China braced against further protests yesterday as it prepared for the arrival of the Olympic torch today amid reports of fresh disturbances in Lhasa.
Beijing tightened security in Tiananmen Square, where the Olympic torch will be officially welcomed to the country today before beginning a worldwide relay expected to be dogged by protests over the unrest in Tibet.
Tension in the Himalayan region continued to simmer, the Tibetan government-in-exile and activist groups said.
On Saturday, a disturbance occurred when hundreds of people in Lhasa panicked as police moved in to check residents' identity papers there, the International Campaign for Tibet and the Free Tibet Campaign said.
The incident prompted police to surround key Buddhist temples in the area and close many shops.
No violence was reported.
At Tiananmen Square, authorities announced new spot checks on visitors to "strengthen public security" ahead of the ceremony to welcome the torch, a government Web site said.
Fears of global embarrassment for China along the torch's route have grown since protesters disrupted the lighting ceremony in Ancient Olympia last Monday.
Exiled Tibetans in India yesterday lit an "independence torch" that will also be taken around the world.
Meanwhile, police in Nepal's capital Kathmandu baton-charged protesters -- most of them Tibetans -- during a demonstration outside a Chinese embassy office, detaining more than 100 people, police and witnesses said.
China continued its crackdown on the Tibetan unrest, with Xinhua reporting late on Saturday that police had arrested 26 people and seized guns and other weapons from a monastery.
Beijing also fired Tibet's top official for minority and religious affairs, Chinese state media said yesterday.
Danzeng Langjie, director of Tibet's Ethnic Minority and Religious Affairs Commission, has been "removed" from his post, a statement posted on the Web site of the Tibet Daily newspaper said.
It gave no further details on Danzeng's background or reasons for his removal.
It said he had been replaced by Luosang Jiumei, another ethnic Tibetan who has been vice secretary of the Chinese Communist Party committee of Lhasa since 2004.
The change was believed to be the first by Beijing since the demonstrations began.
In Slovenia, the EU foreign ministers expressed "strong concern" on Saturday about violence in Tibet, but skated around the issue of China's role in the unrest.
Germany said it would not send any ministerial-level participants to the Olympics opening ceremony. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, President Horst Koehler and Chancellor Angela Merkel said they did not plan to go to Beijing.
Before the two-day EU meeting, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner ruled out an EU boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games in August, but saw a need for a "European response" to the crackdown.
The response was mild and brief.
In a statement, the EU ministers did not mention the Aug. 8 to Aug. 24 Olympic Games or link China directly to the crackdown.
The ministers reiterated their "strong concern over the events in the autonomous Chinese region of Tibet, [called] for an end to the violence and [asked] that arrested persons be treated in conformity with international standards."
Diplomats said the EU was content to appeal for a peaceful resolution and leave it at that.
On Tuesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was the first European leader to suggest that a boycott of the opening ceremony was a possibility to protest China's handling of the unrest in Tibet.
Also see: Chinese students rally behind PRC
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS