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China's hard line wins conformity but not hearts

Deadly violence in Tibet two years ago has left an occupied city in its wake.

By John Garnaut | The Age

A paramilitary policeman stands guard in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, on 29 June 2010. China can maintain its grip on Tibet “forever”, a senior official said on Tuesday, but conceded that a heavy security presence was still needed to ensure order in Lhasa two years after deadly riots. The sign around his neck reads “fire prevention”.Reuters/Ben Blanchard/China

In March 2008, after bloody riots erupted across the Tibetan plateau, a group of monks stormed a Chinese-government-led tour of foreign journalists at Jokhang Temple. “We want freedom … they are telling lies,” said the monks, saying they had been falsely accused of causing the carnage.

Yesterday, on another tightly controlled media tour, a Jokhang administrator agreed to present one of those monks. “I have not been beaten. I had to learn more about the law,” said shy 29-year-old Norgye. “Through law education I realised what I had done.”

Norgye’s impromptu testimony, relayed through a government interpreter, provided some evidence that the government’s patriotic education blitz is bringing monks to heel. The re-education campaign has come with a massive security blitz, which a US congressional report says has led to the arrest and detention of at least 643 Tibetans since 10 March 2008.

Towards nightfall, clusters of armed police walk through crowds of monks, shoppers and occasional tourists near Jokhang Temple or stand at street intersections. Some wear riot gear, and plain-clothes police struggle to hold back German shepherds. But after dusk in hidden corners of the majestic old city, Tibetans occasionally give alternative views of life under hardline rule. A 28-year-old illiterate Tibetan says in broken Chinese that the situation remains “tense” and “terrible”.

He says he recently discarded his monk’s clothes to reduce the number of searches and identity checks he faced.

After leading The Age to a more secluded room, he says in a quiet but excited voice that “the Dalai Lama is the No. 1 best person” and tells how he and many friends have prohibited photographs of the exiled monk stashed away in their home villages.

The Han-Chinese proprietor of a shop selling posters of Tibetan gods and spiritual leaders, indicates that she, like many migrants from eastern China who bore the brunt of senseless violence that killed 18 mainly Han Chinese in 2008, is also feeling the pressure of Lhasa’s barely concealed divisions. “Of course it’s better [in my home town of Wuhan],” she says, declining to give her name. “The people here just shit in the streets.”

Beijing has taken some steps to begin normalising conditions in Tibet, offering discount flights for international tourists and inviting in our small band of foreign journalists on a tightly scheduled tour.

Officials named rapid development of the economy as the top policy goal. Lhasa has thus become a frenzy of construction, although many Tibetans still face what may be the most extreme income inequality in China.

Monks are conforming to the new hardline religious policies and there have been few reports of violence this year. But little effort appears to have been expended on “winning hearts and minds” or healing racial wounds.

In central Lhasa, armed police standing in formation, rifles at the ready, look to be a display of deliberate intimidation.

Copyright © 2010 Fairfax Media

Published in The Age