Human Rights Preachers

When one reads this press release from the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, one understands that the present leadership in China is as ruthless, brutal, (though better organized) than the Ben Alis, Gaddafis or Gbagbos.
Further, the Chinese State is extremely good at propaganda. 
A few days ago, Beijing asked “the US to Stop Being a Self-styled 'Human Rights Preacher'. 
It is always a good tactical move to try to defame the opponent on one’s weakness.
After the release by the US State Department's 2010 Annual Human Rights Report on April 8, the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Hong Lei declared: “The U.S. should reflect more on its own human rights issues, stop acting like a ‘Human Rights Preacher,’ and stop using its Human Rights Report to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries.” 
Hong also praised the Chinese government’s protection of human rights.
The Chinese publication Huanqiu published a response to the Western countries' criticism of China's arrest of artist Ai Weiwei.
According to the author: "the Western media is using their own logic to interpret the facts and try to influence China. ...It is precisely the West's approach that breaches the basic spirit of the law in a serious confrontation, and that tries to portray Ai Weiwei a legally ‘sacred and inviolable’ democracy fighter.”
The recent happenings in the Arab world make China even more nervous. 
The Huanqiu article says: “Since the ‘Middle East revolution,’ the US and European countries haven't been able to put a brake on pointing fingers and interfering in other countries’ internal affairs. The interference in Ai Weiwei’s case is a total negation of China’s law. It is no different from a group of Westerners assembling to burn down China’s Supreme Court building.”
And the author continues: “Chinese law is the skeleton of this country; the Western attempt to influence the trial of Ai Weiwei is like installing a remote control for the skeleton. With the control in their hands, they are making China a large and obedient puppet.”
It is difficult to force China to be an obedient puppet; the Middle Kingdom is too big for that. 
It remains that Beijing is nervous.
It is ironical that next month (on May 23), China will celebrates the 60th anniversary of the ‘Liberation’ of Tibet. 
In 1951, the Tibetans were forced to sign the Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet. 
But ‘liberation from what’, as once Nehru asked the Indian Parliament.


Chinese armed police cordon Ngaba Kirti Monastery, 2500 monks face food shortage
TCHRD Press Release
11 April 2011,
Dharamsala
Since the self-immolation of Phuntsok on 16 March 2011 at Ngaba County, Sichuan, coinciding with third anniversary of the 2008 uprising in Tibet and to protest against continued repression by Chinese authorities in Tibet, the situation has aggravated at Ngaba Kirti Monastery – the monastery to which Phuntsok was affiliated.  According to latest confirmed information, Chinese security forces have cordoned the monastery and additional contingents of armed security forces (estimated to be around 800) have been brought in on 9 April 2011 to reinforce security clampdown in Ngaba County. The movement of the monks is totally restricted with no one being allowed to go in or come out of the monastery. Gaps in boundary barb wire in north of the monastery have been closed with concrete walls.  Since the cordon, monks are facing shortage of food and depend on voluntary food offerings by locals through the monastery administration. Authorities have prohibited the faithful local Tibetans from offering food to monks. Reports from ground indicate that if the situation remains same, over 2500 monks in the monastery will face starvation which will most probably lead to a mass revolt. In such an event security forces will unleash its deadly assault leading to extrajudicial killings as it happened three years ago on 16 March 2008 in Ngaba County. The lamas and monastery officials have been able to
maintain peace so far by advising the monks to remain calm despite the ongoing repression.
In the aftermath of Phuntsok’s protest and subsequent show of solidarity by monks of Kirti Monastery, the authorities have taken drastic measures to bring the monks under control. According to latest information, since the begining of April 2011, security forces who were earlier surrounding the monastery have entered into the campus. They have stopped elderly monks from even walking the outer circumambulation path (Kora), and made observation posts (with binoculars) on stepped platforms of stupas in the monastery. The guards keep round the clock vigilance of activities in the monastery. Over 33 people have been arrested out of which 22 people (8 monks and 16 lay people) continue to be under detention.
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) appeals to the international community and the United Nations mandates on human rights to urgently issue their intervention in order to stop the ongoing security clamp down and arbitrary arrests and detentions of Tibetans and the overall deplorable human rights situation in Ngaba County. The Centre urges the authorities to immediately stop the gross human rights violation of denying food to monks of Kirti Monastery and to ease restrictions on movement.
Factsheet about the situation in Kirti Monastery and Ngaba County (documented till 11 April 2011)

