China has given demonstrators in the city until midnight (1600 GMT) to give themselves up or face punishment.
Dozens are feared dead after days of rioting in Lhasa, with each side accusing the other of excessive force.
Other parts of China also saw rallies on the weekend, while Tibetans in Nepal and India are continuing to protest.
Qiangba Puncog, the Tibetan regional governor, said 13 "innocent civilians" had been killed by mobs in Lhasa.
He blamed the unrest on outside forces including Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who heads the Tibetan government-in-exile from India.
| | TIBET DIVIDE China says Tibet was always part of its territory Tibet enjoyed long periods of autonomy before 20th century 1950: China launched a military assault Opposition to Chinese rule led to a bloody uprising in 1959 Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled to India |
"The Dalai group and some other people in Western countries look at the beating, burning and smashing activities in the riots in Lhasa as peaceful demonstrations," he said.
"No democratic country in the world will tolerate this kind of crime."
The exiled Tibetan government says at least 80 protesters died in the Chinese crackdown.
Spokesman Tenzin Takhla said the security forces had regained control of the city and it was impossible for anyone to hold a rally there at the moment.
He said there were house-to-house searches going on and a number of former political prisoners were reported to have been detained again.
One Lhasa resident told the BBC late on Sunday that there was a heavy police presence in the city - but signs of normal life had returned.
"The schools are now open and children are going to school but shops are still closed as lots have been damaged and burned," he said.
Rocks hurled
Meanwhile, in neighbouring Sichuan province, rights groups say seven people were killed when security forces opened fire on Tibetan protesters in the city of Aba on Sunday.
And in Machu, Gansu province, a protester told the BBC a crowd of people set government buildings on fire on Sunday.
Groups of people also took down the Chinese flag and set it on fire, replacing it with the Tibetan flag, he said.
Smaller protests were reported elsewhere in Gansu and Tibet.
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China has given Tibetans involved in the Lhasa protests a deadline of midnight on Monday local time to surrender to police.
The Dalai Lama has called for an international inquiry into China's crackdown, while Western leaders have called for restraint.
Anti-China rallies began on 10 March - the anniversary of a Tibetan uprising - and gradually intensified.
On Friday, demonstrators in Lhasa set fire to Chinese-owned shops and hurled rocks at local police, triggering a crackdown.
The unrest comes as preparations for this year's Olympic Games in Beijing are well advanced.
China has already faced calls for boycotts over its policies in Africa, and Olympic chief Jacques Rogge said he was "very concerned" about the situation in Tibet.
China says Tibet has always been part of its territory. But Tibet enjoyed long periods of autonomy before the 20th Century and many Tibetans remain loyal to the Dalai Lama, who fled in 1959.
From BBC.co.ukThoughts? I am rather surprised at China's relatively tame response (at least compared to the 1989 Tianamen crackdown). I suppose that world attention brought in part by the Olympic games is restraining them to a large degree. Interestingly, it seems that these protests are more about economics than independence. Tibetans are upset by the flood of Chinese immigrants taking up jobs; the independence issue seems to be hyped up by Tibetans living in exile that still want Tibet's sovereignty restored--and likely they see Kosovo as a window of opportunity.
3 comments:
I am a bit confused by the issue to be honest. And I am really on the fence on the whole "Free Tibet" thing. I mean, weren't they a aristo-theocracy before they were communists? Is that somehow better?
I need to know more about this before making up my mind.
Well, I'm not exactly an expert in the politics of the region... but from what I understand, Tibet really only became a part of China when Mao decided the Tibetans needed to be liberated from themselves...(and British/Western influence).
So I guess the real question here is, is there a statute of limitations on unlawfully swallowing up unwilling neighbor states.
Now, the situation, in my mind, isn't really comparable to that of, say, Poland or Romania under the rule of the Soviet Union back in the day... Tibetans do actually benefit economically and socially from a close relationship with China. But China does have a long standing record of treating Tibetans like 2nd class citizens, and encouraging a cultural absorption of the state in an effort to just breed out the dissent eventually.
So, my own uninformed inclination is that rightfully, Tibet should have its autonomy and its cultural identity preserved... even if full independence isn't intellectually practical.
But that's all 100% butt-moutha-speak, and I reserve the right to change my mind if someone can present an argument otherwise.
Yeah, I am not sure what to think about it either. Brian is right in that Tibet was a pretty backwards place with few rights for women and mostly peasants living in poverty. I am not sure Chinese occupation improved that a lot, although in the long run it seems like Chinese Communism might have evened things out a little. John is correct in that Tibet only became art of China proper in the 1950s as a part of Maos plan to fight Western imperialism by occupying other countries himself (little hypocritical to say the least). The "cultural genocide" argument is troubling, though, and likely not true. China has been pretty good overall about respecting the cultures of its people--there are still dozens of different languages spoken throughout China, and many are mutually unintelligible--an interesting FYI is that 7 of China's languages are in the 40 most commonly spoken languages worldwide (Mandrin, Canotnese, Wu, Min, Xiang, Hakka, Gan--more people speak Wu than French or Korean). And all across China the traditions and clothing differ dramatically. This isn't to say that China doesn't go to some length to encourage (or enforce) a level of homogeneity in the country, but it, like Tito-era Yugoslavia, does a good job of promoting cultural diversity so long as it doesn't threaten the state.
The issue for many Tibetans now seems to be the flood of Eastern Chinese that is entering the region to work on development projects. Many Tibetans feel that this immigration dilutes Tibet and make it more Chinese, and they claim that Beijing is encouraging this immigration for just this purpose. I don't know. China wants Tibet to be more a part of China, that's for sure. But I am not sure how much direct control they have over it.
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