SOUTHWEST CHINA: INSTABILITY AND RESENTMENT IN TIBETAN AREAS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CHENGDU 000055

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP/CM

E.O. 12958: DECL: 3/26/2033
TAGS: PGOV SOCI CH
SUBJECT: SOUTHWEST CHINA: INSTABILITY AND RESENTMENT IN TIBETAN AREAS
-- A SINGLE SPARK CAN LIGHT A PRAIRIE FIRE

REF: A. A) CHENGDU MARCH 14-26 DAILY UPDATES ON TIBET SITUATION (NOTAL)

B. B) CHENGDU 43 C) CHENGDU 42

C. D) 07 CHENGDU 239 E) 07 CHENGDU 13

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CLASSIFIED BY: James A. Boughner, Consul General, U.S. Consulate
General, Chengdu.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)




1. (C) Summary: According to an influential Han Chinese
businessman and patron of Buddhism in Chengdu, the Communist
Party will likely have to purge many ethnic Tibetans from its
ranks as they are sympathetic to the Dalai Lama. A high-ranking
Tibetan administrator of a local university where student
protests have occurred blamed at least some of the recent
problems on incompetent and insensitive Han officials assigned
to work in Tibetan areas. Even well prior to the recent
outbreak of unrest, Post frequently noted during visits to the
Tibetan Plateau the widespread local resentment caused by such
officials and the policies they implement. End summary.


2. (C) Approximately one week after protests spread through
Tibetan areas of China, including western Sichuan Province where
half of the country's ethnic Tibetans live, Congenoff had a rare
opportunity to discuss the causes of the unrest over dinner with
a high-ranking Tibetan administrator of Chengdu's Southwest
Minorities University (strictly protect) and a well-known Han
businessman, who is both a U.S. law school graduate and a
Buddhist with many friends in the local Tibetan community.
Southwest Minorities University has experienced at least two sit
down protests by students, a few who reportedly held small signs
calling for rights and democracy on March 16 (ref a).

Trying to Discuss What's Been Happening
--------------


3. (C) According to the Han businessman, the Communist Party
will likely have to purge many ethnic Tibetans from its ranks
because they are sympathetic to the Dalai Lama. Congenoff noted
some countries experiencing societal unrest have found it useful
to form commissions to examine in-depth underlying causes,
including cultural insensitivity and racism. Congenoff
commented that prejudice towards minority groups is rarely
acknowledged in Chinese society.


4. (C) The Han businessman appeared to find the parallel
intriguing. He turned to the Tibetan university administrator
and said, "What we need in China is a deep investigation of the
social background to these riots. Not a whitewash by some party
school academics, but a real honest examination of the problem."



5. (C) The Tibetan administrator was initially noncommittal.
However, when Congenoff reminded him of Mao Zedong's famous
quote, "a single spark can start a prairie fire," he conceded
that incompetent and insensitive ethnic Han officials who do not
understand Tibetan culture are part of the problem. Many Han
officials in Tibetan areas, he asserted, serve for only brief
periods of time and do not understand the local culture or the
complexity of problems. The university administrator added that
the conditions for a "prairie fire" could arise in China as in
any other country when the government does not pay attention to
local discontent.

Comments
--------------


6. (C) At an unusually frank academic conference entitled
"Social Changes and Development in the Tibetan Autonomous Region
and other Tibetan Areas" held in Chengdu in late 2006, a well
known ethnic Tibetan official and academic noted publicly the
large number of violent incidents that had been occurring in
Tibetan areas of western Sichuan (ref e). He commented that,
"public security authorities are ineffective mediators for
political and historical reasons," and recommended that
religious figures should be used by the Chinese Government to
calm ethnic tensions. We have, however, found such openly
expressed forward thinking to be rare. At the official level,
inflammatory rhetoric like, "the Communist Party is the only
true Buddha of the Tibetan People," is more the norm. During a
March 11 dinner with CG (i.e., before the recent outbreak of
violence),Sichuan Province Public Security Bureau Director Zeng
Quansheng became so angry when discussing Tibetan-related issues
that he had to leave the table to compose himself.



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7. (C) Well prior to the March 14 outbreak of unrest in Lhasa we
were often struck by the open resentment voiced by a broad
spectrum of ethnic Tibetans (not just Buddhist monks) towards
Han Chinese and the apparent insensitivity of many Han officials
to the problems and grievances of Tibetans. During a joint
Consulate/Beijing visit to Lhasa in late February to gauge
societal pressures from the new railroad and Han and Muslim Hui
in-migration (ref b),two relatively well-to-do ethnic Tibetan
university students were quite vocal about their hostility to
"Chinese" (ref c). In addition to unhappiness that Han or Hui
control most businesses throughout the Tibetan Plateau, we have
also heard complaints about the kinds of businesses Hans bring.
Garish looking Han-run massage parlors, for example, have been
situated right next to some of the holiest sites of Tibetan
Buddhism, including the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa and Tashilhunpo
Monastery in Shigatse.


8. (C) Although perhaps an extreme example of "Han Chauvinism,"
a "Help Tibet" cadre sent to work in Lhasa by the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and who accompanied us on a trip to western
Tibet in September 2007 bullied his ethnic Tibetan assistants,
making them stay up late with him to drink and gamble (ref d).
At one point during the trip, this official threw an empty
bottle from our car at a passerby noting that Tibetans are poor
and need to "make money from recycling." An ethnic Tibetan
official complained bitterly to our Tibetan LES about the
behavior of the "Help Tibet" cadre. The resentment seems to cut
both ways. On an earlier Consulate trip to central Tibet, that
same ethnic Tibetan official once refused to let our car stop to
assist stranded Chinese tourists. The tourists were "only Han,"
the official said while ordering our car forward.


9. (C) This is not to say of course that all Han Chinese
officials in Tibetan areas we have met are ethnically
insensitive or that all ethnic Tibetans we encounter are
inherently hostile to the Chinese government. A number of
foreign NGO workers and ethnic Tibetans have told us they have
worked with Han officials who at least try to "do the right
thing." However, as an ethnic Tibetan academic in western
Sichuan's Ganzi Prefecture recently emphasized to us, strict
political and security policies in Tibetan areas are dictated by
Beijing and local officials (both Han and Tibetan) have little
say in how such overly-blunt measures are implemented.
BOUGHNER