Chinazism

China Sharpens Hacking to Hound Its Minorities, Far and Wide
By Nicole Perlroth, Kate Conger and Paul Mozur

Uighur teenagers on their phones in Kashgar in China’s East Turkestan colony. Chinese hackers have secretly monitored the cellphones of Uighurs and Tibetans around the globe.

SAN FRANCISCO — China’s state-sponsored hackers have drastically changed how they operate over the last three years, substituting selectivity for what had been a scattershot approach to their targets and showing a new determination by Beijing to push its surveillance state beyond its borders.
The government has poured considerable resources into the change, which is part of a reorganization of the national People’s Liberation Army that Xi Jinping initiated in 2016, security researchers and intelligence officials said.
China’s hackers have since built up a new arsenal of techniques, such as elaborate hacks of iPhone and Android software, pushing them beyond email attacks and the other, more basic tactics that they had previously employed.
The primary targets for these more sophisticated attacks: China’s ethnic minorities and their diaspora in other countries, the researchers said. 

In several instances, hackers targeted the cellphones of a minority known as Uighurs, whose home region, East Turkestan, has been the site of a vast build-out of surveillance tech in recent years.
“The Chinese use their best tools against their own people first because that is who they’re most afraid of,” said James A. Lewis, a former United States government official who writes on cybersecurity and espionage for the Center for Strategic Studies in Washington. 

“Then they turn those tools on foreign targets.”
China’s willingness to extend the reach of its surveillance and censorship was on display after an executive for the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets tweeted support for protesters in Hong Kong this month. 

The response from China was swift, threatening a range of business relationships the N.B.A. had forged in the country.
In August, Facebook and Twitter said they had taken down a large network of Chinese bots that was spreading disinformation around the protests. 

And in recent weeks, a security firm traced a monthslong attack on Hong Kong media companies to Chinese hackers. 

Security experts say Chinese hackers are very likely targeting protesters’ phones, but they have yet to publish any evidence.

A security checkpoint with facial recognition technology in Hotan in East Turkestan.

Security researchers said the improved abilities of the Chinese hackers had put them on a par with elite Russian cyberunits. 

And the attacks on cellphones of Uighurs offered a rare glimpse of how some of China’s most advanced hacking tools are now being used to silence or punish critics.
Google researchers who tracked the attacks against iPhones said details about the software flaws that the hackers had preyed on would have been worth tens of millions of dollars on black market sites where information about software vulnerabilities is sold.
On the streets in East Turkestan, huge numbers of high-end surveillance cameras run facial recognition software to identify and track people. 

Specially designed apps have been used to screen Uighurs’ phones, monitor their communications and register their whereabouts.
Gaining access to the phones of Uighurs who have fled China — a diaspora that has grown as many have been locked away at home — would be a logical extension of those total surveillance efforts. Such communities in other countries have long been a concern to Beijing, and many in East Turkestan have been sent to camps because relatives traveled or live abroad.
The Chinese police have also made less sophisticated efforts to control Uighurs who have fled, using the chat app WeChat to entice them to return home or to threaten their families.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment. 

Security researchers recently discovered that the Chinese used National Security Agency hacking tools after apparently discovering an N.S.A. cyberattack on their own systems. 

And several weeks ago, a Chinese security firm, Qianxin, published an analysis tying the Central Intelligence Agency to a hack of China’s aviation industry.

Xi Jinping visiting President Barack Obama in 2015. Their agreement to halt certain cyberoperations gave China time to hone its abilities.

Breaking into iPhones has long been considered the Holy Grail of cyberespionage. 

“If you can get inside an iPhone, you have yourself a spy phone,” said John Hultquist, director of intelligence analysis at FireEye, a cybersecurity firm.
The F.B.I. couldn’t do it without help during a showdown with Apple in 2016. 

The bureau paid more than $1 million to an anonymous third party to hack an iPhone used by a gunman involved in the killing of 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif.
Google researchers said they had discovered that iPhone vulnerabilities were being exploited to infect visitors to a set of websites. 

Although Google did not release the names of the targets, Apple said they had been found on about a dozen websites focused on Uighurs.
“You can hit a high school student from Japan who is visiting the site to write a research report, but you are also going to hit Uighurs who have family members back in China and are supporting the cause,” said Steven Adair, the president and founder of the security firm Volexity in Virginia.
The technology news site TechCrunch first reported the Uighur connection. 

A software update from Apple fixed the flaw.
In recent weeks, security researchers at Volexity uncovered Chinese hacking campaigns that exploited vulnerabilities in Google’s Android software as well. 

Volexity found that several websites that focused on Uighur issues had been infected with Android malware. 

It traced the attacks to two Chinese hacking groups.
Because the hacks targeted Android and iPhone users — even though Uighurs in East Turkestan don’t commonly use iPhones — Mr. Adair said he believed that they had been aimed in part at Uighurs living abroad.

An analyst at FireEye. “If you can get inside an iPhone, you have yourself a spy phone,” said John Hultquist, the company’s director of intelligence analysis.

“China is expanding their digital surveillance outside their borders,” he said. 

“It seems like it really is going after the diaspora.”
Another group of researchers, at the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, recently uncovered an overlapping effort, using some of the same code discovered by Google and Volexity. 

