General uprising in Tibet frays the edge of China's empire

Sunday Times:

For all its overwhelming force in the lonely mountain passes, where military convoys toil towards the clouds, or in the dark alleys of Chengdu’s Tibetan quarter, where soldiers stand watch, the sour tang of a debacle for China is in the air.

Despite 20 years of iron-fisted security, huge investments and mass migration since the last Tibetan uprising, the roof of the world once again looks like a hostile place to most Chinese.

The uneasy sense of psychological defeat emerged from interviews with Chinese citizens and soldiers in Sichuan province, a vast region that includes a swathe of the Tibetan plateau, over the past week.

Almost without exception, people said they had lost faith in government propaganda and feared that Tibetans would turn to violence against China.

“I believe they can never win their independence, because no big country backs them and they have no army,” said a shop owner, “and I believe we cannot win their hearts.”

This might be the most politically damaging result of the Tibetan uprising for the Chinese government. Foreign condemnation is officially scorned as biased. But public opinion at home, although hard to measure, suggests that many Chinese do not believe that Tibet is secure and do not think things can go on as they are.

The violence across Tibetan-inhabited villages and towns poses a threat to normal Chinese traffic along the strategic Chengdu-Lhasa highway.

The map of disorder is extremely telling. It has forced the army to deploy troops out of a key base at Kangding, a mixed Chinese-Tibetan town wedged between soaring mountains and reached by a dramatic new highway. “Our forces have kept things peaceful here, but you could not go further along the road,” said a staff member in a hotel in Kangding.

West of Kangding, the landscape changes to smooth grass-lands dotted by black-and-white Tibetan houses, towards the heights of the plateau where horse-riding nomads roam.

Fiercely resisting a Chinese campaign to force them into new towns, the nomads burst onto television screens around the world last week as they galloped into village after village at the head of protesting Tibetans.

The Chinese have spent millions on a chain of military bases along the highway. Dozens of artillery pieces can be seen lined up as if on parade grounds.

Sophisticated communications vehicles and new olive-green trucks ply the route.

Towards the troubled monastery town of Litang, where monks have secretly kept pictures of the Dalai Lama for many years, a camouflaged radar station scans the heavens.

...

The Chinese military has trained for decades precisely for this moment....

...

Then again, maybe not. The description of the Chinese order of battle sounds like an array planning for conventional warfare.

It is very ironic that they are having to deal with a general uprising. Mao's doctrine of revolutionary warfare calls for weakening the central government through raids which force the government to react with actions that further alienate the population eventually reaching a point where the people rise up at once and overthrow the government. In actuality they were never very good at general uprisings and most failed with huge casualties. The Tet offensive in Vietnam was an example of the communist using Mao's doctrine and failing spectacularly.

However, in Tibet the general uprising began without the lead up of raids taking the Chinese by surprise. As they move forces into the area and round up those responsible for the uprising they are unlikely to have much cooperation from the people. Getting the people of Tibet to accept their rule will take a lot more work now.