibet is a national interest of India.


I have a bigger question. <b>Was Indian establishment surprised at the timing and extent of the Tibetian rage at PRC dominaince?</b>

Is it a coincidence that Tibet breaks out every 20 years or so (1958, 1989, and now 2008)? Might be a generatonal thing. The young ones come of age and rebel and the PRC crackdown begins. It takes two to three decades for new generation to emerge and seek their rights again.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I have a bigger question.<b> Was Indian establishment surprised at the timing and extent of the Tibetian rage at PRC dominaince</b>?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, I am not. Young generation is very aggressive towards total freedom. They are tired of Dalai Lama do-nothing attitude. They are collecting funds, trying to preserve heritage. Tibetans are more interested to go back to Tibet then to US or Canada. They are running lot of site on internet. Indian government is more concerned about China feeling then Tibetan refugees. Same they did with Taslima.
Since UPA came into power, government had started containing Tibetans.

This is based on my direct interaction with Tibetans during my own conquest to find more about my own Tibetan ancestry.

[ramana]

Mudy, That question was about the Indian establishment and not to you. However thanks for the reply. THey look like they are shocked.

[Guest]

ramana,
Indian govt is not shocked but some are acting as they are. In reality, they want them to leave India just to appease China and stay in power. Current Indian Govt love to have UN assistance and all attention it gets due to Dalai lama in Dharamshala. At this stage dollar part may not be that important but to get credit or self gloating messiah of refugees from whole world.

Afghani, Irani refuges gets better treatment then Tibetians in India by current government.

Current Indian Government motto - shrink India to stay in power for ever.

Ramana,
if you get a chance visit Tibetian restra in San Francisco, you may get very angry reaction from them towards Indians, things were very different decade back.

[Guest]

<b>Magnitude 7.2 </b>
Date-Time Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 22:33:01 UTC
Friday, March 21, 2008 at 06:33:01 AM at epicenter

Location 35.424°N, 81.386°E
Depth 37.2 km (23.1 miles)
Region XINJIANG-XIZANG BORDER REGION
Distances 228 km (142 miles) SE (144°) from Hotan, Xinjiang, China
375 km (233 miles) ENE (67°) from Leh, Kashmir
615 km (382 miles) ENE (75°) from Srinagar, Kashmir
780 km (485 miles) ENE (73°) from ISLAMABAD, Pakistan

[dhu]

Indian establishment consists of chapprasi singh and his madame and similar characters; naturally they will have affinity for hard handed crackdown on Tibetan traditions- it reminds them of those Hindus. Westerners as usual are fork-tongued. They show a little squirming for Tibet since it is fashionable to do so. They are like the dandy Gere who prances around singing paeans to Tibetans but does not hesistate to give lecture and other dandy lines on "Hindu fundamentalists". Tibet is fashionable, Nepal is not. Buddhism is fashionable, Hindusim is not. At most it is just a game and time pass for them. they heve theor geopolitical goals as well.

The "Indian establishment" follows the diktats of their paymasters and mental masters. If you're a d'souza you will lean towards the Missionaries. If you're an Arundhati, you will copy your behavior from Witzel, Nussbaum, Marx, and Albright. If you're a Yechury, you will follow diktat from China. Sardar Patel types are no where in sight.

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+-->QUOTE(ramana)<!--QuoteEBegin-->I have a bigger question.<b> Was Indian establishment surprised at the timing and extent of the Tibetian rage at PRC dominaince</b>?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

They get a secret snicker out of seeing indigneous civilizaton thrashed (of course, when they are not in confused state comparing china in tibet to india and northeast). Probably they are a bit surprised that decades of propaganda has not been able to earn endearment for the Chinese, nor roads and other such things. Then they compare to decades of same type thrashing being done to Hindus and wonder if Hindus could ever similiarly react.

