Redstate

The Chinese Regime Uses a special policy tool

By blackhedd Posted in China | Foreign Affairs | Lhasa | Tiananmen | Tibet — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Every now and then, governments in every country (including ours) find themselves having to reach for the ultimate social policy tool: armed repression of their own people. That's happening in Tibet this week.

To be precise, the Chinese are not repressing their own, because the bloodshed in Lhasa is directed against a people whose land was taken by force early in the Mao years, and whose ancient and beautiful culture is being systematically exterminated.

But it's an odd case, because somehow there is someone from the West there to see it, and it's a bit mysterious how and why the Chinese allowed that to happen.

Update: The Dalai Lama weighs in, alleging 80 deaths in Lhasa already, and demanding an international investigation.

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I noticed in the print version of this week's Economist that they had gotten permission for one of their reporters to visit Lhasa. One wonders exactly how much free rein this gentleman has, and whether the Chinese authorities let him in on purpose. Or were they blindsided by the sudden eruption of violence and figured they'd lose more face by forcibly ejecting the reporter than by leaving him where he is?

Anyway, here's the top of his latest dispatch:

THE Chinese authorities had been fearing trouble, but nothing on this scale. An orgy of anti-Chinese rioting convulsed the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on Friday March 14th, leaving security forces uncertain how to respond. For many hours mobs controlled the streets, burning and looting as they pleased.

The approach of Beijing’s Olympic games in August is seen by many of Lhasa’s residents as an opportunity to put their contempt for Chinese rule on display to the outside world. China’s desire to ensure the games are not marred by calls for boycotts is tying its hands as it considers how to respond.

Your correspondent, the only foreign journalist with official permission to be in Lhasa when the violence erupted, saw crowds hurling chunks of concrete at the numerous small shops run by ethnic Chinese lining the streets of the city’s old Tibetan quarter. They threw them too at those Chinese caught on the streets—a boy on a bicycle, taxis (whose drivers are often Chinese) and even a bus. Most Chinese fled the area as quickly as they could, leaving their shops shuttered.

The rest of the post is full of revealing details but continues in this rather circumspect vein, suggesting that, perhaps in deference to his nervous hosts, the really interesting stuff is being left unsaid. Especially in regard to the killings by Chinese security forces, which he tiptoes very carefully around.

We've been consumed with our domestic economic and political stories so far this year. But some very interesting things are going on in China. For one thing, inflation, primarily of food prices, is raging nearly out of control. I'm not saying food prices are the root of the problem in Tibet, which is exploding because of brutal repression. But what if things also get nasty in Beijing this spring?

You don't need to remind me that China is a little different in that they don't have the respect for individual human life that we do. (Or that Mao once suggested he'd be perfectly happy to sacrifice half of China's population in the process of winning a war.)

Even so, killing people always takes its toll on the legitimacy of a regime. (Just ask Janet Reno.)

Oh heck, I'll say the word. Tiananmen. And just in time for the Olympics, too.

-Francis Cianfrocca ("blackhedd")