Last modification: 05/08/08
 -  China - Tibet
 
Unrest in Tibet
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Clashes in March 2008 between Tibetan protesters and Chinese law enforcement spread from Lhasa to China. The west has condemned China on the matter, with the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing looming as a veiled deadline for China to take action.

The nation of Tibet was annexed by China in 1949-50. The 14th and current Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader and most important symbol of Tibet, went into exile in 1959, settling in Dharamsala, India. The Chinese government imported Han Chinese into what is now known as the Tibet Autonomous Region (part of China); they now constitute the ethnic majority. In 1988, the Dalai Lama stated his official wish for Tibet’s future to be not an independent state, but rather a “democratic and autonomous political entity.”

On March 10 2008, Tibetan monks in Lhasa, capital of the Tar, began street protests to commemorate the 49th anniversary of the failed rebellion against China. The protests evolved into violence. Protesters clashed with police and burned down business owned by Han Chinese.  Similar protests erupted in other regions of China with large Tibetan populations. Chinese and Tibetan accounts of casualties have varied wildly, and were impossible to confirm independently because the Chinese government has banned journalists from the affected areas.

The protests are a major embarrassment for the Chinese government in the coming months, as China prepares to host the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.  

Follow our coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, and read more about the Tibet clashes on our Observers site.

 

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