Tibet Updates, and the Images China Doesn’t Want You to See

BARBARA DEMICK IS IN CHINA, filing reports about the spread of the protests beyond Lhasa and the Tibetan Autonomous Region.

Tibetan activists said at least 15 more were killed near a remote mountain monastery in Sichuan province when paramilitary troops fired at a crowd of demonstrators who waved the Tibetan flag and chanted, “Free Tibet!” and “Bring back the Dalai Lama!” [L.A. Times]

The surviving protestors then attacked a police station and government offices with Molotov cocktails. Guess which incident Chinese TV will tell the masses about. But that may well have been the pattern in Lhasa and elsewhere: protests begin peacefully, Chinese overreaction provokes Tibetan rage, China exploits images of the rage for domestic consumption. L.A. Times writer Mark Magnier is also reporting from western China on the spread of the protests.

PICTURES OF THE DEAD still emerge, somehow. A Tibetan dissident group has posted some very graphic photographs of at least a dozen dead and wounded people, apparently Tibetans, with what appear to be gunshot wounds.

PROTESTS IN BEIJING, TOO. Radio Free Asia has an extensive roundup of how far they’ve spread and the regime’s violent suppression of them.

WEN JIABAO MEETS THE PRESS and flubs the hard questions. Yes, being an unaccountable autocrat can leave you ill-prepared for that sort of thing.

WORLD CONDEMNATION of the Chinese protests has been largely muted by Chinese money and influence, and China has been careful to keep most of its brutality out of view, but it’s growing more difficult for some to ignore it. Who would have thought that the Foreign Minister of France would be the first to suggest that foreign governments make some gesture, however empty, of disapproval?

THE NEW YORK TIMES strongly condemns the crackdown in an editorial entitled, “China Terrorizes Tibet.” If China were more openly anti-American and less capitalist, the Times would probably be more understanding.