China protests Mongolia visit by Dalai Lama

China said today that it had lodged a complaint with the Mongolian government about a visit to the vast and remote country by exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who Beijing considers a dangerous separatist.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China had made “stern representations” to the government in Ulan Bator about the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

“We have always opposed any country providing a platform for the Dalai Lama to engage in activities to split China in any form,” he told a daily news briefing.



“The Dalai Lama always uses the opportunity of furtive visits to publicise Tibetan independence, smear the Chinese government and play up issues related to Tibet.”

The Dalai Lama, fresh from a visit to Japan, arrived in the Mongolian capital yesterday for a short lecture tour at a invitation of a Buddhist group.

Ulan Bator has restricted the Dalai Lama to one lecture today in the city’s new 4,000-seat Buyant-Ukhaa sports complex, which was built using Chinese aid.

Further lectures due to be delivered tomorrow and Thursday will be relocated to a less controversial location, Mongolian Transportation Minister Battulga Khaltmaa told reporters following a cabinet meeting.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama denies being a separatist, saying he only seeks autonomy for his homeland through peaceful means.

Buddhist monastic life, which took hold in Mongolia in the 1500s, was nearly wiped out within 15 years of communist rule, mostly during Stalinist purges in the 1930s when an estimated 17,000 lamas were executed.

But since the country emerged from decades of Soviet dominance in 1991, the Yellow Hat sect of Buddhism ― also practised in Tibet ― is making a comeback, and the Dalai Lama is recognised as one of the country’s spiritual leaders.

China has been accused by human rights groups of using its growing economic clout to pressure trading partners into refusing visits by the Dalai Lama. His plans to visit South Africa earlier this year were cancelled amid accusations that the government had refused to process his visa.

Mongolia won its political independence from China in 1912, but Beijing did not recognise its sovereignty until 1946, and many in Mongolia are concerned about Beijing’s growing economic hegemony.

Mongolia’s booming, mining-dependent economy is almost completely reliant on its southern neighbour, with 90 per cent of its exports going to China in the first half of this year.

During a previous tour by the Dalai Lama of Mongolia in 2002, China retaliated by closing the border rail crossing for two days, leaving 500 passengers stranded and severing one of the country’s few links with the outside world.

Mining companies based near the Chinese border said they were not aware of any disruptions to border transport so far.

China says can guarantee grip on Tibet ‘forever’

LHASA, June 29 – China can maintain its grip on Tibet “forever”, a senior official said today, but conceded that a heavy security presence was still needed to ensure order in Lhasa two years after deadly riots.

Hao Peng, deputy Communist Party boss and deputy governor in mountainous Tibet, fingered unidentified “anti-Chinese” forces and exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama as the main threat to a region which has been hit by sporadic unrest since 2008.



“We have the ability and confidence to maintain stability in Tibet forever, and we will ultimately achieve long-term order and stability,” Hao told visiting journalists, in a city still tense two years after it was ravaged by deadly ethnic rioting.

“What you see in the streets, including the police and other legal forces, are necessary measures to maintain stability,” he said, speaking in an ornate room in the Tibet government offices.

At least 19 people died in the March 2008 riots in Lhasa, which sparked waves of protests across Tibetan areas. Pro-Tibet groups say more than 200 people were killed in a subsequent crackdown.

Protests against Chinese rule, led by Buddhist monks, gave way to torrid violence, with rioters torching shops and turning on residents including Han Chinese and Hui Muslims.

Many Tibetans see Hans as intruders threatening their culture and religion, and say they have been treated harshly by the government since the riots.

Beijing has denied being heavy-handed, and says it has poured billions of dollars into boosting Tibet’s development, money it says benefits mainly Tibetans.

Hao said peace had returned and blamed overseas agitators for the continued presence of armed police in Lhasa, especially in the old Tibetan quarter.

“The situation in Tibet is more stable than before the March 14 incident,” he said.

