Word: lhasa
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...July 2006 Chinese authorities intensified what the Dalai Lama calls "demographic aggression" by launching a high-speed train linking Lhasa to Beijing and other Chinese cities, thus allowing 6,000 more Han Chinese to flood into the Tibetan capital every day. Lhasa, sometimes known as an "abode of the gods," has turned from the small traditional settlement I first saw in 1985 into an Eastern Las Vegas, with a population of 300,000 (two out of every three of them Chinese). On the main streets alone, by one Western scholar's count, there are 238 dance halls and karaoke parlors...
...militant Tibetans are embarking on a no-win path of confrontation, the Dalai Lama is, in fact, moving to restrain them. Threatening to resign his political post if the confrontations persist, he told his followers that "violence is against human nature." Clearly troubled by the images of Tibetans in Lhasa responding to the police crackdown by attacking ordinary Chinese residents of the city and their businesses, he added, "We must not develop anti-Chinese feelings. Whether we like it or not we have to live side by side...
...bloodiest confrontations in the region since similar protests preceded a brutal crackdown in the late 1980s. The violence has left 99 people dead, according to Tibetan exile groups; the Chinese government says 13 "innocents" were killed in the riots. Soon after monks began demonstrating in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, Chinese forces moved to contain the marchers, but the disturbances spread to other Tibetan cities, and their causes clearly remain unresolved. Working out how best to avoid further embarrassment as they prepare for the start of the Olympic-torch relay on March 25 will be a tricky challenge for China...
...Lama's example particularly striking-and what was perhaps partly responsible for his receiving the 1989 Nobel Prize for Peace-is that he has had to live these principles and put them to the test during almost every hour of his 72 years. He came to the throne in Lhasa, after all, when he was only 4 years old, and he was receiving envoys from F.D.R. with intricate questions about the transportation of military supplies across Tibet during World War II when he was just 7. He was 11 when violent fighting broke out around him in Lhasa...
...Dalai Lama, true to his thinking, points out that the Beijing-Lhasa train is neither good nor bad. "It is a form of progress, of material development," I heard him say four months ago, adding that Tibetans understand that for their material well-being, it is of benefit to be part of the People's Republic. The only important thing, he pointed out, was how its rulers use the train and whether they deploy it for compassionate purposes...