[Guest]

For China, the sun sets in Tibet

Fri, Mar 21 07:05 PM

New Delhi, Mar.21 : The Government of China was upset when Dr Manmohan Singh visited Arunachal Pradesh earlier this year and announced projects worth over 100 billion rupees for development of what he stated was 'Our Land of the Rising Sun".

When Chinese diplomatic sources expressed displeasure at the Prime Minister's statement, India's Foreign Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, replied that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India, and the Prime Minister did nothing that was not warranted in announcing schemes for the development of the region.

The tone of Mukherjee's statement indicated to China that today's India is different from the India of the sixties. India is conscious of the errors made by it in the fifties and sixties, but is unlikely to compound them now.

The crackdown on the Tibetans in Lhasa should make us wary of the consequences. Tibetans are worried that the demographic character of their homeland is being changed.

According to one estimate, there are twice the numbers of Han Chinese in Tibet as compared to Tibetans. The new rail lines and cantonments that are coming up in the area will make it difficult for the Tibetans to retain their culture.

The violence in Tibet has also had its impact in India. The exiled Tibetans in India announced that they would take a march on the 49th anniversary of the first Chinese crackdown in Lhasa in 1959. One of the objectives was to oppose the Olympic Games in Beijing if China does not grant autonomy to Tibet.

The procession was to start from their headquarters at Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh. The Government of India cautioned the Tibetans about the nature of demonstrations. It even detained some demonstrators when they became unruly. In response, the Dalai Lama told his people that he would quit as the head of the movement if there is violence. He has been working for the autonomy of Tibetans as promised by China five decades ago.

The Chinese Premier Wen Ji Biao, has appreciated India's steps, but said the Tibet issue is 'very sensitive in our relations with India' and blamed the 'Dalai clique' for 'masterminding independence activities'. China also warned of a 'life and death struggle with the Dalai clique' if the protests continued with the objective of preventing the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Looking back, when India became independent, Jawaharlal Nehru had dreamt of a world where peace would prevail. He supported China, then a developing country, to establish itself in international fora. The author of 'Glimpses of World History' was of the view that the British colonial rulers made a mistake in having a post in Tibet, supported by a garrison.

India acquiesced in the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1950, and accepted the Sino-Tibetan Agreement of 1951 that proclaimed Tibet as a part of China. India also agreed to withdraw its garrison from Lhasa.

One of the major initiatives taken by Jawaharlal Nehru after independence was to organize a campaign to project 2,500 years of Buddhism. Nehru was keen to project that the Asian continent had strong cultural links and that the message of the Buddha had traveled from India towards north --to China and to other countries eastwards.

Jawaharlal Nehru felt that an independent China would be friendly towards India.

India also supported China in becoming a member of the Security Council and a member of the Non Aligned Movement. The Nehru Government also accepted the 'suzerainty' of China over Tibet and concluded an agreement that announced 'The Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence' in 1954.

Contrary to its assurances, China continued efforts to strengthen its grip over Tibet. Lhasa was taken over by the Chinese forces, and the Dalai Lama was confined to his abode. He had to flee that country and walk to the border into India in 1959.

India, the land where Buddhism was born, welcomed the Dalai Lama and his followers. They were given asylum, but were told to refrain from political activities. The Tibetans found refuge in Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh, in Karnataka and in pockets in other parts of the country. True to his promise the Dalai Lama has been preaching restraint to Tibetans in India.

But the Chinese have been looking longingly at those parts of India where Buddhism has survived like parts of Ladakh and Sikkim and the North East Frontier Agency (now Arunachal Pradesh). The assurance given to Nehru by Chou-en-lai was that the colonial rulers drew the border and the 'pre-liberation' maps would be corrected.

Jawaharlal Nehru suffered a severe jolt when China attacked India in 1962. He never recovered from that 'betrayal'. After the Indian Army's debacle in the 1962 Sino-Indian war, Nehru rebuilt the Armed Forces of the country, raised new mountain divisions and acquired modern ships and aircraft.