“The Dalai clique and some anti-Chinese forces internationally have colluded to make trouble in Tibet. Because of this, we have to take a lot of measures, to ensure the stability of the legal system and the stability of Tibet.”

Exiled Tibetans and rights groups say those in Tibet are living under difficult restraints and many are still waiting to hear from relatives and friends who disappeared after the violence.

“Two years down the line there is still no normality across the Tibetan plateau. It’s still extremely tense,” said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher on China with Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group.

“It’s still very difficult to get things done, there are still a lot of restrictions, a lot of surveillance, a lot of troops. Certainly tourism and travel is not back to normal.”

The area is usually off-limits to foreign reporters, apart from those on rare and tightly-controlled government trips like the one Hao met with, which makes it hard to assess competing accounts.

Hao, repeating the government’s standard line about on-off talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama, said China was willing to talk if independence was off the table.

“The core of this policy is for the Dalai Lama to abandon Tibet independence, stop separatist activities, and acknowledge that Tibet is an inalienable part of China,” he said.

“If he does this then the door to talks is always open.”

The Dalai Lama denies China’s charges against him, and says he only seeks more meaningful autonomy for Tibet and that he has never advocated violence. China says it does not believe him.

But his image is not allowed to be shown publicly in what is officially called the Tibet Autonomous Region despite the reverence many Tibetan Buddhists have for him. Every year some make the dangerous trek to India and back to see him in person.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama fled into exile following an abortive uprising in 1959.

Hao said the prohibition on his image was natural. “The Dalai Lama is not merely a religious figure, he is also a mastermind of separatist activities. No sovereign country in the world would allow the hanging of a portrait of a person like that,” he said

Tibetan monks ordered to leave China's quake zone-Gales and snow hit China's quake zone

Chinese youths bow their heads before a national flag flown at half-staff on a square in Xining in China's Qinghai province Wednesday, April 21, 2010. China ordered all flags be flown at half-staff and called a halt to all entertainment, including online games and sports events, for the national day of mourning.


Residents gather to commemorate the more than 2,000 victims killed by the recent Qinghai quake, at a square in Xining in China's Qinghai province Wednesday April 21, 2010. China ordered all flags to be flown at half-staff and called a halt to all entertainment, including online games and sports events, for the national day of mourning.

Earthquake survivors say the Tibetan monks helped first, bringing food, pitching tents and digging through rubble after disaster hit far western China a week ago, killing and injuring thousands.

Now the Buddhist monks who responded first are being pushed out of the disaster area and off of state media — apparently sidelined by Beijing's unease with their heroism and influence.






Floor traders attend one minute mourning for the victims of an earthquake in Yushu county of northwest Chinas Qinghai province, at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in Hong Kong Wednesday, April 21, 2010. Bowing their heads in silent tribute, thousands of officials, soldiers and civilians gathered Wednesday in ceremonies across China to mourn the victims killed in a devastating quake that hit one week ago in a remote Tibetan region


A woman places flowers to commemorate those killed by the recent Qinghai earthquake at a square in Xining in China's Qinghai province Wednesday, April 21, 2010. China ordered all flags be flown at half-staff and called a halt to all entertainment, including online games and sports events, for the national day of mourning.


Fierce winds and heavy snow have hit China's quake zone, complicating relief work and bringing more misery to survivors

Monasteries were given verbal orders this week to recall their monks. Amid hours of coverage for China's national day of mourning on Wednesday, no monks were visible in the official proceedings.

It was a jarring omission in light of their contributions to the weeklong rescue and relief effort following the quake, which killed 2,064 people and injured more than 12,000 others.

Tsebtrim, an ethnic Tibetan who works as a translator in Yushu, the county in Qinghai province hit hardest by the April 14 quake, was among thousands left homeless. He recalls heading to the horse racing grounds shortly after the earthquake with hundreds of others who heard it would be a safe place if the local dam broke.

