China Aims to Stifle Tibet’s Photocopiers

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Published: May 20, 2010

By SHARON LaFRANIERE

BEIJING — The authorities have identified a new threat to political stability in the restive region of Tibet: photocopiers. Fearful that Tibetans might mass-copy incendiary material, public security officials intend to more tightly control printing and photocopying shops, according to reports from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.

A regulation now in the works will require the operators of printing and photocopying shops to obtain a new permit from the government, the Lhasa Evening News reported this month. They will also be required to take down identifying information about their clients and the specific documents printed or copied, the newspaper said.

A public security official in Lhasa, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the regulation “is being implemented right now,” but on a preliminary basis. The official hung up the phone without providing further details.

Tibetan activists said the new controls were part of a broader effort to constrain Tibetan intellectuals after a March 2008 uprising that led to scores of deaths. Since the riots, more than 30 Tibetan writers, artists and other intellectuals have been detained for song lyrics, essays, telephone conversations and e-mail messages deemed to pose a threat to Chinese rule, according to a report issued this week by the International Campaign for Tibet, a human rights group based in Washington.

“Basically, the main purpose is to instill fear into people’s hearts,” said Woeser, an activist who, like many Tibetans, goes by one name. “In the past, the authorities tried to control ordinary people at the grass-roots level. But they have gradually changed their target to intellectuals in order to try to control thought.”

Ms. Woeser said she was also a target of the authorities for her views. She lost her job in Lhasa after her book “Notes on Tibet” was banned in 2003. She now lives in Beijing, but she said she was carefully watched by the authorities.

China’s leaders contend that their only goal is to guarantee stability, ethnic unity and better living standards for Tibetans. Officials say that as long as separatist leaders are kept firmly in check, continued economic development will win Tibetans over to Chinese rule.

But the International Campaign for Tibet’s report contends that the authorities are not merely punishing separatists, but also dissidents of all stripes who dare to criticize the government and defend Tibetans’ cultural and religious identity. A 47-year-old writer named Tragyal was arrested in April after he published a book calling on Tibetans to defend their rights through peaceful demonstrations, the report states. His current whereabouts is unknown, it said.

A popular Tibetan singer, Tashi Dhondup, was sentenced to 15 months at a labor camp in January after he released a new CD with a song calling for the return of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, according to the report. He had been arrested on suspicion of “incitement to split the nation,” the report states.

The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against the Chinese authorities. He says he supports greater autonomy for Tibet but not secession. China says the Dalai Lama’s goal is an independent Tibet.

The authorities in Tibet apparently see printing and photocopying shops as potential channels through which unrest can spread. One Chinese print shop operator in Lhasa, who is of the majority Han ethnicity rather than Tibetan, said that her husband had been summoned to a meeting last week on the new requirements.

“You know sometimes people print documents in the Tibetan language, which we don’t understand,” said the woman, who gave her last name as Wu. “These might be illegal pamphlets.”

Tanzen Lhundup, a research fellow at the government-backed China Tibetology Research Center, which typically follows the government line on Tibet, said in an interview that “the regulation itself is not wrong.” But he said that it should have been put before the public before it was put in place.

“They have never issued such a regulation before,” he said. “On what grounds do they want to issue it? I think citizens should be consulted first.”

Zhang Jing contributed research.

Related articles by Zemanta

• New photocopy rules in Tibet city (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Dalai Lama Holds Twitter Conversation (abcnews.go.com)
• New Normal: Life Under Guard in Tibet (abcnews.go.com)
• Calls for Olympic boycott after Tibet brutality (atomiurl.com)

After Quake, Ethnic Tibetans Distrust China’s Help - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia

By ANDREW JACOBS

JIEGU, China — The Buddhist monks stood atop the jagged remains of a vocational school, struggling to move concrete slabs with pickax shovels and bare hands. Suddenly a cry went out: An arm, clearly lifeless, was poking through the debris.

But before the monks could finish their task, a group of Chinese soldiers who had been relaxing on the school grounds sprang to action. They put on their army caps, waved the monks away, and with a video camera for their unit rolling, quickly extricated the body of a young girl.