It attacked the iPhones and Android phones of Tibetans until as recently as May.
Using WhatsApp messages, Chinese hackers posing as New York Times reporters and representatives of Amnesty International and other organizations targeted the private office of the Dalai Lama, members of the Tibetan Parliament and Tibetan nongovernmental organizations, among others.
Lobsang Gyatso, the secretary of TibCERT, an organization that works with Tibetan organizations on cybersecurity threats, said in an interview that the recent attacks were a notable escalation from previous Chinese surveillance attempts.
For a decade, Chinese hackers blasted Tibetans with emails containing malicious attachments, Mr. Lobsang said. 

If they hacked one person’s computer, they hit everyone in the victim’s address books, casting as wide a net as possible. 

But in the last three years, Mr. Lobsang said, there has been a big shift.
“The recent targeting was something we haven’t seen in the community before,” he said. 

“It was a huge shift in resources. They were targeting mobile phones, and there was a lot more reconnaissance involved. They had private phone numbers of individuals, even those that were not online. They knew who they were, where their offices were located, what they did.”
Adam Meyers, the vice president of intelligence at CrowdStrike, said these operations were notably more sophisticated than five years ago, when security firms discovered that Chinese hackers were targeting the phones of Hong Kong protesters in the so-called Umbrella Revolution.

The attacks on iPhones, which Uighurs in East Turkestan don’t typically use, suggested that Uighurs abroad were among the targets, said Steven Adair, president of Volexity.

At the time, Chinese hackers could break only into phones that had been “jailbroken,” or altered in some way to allow the installation of apps not vetted by Apple’s official store. 

The recent attacks against the Uighurs broke into up-to-date iPhones without tipping off the owner.
“In terms of how the Chinese rank threats, the highest threats are domestic,” Mr. Lewis said. 

“The No. 1 threat, as the Chinese see it, is the loss of information control on their own population. But the United States is firmly No. 2.”
Chinese hackers have also used their improved skills to attack the computer networks of foreign governments and companies. 

They have targeted internet and telecommunications companies and have broken into the computer networks of foreign tech, chemical, manufacturing and mining companies. 

Airbus recently said China had hacked it through a supplier.
In 2016, Xi Jinping consolidated several army hacking divisions under a new Strategic Support Force, similar to the United States’ Cyber Command, and moved much of the country’s foreign hacking operation from the army to the more advanced Ministry of State Security, China’s main spy agency.
The restructuring coincided with a lull in Chinese cyberattacks after a 2015 agreement between Xi and President Barack Obama to cease cyberespionage operations for commercial gain.
“The deal gave the Chinese the time and space to focus on professionalizing their cyberespionage capabilities,” Mr. Lewis said. 

“We didn’t expect that.”
Chinese officials also cracked down on moonlighting in moneymaking schemes by its state-sponsored hackers — a “corruption” issue that Xi concluded had sometimes compromised the hackers’ identities and tools, according to security researchers.
While China was revamping its operations, security experts said, it was also clamping down on security research in order to keep advanced hacking methods in house. 

The Chinese police recently said they planned to enforce national laws against unauthorized vulnerability disclosure, and Chinese researchers were recently banned from competing in Western hacking conferences.
“They are circling the wagons,” Mr. Hultquist of FireEye said. 

“They’ve recognized that they could use these resources to aid their offensive and defensive cyberoperations.”

Dalai Lama contemplates Chinese gambit after his death

By Krishna N. Das, Sunil Kataria

DHARAMSHALA, India -- The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, said on Monday it was possible that once he dies his incarnation could be found in India, where he has lived in exile for 60 years, and warned that any other successor named by China would not be respected.
Sat in an office next to a temple ringed by green hills and snow-capped mountains, the 14th Dalai Lama spoke to Reuters a day after Tibetans in the northern Indian town of Dharamshala marked the anniversary of his escape from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, disguised as a soldier.
He fled to India in early 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, and has since worked to draw global support for linguistic and cultural autonomy in his remote and mountainous homeland.
China, which took control of Tibet in 1950, brands the 83-year-old Nobel peace laureate a dangerous separatist.
Pondering what might happen after his death, the Dalai Lama anticipated some attempt by Beijing to foist a successor on Tibetan Buddhists.
“China considers Dalai Lama’s reincarnation as something very important. They have more concern about the next Dalai Lama than me,” said the Dalai Lama, swathed in his traditional red robes and yellow scarf.
“In future, in case you see two Dalai Lamas come, one from here, in free country, one chosen by Chinese, then nobody will trust, nobody will respect (the one chosen by China). So that’s an additional problem for the Chinese! It’s possible, it can happen,” he added, laughing.
China has said its leaders have the right to approve the Dalai Lama’s successor, as a legacy inherited from China’s emperors.
But many Tibetans -- whose tradition holds that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated in the body of a child on his death -- suspect any Chinese role as a ploy to exert influence on the community.
Born in 1935, the current Dalai Lama was identified as the reincarnation of his predecessor when he was two years old.
Many of China’s more than 6 million Tibetans still venerate the Dalai Lama despite government prohibitions on displays of his picture or any public display of devotion.
The Dalai Lama said contact between Tibetans living in their homeland and in exile was increasing, but that no formal meetings have happened between Chinese and his officials since 2010.
Informally, however, some retired Chinese officials and businessman with connections to Beijing do visit him from time to time, he added.
He said the role of the Dalai Lama after his death, including whether to keep it, could be discussed during a meeting of Tibetan Buddhists in India later this year.
He, however, added that though there was no reincarnation of Buddha, his teachings have remained.

“If the majority of (Tibetan people) really want to keep this institution, then this institution will remain,” he said. 

“Then comes the question of the reincarnation of the 15th Dalai Lama.”
If there is one, he would still have “ no political responsibility”, said the Dalai Lama, who gave up his political duties in 2001, developing a democratic system for the up to 100,000 Tibetans living in India.