•    Three monks from the Kirti Monastery, Dhonyoe Dorjee, Tenzin Jamko and an unidentified monk have been arrested on 8 April 2011.
•    On 8 April, around 30 people staged a protest in front of the Public Security Bureau Office at Warma Township in Dzamthang County. One Tibetan (a young man from Gyalrong County married into a family in Dzamthang County) was critically injured in the police offensive and later died in a hospital. Around a thousand Tibetan staged protest over the death.
•    Two monks, Lobsang Ngodup, 32, and Lobsang Choephel, 24, were detained around 30 March and continue to be under detention. Reasons and whereabouts remain unknown.
•    The Tibetans in neighbouring Namda Township in Dzamtang County in Ngaba staged a protest on 23 March to show solidarity with the Tibetans in Ngaba County. The authorities responded by sending large number of troops to block movement in Dzamthang and Ngaba Counties.  At least four Tibetans, Wolkho, Dorjee, A-Dor and Woeser Dorjee, were arrested and continue to be under detention.
•    Lobsang Tsepak, 27 years old, was detained in the night by police in Beijing on 25 March. He is a student at the Central Nationalities University. He was earlier affiliated to Kirti Monastery, the same monastery to which Phuntsok belonged.
•    On 22 March, Lobsang Kelsang (19 yrs), monk of Kirti Monastery and brother of Phuntsok, Lobsang Tsondue, maternal uncle of Phuntsok and Samdup, monk of Kirti Monastery, were arrested. Lobsang Kelsang and Lobsang Tsondue have now been released.
•    Around 20 March, Lobsang Tenzin was arrested and continue to be under detention.
•    Around 20 March, the authorities called a public meeting in upper Thawa and Gabma Villages of Ngaba County, imposing fines of 30 Yuan on absentees.  Lately the Village Committees in Ngaba County have been calling public meetings “to praise and be grateful” to the Communist Party. Moreover, the officials have been visiting each and every household in Ngaba County enquiring about monks in the family and to learn their opinion on the self-immolation of Phuntsok.
•    Beginning from 20 March, the authorities have intensively conducted the so-called “Love your country, love your religion” political campaign in the monastery for five days. Upon conclusion of the campaign, the officials have formed sub groups to visit each and every room in the monastery to “solicit feedback” and “gather opinion”.
•    Since 19 March, regular religious programs in the monastery have been suspended by the authorities and armed soldiers with police dogs prowl around the monastery by night. The monks are prohibited from staying late at night from studying their scriptures. Monks found outside their room are beaten by the officials.
•    The students of Ngaba Prefecture’s Upper Middle School located in Barkham County began a hunger strike on 17 March to show solidarity with Phuntsok and as a protest against the authorities’ inhuman treatment to him and the pursuant Tibetan protest. The strike is known to have lasted until 23 March, thereafter information could not  be ascertained.
•    Phuntsok, a native of Meruma Township, Ngaba County, was arrested on 16 March and continue to remain under detention.

Background
A young Tibetan monk, Phuntsok, self-immolated in Ngaba County, Sichuan, on 16 March 2011 and died in a hospital early next morning. His act was timed to coincide with the third anniversary of spring 2008 uprising in Tibet to protest against the Chinese rule in Tibet. 
When Phuntsok was on fire the police doused the flame and began beating him severely. Local Tibetan bystanders rushed to the scene to protect the monk and took him to his monastery – Kirti Monastery.  When he was later taken to a hospital, the authorities demanded police clearance for treatment. The monk succumbed to burn injuries the next day around 3 am (local time) on 17 March.
Around a thousand Tibetans gathered in the market and staged a protest against police and the authorities. The People’s Armed Police and officers from other security agencies brutally broke the peaceful rally. Several Tibetans were detained from the crowd.

