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INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET
Like Tibetans, the Uyghur people have in recent decades faced prolonged and relentless
pressure on their cultural identity, in large part due to the influx of settlers from
the Chinese mainland, but also due to government policies intended to severely curtail
and control cultural and religious activities (most Uyghurs are Muslim). As with
Buddhism in Tibet, the moderate and permissive forms of Islam that prevail in Xinjiang
are seen as integral to Uyghur nationalism, and Uyghur nationalism is readily depicted
by the Chinese authorities as being dangerously close to global jihad
movements. Profound cultural differences between the Han and Uyghur peoples,
ranging from language through to diet and dress, are perhaps best exemplified by the
fact that while Chinese settlers set their watches to standard Beijing time, Uyghurs
tend to set theirs to local time, some two hours later.
With over six years of experience in the XUAR, Zhang Qingli was installed as acting
Party Secretary of the TAR in November 2005 after his predecessor, Yang Chuantang
left the post prematurely due to illness. Zhang was confirmed as Party Secretary in
the TAR in May 2006. While it would be misleading to place too much emphasis on
Zhang Qingli’s personal impact on Tibet policy, as Tibet policy is set in Beijing, it can
be observed that during his tenure he has attempted to characterise Tibetan nationalism
in the same ‘terrorist’ light as Beijing depicts the Uyghur resistance against Chinese
rule. This seems to have informed some of the more extreme statements about
organized Tibetan opposition: for instance, the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), an
organization based in India which the Chinese authorities claim was behind the
protests in Lhasa and elsewhere in Tibet, is described in China’s official media as an
organization “worse than Bin Laden’s”. 9 The TYC denies that it has a “terrorist” agenda,
stressing that it supports non-violence, and the Chinese authorities have not provided
any evidence to suggest otherwise.
Zhang Qingli’s ideological position is in the tradition of previous Party hardliners in
Tibet — such as Chen Kuiyuan, who served as TAR Party Secretary from 1992 to 2000
— in that that the Party is engaged in a “life and death struggle” with the Dalai Lama
and his supporters. 10 This is provided as justification for the implementation of a
more intense patriotic education campaign in monasteries, nunneries and in the
wider Tibetan society. In the early days of the protests from March 10, 2008, one of the
grievances of monks in Lhasa who took to the streets was the impact of this ideological
campaign and its stifling of religious practice.
This demand for intensified patriotic education set the tone for Zhang’s continued
tenure in the TAR. While statements and edicts banning, for example, government
workers — serving and retired — as well as students and all Party members from ob-
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