Loose Ends in Western China
I've noticed in the past few days that people are getting tired of Tibet as an endless news story (kind of like the Iraq War). Even so, I feel compelled to continue posting interesting tidbits gleaned from here and there, if at a more sensible pace.
There've been two stories published in the past 24 hours that analyze the party machinations behind the crackdowns in Lhasa and other Tibetan areas. A propaganda-style piece in The Sunday Times is of particular interest to this blog as Xinjiang boss Wang Lequan is fingered as the shot-caller for this whole mess:
The real mastermind of Chinese policy towards the restive ethnic minorities is a 67-year-old lifetime communist functionary named Wang Lequan.
Wang has proclaimed himself to be the top terrorist target in China. Nominally, he heads the party in Xinjiang, which, like Tibet, is a vast, remote and resource-rich region troubled by separatism.
However, Wang sits on the powerful politburo in Beijing and has assumed overall direction of policy in both places. He devised the model that has stifled Muslim culture in Xinjiang, staged political trials and executions, poured in millions of Chinese settlers and extracted mineral and energy resources to feed the economy....
His henchman, now applying the master's methods in Tibet, is Zhang Qingli, the region's sharp-tongued party secretary. Zhang is the man who called the Dalai Lama "a wolf in monk's clothes, a devil with a human face". He rose up the hierarchy in Xinjiang and was transferred to Tibet in 2005 as a reward for his loyalty.
What's up with phrases like faceless trio, mastermind, and henchman in a supposedly unbiased report from a respected British paper? Sounds more like the kind of language you'd expect from Xinhua.
Zhang is also mentioned prominently in a New York Times article examining the initially weak response of security forces confronted with rampaging protesters in Lhasa. The story subtly accuses him of 'pulling a Hu Jintao' as events unfolded:
Ultimately, the man responsible for public order in Lhasa is Mr. Zhang, Tibet’s party chief. Mr. Zhang is a protégé of President Hu Jintao, whose own political career took flight after he crushed the last major rebellion in Tibet in 1989.
According to one biographer, Mr. Hu actually made himself unavailable during the 1989 riots when the paramilitary police needed guidance on whether to crack down. The police did so and Mr. Hu got credit for keeping order, but he also assured himself deniability if the crackdown had failed, the biographer wrote.
Mr. Zhang also has an excuse; he was at the National People’s Congress in Beijing.
And Reuters has been running a story saying that Chinese officials are accusing the Dalai Lama "of colluding with Muslim Uighur separatists in China's western Xinjiang region." I haven't been able to find the original source of this accusation... anyone else?
Although things are calm at the moment, tensions in Xinjiang are high with the surrounding provinces in flames. Just today I've heard rumors that (a) there was a bus bombing in Urumqi last night, (b) Han Chinese students were killed by Uyghurs in Kuqa, and (c) a Han Chinese policeman was killed in Kuqa by Uyghurs. Probably nothing to these whispers, but anxiety creates this kind of wild-fire rumor mongering.
March 24, 2008