SEMINAR IN CHINA?
During the interview, the Dalai Lama spoke passionately about his love for cosmology, neurobiology, quantum physics and psychology.
If he was ever allowed to visit his homeland, he said he’d like to speak about those subjects in a Chinese university.
But he wasn’t expecting to go while China remained under Communist rule.
“China - great nation, ancient nation - but its political system is totalitarian system, no freedom. So therefore I prefer to remain here, in this country.”
The Dalai Lama was born to a family of farmers in Taktser, a village on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, in China’s Qinghai province.
During a recent Reuters visit to Taktser, police armed with automatic weapons blocked the road. Police and more than a dozen plain-clothed officials said the village was not open to non-locals.
“Our strength, our power is based on truth. Chinese power based on gun,” the Dalai Lama said. 

“So for short term, gun is much more decisive, but long term truth is more powerful.”

Free Tibet

Tibetan Youth Self-Immolates Over China's Tibet Policies
By Tinley Nyandak
Drugkho, a Tibetan youth seen in these undated photos, set himself on fire to protest China’s repressive policy in Tibet near the Ngaba District’s security office, Sichuan Province, Dec. 8, 2018.

A young Tibetan man set himself on fire outside a district security office in China's Sichuan province earlier this month, chanting, "Long Live His Holiness the Dalai Lama! Free Tibet!"
Tibetan sources say the man, Drugkho, is about 22 years old, and is believed to still be alive, but his whereabouts and his condition remain unclear.

He is the latest Tibetan to attempt to self-immolate over repressive Chinese policies in Tibet. 

Local sources said the incident occurred last Saturday near the Ngaba District security office, but details were scarce.
Whenever there is a self-immolation protest, China typically beefs up its security to try to prevent the news from spreading.
"There has been an immediate lockdown in the area, with internet communications blocked. A Tibetan youth self-immolated on December 8 in the afternoon in Ngaba county, and it is true that it happened, but after the incident any discussion of this is very inconvenient," RFA Tibetan service and The Tibet Post International reported, quoting sources in Tibet.
Dharamsala-based Kirti Monastery's spokesman Lobsang Yeshi says no further details were known because of strict restrictions on information flow in the area and dangers to the Tibetans speaking to the outside world.
The protester was a former monk at Kirti Monastery. 

He was formerly known as Chokyi Gyaltsen, but after he disrobed in 2017, he took the name of Drugkho, according to Tibetan sources.
Ngaba's main town and nearby Kirti Monastery have been the scene of repeated self-immolations and other protests in recent years by monks, former monks, and other Tibetans calling for Tibetan freedom and the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet. 

Drugkho's self-immolation protest is the 42nd such confirmed incident in Ngaba.
Drugkho's protest brings the total number of self-immolations to roughly 155 in Tibet since February 2009. 

The majority of those self-immolators have died.

India Spurns the Dalai Lama’s Celebration, Worried About China

India’s growing reluctance to engage with the Tibetans in exile is due to its growing economic weakness

By MARIA ABI-HABIB

The Dalai Lama at a Tibetan Buddhist temple in McLeod Ganj, India, in August. India has sheltered the Dalai Lama and his followers since a Chinese crackdown on Tibetans 60 years ago. 

McLEOD GANJ, India — An original song of thanks to India had been rehearsed, and a stadium in New Delhi had been reserved for a celebratory rally — all a gesture of gratitude from the Dalai Lama and his followers for India’s role in sheltering them after a Chinese crackdown on rebellious Tibetans 60 years ago.
Instead, the planned “Thank You India” celebrations, set for this coming weekend, set off apprehension in New Delhi and embarrassment among Tibetans.
A directive from India’s foreign secretary urged officials to discard their invitations, and it was blunt in saying the timing of the events coincided with a “sensitive time” for New Delhi’s relations with Beijing. 

A series of high-level meetings between Indian and Chinese officials are being billed in India as an attempt to smooth over an increasingly tense relationship.
Invitations to top officials were withdrawn, and the event was moved from a stadium in the capital to the secluded northern town of McLeod Ganj, home to the Dalai Lama’s temple and the seat of the Tibetan government in exile. 

A scheduled interfaith prayer in New Delhi was flatly canceled rather than moved, given the lack of other religious representatives in McLeod Ganj.
“In Delhi, we approached many dignitaries and invited them,” said Sonam Dagpo, a spokesman for Tibet’s government in exile and the chief organizer for the planned events. 

“But the foreign secretary’s notice says very clearly that Indian officials shouldn’t attend. So why continue? It’s futile.”
The canceled events underline India’s struggle to both court and counterbalance China, an increasingly difficult feat given China’s recent willingness to flex its military growth.
India has continued to host the Dalai Lama and his fellow Tibetan Buddhist exiles even though China condemns them as dangerous separatists. 

But the Indian government has also sought at times to rein in the religious leader at crucial moments in the relationship with China, and this is certainly one of them.

A march in McLeod Ganj last year commemorating the Tibetan uprising against China. India is trying to smooth its increasingly tense relationship with China. 

India is trying to encourage trade ties and Chinese investments while playing catch-up to modernize its military, worried about China’s rapidly expanding forces and its growing influence all around India in South Asia.
China has made deep inroads with New Delhi’s traditional allies and neighbors, building seaports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, increasing trade and political ties with Nepal, and sending warships to the East Indian Ocean during a state of emergency in the Maldives.
“Giving in to China on the Tibetan community in exile is largely symbolic,” said Jonathan Holslag, professor of international politics at the Free University of Brussels. 

