Last week's riots in Lhasa, the historic capital of Tibet, seemed to come out of nowhere -- Tibetan protesters marched through the streets, burning vehicles and attacking police and ordinary Chinese, leaving as many as 100 dead.
Many American media outlets reported the demonstrations as if they were a complete surprise. After all, as growing numbers of ethnic Chinese business people and tourists have arrived in Tibet in recent years, they have brought what on the surface appears to be an economic boom to Lhasa. As shopping malls went up across the city, young Tibetans (or some of them anyway) seemed to be assimilating to Chinese rule.
But in truth, the riots should not have been so unexpected. Although it's true that, in most of China, the government's suppression of protest has become more sophisticated, milder and effective, over the last two decades in Tibet, Beijing has continued to rely on old-school hardball tactics. This includes a religious and social repression so intense -- and allowing so little freedom -- that it was inevitable Tibetans eventually would rise up. Though Tibet's image in the West is one of peace-loving monks led by a Dalai Lama deeply committed to nonviolence, a younger generation of Tibetans is becoming increasingly desperate for any way to get out from under Chinese rule.
This is not the first time Tibet has gone up in flames since China took it over in 1951. In 1987 and 1988, after a slight opening allowed a degree of dissent, nuns, monks and lay citizens launched anti-China and pro-independence protests across Tibet. These demonstrations escalated into urban warfare, while the rest of China in this period of openness erupted in protests as well, which culminated in the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown.
But since 1989, the Beijing government has shied away from obvious, bloody methods like the Tiananmen killing. Instead of open suppression, Beijing has allowed greater religious and economic freedom in much of China, while using increased surveillance to ensure that freedoms do not translate into organized political activity. If Chinese citizens do attempt to form political groups, Beijing still cracks down hard -- but tries to do so with as little fanfare as possible. Through more effective monitoring and disruption of activist groups, Chinese authorities for two decades have been able to prevent any Tiananmen-style protest from igniting and to keep most violent responses by the government largely out of the media's view.
