Paramilitary and plainclothes police blanketed the Tibetan capital with patrols and checkpoints yesterday, imposing what witnesses called a tense calm on the first anniversary of a violent anti-Chinese riot.
Lhasa residents said police with rifles or batons marched around the Jokhang Temple and the adjacent Barkhor Square in the old city, where protesters ran rampant last year. A Hong Kong tourist said two military helicopters hovered over the city in the morning — a rare sight — and that officers demanded to see identification at checkpoints.
“I was constantly stopped for identity check in the past few days,” said the tourist, who only wanted to be identified by his surname, Chu, because of the heavy security. “I was stopped twice last night on my way back to my hotel from dinner.”
The Communist Party secretary of China’s Tibetan government defended the heavy troop presence as necessary to quell any “separatist” violence.
Hong Kong RTHK radio posted photos on its Web site showing shuttered shops around the Jokhang temple, while armed police with automatic rifles patrolled nearby.
The South China Morning Post carried reports from an unidentified staff reporter describing door-to-door inspections of hotels and neighborhoods to round up “suspicious people.”
The China News Service showed a photograph of two schoolchildren walking past a dozen soldiers in combat gear in the deserted Barkhor market street in the center of Lhasa.
“Anniversary of the ‘March 14’ sacrifice: behind every statistic is grief and terror,” the headline said.
Anyone in Lhasa without a local identity card faced questioning and possible detention, the SCMP said.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2