`“But it does mark India’s weakening compared to China. China is rapidly modernizing its military presence, and India cannot follow.”
When Beijing increased its annual defense budget in March to $175 billion, it dwarfed the $45 billion New Delhi had announced just weeks before. 

India’s army chief complained that the disparity “dashed our hopes” of modernization.
The coming talks with China cited by the Indian foreign secretary’s directive will be the highest-level meetings since the two countries engaged in a military standoff last year, after China expanded an unpaved road in a contested sliver of territory in the Himalayas.
The dispute was resolved in August, but Indian and Chinese troops threw rocks and chest bumped each other in a clash that some fear could flare up again. 

India’s leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, may be particularly concerned about that possibility given that he faces an election next year.
Over the next few months, India’s defense and foreign ministers will meet with their Chinese counterparts ahead of a meeting between Mr. Modi and Xi Jinping in June. 

The main topics on the agenda are trade and border disputes, according to Western diplomats in New Delhi.

McLeod Ganj, a suburb of Dharamsala, has been home to the Dalai Lama’s temple and the seat of the Tibetan government in exile. 
Tibet’s government in exile found out about New Delhi’s anxiety over its planned celebrations only when a local newspaper reported that government officials had been ordered to stay away.
A spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, Raveesh Kumar, said his government had not changed its stance on the Dalai Lama, saying, “His Holiness is accorded all freedom to carry out his religious activities in India.”
That came to be an issue last year, after the Dalai Lama visited a province in northern India, another territory disputed by China, which had demanded that India prevent the Buddhist leader from visiting.
But generally, India has been more cautious with China about the Dalai Lama and other issues.
“This is not appeasement. China’s relative bargaining positions have improved across the board,” said C. Raja Mohan, the director of Carnegie India, a branch of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 

“The main objective is to manage the relationship while avoiding a confrontation but leaving space for India to progress, catch up and increase its bargaining position.”
On the economic front, India’s efforts to keep meeting ambitious growth targets has kept it relying on trade with China. 

But the country also faces a $51 billion trade deficit with Beijing, leaving New Delhi with less bargaining power.
“India’s growing reluctance to engage with the Tibetans in exile is due to its growing economic weakness,” said Mr. Holslag, of the Free University of Brussels.
“Modi assumes that Chinese investment will be critical to realize his plans to develop India’s infrastructure and industry, and thus to increase his chance to win the next elections,” he said. 

“This is really key: Indians want jobs, not a confrontation with China.”

China's Fifth Column: The Manchurian Senator

How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding
By Josh Rogin

A congressional delegation led by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) presents frozen steaks to Li Keqiang on April 10 in Beijing. The gift was meant to underscore the importance of opening Chinese markets to U.S. beef imports.

In its effort to cultivate foreign influence, the Chinese Communist Party boldly mixes economic incentives with requests for political favors. 

Its dealings with Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) this year offer a success story for Beijing.
Last month Daines announced a breakthrough in his long-standing effort to win access for Montana’s beef exports to China — a $200 million deal with a leading Chinese retailer.
Then, on Dec. 5, the regime of Xi Jinping got something at least as valuable from Daines. 

The senator hosted a delegation of Chinese Communist Party officials who oversee Tibet, at the request of the Chinese Embassy — thereby undercutting a simultaneous visit to Washington by the president of the Tibetan government in exile.
Lobsang Sangay, the Tibetan leader regarded as an enemy by Beijing, was in Washington to meet with lawmakers and members of the Tibetan community. 

The House Foreign Affairs Asia subcommittee held a hearing Dec. 6 on Chinese repression in Tibet.
The rival meeting hosted by Daines the day before included Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). 

After the meetings, the state-owned China Daily claimed the congressmen had praised Chinese officials in Tibet for doing “a good job in environmental protection and traditional cultural preservation.”
The episode illustrated China’s growing practice of enlisting Western politicians to blunt criticism of the regime — and also its determination to haunt its opponents wherever they travel. 

“Everywhere I go, I’m followed by a high-level Chinese delegation” denying human rights abuses in Tibet, Sangay told me, adding that Chinese officials pressure governments across the world not to meet with him.
Sangay was in town to push legislation calling for foreigners to have the same access to Tibet that Chinese officials who oversee Tibet have here. 

The Chinese Communist Party did allow one congressional delegation to visit Tibet in April — led by Daines — which met top Chinese officials.
Daines’s office couldn’t produce any record that he, either in China or Washington, publicly raised the fact that the Chinese government is perpetrating brutal, systematic repression in Tibet, including attempted cultural genocide, environmental destruction, mass surveillance, mass incarceration and severe denial of freedoms for Tibetans.
The senator had another agenda — selling Montana beef. 

He presented four frozen steaks to Li Keqiang in Beijing and hosted Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai at a Montana ranch. 

The $200 million contract was the first reward for his efforts.
Daines has done other favors for the Chinese government. 

Early this summer, he discussed with other senators his opposition to a bill that would rename the street in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington after Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who later died in Chinese government custody, his office confirmed.
Spokeswoman Marcie Kinzel told me Daines has pushed to visit multiple Chinese regions where human rights are a concern. 

Daines’s approach to Chinese human rights is “not connected” to his push for beef exports, Kinzel said. 

Yet for the Chinese government, economics and politics are always linked. 

By helping the Communist Party squash political criticism in Washington, Daines’s actions constituted a victory for Chinese foreign influence operations, said Derek Mitchell, former U.S. ambassador to Burma.
“It confirms everything the Chinese believe about us, that anyone can be bought,” he said. 

