China's state-owned news agency put the death toll from Friday's violent protests in Lhasa at 10, adding most of those dead were 'business people'. Violence erupted when protesters, led by Buddhist monks, clashed with Chinese troops in the biggest and angriest demonstrations in two decades against the Chinese rule. Meanwhile, China has vowed to 'deal sternly' with those engaged in 'activities of splitting the nation'.
China is set to build a rail link connecting Xinjiang province with Tibet, part of which will run near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India.
"The Indian government hopes to closely watch, observe, and infiltrate the Tibetan area after the opening of a Lhasa consulate," Zhao Gancheng, director of South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies told state-run Global Times.
It would also be the world's highest and one of China's biggest-ever engineering projects.
The Olympic torch made its way through the Tibetan capital Lhasa amidst tight security on Saturday, three months after the deadly riots hit the remote Himalayan region during anti-China protests spearheaded by monks.The 9.3 km relay kick-started from Norbulingka, known as the Summer Palace of the Dalai Lama, with 156 torch bearers, including 75 Tibetans, and wound its way through the streets in Lhasa as the security personnel kept a close vigil.
On July 2 or July 6, the Dalai Lama will reveal his mind on his successor. This makes Beijing extremely nervous as the Communist regime fully realises the importance of controlling the next Dalai Lama, points out Claude Arpi.
Xi arrived at the Nyingchi Mainling Airport on Wednesday and was warmly welcomed by local people and officials of various ethnic groups, Xinhua news agency reported.
Hu Jintao was chosen for a second-five year term by the Communist Party of China in October as its General Secretary, a position that automatically takes the incumbent to the Presidency. Saturday's election only cements the formality. The Chinese Parliament also sealed the appointment of his likely successor Xi Jinping as Vice President.
Major Khathing was the first man to hoist the Indian flag in Tawang. He also brought Bum La under Indian control.
China plans to build a 540-kilometre strategic high-speed rail link between Tibet and Nepal passing through a tunnel under Mount Everest, a move that could raise alarm in India about the Communist giant's growing influence in its neighbourhood.
The exercises also involve combat operations command, combat synergies, live fire shooting training, and comprehensive inspection of arms integration, the report said.
The restive Tibet region, which was closed following violent anti-China protests in March, would be reopened to foreign tourists 'soon', the regional government has said. Temples in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa would also soon resume religious activities, according to officials in the remote Himalayan region. The state media had earlier said that Tibet would be reopened to tourists from May 1, but there were also reports that the regional government had abandoned its plan.
China on Friday operationalised its first fully electrified bullet train in the remote Himalayan region of Tibet, connecting the provincial capital Lhasa and Nyingchi, a strategically located Tibetan border town close to Arunachal Pradesh.
The Olympic torch passed through Tibet's capital Lhasa on Saturday for a one-day stop China hopes will showcase a calm city firmly back in the national fold three months after anti-Chinese protests in the remote region.
"We have fully supported the Olympic Games right from the beginning and the torch is part of that. Over one billion Chinese brothers and sisters feel really proud of that. We should respect that. So, I don't think there will be any trouble," he was quoted saying in The Australian on Thursday. The Dalai Lama, who is on a five-day visit to Australia, has met with federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson and will have talks with federal government ministers later this week.
Before 1951, slave owners made up only five per cent of the total population of Tibet but controlled 95 per cent of its wealth. But today there is no dearth of millionaires in rural Tibet.
China's ambassador to Canada has said the Dalai Lama is a "serial liar" and those who attack China's record on human rights are being irresponsible. "The Dalai Lama has been telling lies to the world for decades," Shumin told journalists at the Chinese Embassy.
Addressing his first press conference in Mcleodganj, Himachal Pradesh, in the wake of the violence in the Tibetan capital since Friday, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader felt said that India has a few limitations as far as China is concerned and was 'too cautious' on the Tibet issue. The Indian government, the 73-year-old monk said, had 'hostile views' on certain actions of Tibetans but 'we should not pick up one particular incident'.