The monks stifled their rage and stood below, mumbling a Tibetan prayer for the dead.

“You won’t see the cameras while we are working,” said one of the monks, Ga Tsai, who with 200 others, had driven from their lamasery in Sichuan Province as soon as they heard about the quake.

“We want to save lives. They see this tragedy as an opportunity to make propaganda.”

Since a deadly earthquake nearly flattened this predominantly Tibetan city early Wednesday, killing at least 1,400 people, China’s leadership has treated the quake as a dual emergency — a humanitarian crisis almost three miles above sea level in remote Qinghai Province, and a fresh test of the Communist Party’s ability to keep a lid on dissent among restive Tibetans.

President Hu Jintao cut short a state visit to Brazil to fly home and supervise relief efforts, while Prime Minister Wen Jiabao postponed his own planned visit to Indonesia and came to the quake site promising that China’s Han majority would do whatever it could to aid the Tibetans.

The official state media prominently featured stories of grateful Tibetans receiving food and tents, and search and rescue specialists toiling to reach survivors even as they cope with altitude sickness.

Image via Wikipedia

The relief effort has indeed been impressive. With thousands of soldiers and truckloads of food clogging Jiegu’s streets on Saturday, earth-moving equipment started clearing away toppled buildings from the downtown. More than 600 of the seriously injured have been taken to hospitals in the provincial capital 500 miles away. In recent days, blue tents bearing the Civil Affairs Ministry logo have popped up across the city.

But despite outward signs of government largess and ethnic unity, the earthquake has exposed stubborn tensions between Beijing and Tibetans, many of whom have long struggled to maintain their autonomy and cultural identity amid a Han-dominated country. Widespread Tibetan rioting against Han rule severely disrupted Beijing’s planning to host the Summer Olympics in 2008, and China has kept Tibet and predominantly ethnically Tibetan regions of China under tight police and military control since then.

The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader who has not set foot in China since 1959, has issued a formal request to visit the disaster zone. It will most surely be denied.

Since the quake hit early Wednesday morning, thousands of monks have come to the city, some making a two-day drive from distant corners of a largely Tibetan region that spreads across three adjoining provinces.

It was the burgundy-robed monks who were among the first to pull people from collapsed buildings. On Saturday at dusk, long after the rescue experts had called it quits, they could be still be seen working the rubble.

“They are everything to us,” said Oh Zhu Tsai Jia, 57, opening the truck of his car so a group of young monks could pray over the body of his wife.

On Saturday morning, the monks ferried 1,400 bodies from the city’s main monastery to a dusty rise overlooking the city.

There, in two long trenches filled with salvaged wood, they dumped the dead and set cremation pyres ablaze.

As the fires burned for much of the day, hundreds of mourners sat mutely on a hillside next to the monks, who chanted aloud or quietly counted prayer beads of red coral and turquoise.

The police and Han officials were conspicuously absent.

The monastery’s leaders said no one from the local government had included their dead in the official tally although they were careful not to voice any criticism. Many of the younger monks, however, were not as reticent.

At the No. 3 Primary School, the monks said they had pulled 50 students from collapsed classrooms but when an official came by to ask how many had died, the police offered half that number. “I think they’re afraid to let the world know how bad this earthquake is,” said Gen Ga Ja Ba, a 23-year-old monk.

One of the most persistent complaints, however, was that many of the official rescue efforts have focused on the city’s larger structures and ignored the mud-brick homes that, with few exceptions, collapsed by the hundreds. Others spoke of skirmishes with the police over bodies, although such accounts could not be verified.

The other more incendiary criticism heard wherever monks gathered was that soldiers had prevented them from helping in rescue efforts during the first few days after the earthquake.

Tsairen, a monk from a monastery in Nangqian County in Sichuan, spoke about how he and scores of other monks tussled with soldiers at a collapsed hotel that first night. “We asked why they wouldn’t let us help, and they just ignored us,” said Tsairen, who like some Tibetans, uses only one name.