“We’re only as strong as our weakest link, and that Daines would do this only encourages them to continue.”
There’s no evidence of a direct quid pro quo or any illegal behavior, just multiple favors between Daines and the Chinese government. 

But by using his power to protect China from accountability on human rights, Daines compromised American values and helped perpetuate the suffering of innocent people abroad.
In Australia last week, a senator resigned after it was revealed he took money from a Chinese donor and then parroted Chinese government lines on the South China Sea issue. 

It’s the same pattern: China dangles economic incentives and, soon enough, its friends begin helping China’s political aims.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is leading a national drive to excise Chinese foreign influence from Australian politics. 

“Foreign powers are making unprecedented and increasingly sophisticated attempts to influence the political process, both here and abroad,” Turnbull said.
In Washington, political and policy leaders are just waking up to the scope and scale of China’s efforts to interfere. 

But if the Chinese government can claim U.S. lawmakers as defenders of its repression in Tibet, it’s clear the problem is much worse than we realize.

Free Tibet

Tibet row halts China U20 football team's German tour
BBC News

A group of spectators unfurled Tibetan flags during last Saturday's game in Mainz

A football tour of Germany by the Chinese U20 team has been suspended because of a political row over Tibet.
The team briefly left the pitch during a game in Mainz last week when Tibetan flags were displayed by spectators.
Three matches planned for the remainder of the year have been halted because fans planned further Tibetan protests.
Tibet is invaded and occupied by China.

Beijing reacts angrily to any suggestions that the Himalayan territory should be independent.

China and the Tibetans
"We believe this adjournment is essential in order to give us the time needed to discuss the situation calmly and openly and find a reasonable solution," Ronny Zimmermann, Vice-President of the German Football Association (DFB), was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
He said the DFB and the Chinese Football Association (CFA) "will try to work out a way of relaunching the project again quickly".
However, Mr Zimmerman earlier stressed that Germany "cannot ban the protests, there is the right to freedom of expression here and certain rules apply".

Chinese players (in red) only agreed to resume the match when Tibetan flags were removed by German police.

The postponed games include Saturday's match in Frankfurt.
China sent in thousands of troops to enforce its claim on Tibet in 1950.
Some areas became the Tibetan Autonomous Region and others were incorporated into neighbouring Chinese provinces.
In 1959, after a failed anti-Chinese uprising, the 14th Dalai Lama fled Tibet and set up a government in exile in India.
Most of Tibet's monasteries were destroyed in the 1960s and 1970s during China's Cultural Revolution.
Thousands of Tibetans have been killed during periods of repression and martial law.
Under international pressure, China eased its grip on Tibet in the 1980s, introducing "Open Door" reforms and boosting investment.

Free Tibet

Tibet flag mars China’s U20 debut in Germany

By Neil Connor

A Chinese agent attempts to tear away a Tibetian flag which was raised in protest of China's politics regarding Tibet at the match between TSV Schott Mainz and China's U20 team at the regional sports facility in Mainz, Germany.

Mainz, Germany -- China’s Under-20s football team stormed off the pitch during a match in Germany after demonstrators unfurled Tibetan flags.
The team – which is coached by former Manchester City defender Sun Jihai - only agreed to continue playing in the televised match against TSV Schott Mainz after the protesters took down the flags.
The incident left football chiefs in China and Germany red-faced as they seek to salvage a series of matches aimed at preparing China’s young footballers for the 2020 Olympics in Japan.
The TSV Schott Mainz game was the first of 16 friendlies the young side is to play against lower clubs in Germany until May -- with the next game against FSV Frankfurt on Saturday.
Ronny Zimmermann, vice-president of the German Football Association (DFB), which has organised the matches, said: "We cannot ban the protests, there is the right to freedom of expression here and certain rules apply.
"However, we also want to be good hosts and as a result we are not happy with this incident.”
Sun, who was signed for Man City for £2 million in 2002 and was the first Chinese player to score a Premier League goal, sought to deflect attention from the walkout back towards the football.
"The team came to Germany to improve their football and to gain experience," he said.

Protesters hold the Tibetan flag ahead the friendly football match TSV Schott Mainz vs China's Under-20 team on November 18, 2017.

The German FA is seeking to avoid a similar embarrassing situation during the remaining games and will be holding talks with the Chinese delegation .
Three teams in Germany’s fourth-tier Regionalliga Suedwest league have refused to face the Chinese after their fans protested, but the other 16 clubs will each be paid 15,000 euros (£13,300) for the matches, reports say.
German media said the game was delayed for 25 minutes after the Chinese walked off.
The team eventually returned to the pitch after the flags were removed by the protestors, but the Chinese lost the game 3-0.
Rights groups say Tibetans chafe under China’s oppressive rule.

Free Tibet

US reps, Dalai Lama take aim at China sore spot Tibet
BY KATY DAIGLE AND ASHWINI BHATIA

Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi greets Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama at the Tsuglagkhang temple in Dharmsala, India, Wednesday, May 10, 2017. A group from US Congress is taking aim at one of China’s sore spots, Tibet, during a meeting in India with the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader. Pelosi said Wednesday that China was using “brutal tactics” and economic leverage to crush Tibetan calls for autonomy. 

DHARMSALA, INDIA -- As Donald Trump appears to be warming to China, a bipartisan group from the U.S. House of Representatives took aim Wednesday at one of Beijing's sore spots: Tibet.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi accused China of using economic leverage to crush Tibetan calls for autonomy. During a meeting with Tibetans and the Dalai Lama at his main temple in the Indian hill town of Dharmsala, she urged the community not to give up.
"You will not be silenced," said Pelosi, a California Democrat. 

"The brutal tactics of the Chinese government to erase race, culture and language of Tibetan people challenges the conscience of the world. We will meet that challenge."
The visit by Pelosi and seven other U.S. representatives irritated Beijing, where a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry reiterated China's stance that the Dalai Lama is a dangerous separatist.
China says the Himalayan region has been part of the country for more than seven centuries. 

Tibetans insist they were essentially independent for most of that time. 

At least 148 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since 2009 to protest China's rule.
In many cases, China has offered aid packages to foreign governments on the condition that they support China's position on issues such as Tibet and Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing has pledged to take control of, by force if necessary. 

Mongolia said in December that it would no longer allow visits by the Dalai Lama after a recent trip by the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader led China to suspend talks on a major loan.
"China uses its economic leverage to silence the voices of friends of Tibet," Pelosi said Wednesday. 

"But if we don't speak out against repression in Tibet and the rest of China because of China's economic power, we lose all moral authority to talk about human rights anywhere else in the world."
Pelosi told the gathering that she would limit her comments on China's "brutal tactics" because the Dalai Lama had "prayed for me that I would rid myself of my negative attitude about dwelling on the negative too much."
The Dalai Lama, meanwhile, said Tibetans do not need weapons in their struggle for autonomy, and again prescribed a path of nonviolence and compassion. 

While he has devolved political power to an elected government, the Dalai Lama is still widely revered by Tibetans as their most influential leader.
Tibetans who remain in the closely guarded region "are living in fear and anxiety. Their life is at risk, but they are still preserving our traditions," said the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet to India in 1959 during an abortive uprising.

"We all are dedicated to the Tibetan cause, but should not think of harming the Chinese people as such. We need to befriend them" and work through compassion to resolve the Tibetan issue, he said.
The timing of the U.S. congressional visit may irk Trump, who just weeks ago boasted of enjoying cozy conversations and chocolate cake with Xi Jinping at Trump's Florida resort. 

During Xi's official visit last month, Beijing also approved a raft of patent applications for Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter.
Trump's rhetoric on China has warmed considerably since the U.S. presidential campaign, when he repeatedly called the Asian giant a currency manipulator and an economic adversary of the United States.

On Tuesday, Pelosi and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican from Wisconsin, posed for photos holding up a Tibetan soccer jersey. 

And earlier in the week, the group visited Nepal, where the government has been criticized for not allowing Tibetans to protest in front of the Chinese Embassy.
Pelosi said the delegation, in talks with Nepalese officials, had raised the issue of "the wellbeing of the thousands of Tibetans who have been living in Nepal for decades as well as the rights of other minorities," according to a statement.


Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi waves to a crowd as she stands next to the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama at the Tsuglagkhang temple in Dharmsala, India, Wednesday, May 10, 2017. A group from US Congress is taking aim at one of China’s sore spots, Tibet, during a meeting in India with the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader. Pelosi said Wednesday that China was using “brutal tactics” and economic leverage to crush Tibetan calls for autonomy. 

Free Tibet

24-Year-old Tibetan Self-Immolates in Anti-China Protest
VOA News

Map of self-immolations in Tibet, or near Tibet
Monitors say a 24-year-old Tibetan man set himself on fire Saturday outside a monastery in China's southwestern Sichuan province, a region heavily populated by ethnic Tibetans who protest China's policies in their nearby homeland.
A statement Sunday from the organization "Free Tibet" said the man self-immolated Saturday afternoon, drawing a large detachment of police and security personnel who took him into custody.
Witnesses are quoted as saying Pema Gyaltsen was thought to be alive when arrested. 

But the statement said activists have been unable to confirm his current condition or whether he survived the ordeal.
The statement also said police remained in the area to prevent the spread of information, and that Internet service in the region was cut.
Analysts say Saturday's self-immolation is the first in the disputed region since December, when another male set himself on fire and died.
Free Tibet says more than 140 Tibetan protesters have set themselves on fire since 2009, when anti-China protesters -- most of them monks and nuns -- began self-immolating to protest what locals describe as Chinese interference in Tibetan customs and religious practices.
The majority of those protesters have died.
Protesters also have sought to bring attention to demands for the return of their exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Chinese authorities last decade criminalized self-immolation protests, and local courts have imprisoned scores of people for their alleged roles in supporting the protests.

Free Tibet

Swiss diaspora Tibetan refugees unhappy with Chinese nationality
By Anand Chandrasekhar

They may be protesting against China but their Swiss residence permit states they are Chinese and not Tibetans

Around 400 Tibetans gathered in the Swiss capital Bern to commemorate the 1959 uprising against Chinese forces in Lhasa. 

They also expressed anger at being categorised as Chinese nationals by the authorities. 

As of June 2015, all refugees from Tibet are automatically assigned a Chinese nationality on their residence in permits in order to conform with Switzerland’s official position on Tibet being a part of China. 

Prior to this, resident permits bore Tibet or Tibet (China).
“Since Switzerland does not recognise Tibet as an independent State but considers it as a part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China, these denominations were false and had to be corrected,” a spokesperson for the migration office (SEM), told swissinfo.ch.
These older permits (the migration office estimates there are around 350 of them) are “corrected” when they come up for renewal causing emotional turmoil among Switzerland’s Tibetan community, Europe’s largest.

