Tibetan identity runs deep even as China keeps tabs

By John Ruwitch

KANGDING, China (Reuters) - As Qingcuo Duoji and his friends lounge on a football pitch smoking, little beyond their crimson cheeks and high noses mark them out as Tibetan.

The youth banter in the Mandarin twang distinctive to Sichuan province in southwest China. Their clothes are no different from those worn by Han Chinese kids in this area where Tibetan and Chinese populations overlap.

"Enter a village, follow its customs," Qingcuo Duoji, 25, says, using the Chinese equivalent of: "When in Rome, do as the Romans".

The biggest protests by Tibetans in almost two decades turned violent in the historical heart of Tibetan culture, Lhasa, earlier this month and spread to other areas. The government has flooded the region with troops and suppressed spreading unrest.

There have been no protests in Kangding, a trade outpost turned tourism hub where the Himalayan highlands and the Chinese plains meet. Yet the recent anti-Chinese unrest elsewhere has exposed rifts that could set Qingcuo Duoji and his friends apart from their Han Chinese mates for a long time to come.

Tibetans and Chinese, particularly from the Han ethnic group which accounts for 90 percent of the population, have mingled here for centuries, but ethnic Tibetan identity still runs deep.

For most, that means a desire to preserve distinct linguistic and religious traditions that some fear are being diluted through government policy and assimilation.

Qingcuo Duoji grew up tending yaks and horses, like many of the 5 million or so ethnic Tibetans in China who live as high-altitude herders.