Later, he and more than 100 others headed to the vocational school, where the voices of trapped girls could still be heard in the rubble of a collapsed dormitory.

They said the soldiers blocked them from the pile and later, the chief of their monastery, Ga Tsai, scuffled with a man they described as the county chief.

“He grabbed me by my robe and dragged me out to the street,” Ga Tsai said.

In the evening after the soldiers had left the scene, they went to work, eventually pulling out more than a dozen bodies.

Even if exaggerated, such stories can only work against the government’s efforts to win over Tibetans.

In recent days, the government has vowed to rebuild Jiegu, which is also known by its Chinese name Yushu, promising to spare no expense. But while many Tibetans expressed gratitude for the relief efforts and the official outpouring of concern, others were less appreciative.

As an excavator and a bulldozer sifted through the remains of the vocational school dormitory on Saturday, Gong Jin Ba Ji, a 16-year-old student, stood watching.

A day earlier, she said, the machinery inadvertently tore apart the body of a classmate. She was still waiting for them to recover the body of her older sister.

“I wish they would work more carefully,” she said numbly. “Maybe they don’t care so much because we are only Tibetans.”

Ziang Jiang contributed research.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Beijing Embraces Quake Survivors as Toll Passes 1,100 (online.wsj.com)
• Dalai Lama seeks to visit quake-ravaged area of China (cnn.com)
• More Than 1,400 Dead After China Quake (news.sky.com)
• Tibetans cremate hundreds of China quake victims (ctv.ca)
• China's Wen Visits Quake Site (online.wsj.com)

China Seals Off Remote Town in Northwest After Three Die of Pneumonic Plague

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 4, 2009

BEIJING, Aug. 3 -- Chinese authorities have sealed off a remote town in northwestern China after three people died of pneumonic plague and eight others were infected with the highly contagious lung disease.

The Qinghai province health bureau said a 32-year-old herdsman and a 37-year-old neighbor in Ziketan, a Tibetan town of 10,000, have died. A doctor at a nearby hospital where patients are being treated said a third victim, who was 64, died about 6:40 a.m. Monday.

Chinese authorities have said most of the other infected patients are in stable condition, but Wen Xin, a physician at the Tibetan Hospital of Xinghai County in Qinghai, said the wife of the herdsman was in serious condition and coughing up blood. He said an additional 13 people are being quarantined at the hospital for observation.

"City leaders, plague experts and cadres from national and local disease control and prevention departments are all in the village," Wen said.

Pneumonic plague is caused by the same bacterium as bubonic plague, or Black Death, which is estimated to have killed 25 million people during the Middle Ages. While bubonic plague is transmitted by infected fleas, pneumonic plague moves person-to-person through the air, according to the World Health Organization. Patients typically become infected by being in close contact with someone who has the plague and is coughing, or by handling contaminated articles. If left untreated, pneumonic plague can cause death within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms.

Vivian Tan, spokeswoman for the WHO in Beijing, said that the origin of the pneumonic plague outbreak in China is unknown but that similar outbreaks have occurred sporadically over the years in Africa, the former Soviet Union, the Americas and some Asian countries. In 2003, the most recent year for which figures are available, 2,118 people in nine countries were infected and 182 died.

Tan said that the agency was informed of the infections over the weekend and that it is monitoring the situation but has not sent personnel to the affected region. "According to the information we received, the situation is under control and the Chinese authorities have the experience to deal with this," she said.

Since the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003, during which China's slow and secretive response was blamed for the spread of SARS worldwide, the government has overhauled how it deals with disease outbreaks. Its aggressive approach to swine flu in recent months is credited with keeping the number of infected within its borders to a minimum.

Staff researchers Liu Liu and Wang Juan contributed to this report.

Tibetans in Nepal Feel Financial, Political Pressure as Carpet Industry Unravels

By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 29, 2009

KATHMANDU, Nepal -- Thinley Sangmo was taught as a young girl in exile how to weave traditional Tibetan carpets. Her grandmother's thick hands would twist and spin spools of sheep's wool to depict the landscape and religious iconography of their homeland: hairy yaks lumbering up snow-swept mountains, puffy clouds and ponds of pink lotus flowers.

