China steps up control in Tibet

At meeting, exiles ponder strategy

DHARAMSALA, India - China has further tightened control in its ethnic Tibetan region in recent weeks, exile groups say, even as it was ostensibly negotiating in good faith with the Dalai Lama's envoys.

Stepped-up patrols and increased paramilitary presence in Lhasa, the regional capital, and along major transport arteries coincide with a strategy meeting attended by exiles in northern India this week, members of exile groups say.

"We've monitored an even more intense crackdown in the past couple of weeks," Kate Saunders, communications director with the advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet, said Thursday.

The group said a source inside China this week reported seeing three convoys of as many as 15 Chinese military vehicles west of the town of Kangding in Sichuan province, an area of significant unrest, along with roadblocks, bunkers, and armed forces around bridges and government buildings.

Chinese officials and envoys of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, this month wrapped up several days of talks, the seventh inconclusive round in six years, after widespread unrest in the nation's ethnically Tibetan region in March.

More than 500 delegates from around the world have descended on Dharamsala, a mountain village near the Chinese border, home of the self-declared Tibetan government in exile, for six days of meetings on Tibet's future.

After supporting the Dalai Lama's "middle way" approach for two decades, which acknowledges Beijing's right to sovereignty amid hope of securing greater autonomy over Tibetan religious and cultural affairs, a growing number of exiles have concluded the strategy is not working.

This week's meetings are designed to explore a new approach amid concern that the Dalai Lama, 73, might not have too many years of good health left. Last month, he was hospitalized and had an operation to remove gallstones.

One of the biggest challenges for the exile community is communicating with the 6 million Tibetans in their homeland, given Chinese restrictions on information and travel.

China seized control of Tibet in 1951, and since the government has invested billions of dollars in roads, schools and other infrastructure, but it has fallen short in winning over hearts and minds.

Beijing is bracing for the 50th anniversary of its March 1959 crackdown that saw the Dalai Lama flee to India.