Chinks in their armor

(Rico says that was a terrible pun, for which he's almost sorry...)

The New York Times has an article by Andrew Jacobs about the latest hoohah over Tibet:

The police have detained 59 people in Tibet on charges that they sought to foment unrest by spreading ethnic hatred and by downloading and selling banned songs from the Internet, Chinese state media reported. The detainees, none of whom were identified, are accused of acting at the behest of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader whom the government blames for encouraging separatist sentiment in heavily Tibetan areas.
Since 4 December, public security officials have been sweeping the markets of Lhasa looking for compact discs that contain 'reactionary songs', according to the China News Service. Those who distribute such songs, the report said, “hope to spark violence and damage Lhasa’s political stability". Lhasa is the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China.
Although news reports did not say whether the detainees were formally arrested and charged, they are accused of threatening national security by advocating for an independent Tibet and by expressing disdain for the ethnic Han migrants who now dominate commerce in Lhasa and other Tibetan cities. Such Han residents were the primary target of rioting last March that left at least twenty-one people dead and traumatized Beijing. “These rumormongers,” according to the website ChinaTibetNews.com, “seriously undermine the image of the party and the government and harm the public’s sense of security.”
The region is closed to foreign journalists, but human rights advocates based outside the country say that security officials continue to clamp down on dissent and exert heavy control over local religious institutions instrumental in sparking the disturbances. In recent months, officials have handed down prison terms in connection with the March violence to dozens of people, most of whom were convicted of arson, robbery or disrupting public order.
According to the government, 1,317 people were detained after the March riots, and 1,115 of those were subsequently released. Exile groups, however, say that hundreds are still in custody and that more than 200 Tibetans were killed during the ensuing crackdown. Such claims are impossible to verify independently. Earlier this month, Radio Free Asia reported that several monks had been sentenced to three-year prison terms for their role in a protest that took place in the Gardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan four days after the Lhasa riots broke out.

Rico says the Chinese really have to figure out how to get out of Tibet, and soon. (Oh, sure, just as soon as the US gives all those Western states back to Mexico. But we stole them fair and square...)