The International Mistake of the Century?

Everything is well which ends well. It is what many feel about for the situation in Ivory Coast where the outgoing President Laurent Gbagbo has finally been arrested. 
After loosing the elections in November 2010 against his opponent Alassane Ouattara, he had refused to vacate his seat. This created a situation which soon degenerated in a bloodbath in the West African country. 
Many applauded when on 30 March, the Security Council of the United Nations adopted a Resolution 1975 authorizing the use of force to get Gbagbo out of the way. The UN Resolution:
— urged Gbagbo to immediately step aside;
— stressed its full support given to UNOCI to use "all necessary means to carry out its mandate to protect civilians (…) including to prevent the use of heavy weapons";
— imposed targeted sanctions (freezing of assets, travel bans) against Laurent Gbagbo, his wife Simone Gbagbo, the Secretary General of the so-called "presidency" Mr. Désiré Tagro, the chairman of the Ivorian Popular Front Pascal Affi N’Guessan;
— recognized the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court to try perpetrators of serious crimes in Côte d’Ivoire;
This makes more flagrant the double standards of the International community which is ready to intervene in Ivory Coast or in Libya and has always kept silent on Tibet.
A few years ago, Claudia Johnston, an independent Canadian researcher published a study titled Tibet: The International Mistake of The Century. Her conclusions were:

"The International Mistake of The Century" explores the primary reasons why there has been no solution, nor significant move towards a solution, for the crisis in Tibet. A primary reason is that the United Nations, and individual Member States, have been conducting their decisions based on the false assumption that Tibet is not a 'State', but 'an internal affair' of China. UN official records show this to be a mistake.

I speak of double standard because nobody has ever spoken or heard of Johnston's scholarly research. The same thing applies to the work done by a group of dedicated lawyers in Spain which had got the minimum coverage for the excellent work that have been doing on the Tibet issue.
It is difficult to understand why, when one million of Tibetans die out of the Chinese invasion, the international community remains quiet while the same 'community' is ready to pass resolutions and use force to dislodge small tyrants.
In fact, I understand why: in 1950, the great powers (with the exception of China) did not realize that the Tibetan plateau was so rich in minerals and hydropower potential.

FOR THE FIRST TIME A COURT OF JUSTICE RECOGNISES TIBET JURIDICALLY AS AN OCCUPIED STATE
PRESS RELEASE BY THE COMITÉ DE APOYO AL TIBET (CAT) 
3rd April 2011
Regarding the lawsuit for genocide and other crimes committed from 1972 to 2004 (admitted on 10th January 2005 and currently under investigation  in “Summary phase"):

In its ruling of 30th March 2011, Court Nº2 of Spain’s Audiencia Nacional accepted the classification being extended to war crime as it considered the facts denounced “serious violations of the Geneva Conventions of 12th August 1949 in relation to Articles 608 and 611.5 of Spain’s Criminal Code”.