"There were these monks from Sichuan's Ganzi who had put up all these tents, 100 tents, in just a couple of hours and they provided drinks and food," said Tsebtrim, 31, who like many Tibetans has one name. "That night, a lot of people didn't have a place to stay so I am really glad those monks showed up."

In the days that followed, Tsebtrim saw monks digging through rubble for survivors or bodies, first alone and then with Chinese soldiers. He also saw them handing out food and medicine.

"It really impressed me a lot," he said during an interview from Yushu, where he is helping run an aid station.

Chinese military officials said this week nearly all the roughly 12,000 soldiers who rushed to the quake area struggled with altitude sickness and many had trouble communicating with Tibetan survivors. Tibetan-speaking monks, many of whom live in high-altitude areas or frequently make pilgrimages to them, didn't have those problems.

They flooded into Yushu within hours, on motorbikes and packed in the back of trucks.

On Saturday, they held a cremation ceremony, preparing hundreds of bodies, praying and burning the corpses in a massive trench outside of Yushu.

Yet state-run broadcasters have given scant attention to their efforts, spotlighting instead the hard work of the military and the People's Armed Police as they delivered tents, water and food, and lifted injured people from cracks of crumbled buildings.

Monks also live in the quake zone, though they were not shown in media coverage Wednesday.

Robbie Barnett, director of the modern Tibetan studies program at Columbia University, said the monks' contributions pose a dilemma for the communist leadership, which distrusts the Buddhist clergy because of their loyalty to the Dalai Lama.

Beijing insists the Dalai Lama is fighting for independence for Tibet, which the exiled spiritual leader denies.

Monasteries are tightly control by Communist Party authorities who routinely order political re-education campaigns for the monks. The tensions have occasionally erupted in violence.

"China has never faced this situation before, where the monks it has demonized for 15 years as potential enemies of the state turn out to be energetic contributors to social construction and community-building — the same role that the party has always claimed for itself," Barnett said in an e-mail.

"Perhaps that's why the work of the monks has been featured very little, if at all," on China Central Television, he said.

On Wednesday, a monk and a Tibetan activist in touch with people in the quake zone said monks from Ganzi in Sichuan and other surrounding areas had also been ordered to leave the earthquake zone.

Yixi Luoren, the head of Ganzi's Gengqing Monastery, said 150 of their monks went to Yushu but 120 had left by Wednesday on orders from the Religious Affairs Bureau and the Communist Party United Front department in Ganzi prefecture, where the monastery is located.

A rugged, deeply Buddhist region filled with monasteries and nunneries, Ganzi is known for its strong Tibetan identity and has been at the center of dissent for years.

"They told us to do so on the phone," Yixi Luoren said. "The authorities didn't tell us the reason, but we assume they might have worried that there are too many people there and wanted us to come home safely."

Radio Free Asia on Wednesday quoted a Tibetan man in Yushu as saying monks held a candlelight vigil on April 19 that officials feared might take on political significance. The report said the man had asked not to be identified by name.

Woeser, a Beijing-based Tibetan poet and activist, said Han and Tibetan acquaintances in the quake zone told her similar orders were given to monks from several other monasteries. She said the monks were upset and not willing to go but had no choice.

"A clear reason for the order wasn't given but it was very strict," said Woeser, who also uses just one name. "Local officials told them through translators in Tibetan 'You've done everything already. You've done too much. You have to leave Yushu now, otherwise there will be trouble.'"

Woeser said local Tibetans were frustrated because they believe the monks are still needed to help dig out the dead and perform funeral rites.

"There is an opportunity here for the state finally to recognize the immense cultural resources that the monks can offer," said Barnett, the Columbia University professor. "But it will take great cultural sensitivity and compromise on both sides for that to be achieved."

Fierce winds and heavy snow hit China's quake zone on Thursday, state media said, complicating relief work and bringing more misery to survivors camped outside after their homes collapsed.

