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Lhasa is increasingly a typical Chinese city.

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A little over two weeks ago, I received a cryptic message from a friend in Tibet: “Things are tense. The government is cracking down.” A week later, much of Tibet was under martial law. The demonstrations began in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region. What began as peaceful protests by monks escalated into riots that included Tibetan looting of Chinese-owned shops. What is happening in central Tibet is the tip of the iceberg: There have been more than 40 protests in towns and villages in the Tibetan ethnic areas of Sichuan, Qinghai, and Gansu provinces on Tibet’s eastern frontier. Protests have even occurred in Beijing. These demonstrations represent the strongest Tibetan response to Chinese rule since the March 1959 uprising that led to the Dalai Lama’s exile from his homeland.

Chinese government response has been swift and severe. Initially confined simply to breaking up demonstrations and detaining “troublemakers,” on March 14 the government apparently lifted the ban on using deadly force. From that point on, the police and army troops have been openly firing into crowds. The unconfirmed death toll is presently at more than 100. Hundreds of Tibetans have also been arrested and are being detained in jails and in the interrogation centers of the Chinese government’s Public Security Bureau. Foreign reporters have been expelled from Tibet and are now banned from entering ethnic Tibetan areas.

After almost 50 years of living under Chinese rule, most Tibetans continue to believe that Tibet is an independent country. They tear down the Chinese flag from public buildings, raise the Tibetan flag in its place, and chant Pod rang wang (Tibetan independence). Despite some material advances in urban areas — better roads, electricity, and medical care — most Tibetans feel as though they are second-class citizens, lacking the rights, privileges, and economic opportunities that the Han Chinese enjoy. They feel their culture and religion is under siege, and not simply because Tibetans are increasingly a minority in their homeland, especially in cities. Tibetans also feel as though their culture is devalued and steadily eroding.

As one Chinese commentator on Tibet, Wang Lixiong, said in 2002, “Tibet is more prosperous now than ever before in its history. However, this has not gained the PRC the allegiance of the Tibetans, more and more of whom have become attached to the Dalai Lama. … Nowadays, opposition lurks among cadres, intellectuals, state employees. In the words of one retired official: ‘The current stabilization is only on the surface. One day people will riot in much greater numbers than in the late ’80s [when the last round of protests occurred].’” We can now see how accurate these words were. Chinese government policy in Tibet has created a great deal of resentment. It has shown Tibetans the extent of the compromises required of them if they are to inhabit the modern Chinese state. Many Tibetans continue, albeit reluctantly, to make those compromises, but many refuse to do so, either leaving to become refugees in India, or else, as in recent days, taking to the streets in protests.

The Chinese Communist Party prides itself on its willingness to confront reality head-on, in its own words “adhering to the objective nature of things as the basis for accomplishing its agenda.” This being so, the Chinese leadership needs to ask itself whether the present hard-lined policies are, objectively speaking, working, or whether in fact they are counterproductive. For example, Tibetan devotion to the Dalai Lama, as a form of religious expression, seems to be as difficult to eradicate in Tibet as religion itself. As Lixiong noted, “Virtually all Tibetans have the Dalai in their heart.” Nor does the recent demonization of the Dalai Lama by Chinese government spokespeople seem to be working.

There is no question that a shift in policy and new strategies are called for. Such change, however, requires the Chinese administration to go beyond its present perception of Tibet as an archaic and backward society, useful for tourism but little else. It requires Chinese officials to acknowledge that monasteries have been and continue to be an important aspect of cultural life. It requires acknowledgement that this aspect of Tibetan civilization, which is not reducible to its ability to produce tourist revenue, is intrinsically valuable. Recognizing the grievances of Tibet’s clergy may not solve the Tibetan issue for the Chinese government, but without a serious reconsideration of its policies in regard to religious institutions, no progress will ever be made in regard to the broader issues. Had Chinese policymakers given more thought to this, the latest round of protests, triggered as it was by monk protests, might have never occurred.

Mao once said that the Chinese Communist Party should always work “to accept what is useful and healthy, and to discard what is not.” Let these words serve as a guide for the Chinese leadership in the weeks and months ahead.

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