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China says to get tough after Tibetan burnings

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Tibetan monks pray during a candlelight protest march in New Delhi October 20, 2011. REUTERS/Parivartan Sharma

Tibetan monks pray during a candlelight protest march in New Delhi October 20, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Parivartan Sharma

BEIJING | Thu Oct 20, 2011 1:08pm EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Foreign Ministry said Thursday the government of a restive, heavily Tibetan part of the country would take tough measures to ensure stability after a spate of self-immolations in protest at Chinese controls.

At least nine people have set fire to themselves in Tibetan parts of China in recent months, mostly in Aba in the southwestern province of Sichuan, to protest Chinese rule and what they say are restrictions on their culture and faith.

This week, Tibet's prime minister-in-exile blamed China's hard-line position for forcing Tibetans to take such desperate steps.

But Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu repeated that the government would continue to carry out a policy of freedom of religion.

"The local government will also take vigorous measures to ensure the safety of people and their property and normal social order," she told a regular news briefing.

There was no such thing as a "Tibet problem" as pushed by exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, Jiang added.

"China firmly opposes ethnic separatism, will resolutely protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and firmly opposes any country using the excuse of the so-called Tibet problem to interfere in China's internal affairs."

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama denies espousing violence, insisting he wants only real autonomy for his homeland, from which he fled in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. He is based in northern India.

Rights groups say the self-immolation protests could lead to a broad crackdown in Aba, which erupted in violence in March 2008 when Buddhist monks and other Tibetans loyal to the Dalai Lama confronted police and troops.

China has ruled what it now calls the Tibet Autonomous Region with an iron fist since Communist troops marched in 1950.

But it rejects the criticism of rights groups and exiled Tibetans, saying its rule has ended serfdom and brought much needed development to a poor and backward region.

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee and Sabrina Mao; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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Comments (4)
somethingtosay wrote:
Least he doesn’t leave bleeding two year old lying on the street. That says a lot about a complete lack of morals by a culture.

Oct 20, 2011 10:56am EDT  --  Report as abuse
starbuckssg wrote:
As a Buddhist myself I abhor such acts of self immolation in Tibet. Buddhists believe that life is precious. The first of the four Noble Truths in Buddhism says, “Life means suffering. To live means to suffer, because the human nature is not perfect and neither is the world we live in.” So what are these monks trying to prove by self-immolating. Such act borders on violence. It is just no difference to a human bomb, except you kill yourself instead of others. The sad part of this whole affair is that the people whom wants a Free Tibet are not really the Tibetans themselves. The people whom wants an independent Tibet are the ones whom ironically fled Tibet, together with the Dalai Lama after a failed revolt in 1959. They are the ones that are now pocketed in Dharamsala India and has nowhere to go. Good luck and stay put there. Westerners whom want to champion Free Tibet should go to Lhasa and see for themselves. Not only will you see breathtaking sceneries but also beautiful Tibetan people. Talk to the Tibetan cab drivers, the service related people in the hotels and you will have a better understanding that the new generation of Tibetans are not interested in breaking away. They don’t want to end up like their parents whom were serfs to the theocratic feudal system of the old and that also explains why ONLY the monks and a few diehards are fighting the Chinese government. Tibetan culture are not dying as they claimed. You can see them in museums all over China. Check the cultural village in Shenzhen and you will have a chance to see and understand Tibetan culture and religion. Don’t ever believe the Tibetan language is dying. More people speak Tibetan in Xizang (Tibet in Chinese) than Chinese. Xizang is the only province in China that I know of that has a major part of its population in a minority (in this case Tibetan). Tibetans numbered more than 90% with Han Chinese at under 7%. Thus when ignorant Tibetan sympathizers claimed that the beautiful highways, high speed railway from Goldmund to Lhasa and the better infrastructures are meant for Han Chinese, can that be true?

Oct 20, 2011 11:27am EDT  --  Report as abuse
mgunn wrote:
Dear China: please do not get tough and get tough like the United States have on Native Americans. Please do not shrivel them up to the smallest enclaves of worthless land euphemistically called “reservations” and pretend to care and then forgive yourself so easily.

Please do not destroy their culture like we so utterly have and then pretend to honor them by naming them after some football teams, phony Disney movies, etc. even as they live in squalor with among the highest poverty and disease rates in their reservations to this day.

Oct 20, 2011 5:02pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
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