These are hard times for the People’s Republic of China ahead of the 2008 Olympics in the summer. After days of violent protests in the streets of the Tibetan capital Lhasa, Beijing is moving towards a massive clean-up of the autonomous region to restore order. There is no doubt what would be China’s reaction to the protests. The Communist government is facing a severe public relations embarassment ahead of the Olympics and the world fears a repeat of the Tiananmen massacre inside Tibet to rein down on Buddhist protesters. China has accused the Dalai Lama of fuelling the violence when the exiled Buddhist spiritual leader termed Chinese rule in Tibet a ‘cultural genocide’. Beijing is sensitive about Tibet but there’s no denying the fact that the Communist leadership has made the matter far worse by denying the Tibetans democratic rights. Now as the deadline for Tibetan protesters to surrender is over, Chinese sucurity forces are clearing the troubled spots of independent witnesses so that reports of vicious Chinese crackdown on the rioters do not get through to the rest of the world. The violence in Lhasa took an ethnic turn when Tibetans attacked ethnic Han Chinese and Hui Muslims. Over the years Han and Hui Chinese have taken over the Tibetan economy depriving native Tibetans of a share in China’s economic boom. Political analysts have accused Beijing’s policy in Tibet as the direct result of the upsurge in ethnic violence. Tibet’s ancient religious and secular identity has been brutally subdued by Beijing over the years and it is of no surprise that the Tibetans chose a critical period to protest Chinese rule of the region. As of now the Beijing Olympics is under no threat of boycott given China’s influence in the world economy yet the riots would severely tarnish the country’s image of unity and stability and there would be calls from the democratic world for China to improve its human rights records. Unnamed Tibetans have accused the Chinese government of keeping a close eye on their daily movements and inside sources have provided evidence that Chinese troops are parading handcuffed protesters through the streets of Lhasa proving a brutal Chinese crackdown in Lhasa and its adjoining areas and provinces. It remains to be seen what China’s diplomatic response to the crackdown is but it cannot be denied that the events of the last week or so has put a severe dent on Beijing’s Olympics preparations and the age-old questions of Chinese human rights records are again on the forefront of Bejing’s Communist political system. Source: Independent