The riots in Urumji took place whilst we were in Tibet. The army presence swelled noticeably on the streets of Lhasa, rather amusingly the khaki clad brat pack swept the streets to keep themselves busy, but locals knew why they were there. They also knew that Uighurs would be rounded up indiscriminately after the rioting - this had happened in Lhasa last year. Both cities have seen massive resettlement of Han Chinese by the authorities in Beijing into these areas. Lhasa is now primarily a modern Han Chinese City, this has meant better roads, hospitals and daily flights from the mainland and a train stacked with oxygen trawling 30 hours across the tibetan plateau. This not only moves tourists around in large numbers, it also supports many cargo trains allegedly dispatching minerals back to the mainland.
The Tibetan people are not 'free'. They can attend their monasteries, and make pilgrimages across the land, but they cant acknowledge their leader - its like Roman Catholics not being able to display images of the Pope.
We are able to write and post this from HK, didn't feel comfortable writing this in China, and the trojan horses attached to many chinese computers scared us off from cybercafes.
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