China moved yesterday to show it had the situation in Tibet under control, escorting foreign journalists on a tour of the region and saying more than 660 people had surrendered over deadly unrest.
The three-day media trip came as online anger mounted over what some Chinese called biased Western reporting and with pressure on Beijing from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who warned he could boycott the Olympic opening ceremony.
A group of about a dozen Beijing-based journalists headed yesterday to the Himalayan region, where officials said they would be allowed to speak with victims of violent protests and shown properties destroyed in days of rioting.
PHOTO: AP
"The organizers will arrange interviews with victims of the criminal acts and also visits to those places that were looted or burned," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang (
Foreign reporters have been barred from visiting Tibet and neighboring provinces with large Tibetan populations affected by the unrest, making it nearly impossible to independently verify the number of dead and arrested.
Protests against Beijing's rule of Tibet began in Lhasa on March 10 -- the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule in the region.
But they quickly turned bloody and spilled over into other parts of the country, with the Chinese authorities accused of heavy-handedness in their repression of the demonstrations.
Tibet's government-in-exile has said that 140 people have been killed in the unrest, while China has reported a total of 20 deaths, 19 of them in Lhasa.
China has accused the Dalai Lama of masterminding the unrest -- a charge the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, who fled his homeland after the 1959 uprising, vehemently denies.
The Dalai Lama, who has said he is open to dialogue with Beijing, on Tuesday reiterated a pledge to resign as spokesman for the Tibetan people if there were more violent anti-Chinese protests.
Beijing has placed the emphasis on Tibetan attacks on ethnic Chinese and trumpeted the number of people who have turned themselves in to face punishment from their involvement in the unrest.
More than 280 people have surrendered in Lhasa, while 381 others have turned themselves in in Ngawa County, Sichuan Province, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
"Most of those who have come forward are ordinary people and monks who were deceived or coerced," said Shu Tao, a local Communist Party chief, according to the state-run China Daily.
Lhasa prosecutors have also issued arrest warrants for 29 people allegedly involved in a protest that broke out in the Tibetan capital on March 14, while police have put 53 suspects on a "most-wanted" list, Xinhua said.
The unrest comes at a delicate time for the Chinese authorities, with the Beijing Games due to begin in less than five months on Aug. 8 and the world watching the booming Asian giant.
In France, Sarkozy said on Tuesday "all options are open" regarding a boycott of the Olympics and appealed to China's leaders to show a "sense of responsibility" over the unrest.
His aides specified that France was still considering the possibility of snubbing the opening ceremony, but ruled out boycotting the entire Summer Games.
Other countries remained firmly against any boycott, with the White House saying US President George W. Bush still planned to be present for the Olympic opening ceremony.
Against the backdrop of tight control of the foreign media's movement in and near Tibet, Chinese citizens voiced anger at what they considered unfair reporting of the unrest by overseas media.
Chinese students abroad set up a Web site, www.anti-cnn.com, to collect "evidence" of "one-sided and untrue" foreign reporting, blasting "the Western Goebbels' Nazi media," the China Daily said.
Communist forces were sent into Tibet in 1950 to "liberate" the region, but resentment and tension has simmered virtually ever since.
Meanwhile, China says a British newspaper editorial comparing the Beijing Olympics to Nazi Germany's 1936 Games is an "insult to the Chinese people."
In a statement issued late on Tuesday, Qin lashed out the Sunday Times, which published an editorial by former Conservative Cabinet minister Michael Portillo linking the two events.
"It is an insult to the Chinese People and an insult to the people of every nation of the world," Qin said in the statement, posted on the ministry's Web site.
"The Olympic torch ... illuminates the dark and despicable psychology of some people," Qin said.
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