It took over two decades for the country to be confident again in facing China. Indira Gandhi made it clear to China that Sikkim was a part of India, and Rajiv Gandhi was able to tell Deng Ziao Ping in the eighties that Indian Army was able to look after Arunachal Pradesh.

There was hope that the long handshake between Deng Hsiao Ping and Rajiv Gandhi in 1989 would start a new chapter in relations between the two countries. The trade between India and China increased, and the 'dialogue' between the two countries on the border question that started in 1989 has been continuing.

However, the tone of exchanges between India and China - at frequent intervals -has made many in India wary of the Chinese. During conflicts with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971, the Chinese have been on the side of Pakistan. China has been helping Pakistan in its efforts to build nuclear weapons and strategic missiles.

Ever since 1959, India has tried her best to restrain the Tibetans settled in various parts of the country. The Tibetans have built their own institutions in India, and have been living in the hope that it would be possible for them to 'return' to Tibet. .

It would be unreal to expect that China to give up its efforts to fully 'integrate' Tibet, but recent events have demonstrated that the Tibetans will hold onto their culture and insist on the Chinese sticking to their assurance of autonomy. They know that the record of China in sticking to their assurances is not without blemish.

History tells us to be wary of China. Beijing should know that Tibet is the land where sun sets for China.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Mar 21 2008, 06:05 AM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Mar 21 2008, 06:05 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-ramana+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ramana)<!--QuoteEBegin-->I have a bigger question.<b> Was Indian establishment surprised at the timing and extent of the Tibetian rage at PRC dominaince</b>?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

They get a secret snicker out of seeing indigneous civilizaton thrashed (of course, when they are not in confused state comparing china in tibet to india and northeast). Probably they are a bit surprised that decades of propaganda has not been able to earn endearment for the Chinese, nor roads and other such things. Then they compare to decades of same type thrashing being done to Hindus and wonder if Hindus could ever similiarly react.
[right][snapback]79871[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My personal experience-
KV School I went in Delhi had two shifts; morning shift was for Indians (us) and evening shift for Tibetan refugees. Tibetans were living in same campus; some had classes converted into dorm and rest used to live in Army type of tents. Bathrooms were open and they used school toilets, even in winters. Every evening or morning refuges used to practice Tibetan prayer, martial art. Evening during religious events they used to organize fire dance with full dress. I remember watching rehearsals for months. It was very amazing.
UN refugee aids provide them big boxes of can, which they used to sell in local market e.g Butter oil from Denmark and cheese from Germany. Used clothes they used to sell in Saturday market or those who live in Delhi knows Janpath market where refugees used to sell very cheap sweaters and coats.
God or Babus knows how they cheated Tibetans and UN. I can bet lot of babus and Congressi made lot of money.
Now that Tibetan school is closed. Tibetan tried to survive and cheated by Indians and China. Young generation don't like both of them.

[Guest]

<b>Tibetan protestors barge into Chinese Embassy</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->New Delhi, March 21: Scores of Tibetans on Friday broke into the Chinese Embassy agitating against the crackdown on pro-independence movement in Lhasa by China.
The protestors scaled the walls of the Embassy located in the high-security diplomatic area in Chanakyapuri, waving Tibetan flags and shouting slogans against the Chinese government.

Police later took into custody all the protestors and managed to bring the situation under control.

The protest took place hours ahead of the arrival in the capital of Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<b>Germany warns China Olympics at risk </b> <!--emo&:cool--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /><!--endemo-->

<b>US House Speaker slams Chinese 'oppression' in Tibet </b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"Speaking for myself, I would say if freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China's oppression in Tibet, we have lost our moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world," said Pelosi, draped in a golden scarf given to her by the Dalai Lama.

"The situation in Tibet is a challenge to the conscience of the world. What is happening, the world needs to know," she told thousands of refugees waving Tibetan and US flags, who roared with approval.