By the time she was 14, Sangmo was hunching over an upright loom for more than 12 hours a day. Sometimes she would fall asleep. She wanted to attend school, but as the oldest of seven children and as a Tibetan refugee living without full rights in Nepal, carpet weaving was her best option.

"It's very hard work. At first, I would cry," said Sangmo, now 36, with walnut-colored hair tucked into a bun. "At times, I was angry and sad about it. But I learned to appreciate it. Now, generations depend on these factories. This is all we know how to do."

Yet today her livelihood, and that of thousands of other Tibetan carpet weavers here, is under threat. The global economic crisis has spread to this landlocked Himalayan nation, among the poorest on Earth. Fewer tourists are coming to buy carpets, and tens of thousands of dollars in export orders have been canceled, industry experts say, leading to the closure of more than 500 factories.

The crisis facing Tibetan exiles in Nepal is exacerbated by the country's new government, led by Maoists, who joined the political mainstream in 2006 after waging a decade-long war. As China's influence over the government grows, Tibetans are experiencing a rise in harassment and extortion, more restrictions on their movements and greater difficulty securing education and jobs than ever before, according to a report released Tuesday by the International Campaign for Tibet. An estimated 20,000 Tibetans live in Nepal, which has centuries-old cultural and religious ties with Tibet.

"There has been change in the use of language by the Nepalese authorities to describe the Tibetan refugee flow through their country, suggesting a 'law and order' approach rather than the humanitarian approach that has characterized Nepal's treatment of Tibetans over the last decades," said Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet. "As a result of Chinese pressure on the Nepalese government, judicial system, civil society and media, Tibetans in Nepal are increasingly fearful, demoralized and at risk. "

Tibetan business and human rights leaders say that as the global economy worsened, Maoist militias and Nepalese police began "taxing" the Tibetan factories and workers, often through mafia-style shakedowns and threats. For many Tibetans still waiting for legal papers according them some civil rights in Nepal, there is nothing they can do to fight back as factories are forced out of business.

"The carpet industry is an economic and cultural lifeline for thousands of Tibetans and Nepalese," said Tinley Gatso, a Tibetan community leader in Kathmandu, Nepal's capital. "It was our culture, our art. When Nepal took us in, it was our big gift to Nepal. But now, so many carpets factories are closing. It's a very sad time, a worrying time."

Nepal is home to the world's second-largest Tibetan exile community after India. Buddhist prayer flags flutter along Kathmandu's alleyways and in its markets. Some of the world's most celebrated stupas -- whitewashed temples resembling enormous birthday cakes crossed with spaceships -- draw Buddhist monks and nuns and foreign tourists to the city's crowded squares. Recordings of the Buddhist mantra "Om mani padme hum," played by shopkeepers, echo through the narrow streets.

Since a wave of protests against Chinese rule that began in Tibet in March 2008, Nepal has been under increasing pressure from Beijing to take sterner measures against pro-Tibet demonstrations here, according to diplomats, government officials and human rights workers. A recent press statement by Nepal's Ministry of Home Affairs appears to support the tougher stance: "Nepal stands firm not to allow any external forces to use its soil against its neighbors and it sticks to its One China policy."

China accuses the Dalai Lama, the Buddhist spiritual leader, of trying to split Tibet from China. The Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in northern India, has said that although he desires greater autonomy for Tibet, he does not advocate independence.

The squeezing of Tibetans in Nepal is most vividly apparent in the carpet business.

Khamsum Wangdu is one of the biggest Tibetan carpet manufacturers in Kathmandu. He once had four factories that employed 600 people. Now he's down to one factory and 20 workers. The economic downturn and the official demands for "fees" have affected his business, he said.

"We need the international community to help us," the burly businessman said. "Instead of giving the Dalai Lama gold medals, why not focus on helping Tibetan people with the recession and all of the political instability and pressure here in Nepal? The Dalai Lama is happy when his people are happy."