A Swiss residence permit of a Tibetan refugee indicates People's Republic of China as the recognised nationality

“We are not Chinese. We are Tibetans. Many of us were born in Switzerland or India and have no connection to China,” says Tenzin Nyingbu, president of the Tibetan Community in Switzerland and Liechtenstein (TCSL).
According to him, all Tibetans without a Swiss passport – around 3,000 of them - have been assigned Chinese nationality. 

However, there could be a tiny minority whose permits have not yet come up from renewal since the policy change – mainly C permit holders – that might still have Tibet or Tibet (China ) listed as their nationality.
Tenzin’s association and other Tibetan groups in Switzerland had appealed against the measure when it was introduced but to no avail.
“Some say the Swiss authorities were pressurised by China but they have denied this accusation during my discussions with them and say it is purely an internal policy decision,” says Nyingbu.

Chinese reaction
An opinion piece published in February in Global Times – an English language paper with a communist viewpoint – called the Swiss move a blow to Tibetan separatists and the Tibetan government in exile. 

The author interprets the change in policy as a calculated move by Switzerland.
“Berne refusing labeling the ‘Tibetan-in-exile’ as from ‘Tibet’ or as refugees is a result of the positive Sino-Swiss diplomatic cooperation. Berne must have realized it has more to gain from a strong bilateral relationship with Beijing rather than supporting the Tibetan separatists,” said the piece. 

The story was carried widely in the Chinese media and portrayed as a sign of change in tactics by the West to appease a rising China.
“As the international order changes, it seems inevitable for Berne to review and adjust its policies,” said the article. 

Asylum requests
The proportion of “Chinese” asylum seekers given protection in Switzerland has dropped significantly – only 54.8% qualified in 2016 compared to 71.8% in 2015 and 85.8% in 2014. However, the migration office reiterates that the administrative measure according Chinese nationality to Tibetans has no bearing on their eligibility to seek asylum in Switzerland.
“People of Tibetan ethnicity have to credibly demonstrate that they are at risk when returning to China and that they are not in possession of a residence permit in a third country, in order for them to be granted the refugee status. If they fail to do so, the competent Swiss authorities may order their removal from Switzerland,” says an SEM spokesperson.
The drop in asylum acceptance rate was attributed to an increase in the number of “Dublin cases” where the asylum seekers are obliged under the Dublin agreement to submit their application to the first European country they arrive in.

Statelessness
The Tibetan case is quite different from the criteria of statelessness in which someone who is unable to acquire nationality of any country has the right to be granted a residence permit in Switzerland. However, Switzerland has tougher requirements for statelessness compared to refugees, which means few apply and qualify for it.
As of January 2017, 48 people under this category were being processed by the asylum system of which 28 were admitted on a temporary basis (less than seven years). 

Those admitted are most likely to be Syrian Kurds, known locally as Ajanib. 

Hundreds of Tibetans defy China, gather at birthplace of Buddhism in India

By Annie Gowen

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is assisted by his aides as he prepares to perform rituals during the inauguration of a Mongolian Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, India, Jan. 9, 2017. 

BODH GAYA, India — The young Tibetan monk was taking his elderly aunt and uncle on a trip of a lifetime — a tour of holy Buddhist sites in India and a chance to meet the Dalai Lama. 

But halfway through, word came from China: The family was to return right away.
Chinese police had descended on the monk’s home five times in December, fingerprinting his parents and forcing them to sign documents guaranteeing his return.
But the monk and his family were determined to see the Dalai Lama speak at Bodh Gaya, the Indian city that many consider the birthplace of Buddhism. 

So they defied Chinese authorities and continued their journey, risking imprisonment, harsh questioning or loss of identity cards when they return home.
“I’m very worried,” the monk said on a chilly evening, sitting in a tent not far from a teaching ground where thousands have gathered each day since Jan. 3 to pray, meditate and hear their religious leader. “If we are put in prison, they will interrogate us: ‘Why did you go to India?’ This can be very dangerous.”
Authorities from the Tibetan government in exile say the Chinese government barred an estimated 7,000 Tibetan pilgrims from attending this month’s 10-day gathering in India, an unprecedented move that further erodes the rights of 6 million people who live in the Tibetan region of China. 

It was also a fresh reminder that the Chinese are threatening to control the selection of the next Dalai Lama after the eventual demise of the renowned religious leader, who is now 81.

An Indian fan takes a “selfie” photograph with actor Richard Gere in Bodh Gaya on Jan. 12, 2017. 

“It’s tragic,” said Lobsang Sangay, the head of Tibet’s government in exile in India. 

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip for Tibetans, like Muslims going to Mecca. It’s a sad commentary on the Chinese claim to have religious freedom — or any kind of freedom in Tibet.”
The Dalai Lama told reporters that the move was “unfortunate.”
China has denied that threatening pilgrims or blocking their departures, but local authorities in Tibet declared this ritual gathering, called the Kalachakra, illegal in 2012, the last time it was held in Bodh Gaya. 

Most of the 7,000 had already traveled legally to India and were forced to return early. 

Only 300 remain.
Since unrest broke out across the Tibetan plateau in 2008, the Chinese government has enacted sweeping measures that have curtailed freedom of expression, notably by prioritizing Chinese over the Tibetan language in schools, posting police in monasteries and increasing surveillance.
China’s Communist Party seeks to break the connection between Tibetans and their revered leader to ensure compliance with ambitious party objectives in Tibet, a region rich in mineral and water resources.
“What we’re seeing is new,” said Kate Saunders, of the International Campaign for Tibet. 

“It’s a systematic attempt to prevent Tibetans from having any access at all to the Dalai Lama.”