"We are with you to meet that challenge. We are with you in this challenge." The northern town was jammed with crowds of refugees, some with children hoisted on shoulders, and maroon-robed monks. Streets were festooned with banners proclaiming "American-Tibet Friendship."
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<b>China loses friends over Tibet</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party secretary in Tibet, has described the Dalai Lama as "a wolf in monk's robes, a devil with a human face but the heart of a beast".<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[dhu]

<b>Is Tibet reaching a decisive phase? </b>
Mayank Chhaya

Fractures in Lhasa and elsewhere in Tibet run far deeper than not just what China would have the world believe but had probably convinced itself about. It is more than likely that Beijing would stamp out the spiralling protests with urgency mixed with ruthlessness, especially because it is desperate to ensure a smooth conduct of the impending Olympic games. However, what it is unlikely to accomplish is put a firm lid on the searing heat generated by the uprising.

From all available accounts out of Tibet coupled with the tone of the Dalai Lama's reaction, it is becoming clear that a decisive state may have been reached in the six-decade old Sino-Tibetan standoff. This is particularly surprising because there were no recognizable signs pointing in the direction of such an assertive expression of disaffection. Although the six million Tibetans are singularly ill equipped to take on the mighty Chinese establishment, the timing of the protests is fraught with history and has the potential to fundamentally alter the equation.

The Dalai Lama has said he is "helpless" in the face of such widespread protests and, more importantly, that he would not instruct his followers to relent. On whether he can ask his followers to surrender by midnight on Monday, he told a news conference in McLeod Ganj, "I have no such power."

The Dalai Lama said he had received a call on Saturday from Tibet requesting him not to stop the protesters. He promised he would not. "Now we really need miracle power," he said, "But miracle seems unrealistic." The Dalai Lama has said he has the same sense of foreboding about the current crisis as he had during the March 10, 1959 uprising. <b>He said, according to a Chinese military document between March 1959 and September 1960, 87,000 were people killed. </b>

Since 2006, when the fifth round of talks took place between the representatives of the Tibetan government-in-exile and Beijing, the Dalai Lama has said the attitude inside Tibet has hardened and there has been criticism even of his approach. That was an implicit admission that ordinary Tibetans inside Tibet may no longer be willing to follow his "middle way" approach, which eschews any precipitate action. This could be equally true of the younger generation of Tibetans in exile in India. There are hotheaded Tibetans, whose number is hard to establish, who continue to advocate complete independence as opposed to "meaningful autonomy" being called for by the Dalai Lama.

One of the major reasons behind the current unrest can also be attributed to a growing sense of economic inequity among the local Tibetans compared to the Han Chinese people who have been resettled in the region. The Dalai Lama has referred to the discrimination practiced by the Chinese. Although Beijing has brought about visible development to Lhasa and other areas, it has mainly impacted the Han Chinese population. Riding on top of the sense of having been occupied is this powerful sense of economic inequity which also acting as a trigger for the current violence.

Many Tibetan experts believe that the level of disenfranchisement has grown and in the process compelled them to believe that they have no stake in the current state of affairs. This disaffection could lead to serious problems in the near future. "Wait and see," was the Dalai Lama's response when asked if the discontent among ordinary Tibetans would breach his middle way approach.

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Fork-tongued Marxists</b>
Balbir Punj - Pioneer

They are eager to take up issues of human rights 'violation' in Palestine and Iraq and rush to Iran's support. But when it comes to violence by CPM cadre in Kannur and Nandigram, they are stunningly silent

One must admire Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee's eagerness to uphold national pride. A few days back when the US Administration came out with a report on human rights violation in which the events at Nandigram got prominent mention, the Speaker told the House to treat the report "with the contempt it deserves". In chorus, the Marxists condemned it as "interference in the internal affairs of this country" and even advised the Bush Administration to mind its own human rights violations in Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere.

With due respect to the Speaker, any observer is entitled to ask: Where was this national pride when the same US Administration denied Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi a visa to visit that country to attend a function organised by Gujaratis. The visa was supposedly denied on the basis of the reports about the post-Godhra violence in 2002. The Communists, along with other self-styled secularists, hailed that decision.