In its own name and also on behalf of the co-plaintiffs Fundación Casa del Tíbet and Thubten Wangchen, last September the CAT submitted a request to Court Nº 2 of the National High Court (Audiencia Nacional) investigating the case for genocide and other crimes committed in Tibet, requesting that the facts denounced and investigated to date be classified as a serious violation of, specifically, the Geneva Convention IV.
The allegations justifying this request are based on:
1)   Recognising Tibet as an occupied state since 1950 (as accredited in the initial lawsuit), which makes the mass transfer of Chinese population (the occupying state) to Tibet (the occupied state) illegal according to Article 49 of Geneva Convention IV.
2)   Invoking Article 23.4 of the Spanish Law of Judicial Procedure, as despite the application of the principle of universal justice having been restricted by demanding a national connection, this limitation can only be applied “without detriment to what is laid down in the international treaties and conventions signed by Spain”; therefore, according to Article 146 of said treaty ratified by Spain in 1952, serious violations of the Geneva Convention should be persecuted regardless of the nationality of the defendants.
The recent ruling of the Audiencia Nacional’s Court Nº 2 not only accepts the CAT’s arguments regarding the population transfer from an occupying state (China) to an occupied state (Tibet), but does so in the same terms as those the prosecutor used in his report, which the judge quotes, declaring that “the investigation be extended to war crimes foreseen in Geneva Convention IV, and in agreement with the plaintiffs request and congruent with the lawsuit lodged”. It is worth noting that neither the judge nor the prosecutor consider necessary the appearance in court of the four national and international experts proposed by the CAT to support their legal arguments, although they do mention the option of their submitting their data or reports in writing and do not dismiss the idea of their appearance in court “if a trial were held”.
Alan Cantos, director of the CAT, has declared: “It is especially gratifying to see that some judges and prosecutors are still evaluating the evidence and applying the law without giving in to other interests or pressures. Universal Justice should continue to be UNIVERSAL as it was conceived, and not “a la carte” by submissive governments and powerful states or businesses that use a double standard when applying International Law.”
Likewise, when asked to comment on the court ruling, Dr. José Elías Esteve Moltó, vice president of the CAT and the lawyer who drew up the lawsuits, declared: “This legal decision shows the interdependence of Human Rights, as it shows how the international crimes committed in Tibet have their root in the country’s military occupation and are perpetuated by the Tibetan people being systematically denied the right to self-determination recognised by the UN General Assembly in 1961”.
Regarding the lawsuit for crimes against humanity committed against the Tibetan people from 2006 to 2008 (admitted on 5th August 2008 and shelved by judge Pedráz in February 2010):
In an article in EUROPA PRESS the CAT recently reported on the Supreme Court’s allowing the plaintiffs the chance to appeal regarding the second lawsuit for crimes against humanity committed in Tibet. In its ruling of Friday 10th March, the Court permitted the three plaintiffs to lodge an appeal against the criteria of the Audiencia Nacional’s Criminal Court, which, in addition to confirming the initial closing of investigations by the judge Santiago Pedráz, had tried to prevent the plaintiffs from appealing said decision to the Supreme Court. The CAT’s legal team is currently preparing the appeal to be submitted to the Supreme Court in an attempt to prevent the definitive closing of the second lawsuit.
Comité de Apoyo al Tíbet (CAT)

More a Political Thing

When the Chinese troops entered Tibet in 1951, the first task assigned to the People's Liberation Army was to build a network of roads. 
This did not prove enough to 'liberate' Tibet whose populations remain resentful, even after 60 years.
A few years ago, the Chinese government decided to continue on the 'development' track. As the result, in 2006, Beijing opened the first railway line to Lhasa (more than 8 millions visitors are expected on the Roof of the World in 2011, using the train).
As the Central Government constructed the road between its 'provinces' of Tibet and Xinjiang in the 1950's, Beijing has begun to lay down a railway line between the two nationalities' areas.

It will help, among other things, to carry troops, in case it is needed, from Lhasa in Tibet to Urumqi in Xinjiang (or vice-versa) in a shorter time.
As I mentioned in an earlier posting, Beijing has decided to invest huge amounts of money to implement some 'social management' schemes for the masses; in other words, to bring 'harmony' and control the populations in the Mainland and in 'minorities' areas.  The 2011 budget for this scheme is 95.18 billion dollars, 3.55 billions higher than the PLA's allocation.
Though the cost of the railway Tibet-Xinjiang is not included in this budget, the fast train will go a long way to help the 'management' of these provinces.
As a China Academy of Railway Sciences official told Xinhua: "it will be difficult to make money from building such a line. It's more of a political thing, he said. It's more about national defense and ethnic unity." No further comment is required!

China takes fast rail ambition to new heights
Xinhua
2011-04-10
Deep in the Qilian Mountains in northwest China, early spring is marked with heavy snow and freezing temperatures. In this desolate place in Qinghai Province, at an altitude of 3,700 meters above sea level, migrant worker Li Bingui is seldom separated from his jackhammer, which moves his whole body as he works to break apart bedrock.
Li, along with more than 1,800 other workers, are at the mercy of a ruthless environment as they construct the world's highest high-speed railway.