Heavy snow fell in Jiegu, the main town in the disaster area in Qinghai province, early on Thursday and more was expected through Saturday, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The remote region of northwestern China was devastated by last week's 6.9-magnitude quake, which killed at least 2,183 people.

A freezing wind also lashed Jiegu, where survivors were sheltering from the cold in thin tents after their mostly mudbrick and wood homes collapsed in the quake, which also injured more than 12,000 people.

Roads to the disaster zone, which lies on the Tibetan plateau at an altitude of around 4,000 metres (over 13,000 feet), "were covered with snow and ice, affecting the transport of much-needed relief resources," the report said.

Bad weather has been blamed for inhibiting the disaster response, as has the region's high altitude and hard-to-reach location.

Tibetans begin cremating victims of China quake

Hundreds of victims of an earthquake that struck western China were cremated Saturday as necessity forced local Tibetans to break with centuries-old "sky burial" traditions.

About 1,000 monks were on hand on a mountain beside Jiegu, the hardest-hit area by Wednesday's earthquake, to chant Buddhist prayers as the bodies were set on fire.

While the cremation took place, rescue workers were still searching through rubble in this remote western region in a bid to find any remaining survivors, with officials saying the death toll had climbed to 1,144.



The quakes struck an ethnic Tibetan area, where people traditionally perform sky burials, which involve chopping a body into pieces and leaving it on a platform to be devoured by vultures. But one monk, Zewang Jimei, said the large number of corpses made that impossible.

"This is very special as there are too many bodies from earthquake victims, and we can't have sky burials for all of them at the same time," Zewang said.

"There are not enough vultures for all these bodies, so the bodies will become very dirty and it is not good for the souls to rest in peace," he said. "Therefore, we think the mass cremation is the best funeral for all these earthquake victims."

Hundreds of villagers sat on the hillside watching as the flames leapt skyward.

Monks at the cremation were not able to give an exact number of bodies burned.

Relief goods continued to arrive, having come along the single main road from the Qinghai provincial capital, 12 hours away. However, Vice Transport Minister Gao Hongfeng told a news conference in Beijing that it may rain and snow in the next few days, making it more difficult to transport the injured out and relief goods in.

Police said they had increased security at areas were relief supplies were being handed out.

"We will severely attack the looting of disaster relief materials and the stealing of victims' property," provincial Deputy Police Chief Liu Tianhui told a news conference held in a tent in Jiegu on Saturday morning.

Liu said there were cases of looting right after the quake that shook the area Wednesday, but that the situation had improved and "is stable now."

He said the biggest challenge was still getting enough clean drinking water and food for estimated 100,000 people affected by earthquake.

Though the government was reaching out, many residents turned instead to the monks and their traditions, rather than a central authority dominated by the majority Han Chinese. The groups are divided by language — the government has had to mobilize hundreds of Tibetan speakers to communicate with victims — as well as culture and religion.

Cultural differences might have contributed to Friday's sharp rise in the death toll. In a telephone call with The Associated Press on Friday, rescue officials seemed surprised to hear that hundreds of bodies were at the Jiegu monastery, taken there by Buddhist families. The new official death toll was announced hours later.

Residents of the largely Tibetan town pointed out repeatedly that after the series of earthquakes Wednesday, the monks were the first to come to their aid — pulling people from the rubble and passing out their own limited supplies.

Yushu county, the area impacted by the quakes, is overwhelmingly Tibetan — 93 percent by official statistics, though that does not include Han migrants who have moved in temporarily to open restaurants, take construction jobs or work in mines.

The area largely escaped the unrest that swept the Tibetan plateau in 2008. But authorities have periodically sealed off the area to foreign media and tourists.

China Central Television reported Saturday that a survivor had been detected in a hotel in Jiegu, with workers trying to reach the person. CCTV said a 13-year-old girl was pulled from the toppled two-story hotel on Friday after a sniffer dog alerted rescuers.

State media said more equipment to check for signs of life was on the way, along with 40,000 tents — enough to accommodate all the survivors.