Applauding the US Administration when it insults a Chief Minister of this country while deriding it when it flays human rights violation in another State is ridiculous. More so, if one remembers that the Nandigram mayhem was condemned by one and all - the Governor of the State, the CBI, the Calcutta High Court, the Opposition and even by some of the members of the Left Front Government.

The Nandigram incidents were followed by the Kannur violence in Kerala, another Marxist-ruled State. The newspapers have been full of the bloody regime the Marxist cadre have established, with only the RSS to challenge their violence. Demand for Central forces in Kannur found an echo even in the Kerala High Court the other day. Much like what happened in the Calcutta High Court in the Nandigram case.

Against this backdrop, the Chinese oppression of Tibetan culture and ethnic identity and the surging protest by Tibetans across the world have been a known phenomenon. Communist China has gone to the extent of building software firewalls in Tibet to prevent any news about the suppression of Tibetans coming out. Yet, taking enormous risks, some Tibetans keep the world informed about these events and even manage to smuggle photographs across to the world media.

In India, the Government has protected the tribals from exploitation from outsiders through various laws that prevent land alienation, disallowed all attempts to change the demographic advantage of the adivasis, etc. It is the other way round in Tibet. To disable the Tibetans from protecting their culture and ethnicity as well as religious beliefs, Chinese immigrants have been encouraged to set up home in Tibet.

Reports from Tibet say that even the name of the Dalai Lama is kept out of Tibetan literature and textbooks. Worse, Tibetan language is discouraged. No wonder Tibetans are second-grade citizens in their own country. Not many will, therefore, disagree with the Dalai Lama's charge that China is committing "cultural genocide" in Tibet.

Despite suffering half-a-century of exile from his beloved land, the Dalai Lama has been patient and moderate. He is ready to accept Tibet as an autonomous region and not as an independent entity. The position of Tibet as an autonomous region of China is what India and China had agreed to in 1958, but which Beijing has often violated with impunity.

The recent surge of protests reminds us of the student demonstration at Tiananmen Square in the 1980s, when Chinese students demanded true democracy and liberty in their country. This wave of protest was crushed by the Army using tanks, resulting in the death of hundreds. China is getting world's admiration for its double-digit growth and huge export-led economy. Global companies are all there to benefit by the market economy. Beijing considers the Olympics an acknowledgement by the world of its superior power. However, no one is forgetting that its strength is built over the corpse of democracy and freedom.

It isn't that the Tibetans alone are protesting against the Communist regime. The Chinese countryside is beginning to wake up, according to several reports from China. The peasants are becoming conscious of the widening gap between them and the urban people. Time magazine recently gave a graphic report on seething anger in China's countryside.

In Communist China, peasants do not own the land; land is state property and farmers have only tenant-like right of cultivation. These peasants are now demanding ownership of the land that once belonged to them. China's rural areas near burgeoning urban conglomerations are witnessing confiscation of farmland for industrial purposes. This reminds us of Nandigram.

Marxists, who never hesitate in asking the Government of India to emulate China, should at least tell their followers whether peasants are allowed to own the land they till in China. They are only too eager to take up issues of human rights violation in Palestine and Iraq and rush to Iran's support despite the presence of a radical Islamist regime in that country. But why are these Marxists silent on Tibet?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->American hypocrisy (Pioneer letter)

This is with reference to the article, “India paying for China’s hubris” (March 21), by Kanwal Sibal. The writer has hit the nail on the head when he writes, “The West has also long spurned the cause of the Tibetan people. Even when the Chinese were considered a Communist threat, the West had ignored Tibet’s plight. Now that the West has manifold interests locked up in a country set to be the world’s second power, it would have even less reason to actively promote the Tibetan dossier and derail existing relations.” To earn the right to host this summer’s Olympics, China promised to improve its human rights record. However, if its behaviour in Tibet is anything to go by, Beijing does not seem to have taken that commitment seriously. It was impossible not to notice that the Bush Administration removed China from its list of top-10 human rights violators just as the biggest anti-China protests in 20 years erupted in Tibet. In its annual human rights report on 190 countries, the US State Department has conceded that China’s overall performance remains pathetic. But in what looks like a political payoff to a Government whose help the US desperately needs on various issues, the department has dropped China from its list of 10 worst violators. This is classic American hypocrisy.