Thumbing his prayer beads, Wangdu said he was once proud that he was able to employee Tibetans and Nepalese in his factories. But on a recent day, in the single factory he still operates, only half the looms were in use.

In the half-finished factory built of brick and tin, women sat cross-legged at a vertical loom. Deftly, they wielded iron rods and scissors to stretch and trim the woven pattern. Hammers were used to separate the fibers, forcing out dirt.

The factory also doubles as a day-care center. One woman breast-fed her 2-month-old daughter during a break. Children raced in and out. Others bathed around a borehole outside, shampooing their hair with buckets of water.

"So many of my friends in carpet weaving have already lost their jobs," said Sanu Mayalama, 35, whose husband recently lost his job in a TV factory in Malaysia. "My parents are still living in the mountains. They are so poor. We need this income."

Tibetan carpet weaving dates to the 7th century, when the carpets were used as horse saddles. In the past, monasteries were the weavers' main clients. That began to change in the 1970s, when trekkers and mountain climbers descended on Nepal and began to take an interest in carpets. There was a separate boom in the late 1980s, when Tibet's struggle for independence became an international cause. Today, the carpets are sold in tourist markets, along with Tibetan religious paintings, prayer lamps, brass bowls and T-shirts embroidered with the words "Yak Yak Yak, Nepal."

On a recent morning, Sangmo sat in her neighborhood, where many Tibetan exiles live. Some mentioned that it was the Dalai Lama's 74th birthday but that their celebrations and religious ceremonies had been canceled. Sangmo's family, like many others here, fled Tibet with the Dalai Lama in 1959 after a failed revolt against Chinese rule.

Sangmo sat next to her grandmother, who had been a yak herder in Tibet before she moved to Nepal and learned the carpet-making craft. Both women said they worried that many people in the neighborhood will lose their jobs in the industry in the next few months.

"It's all we have," Sangmo said. "We are lost without carpet-making."

Entry Level - Where Nepalese Is Spoken, and Yak Is Served

By JENNIFER 8. LEE

Located in the shadow of the elevated No. 7 train tracks in Jackson Heights, Queens, Himalayan Yak is a popular restaurant for Nepalese and Tibetan immigrants in the region. Jamyang Gurung, 26 (or 27, using the Nepalese method of calculating age), manages the restaurant for his uncle, who bought it about five years ago.

Behind the restaurant’s name: The old owner was pure Tibetan. The old name was Yak. We keep the same Yak, but we added the “Himalayan” word. We wanted to serve all Himalayans.

Do you serve yak? Yes. But not right now. We have to place an order before a week. We order it from over there — Minnesota, Colorado. Yak meat is not that expensive. More expensive than lamb. Yak meat is $7.99. Yak meat is very good and organic, and juicy.

On the menu: Typical Nepalese food. Our restaurant is famous for Tibetan food also. We have Indian food also. We are going to change a little bit. We want to add seafood items.

Is there seafood in Himalayan cuisine? We don’t have sea in Nepal. Nepal is a landlocked country. We don’t have sushi also over there.

Hometown: I was born in Nepal, in Mustang, like Mustang car, you know. Mustang is the border of Tibet and Nepal. It’s one of the famous tourist areas in Nepal. All our ancestors are from Tibet. Most Mustang people are similar to Tibetan. Our culture is the same. We believe in Buddhism. We also believe in Dalai Lama.

How many languages do you speak? Just three: Nepali, Tibetan and English. All the Mustang people speak Tibetan. Our mother tongue is Tibetan. The national language is Nepali. Because it’s a tourist area, it’s very important to speak English. You have to deal with customers.

On moving to New York in 2002: I thought New York must be very beautiful, very different from Katmandu. When I came to Queens, it looked so similar. But then I went to Times Square and that was, I thought, “Oh, my God.” There were all these high buildings. I thought, “How can they build like this? How many people can fit in one building?”

