"The Olympic charter requires that the Olympic Games not be politicized," Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said at a news conference Wednesday in Beijing.
He also criticized the Dalai Lama, saying the Tibetan spiritual leader's "conspiracy to split Tibet from China and his secessionist attempt is doomed to fail," according to the official New China News Agency.
Tibet is a potentially explosive issue for the Chinese in this sensitive year because it commands a large international following with high celebrity interest. The Chinese were shocked last month when Icelandic singer Bjork shouted "Tibet, Tibet!" from a stage in Shanghai after performing her song, "Declare Independence."
Kate Saunders, an official of London-based Free Tibet, said, "We want to use the Olympics as a means of leverage on China to press for positive change."
Since 1988, when a monk was shot to death for unfurling a Tibetan flag in Lhasa, the Chinese have kept such a large paramilitary presence in Tibet that protests against their rule have been virtually impossible.
Barnett said this week's events were linked to the Olympics and to resentments that have been pent up since 2005, when Zhang Qingli, a confidant of President Hu Jintao, took over as head of the Communist Party in Tibet.
"The control of Tibet has become more aggressive in the way they've controlled religion and the aggressive language they're using about the Dalai Lama," Barnett said. "And deciding to route the Olympic torch through Tibet was really provocative. They were setting themselves up for trouble."
Barnett noted, however, that the protests this week were handled with more sophistication than previously by the Chinese People's Armed Police force, which is stationed in Tibet. In the 1980s, brutality toward the monks inflamed the general population, leading to riots.
The State Department this year dropped China from its list of worst abusers of human rights, but accusations continue. Human Rights Watch issued a report Wednesday charging the Chinese with systematically abusing migrant workers involved in Beijing's pre-Olympics construction boom.
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barbara.demick@latimes.com