Buddhist monks participate in a special religious teaching prayer attended by the Dalai Lama during the Kalachakra event at Bodh Gaya on Jan. 6, 2017. 

An estimated 10,000 Tibetans attended the last such gathering in Bodh Gaya in 2012, but many were jailed or detained for “reeducation” in military camps when they returned, Saunders said.
Around 200,000 maroon- and saffron-robed monks and nuns and Buddhist devotees from around the world — including American actor Richard Gere — converged on the town in eastern India for days of chanting and lessons on Buddhist thought. 

As darkness descended, many of them performed prostrations and encircled the ancient stupa next to the tree — a descendant of the original — where the Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment.
Since the Dalai Lama escaped over the mountains from Tibet to India in 1959, Indian governments have treated him as an honored guest in Dharamsala, a hill town in northern India, but they long kept him at arm’s length to avoid offending the Chinese. 

Now, that may be changing.
The Dalai Lama appeared prominently at an event with India’s president in Delhi last month. 

And Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made preserving India’s ancient heritage a priority, becoming the first prime minister in decades to visit Bodh Gaya.
“I don’t believe it’s a fundamental shift of position, but certainly what you’re seeing is trending towards perhaps a less self-conscious expression of our sentiments and our support for the Tibetan cultural identity and the high standing the Dalai Lama enjoys here in India,” said Nirupama Menon Rao, a former foreign secretary and ambassador to China.
The support is key, as the Tibetan exile community faces uncertain times. 

The Dalai Lama has said that when he dies, he may choose not to be reincarnated, as Buddhist belief holds, or that he could come back as a woman. 

But China has signaled it will control the search for the next Dalai Lama by anointing its own Panchen Lama, another important religious figure in Tibetan Buddhism.
Some of the attendees said they are worried it will be the last such ceremony the Dalai Lama will perform. 

The octogenarian moves and speaks more slowly now, and he had to be helped to the elaborate throne on the dais by two monks.
“He can’t go into top gear anymore,” said Gaden Tashi, a Tibetan from Kathmandu. 

“But he keeps saying he’s happy and healthy.”
One young Tibetan-language tutor who made the risky journey from China recalled that when he first unrolled his prayer mat at Bodh Gaya and got his first glimpse of the Dalai Lama, “I couldn’t control myself; I thought it was a dream.”
The tutor, 29, arrived Jan. 3, weeks after his trip began in a small village in the Tibetan area of Amdo. He paid a guide to take him to Kathmandu, where he then received legal papers from the Indian Embassy to make the pilgrimage.
Almost immediately, he said, frightening messages began appearing on his WeChat, China’s popular social media platform. 

He said police sent a warning through his parents that he should return by Jan. 3, the day the Kalachakra would begin. 

His mother cried and begged him to come home soon. 

Others sent photos of pilgrims who were met at the airport only to have their passports sliced into pieces by police.
He now feels he cannot return to China, but he believes his sacrifice has been worth it.
“Every Tibetan has a dream — to meet the Dalai Lama,” he said. 

“I told my parents I have no regret, even if I die.”

Tibetan Buddhist monk self-immolates in west China

By Christopher Bodeen

BEIJING — A Tibetan Buddhist monk has set himself on fire in western China in what appeared to be the latest such radical protest against Beijing's rule, a U.S. government-backed radio station and rights monitoring group said.
The unidentified monk set himself alight on a road outside the town of Machu in a traditionally Tibetan area of Gansu province at around 7 p.m. Thursday, Radio Free Asia and London-based Free Tibet reported.
Police who arrived shortly afterward took the monk away and there was no immediate word on his condition, they said.
A man who answered the phone at a regional police station hung up immediately after the caller asked for information. 

Calls to other government offices rang unanswered.
While information from the isolated area is incomplete, the incident is believed to bring to at least 146 the number of Tibetans who have self-immolated in recent years, about 125 of whom have died, according to monitoring groups.
Eyewitnesses have been quoted as saying that many of those who self-immolated cried out for Tibetan independence or prayed for the return of the Dalai Lama. 

Tibet's Buddhist leader fled Tibet in 1959 amid an abortive uprising against Chinese forces who had occupied the Himalayan region a decade earlier.
While China claims Tibet has been part of its territory for more than seven centuries, many Tibetans say they were essentially independent for most of that time.
Thursday's self-immolation was the first known to have occurred since either March or May, perhaps reflecting stepped-up security measures in Tibetan areas of western China where most such incidents have occurred.
The protests are seen as an extreme expression of the anger and frustration felt by many Tibetans — both lay people and members of the Buddhist clergy — living under heavy-handed Chinese rule.
In a new book on the self-immolations, Tibetan writer and rights activist Tsering Woeser describes them as forming a "broad protest movement that continues to this day."
"Because no other method is available for Tibetans to voice their protests, and because only the horror of self-immolation is able to capture the attention of the world, it has become the choice of the bravest protesters in Tibet," Woeser writes in "Tibet on Fire: Self-Immolations Against Chinese Rule."
Tibetan monks and nuns are among the most active opponents of Chinese rule in the region and the strongest proponents of Tibet's independent identity, prompting the authorities to subject them to some of the harshest and most intrusive restrictions.
Those include the stationing of police and informers inside monasteries and a 2007 regulation stating that reincarnations of high-ranking lamas — a central feature of Tibet's unique tantric strain of Buddhism — must be subject to Communist Party approval.
Beijing blames the Dalai Lama and others for inciting the immolations.

The Dalai Lama says he opposes all violence but has neither publicly condemned nor encouraged the self-immolations.