PS Prakash
Lucknow<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Husky]

Mudy, I agree with other points you made on Tibet. But - except for Dalai Lama's compulsively peaceful stand and his (previous) insistence on autonomy for Tibet rather than independence - I think his desperation in courting hollywood stars is understandable.

I mean, with a hostile government in India which is openly anti-Natural Religions, he has no friends and no power. Hindus may support him and Tibetans, but we can't even be masters of our own affairs in our own country (example: Temple funds stolen by tyrant government is used to feed the christoislamic tyrannies), so we're no good. Moral support is all they can get from us and that's not something that will help Tibet against China with its vice-like grip on Tibet.

The choice of the Dalai Lama in wooing hollywood is obvious, since other options are simply not there: the American government is unreliable at best and otherwise it's no different in its christoislamicommunism from Chinese government (I've read that US sends missionaries over to Tibet). And Europe is neither here nor there, all they have to offer are their pretty speeches of condemnation and outrage which are but masks for inaction - that's when they don't organise missionaries to convert the wayward Tibetan Buddhist.

The Dalai Lama needs to somehow get some visibility for his country and people, and hollywood stars are all that can do anything here. However little and trivial the 'help' from their quarter may be, it's more than he can hope to accomplish by clasping his hands together and pleading with the stone-cold heartless self-appointed queen of India and her traitor minion Madmoron Stink.

Not that hollywood stars are helping much, but there's really no one amongst those who actually care about Tibet and its population who can do anything. Some help is better than nothing. And if getting it requires some posing for photos with stars, flying around and other boring popularity stuff, then it's a comparatively small compromise on his part. Rather, the great shame is that his adamant non-violent stand is tying his people down and causing many of them to die with absolutely no effect on the opposition, because the heartless communists terrorising them have no such principles. But one's life is worth fighting for. And to unnaturally tie down one's instincts for life by non-violence in such cases is the same as committing violent suicide. Their Atmas cannot thank them for it, and it's a grave injustice to Tibetans as a whole, their future generations and the future of their ethos. I read something Aurobindo wrote on the matter of shortsightedness and unrealistic expectations in employing non-violence in the face of violence, but then he's a Hindu and believed in self-defense and fighting to uphold Dharma.

Back to MMStink and the She-Usurper.
As you (Mudy) explained elsewhere on IF, the Traitor Indian Government is trying to evict or otherwise silence (by ignoring and by mistreating) the Tibetans in India through use of the UPA's patented Hostile Treatment methods, which they recently successfully meted out to Taslima Nasreen as well. I'm sure the only reason they haven't done away with the Dalai Lama - as proof of their allegiance to China - is because DL is popular in the world.


Sorry to read that Tibetans are starting to be wary of Indians. Well, in a sense, so am I: I'm wary of the christoislamicommunipsecular Indians. But I hope the Tibetans still know that Hindus wish them well and that in so far as Bharat is a homeland of ours, they are welcome to stay in safety. But then, we have so little say in any of this. Only the christomaniac and her stooges, and the "Chinese Parties in India" (=Viren or K.Ram's phrase) wield power in India. Hindus are as sidelined as Tibetans are and have been bullied by the pseculars amongst Indian police more often than they have.
The only way out of this is if Dharmics in India realise that we can't remain silent or inactive whenever any one of us is victimised by the traitor christoislamicommuniterrorist government. All of us are terrorised by it in turns. And its success shows in the fact that we are each made so powerless that we can barely stand up for ourselves and we certainly are unable to do so for other Dharmics.

