Beijing's Tibetans watched and grilled after riots

BEIJING (Reuters) - Thousands of ethnic Tibetans who work or study in Beijing, an economic boomtown compared with back home, are laying low in the face of police checks after recent riots and protests in southwestern China.

Since mid-March, when deadly riots in Lhasa spread to dissent in other Tibetan communities against the Chinese government, emigres in the capital have been dogged by police and taken anonymous calls seeking information, they say.

"It's a sensitive topic, and I really can't talk about it much," said Bo-er, a Tibetan who opened a handicrafts shop on a popular downtown pedestrian street last year. "We're in business, and business is what we've got to do."

China has poured troops into Tibetan regions to enforce calm following clashes that the government says killed 19 people and Tibetan authorities in exile say could have left up to 140 dead.

Surveillance of Beijing's Tibetans, who often come to escape rural poverty but privately sympathize with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader the government blames for the riots, shows that Beijing thinks they harbor secrets about possible plans for more protests.

"Quite clearly the Chinese police are calling around the Tibetan community, trying to gain information or get them to say the wrong things," said a foreign-born author who knows Tibetans throughout China.

"Tibetans are here but keeping their heads down," he said. "But some of them are OK, just under heavy police presence."

Some Tibetans, including students, service workers and performing artists in Beijing, have received anonymous calls, seeking information about any activities at home, according to people close to them.

Police have nosed into Bo-er's shop -- which employs his two sisters from Tibet's third-largest city in selling music VCDs and miniature prayer wheels to eager Chinese tourists -- asking how they've been since the protests and riots.

On March 17 about 100 Tibetan students from the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing held a sit-in that was tolerated, although media representatives were denied access, an overseas rights group said. The sit-in sparked emergency meetings among university staffers.

At the Yong He Gong lama temple, a Tibetan-style landmark in Beijing, plain-clothed security mix with tourists from around the world who go to gaze at prayer wheels and colorful inscriptions.

But Tibetans in Beijing normally say little about China's crackdown on protests in Tibetan regions over what many of them see as suppression of their religion and culture since China annexed the region in the 1950s.

"This problem hasn't been settled," said a Tibetan restaurant stage performer who asked not to be named. "It's just under control now."

Some Tibetans, busy earning degrees or serving yak meat, just follow news about Tibet through the tightly controlled local media. They mention no change in their own lives.

"It's all the same here," said Zhaxi Dajie, Tibetan owner of a year-old Beijing arts and crafts store, his do-business grin falling as he was asked about the riots. "I'm not clear on what's going on, since it's been a long time since I called home."

(Editing by David Fox)

(Reporting by the Beijing Bureau, +8610-6627-1003)