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RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 0178
RUEHKT/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU 0159
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD 0023
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHINGTON DC
RUEHCN/AMCONSUL CHENGDU 3360

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CHENGDU 000055 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EAP/CM 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  3/26/2033 
TAGS: PGOV SOCI CH
SUBJECT: SOUTHWEST CHINA: INSTABILITY AND RESENTMENT IN TIBETAN AREAS 
--  A SINGLE SPARK CAN LIGHT A PRAIRIE FIRE 
 
REF: A. A) CHENGDU MARCH 14-26 DAILY UPDATES ON TIBET SITUATION    (NOTAL) 
     ¶B. B) CHENGDU 43               C) CHENGDU 42 
     ¶C. D) 07 CHENGDU 239        E) 07 CHENGDU 13 
 
CHENGDU 00000055  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: James A. Boughner, Consul General, U.S. Consulate 
General, Chengdu. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary:  According to an influential Han Chinese 
businessman and patron of Buddhism in Chengdu, the Communist 
Party will likely have to purge many ethnic Tibetans from its 
ranks as they are sympathetic to the Dalai Lama.  A high-ranking 
Tibetan administrator of a local university where student 
protests have occurred blamed at least some of the recent 
problems on incompetent and insensitive Han officials assigned 
to work in Tibetan areas.  Even well prior to the recent 
outbreak of unrest, Post frequently noted during visits to the 
Tibetan Plateau the widespread local resentment caused by such 
officials and the policies they implement.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  (C) Approximately one week after protests spread through 
Tibetan areas of China, including western Sichuan Province where 
half of the country's ethnic Tibetans live, Congenoff had a rare 
opportunity to discuss the causes of the unrest over dinner with 
a high-ranking Tibetan administrator of Chengdu's Southwest 
Minorities University (strictly protect) and a well-known Han 
businessman, who is both a U.S. law school graduate and a 
Buddhist with many friends in the local Tibetan community. 
Southwest Minorities University has experienced at least two sit 
down protests by students, a few who reportedly held small signs 
calling for rights and democracy on March 16 (ref a). 
 
Trying to Discuss What's Been Happening 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (C) According to the Han businessman, the Communist Party 
will likely have to purge many ethnic Tibetans from its ranks 
because they are sympathetic to the Dalai Lama.  Congenoff noted 
some countries experiencing societal unrest have found it useful 
to form commissions to examine in-depth underlying causes, 
including cultural insensitivity and racism.  Congenoff 
commented that prejudice towards minority groups is rarely 
acknowledged in Chinese society. 
 
¶4. (C) The Han businessman appeared to find the parallel 
intriguing.  He turned to the Tibetan university administrator 
and said, "What we need in China is a deep investigation of the 
social background to these riots.  Not a whitewash by some party 
school academics, but a real honest examination of the problem." 
 
 
¶5. (C) The Tibetan administrator was initially noncommittal. 
However, when Congenoff reminded him of Mao Zedong's famous 
quote, "a single spark can start a prairie fire," he conceded 
that incompetent and insensitive ethnic Han officials who do not 
understand Tibetan culture are part of the problem.  Many Han 
officials in Tibetan areas, he asserted, serve for only brief 
periods of time and do not understand the local culture or the 
complexity of problems.  The university administrator added that 
the conditions for a "prairie fire" could arise in China as in 
any other country when the government does not pay attention to 
local discontent. 
 
Comments 
----------- 
 
¶6. (C) At an unusually frank academic conference entitled 
"Social Changes and Development in the Tibetan Autonomous Region 
and other Tibetan Areas" held in Chengdu in late 2006, a well 
known ethnic Tibetan official and academic noted publicly the 
large number of violent incidents that had been occurring in 
Tibetan areas of western Sichuan (ref e).  He commented that, 
"public security authorities are ineffective mediators for 
political and historical reasons," and recommended that 
religious figures should be used by the Chinese Government to 
calm ethnic tensions.  We have, however, found such openly 
expressed forward thinking to be rare.  At the official level, 
inflammatory rhetoric like, "the Communist Party is the only 
true Buddha of the Tibetan People," is more the norm.  During a 
March 11 dinner with CG (i.e., before the recent outbreak of 
violence), Sichuan Province Public Security Bureau Director Zeng 
Quansheng became so angry when discussing Tibetan-related issues 
that he had to leave the table to compose himself. 
 
 
 
CHENGDU 00000055  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
¶7. (C) Well prior to the March 14 outbreak of unrest in Lhasa we 
were often struck by the open resentment voiced by a broad 
spectrum of ethnic Tibetans (not just Buddhist monks) towards 
Han Chinese and the apparent insensitivity of many Han officials 
to the problems and grievances of Tibetans.  During a joint 
Consulate/Beijing visit to Lhasa in late February to gauge 
societal pressures from the new railroad and Han and Muslim Hui 
in-migration (ref b), two relatively well-to-do ethnic Tibetan 
university students were quite vocal about their hostility to 
"Chinese" (ref c).  In addition to unhappiness that Han or Hui 
control most businesses throughout the Tibetan Plateau, we have 
also heard complaints about the kinds of businesses Hans bring. 
Garish looking Han-run massage parlors, for example, have been 
situated right next to some of the holiest sites of Tibetan 
Buddhism, including the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa and Tashilhunpo 
Monastery in Shigatse. 
 
¶8. (C) Although perhaps an extreme example of "Han Chauvinism," 
a "Help Tibet" cadre sent to work in Lhasa by the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs and who accompanied us on a trip to western 
Tibet in September 2007 bullied his ethnic Tibetan assistants, 
making them stay up late with him to drink and gamble (ref d). 
At one point during the trip, this official threw an empty 
bottle from our car at a passerby noting that Tibetans are poor 
and need to "make money from recycling."  An ethnic Tibetan 
official complained bitterly to our Tibetan LES about the 
behavior of the "Help Tibet" cadre.  The resentment seems to cut 
both ways.  On an earlier Consulate trip to central Tibet, that 
same ethnic Tibetan official once refused to let our car stop to 
assist stranded Chinese tourists.  The tourists were "only Han," 
the official said while ordering our car forward. 
 
¶9. (C) This is not to say of course that all Han Chinese 
officials in Tibetan areas we have met are ethnically 
insensitive or that all ethnic Tibetans we encounter are 
inherently hostile to the Chinese government.  A number of 
foreign NGO workers and ethnic Tibetans have told us they have 
worked with Han officials who at least try to "do the right 
thing."  However, as an ethnic Tibetan academic in western 
Sichuan's Ganzi Prefecture recently emphasized to us, strict 
political and security policies in Tibetan areas are dictated by 
Beijing and local officials (both Han and Tibetan) have little 
say in how such overly-blunt measures are implemented. 
BOUGHNER