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In 1988, Buddhist monks staged anti-Chinese protests in Lahsa, the capital of Tibet. When the authorities at the scene were unable to suppress the large-scale resistance, joined by the residents, Beijing dispatched one Hu Jintao, then the military commander and secretary of the Communist Party of China in the Guizhou Provincial Committee. Hu, in uniform, over the course of a year mercilessly suppressed the protests. In his mid-40s, he drew the attention of the supreme leader Deong Xiaoping and staged a colorful emergence in 1992 as a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo.
For China, with its 56 ethnic groups, national conflicts are a big headache. Although Han Chinese account for an overwhelming 92 percent of the population, the other nations with their different histories and cultures are scattered over two thirds of the territory, posing a potential element of unrest. Of them, the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, a huge land in the west, and the Xizang Tibet Autonomous Region, with its strong separatist movement, resemble explosive warehouses.
Uighur, with many Muslims, and Tibet, a society seeking a unity of religion and politics, were incorporated in the Ching dynasty but, being so far away from the center and with such rugged territories, remnained in effect independent countries. When China fell into political confusion in the wake of the Opium Wars in the mid-19th century, they freed themselves from Chinese control. The situation abruptly changed when the Communist Party took over the control of Beijing. The People's Army in tanks marched into and was stationed in Urumqi and Lhasa, and officials dispatched from the capital enforced a strong integration policy.
Now, some 20 years later, large-scale bloody protests have broken out in Lhasa again. Buddhist monks took to the streets on March 10, the 49th anniversary of the 1959 independence uprising that claimed thousands of lives, and the protests are getting more serious. At the same time, Tibetans launched a long march from Dharamala in India, where their government in exile sits, to Tibet. In Xinjiang, four Uighurs were arrested on March 7 while attempting to hijack an aircraft destined for Beijing.
It is the coming Bejing Olympics that has emboldened the minorities. They intend to make political use of a time when world attention is focused on China. The Chinese government, eager to make the Olympics a propaganda tool for China's revival, immediately declared a "people's war" to restore order. Some quarters of the international community, citing the Chinese government's cruel suppression, are calling for a boycott of the Olympics. Politics, sports and minority issues are intermingled. How will President Hu Jiantao, whose second term started on Saturday, cope with the latest situation in Tibet, once the stepping stone of his political advancement?
The column was contributed by Chosun Ilbo in-house columnist Lee Seon-min.
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