Referred to this somewhere above. Aurobindo on non-violence:
http://voiceofdharma.org/books/ir/IR_part2.htm
Footnote [19] below:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->[19] When Sri Aurobindo wrote this, Gandhi, back in India, had just started propagating his doctrine of ahimsa.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->War and destruction are not only a universal principle of our life here in its purely material aspects, but also of our mental and moral existence. It is self-evident that in the actual life of man intellectual, social, political, moral we can make no real step forward without a struggle, a battle between what exists and lives and what seeks to exist and live and between all that stands behind either. It is impossible, at least as men and things are, to advance, to grow, to fulfil and still to observe really and utterly that principle of harmlessness which is yet placed before us as the highest and best law of conduct.[19] <b>We will use only soul-force and never destroy by war or any even defensive employment of physical violence? Good, though until soul-force is effective, the Asuric force in men and nations tramples down, breaks, slaughters, burns, pollutes, as we see it doing today, but then at its ease and unhindered, and you have perhaps caused as much destruction of life by your abstinence as others by resort to violence.... Evil cannot perish without the destruction of much that lives by the evil....</b>

??????? It is not enough that our own hands should remain clean and our souls unstained for the law of strife and destruction to die out of the world; that which is its root must first disappear out of humanity. Much less will mere immobility and inertia unwilling to use or incapable of using any kind of resistance to evil, abrogate the law; inertia, Tamas, indeed, injures much more than can the rajasic principle of strife which at least creates more than it destroys. Therefore, so far as the problem of the individual's action goes, his abstention from strife and its inevitable concomitant destruction in their more gross and physical form may help his own moral being, but it leaves the Slayer of creatures unabolished.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


From Harshvardan's post containing For China, the sun sets in Tibet:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->According to one estimate, there are twice the numbers of Han Chinese in Tibet as compared to Tibetans. The new rail lines and cantonments that are coming up in the area will make it difficult for the Tibetans to retain their culture.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->IIRC, going by the figures I heard and read of, communiterrorist China killed half the Tibetan population and imported Chinese communists twice the number of surviving Tibetans in their stead. This is to keep the remaining Tibetan population permanently oppressed. CommUtopia in action!

I hope Indian villagers and tribals and rest of the Indian population soon realise what self-destructive poison all forms of communism are (naxalism, maoism and all the various communist parties in India). Communists are always ready to kill everyone at a moment's notice. They're also the masters of statistical obfuscation/subterfuge/denial when it comes to committing genocide and then sweeping it under the rug of history.

[Hauma Hamiddha]

Let us see for all the talk if any nation boycotts the Olympics. The chInas have been waiting for this moment to claim superpower-hood by hosting Olympics and are unlikely to be let down Tibet or otherwise.

The main reason being the West is too invested in chInas.

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-Hauma Hamiddha+Mar 22 2008, 08:02 PM-->QUOTE(Hauma Hamiddha @ Mar 22 2008, 08:02 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Let us see for all the talk if any nation boycotts the Olympics.[right][snapback]79910[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I think one can close one's eyes and predict the outcome rather accurately. No government will (with one possible exception maybe, but I doubt even that one). Governmental hypocrisy will be coupled with compliant populations who take their leaders' signal and have no compunctions in watching and 'enjoying' olimpics. Because really, what does a remote Tibetan matter really? As if anyone can even hear any screams emanating from there. If they can't be heard, they didn't really happen, right? (Communitwit rule #1)
If anyone needs a precedent, just look at how many people care about rights of native Americans (let alone their autonomy or reclamation of what is after all <i>their</i> land). For most people Tibet is no more than an opportunity to apply their magnanimous sympathy - oohing and aahing over its plight - when they have time to and when they find it affordable to, otherwise they are conveniently amnesiac about it. "The olimpics can't be missed on such minor grounds as a tiny 'skirmish' in Tibet. That's an 'internal' problem of China, isn't it?" Sure. That makes it all better doesn't it. Am sure telling oneself that is far more effective than any tranquilizer.