Does the subway bother you? Sometimes, but it has now become a habit. Mustang — we have wind, crazy wind. It’s a cold desert. It’s very loud. Around 12 midday, it stops everything. People stop to walk in the day.

On-location TV shoot: “Ugly Betty” was here. They booked the whole day. The location director came as a customer. He liked the environment. He talked to the main director. They ordered yak sausage.

The breakdown of your customers: Nepalese, Tibetan, Himalayan are 75 percent, 25 percent are foreigners.

Are they foreigners, if your restaurant is in the United States? We call them tourists in Nepal. Whenever you see white people, you call them tourists. So many people come from Europe and America, so you don’t know if they are Americans. That’s why we call them tourists. When you are over here, we have the same concept.

East-West Center Washington Working Papers

East-West Center Washington Working Papers are non-reviewed and unedited prepublications reporting on research in progress. These papers have a limited distribution, and are available to everyone online as PDF files.
The Dalit Movement and Democratization in Andhra Pradesh
by K.Y. Ratnam
December 2008

State of the States: Mapping India's Northeast
by Bhagat Oinam
November 2008

The State of the Pro-Democracy Movement in Authoritarian Burma
by Kyaw Yin Hlaing
December 2007

Insurgencies in India’s Northeast: Conflict, Co-option & Change
by Subir Bhaumik
July 2007

Origins of the United States-India Nuclear Agreement
by Itty Abraham
May 2007

Internal Displacement, Migration, and Policy in Northeastern India
by Uddipana Goswami
April 2007

Faces of Islam in Southern Thailand
by Imtiyaz Yusuf
March 2007

Committing Suicide for Fear of Death: Power Shifts and Preventive War
by Dong Sun Lee
September 2006

Decentralization, Local Government, and Socio-Political Conflict in Southern Thailand
by Chandra-nuj Mahakanjana
August 2006

Human Rights in Southeast Asia: The Search for Regional Norms
by Herman Joseph S. Kraft
July 2005

Delays in the Peace Negotiations Between the Philippine Government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front: Causes and Prescriptions
by Soliman M. Santos, Jr.
January 2005

China's Policy on Tibetan Autonomy
by Warren Smith
October 2004

Demographics and Development in Xinjiang after 1949
by Stanley Toops
May 2004

Source - http://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/search-for-publications/browse-all-series/?class_call=view&seriesid=135&mode=view

Minority Groups Briefs #3

China Creates Specter of Dueling Dalai Lamas (Tibetans)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/world/asia/07lama.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

The Intersection of Islam, America and Identity (Muslims)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/arts/design/07sont.html?ref=todayspaper

Women Immigrants Key to Family Unity (women, immigrants)
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=b28784791ebd77a8ab9d9a68edb8cfda

Poor, Minorities Hardest Hit by Climate Change (poor, minority groups)
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=274a95eae9ffde099abee3668698fe8b

Minority Groups Briefs #2

Young Muslims: Seeking a Way between Two World (Muslims)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/05/AR2009060503146.html

Officers Can Order Removal of Veils (Muslims)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/05/AR2009060503430.html

New Scrutiny of Judge's Most Controversial Case (blacks, whites, Hispanics)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/us/politics/06ricci.html?ref=todayspaper

Spititual Journey Leads to a Historical First (Jews, blacks)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/us/06rabbi.html?ref=todayspaper

Czechs Cool to Presence of Workers from Asia (Asians, Vietnamese)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/world/asia/07viet.html?ref=global-home&pagewanted=all

Amish Escaping Crowds, Prices in East (Amish)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/06/us/AP-US-Amish-Head-West.html?ref=global-home

Report Says Valid Grievances at Root of Tibet Unrest (Tibetans)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/world/asia/06tibet.html?ref=global-home

Harvard to Endow Chair in Gay Studies (gays)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/education/04harvard.html?_r=1&hpw

Food Truck Nation (Asians)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204456604574201934018170554.html

Obama, Wiesel Make Emotional Visit to Buchenwald (Jews)
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/06/05/obama-weisel-make-emotional-visit-to-buchenwald/?blog_id=24&post_id=10618