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ChiComs Flex Rice Muscles inside the Great Wall
 In China, a Show of Force By Shai Oster CHENGDU, China -- Heavily armed police have been patrolling in Chengdu (home to 10.5 million), the leafy, usually calm capital of Sichuan province, in a significant show of force and concern by the Chinese government about the spread of unrest from neighboring Tibet. Ten days after Tibetan protests against Chinese rule turned violent in Lhasa, reverberations are being felt here, 1,250 miles away. Last week, Chinese authorities deployed troops to contain unrest that spread across mostly remote ethnic Tibetan villages in neighboring provinces, including Sichuan. The Tibetan protests and the government crackdown threaten to embarrass China just months before the Summer Olympics are expected. •What it Means: Extensive troop deployments show how nervous Beijing is about this challenge to its rule. Reporters have been unable to get in to verify conflicting accounts of violence and death tolls even as China's government has stepped up its attacks of some Western media for what it contends is as Page 2 An attempt by a Wall Street Journal reporter to converse with a group of Tibetans who said they were from Ganzi, a heavily ethnic Tibetan region in the western part of Sichuan, abutting Tibet proper, was quickly interrupted by police Sunday. About a dozen men wearing helmets and holding their fingers on the triggers of machine guns surrounded the group and ordered the Tibetans aside while they checked the paperwork of the foreign reporter. Any photos showing monks or police were ordered erased. Rumors of suicide bombings and stabbings in Chengdu by Tibetans against the majority Han Chinese bubbled across the streets and Internet forums. The Beijing government has released "most wanted" photographs of suspects captured on film during the recent riots Posted by: Icerigger 2008-03-24 |
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