What it comes down to is that every unconverted population - Tibetans or otherwise - are entirely alone. They either stand up for themselves and their ways, or die. No one else will (or can) - not even Nehruvian India, which had more conscious Hindus than there are today, helped. The west may mourn the Tibetans with a pretty monument or speech when it's all over (because the west must do so after all - can't compound callousness by ignoring the matter post-events as well) but not lift a worthwhile finger to save or at least stand by them.
Any government that doesn't boycott these olimpics has effectively raised its middle finger at Tibet. So Tibetans have to take their fates into their own hands.

But remember, "there's nothing unPC about the Chinese olimpics. We may watch in complete security of good conscience. Tibet and the coming olimpics are so obviously unrelated. Oh, well, if we must, we might choose to issue a condemnation after the fun of the games is over." Just like so many went to the nazi German olimpics too. (Oh that's right, back then olimpics was used as dawaganda for a murderous totalitarian nation as well. My, how history repeats itself within short spaces of time.) Never underestimate human stupidity. Else it always burns your fingers.
All one can do, and it's not much at all, is not watch the coming crapola beamed to all TVs.

[dhu]

<img src='http://static.flickr.com/29/47672882_accb73d4f4.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<i>A fresco of Buddha defaced by a bullet hole at temple ruins in central Tibet</i>

<img src='http://static.flickr.com/32/47673034_89d5bc2a53.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<i>.. after rescuing demonstrations from a burning police station during a demonstration against Chinese rule in 1987 </i>

<img src='http://static.flickr.com/24/47673187_d021d59244.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<i>A demonstration by a Chinese Army unit at a Tibetan festival</i>

[Guest]

<b>China vows to crush freedom-seeking Tibetans</b>
Link
March 22, 2008

Brushing aside calls for dialogue with the Dalai Lama, China has vowed to "crush" the "Tibet independence forces" as it raised to 19 the death toll in riots that rocked Lhasa last week during the most virulent anti-China protests in two decades.

"China must resolutely crush the Tibet independence forces' conspiracy and sabotaging activities," the People's Daily, the official mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), said in its commentary on Saturday, effectively rejecting growing calls from the West for China to hold dialogue with the Dalai Lama to end the crackdown on agitators.

"We must see through the secessionist forces' evil intentions" and maintain stability and protect people's "fundamental interests", the commentary said.

As it intensified its manhunt for the "most-wanted" suspects and rushed more troops to the restive areas in Tibet, Sichuan and Gansu provinces, the government said 18 civilians and a police officer were killed in the recent mob violence.

China had earlier said 13 civilians were either burned or hacked to death while the Tibetan government in exile based at Dharamsala has disputed the official casualties figure and put the toll at 99.

The People's Daily said the violent incidents were created by the "Tibet independence forces" and masterminded by the "Dalai Lama clique", with the "vicious intention" of undermining the Olympics and splitting Tibet from China.

''They exposed the Dalai clique's hypocrisy in proclaiming non-violence, peaceful dialogue, not seeking independence and caring for the Tibetan people," the paper said.

China has asserted that nearly 100 countries had demonstrated their support to its action to quell the unrest.

"It is a clear proof that the international community is on the side of China," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang was quoted as saying by official Xinhua news agency.

China's response came a day after US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi met the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala and demanded an "independent, outside" investigation into Beijing's allegation that the Tibetan spiritual leader was the instigator of the unrest.

She also asked all "freedom-loving" people to speak out against China's "oppression" in Tibet.

Dismissing the Dalai Lama as a "chief representative of the surf system" and a political refugee engaged in activities of splitting China, Qin said China opposed any "encouragement or support" for the secessionist attempts of the "Dalai clique" which violated the basic principles of international relations.

The Dalai Lama, who fled to India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, has repeatedly denied charges of inciting the Lhasa riots and said he was ready to meet the Chinese leadership for a dialogue.

China has insisted that the Dalai Lama must recognize Tibet and Taiwan as parts of China and undergo a "thorough review of himself" to create conditions for talks.