China has reopened Tibet to foreign tourists, state media said yesterday, almost two months after imposing a ban ahead of politically sensitive anniversaries.
A group of 11 German travelers arrived in the regional capital of Lhasa late on Saturday, the Xinhua news agency said. The group was on a six-day tour that would take them to a number of “key scenic spots” before leaving for Nepal, Xinhua said.
China requires foreigners to obtain special permission to visit Tibet and routinely bars them from all Tibetan areas of the country during sensitive periods to keep news of unrest from leaking out.
The latest travel ban on foreigners came in February and last month because of the Tibetan New Year and anniversaries of Tibetan uprisings against Chinese rule. A man who answered the telephone at the Lhasa tourism bureau said he had not heard the news about the visitors.
Foreign visitors also were not allowed in ethnically Tibetan areas in Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan provinces. Telephones at government offices and tourism bureaus in those areas were not answered yesterday.
The China Daily newspaper published a photo of what appeared to be a group of foreign travelers in brightly colored windbreakers carrying hand luggage.
“German tourists arrived at the railway station in Lhasa,” read the caption on the paper’s Web site yesterday.
Xinhua said that more than 500 foreign tourists were expected to visit Tibet this month but did not give any details.
State media quoted officials as saying that travel was suspended to protect visitors. Authorities, wary of potential unrest, placed the region under de facto martial law, with troops, police patrols and checkpoints blanketing the area.
Despite small pockets of protests — mostly by monks — the period went by without any apparent major disturbances.
The Tibetan New Year, which began on Feb. 25, was subdued because of an unofficial boycott of festivities by Tibetans mourning those who died last spring in anti-government riots in Lhasa and Beijing’s subsequent crackdown.
Chinese officials say 22 people died, but Tibetans say many times more were killed in the March 14 violence, which sparked protests in Tibetan communities in Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai.
Another potentially explosive date was March 10, which marked the 50th anniversary of a failed Tibetan rebellion against Chinese rule that resulted in the exile of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s Buddhist leader.
This year, Beijing also sought to commemorate the imposition of direct rule over the Himalayan region with a newly manufactured holiday crowned “Serf Liberation Day” on March 28. It marks the date when Beijing ended the 1959 Tibetan uprising.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese