Amidst disputed reports that three more Tibetan herders set themselves ablaze over the weekend to protest the government's repressive policies (bringing the total number of self immolations over the past year to 19), the Chinese government has vowed to continue it's crackdown on what it has described as a "handful of criminals illegally gathering and smashing and looting." more ›

Political has-been and erstwhile presidential hopeful US senator John McCain ruffled a few Chinese feathers over the weekend at a security conference in Munich by announcing that "The Arab Spring Is Coming To China." more ›

This notice put up by the Huayuan Road Public Security Bureau in Beijing's Haidian district requests owners of hotels and bathhouses in the neighbourhood to ensure that all Tibetan and Uyghur guests are reported to them. Business owners are also to ensure thorough identification and verification of the ethnicity of all guests, according to the notice. more ›

A new comic from Crazy Crab (疯蟹) comments on the current civil unrest in Tibet. Last week, 1 million portraits of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao (the four supreme leaders whose political reputations have survived to the present day) were distributed throughout the Tibet Autonomous Region, to be placed inside schools, homes and temples. more ›

Lobsang Sangay, Kalon Tripa of the Tibetan government-in-exile, comments on the recent shootouts on Tibetan protestors in the first few days of the Chinese New Year, and calls upon Tibetans to halt celebrations of Losar, the Tibetan New Year. Transcript after the jump... more ›

The activist group Free Tibet reported on Monday that a Tibetan man had been killed, and thirty others wounded, after police opened fire on protesters in the Sichuan county of Luhuo (also known as Drango or Draggo to Tibetans). It has now been revealed that the following day a separate protest in neighbouring county Seda (Serthar) resulted in at least one fatality, with as many as five claimed by various Tibetan media organisations. more ›

Chinese military forces are said to have opened fire on a group of protesting Tibetans, killing one and wounding 30 others, according to Free Tibet, an activist group campaigning for self-determination by Tibetans. The incident happened after a large gathering in Draggo (also Drango, or Luhuo in Chinese), some 600km westwards of Chengdu. more ›

This video "I Am Tibetan" was first posted on a Chinese video-hosting website on December 19, 2009 and has been circulating widely. It came later to be posted on YouTube by a Tibetan called Jigdo and is now being disseminated by Tibetans all over the world through social networking sites such as Facebook. more ›

"Are we more interested in money or are we more interested in the truth? Eventually you have to bow to the will of the people and especially as their progress as an economy, education also gets higher; their interactions with the world and other people's functioning in the world, and the openness of self-expression. No one wants to live in hypocrisy, and China is the largest hypocrisy in the world right now." more ›

A Tibetan activist group has released a video that purportedly shows the moment Palden Choetso, set herself on fire and burned to death in a widely publicised self-immolation protest in Sichuan on November 3. More here. more ›

To those who might think it inappropriate for us to introduce something so difficult to watch in their daily info drone, we'd argue that footage of Tsewang Norbu's self-immolation, the second incidence in 2011 after Phunstog of Kirti Monastery did so in March, is necessary to ensure the story of Tibet's political repression doesn't get lost in the global news cycle. more ›

• Wen Jiabao spooked everyone out recently by telling a story that isn't heard very often, of how his own family was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution.
• A group of university professors at Yangtze University in Hubei recently got on their knees for NIMBY protests against a steel processing plant near their campus.
• Chongqing's leadership is all about giving to the 99%, while Guangdong's bigwigs would prefer to keep it amongst the 1%. A bit simplistic an explanation, but that's apparently all anybody understands these days.

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Pan Shiyi, a real-estate developer who called for cheaper iPads for the public, was ridiculed with requests for cheaper housing from netizens, including viral mockups made of a new currency in his namesake. Now, he's busted out his savvy PR chops, by issuing a personal version of his own currency. Well played sir, well played. more ›

The Sichuanese city of Aba, home of the Kirti Monastery that's had 9 Tibetan monks self-immolate since March, is currently witnessing a huge show of police wearing riot gear, as seen in a new video from the AFP. more ›

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Following eight self-immolations by Tibetan monks this year, a Tibetan nun has set herself on fire and died yesterday. This is believed to be the first case of a female self-immolation in the region. Via RFA:

Tenzin Wamgmo, about 20 years old, called for freedom in Tibet and the return of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader living in exile in India, before succumbing to her burns. more ›

Dozens of Tibetan activists attempted to enter the Chinese embassy in New Delhi on Sunday but were stopped and taken away by Indian police. more ›

At the Kirti Monastery in Northern Sichuan, two teenaged Tibetan monks set themselves on fire on Monday, in what looks to be the second case of self-immolation by Tibetan monks in six weeks, and the third separate incident this year. more ›

If you thought the Dalai Lama's newly-announced succession plans were ridiculous, then you really need to read China's response:

China says the Dalai Lama does not have the right to decide who will take over from him when he dies. It says Beijing will decide who will be the next Dalai Lama. more ›

Tough times call for tough measures. What's a Dalai Lama to do when he knows unfriendly forces may usurp his office after he's gone? Well, apparently, he could start "emanating" instead of reincarnating (more on what this means later), or he could completely abolish the office of the Dalai Lama. These options were announced in a lengthy statement released yesterday by the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, 76, on the subject of his reincarnation. more ›

Ah, the old accoutrements of modern civilization bait n' switch! How shrewd. Reuters is reporting that the Chinese government is going to make it rain something fierce on the Tibet Autonomous Region, to the tune of 300 billion RMB ($47 billion USD) over the next four years. The figure more than doubles the 138 billion RMB spent on Tibet from 2006 to 2010. more ›

Why visit the real Lhasa when there's a fake one closer to home? Richard Bernstein, of The New York Review of Books, visits Chengde, not far from Beijing, where Kangxi, the great Qing Dynasty emperor, built a replica of the Potala Palace. Tourism authorities have in recent years developed the place as a monument to Kangxi and a quasi-theme park that is now teeming with Chinese tourists. Bernstein describes what he saw in the Kangxi Ceremony, a "ultra-high-tech theatrical extravaganza" that now plays nightly in the new amphitheatre:

In one scene, accompanied by a revolving, luminous model of the solar system, Kangxi learns astronomy from the Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci. In another scene, one of the show’s most lavishly produced, a huge procession of Tibetan lamas, marching to the music of rumbling bass horns and headed by the Dalai Lama, arrives to demonstrate their fealty to the Chinese emperor. Did these events actually take place? more ›

• Just the mere whiff of Chinese investment in the Italian debt market had stocks going bonkers on Monday. WSJ points out that, weirdly enough, none of the rumors are really substantiated and this anonymous Italian official just happened to mention the prospects one day before Italian bonds for 2018/2020 go on sale...
• That's Shanghai gives us a nice review of Paul French's new non-fiction murder mystery Midnight in Peking.
• LA Times explains why the mooncake is very much the fruitcake of China. (Agreed - dessert should never feel like a punishment!)

"In history, there have existed two stereotypical attitudes towards Tibet: demonisation and sanctification. The result, however, has always been the same: Tibet and its people have been distorted." more ›

Thousands of people are celebrating the seven-day Shoton festival (also known as the Yoghurt Festival or Banquet), one of the most important festivals in the Tibetan calendar that has been celebrated since the 11th century. more ›

Zhang Qingli (张庆黎), the hardline governor of Tibet who oversaw some of the deadliest riots in the province, has been replaced, reports Xinhua News Agency. more ›

"Such an act has grossly interfered in China's internal affairs, hurt the feelings of Chinese people and damaged the Sino-American relations. We demand the US side to seriously consider China's stance, immediately adopt measures to wipe out the baneful impact, stop interfering in China's internal affairs and cease to connive and support anti-China separatist forces that seek 'Tibet independence'. China objects firmly to any foreign leader's meeting with the Dalai Lama in any form and opposes to any country, or anyone, to interfere in China's internal affairs by using the Dalai Lama" more ›

It's unfortunate that this sort of news has seemingly become routine this year: "A Tibetan writer and magazine editor, Tashi Rabten, has been sentenced to four years in prison for what Chinese authorities call separatist activities in a Tibetan region of western China, according to a report by the International Campaign for Tibet, an advocacy group based outside of China. Tashi Rabten was the editor of Eastern Snow Mountain, a banned literary magazine. He had been held since April 2010 in detention in an unknown location. He was among a group of young Tibetans at Northwest Nationalities University in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province, who had written about a widespread Tibetan uprising in 2008. Three other Tibetans who worked with Tashi Rabten on the magazine received prison sentences of three to four years in December 2010." [New York Times] more ›