A flood of bad news prompts Beijing to ban foreign visitors.
The Wall Street Journal (Asia)
June 7, 2012
Chinese travel agencies announced on Wednesday that foreign travelers are no longer allowed to visit Tibet. This blanket ban is Beijing’s response to the flood of bad news from the region in recent weeks.
If Beijing officials thought their strong-armed crackdowns earlier this year put an end to self-immolation protests, they’ve been proved wrong. Though the trend slowed in April, suicides as protests against Beijing’s oppressive rule have surged again, with three people lighting themselves on fire late last month. Two of the self-immolations were the first ever seen in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. That brings the total since March last year to 36.
Government intransigence has also led to a collapse in what little dialogue was underway between Beijing and the Dalai Lama. In a sign of rising Tibetan frustration, two of the Dalai Lama’s negotiators with the Chinese government resigned at the end of May. Envoys Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen cited “the deteriorating situation insideTibetsince [the ethnic riots in] 2008” and the Communist Party’s lack of commitment to genuine dialogue over their demands for more autonomy.
Tensions were already at breaking point between the two sides earlier last month when the Dalai Lama accused the government of plotting to assassinate him. A Foreign Ministry spokesman called the charges “not even worth refuting.”
As usual,China is responding to these challenges by clamping down harder. Beside the travel ban, the government deployed more than 3,000 fresh troops toLhasa, which already resembled an armed camp. The police arrested an estimated 600 Tibetans following the self-immolations.
If Beijing wants a harmonious society, as it professes, the only path forward is to address the root causes of Tibetan antipathy: the government’s near-totalitarian controls on their religion and culture. Last month’s U.S. government report on human rights in China cites ongoing “extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial detentions, and house arrests” in Tibet. Blocking foreigners from entering will do nothing to improve the situation inside the region, and won’t keep the truth about Chinese rule from getting out. As the Communist Party faces the worst political turbulence since 1989 on the eve of a national leadership transition, provoking unrest in Tibet is just one more sign that authoritarian rule is failing.
