Foreign tourists are being shut out of Tibet, too
policemen man a makeshift checkpoint outside Hongya, a hillside village in the western province of Qinghai on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. One of them says would-be visitors to Hongya must have their identity documents photographed and names noted down. Hongya is the birthplace of the 14th, and current, Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader who is reviled by China’s government. His former home is maintained as a shrine by relatives; Tibetan pilgrims occasionally venture there.
Security is often tight around Hongya. But the authorities across the plateau, including Tibet and vast Tibetan-inhabited areas of other provinces, are on heightened alert during what officials sometimes call the “sensitive month” of March. It is a time of year studded with anniversaries that officials fear could trigger protests by Tibetans. One is March 14th, the date in 2008 when anti-Chinese riots erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, prompting plateau-wide unrest and a fierce clampdown.
Kumbum monastery near Xining, the capital of Qinghai province, is one of the main centres of Tibetan Buddhism . It also has a reputation for being one of the most loyal to the Chinese government. But it does not feel relaxed. When greeted, resident Tibetan monks look nervously around for guards and at the ubiquitous rooftop security-cameras before offering a few polite words in response. There has long been a police station at Kumbum.
At least foreigners are still allowed in Qinghai. Every year since 2008 Tibet itself has been closed to foreign tourists for several weeks around March. This year, because of the 60th anniversary, the ban is expected to be longer than usual. In January Tibet’s police chief, Zhang Hongbo, said there were “many risks and hidden dangers” in this year of big anniversaries . He said that as a result, the task of maintaining stability in Tibet would be “even more serious and complicated”.
But the party has an anniversary in March it would like to celebrate. It falls on March 28th—the day in 1959 when China dissolved Tibet’s Dalai Lama-led government and, it says, ended an oppressive system of monastic control over ordinary citizens . This year it will be a decade since the date was declared to be “Serfs’ Emancipation Day”. It is marked with official performances of song and dance.
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