The New York Times quoted Google as saying that it did not know why the site had been blocked. But a report by the official Xinhua news agency of China on Tuesday said supporters of the Dalai Lama had fabricated a video that appeared to show Chinese police officers brutally beating Tibetans after riots last year in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.
China plans to build a new highway along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India as part of Beijing's efforts to strengthen its strategic position and project its power, a media report said on Wednesday.
About 30 airports have been either built or under construction in Tibet and Xinjiang provinces which will boost China's civil and military infrastructure in the remote regions bordering India, the country's official media reported.
China on Friday inaugurated its second railway line in Tibet, built at a cost of $2.16 billion, close to Indian border in Sikkim, enhancing mobility of its military in the remote and strategic Himalayan region.
India was fooled into believing that Communist China wanted a 'negotiated' settlement with the Tibetans; it was never the case, says Claude Arpi.
Wang Junzheng, Tibet's new Communist party boss, is on a number of sanctions lists by the US, Britain, the EU and Canada, for his tough role in Xinjiang, aimed at China's Uyghur ethnic minority, observes Jayadeva Ranade, the retired senior RA&W officer and distinguished China expert.
'It is flabbergasting to think that this heavenly region has, for decades, been coveted by India's aggressive neighbours,' says Claude Arpi after a recent visit to Ladakh. 'Wanting to use the newly created infrastructure to defend the borders after the clash of 2020 with China and the resulting standoffs, the home ministry is keen to boost border tourism to show that these areas are controlled by India.'
China is building the world's highest-altitude cloud computing data centre in Tibet that will meet the data storage needs of the country and South Asian nations like Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, official media reported on Thursday.
If the effort of bidding and conducting Olympics is to showcase China's rise to the world, popular indictments at the global and Tibetan levels have unnerved Beijing. For so long Tibet is considered to be the minimalist foreign policy position for China, while the Olympics indicated its bidding for global legitimacy for its policies.
China plans to divert about 200 billion cubic metres of water annually from the Brahmaputra at its highest point, namely the Great Bend, where it turns into India. China's Brahmaputra dam will severely impact India, warns former senior RA&W officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
The Tibetan nation still lives under the yoke of the Chinese Communist Party, and Beijing today has a guilty conscience; this creates a great uneasiness for Xi Jinping and his colleagues observes Claude Arpi.
China Telecom, the country's leading telecom carrier, has invested US $17 million to set telephone networks
Nearly two decades ago, then defence minister George Fernandes said: 'China has built roads up to the border, while there has been negligence on India's part.' Since Fernandes uttered these brave words, what has been done on the Indian side? The Modi Sarkar is apparently trying, but little has been achieved so far, says Claude Arpi.
The Indian Army has shown it can face down the PLA, but is too often held back by a political leadership that lacks boldness, asserts Ajai Shukla.
After the Ladakh fiasco where Xi Jinping did not expect the Indian Army to resist his land-grabbing tactics, he has to save face before his colleagues in the Communist party.' To bring the threat of a mega-dam to the northern Indian border is a clever move, observes Claude Arpi.
Overall, the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has focused on building ground-based air defense networks and network-centric operations rather than trying to match the Indian Air Force (IAF) in terms of straight fighter numbers along the border. All air assets fall under the Western Theater Command of the PLA, the largest geographic region of China's five military theater commands.
Tawang wears its history -- and also its present -- with ease. The flourishing town, with restaurants selling everything from noodles to dosas and locals returning home to new business prospects, shows little sign of the tension building up at the border about 40 km away to the north.
Communist China has recently developed a great expertise in 'soul reincarnation', feels Claude Arpi
The new rail and road cargo service launched on Friday, linking Guangdong, Tibet and Nepal, aims to boost trade with the South Asian neighbour as China pushes forward its Belt and Road (Silk Road) initiative, state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.
'The Tibetan movement will never turn violent during the Dalai Lama's life-time.'
Thirty years after the massacre at Tiananmen Square, coerced collective amnesia envelops the Chinese nation about that horrific event. Claude Arpi glances back at how the student uprising could have changed the Middle Kingdom forever had the Chinese Communist party not traveled on the route of martial law.
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