HIGHER, TOUGHER
Li and others are carving out a 9,490-meter tunnel through the rugged mountain range, one of the most difficult parts of the building the line to link Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province, with Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The 1,776-kilometer second line of Lanxin Railway runs across Gansu and Qinghai provinces to Xinjiang, traversing the wind ravaged Gobi Desert.
Started in late 2009 and scheduled to be completed in 2015, the line is designed for trains traveling at up to 300 kilometers per hour, much faster than the current 120 kilometers per hour on the existing line, cutting travel time between Lanzhou and Urumqi to about six hours.
Ren Shaoqiang, chief engineer with the China Railway 20th Group Co., Ltd., which is in charge of the construction, told Xinhua that compared with the Qinghai-Tibet plateau railway and the existing line between Lanzhou and Urumqi, construction of this fast rail line is more challenging.
Take the tunnel project for example. There's no precedent to draw from, said Ren, who also played a significant role in building the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the highest rail link in the world.
We have to make innovations, just like when we worked on the Fenghuoshan Tunnel of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.
In the past year or so, engineers have worked with researchers from several universities in China on natural disaster forecasting, water discharge, measuring of wall rock transfiguration, among other things.
Other worries are more immediately pressing, such as the lack of oxygen in the air because of the high altitude, which poses a threat to the health of workers.
Zhang Hong, a director at the site, said natural oxygen content in the tunnel is only around 65 percent of that in low-lying areas.
Besides, from October to June, the mountain is frequently covered by ice and snow, Zhang added.
Construction worker Wu Xuelin said working on the tunnel project is far more stressful than working on similar projects in coastal areas like in Shandong Province or Shanghai.
I could not adapt well at the beginning, suffering headaches, nausea, and had difficulty sleeping, Wu said.
The company has stepped up safety measures to better protect workers, providing them with oxygen tanks and setting up rooms at cave exits for workers to inhale oxygen. It has also built oxygen-generating stations to provide more oxygen in the tunnel.
Live video surveillance and alarm systems have also been set up.
We only need to switch on a computer and log in to our accounts to know what's happening in the tunnel, even if we are thousands of kilometers away, Ren said. We can also remotely control operations.
Despite all these measures, Guo Yuhong, Secretary of the Communist Party of China and Union Committee for the Qilian Mountains Tunnel, said, Under such conditions, nobody can stand a high workload for a long time.
Guo, 44, has been stationed at the construction site since last year, and his hair has turned gray during that period of time.

MORE EXPENSIVE, MORE CONTROVERSIAL
According to Ren, building the line through difficult terrain like in the Qilian Mountain area requires twice as much investment compared with similar high-speed line construction on low-level flat areas.
Wages for construction workers is also double, he said.
For regular high-speed rail lines with a designed speed of 350 kilometers an hour, construction costs can reach 100 million yuan (about 15.15 million U.S.dollars) per km, much higher than lines designed for allowing trains to travel at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour.
Lanxin Railway has a planned investment of more than 140 billion yuan in total, but the actual figure is yet to be revealed.
The project, designed as a passenger route, will make way for the existing Lanxin Railway to be used exclusively for freight.
Analysts are divided over whether the benefits outweigh the costs of building high-speed lines in the ecologically fragile western regions.
Some say higher construction costs will only push up ticket prices and, like other high-speed lines in coastal areas, might not be much favored by many passengers. Others take it as an effective means to develop the economy in the generally under-developed regions.
A senior researcher with the China Academy of Railway Sciences told Xinhua, on condition of anonymity, that it will be difficult to make money from building such a line. It's more of a political thing, he said. It's more about national defense and ethnic unity.
The new railway is expected to facilitate transport of energy resources from the vast desolate northwest to other regions of the country.
Take Xinjiang for example rich in oil, coal and natural gas reserves, the region is aiming to supply more of its resources to other areas in the coming five years.
Wang Tieshan, a PhD of economics at the Xi'an Jiaotong University, said high-speed railways are vital for closer links between cities in the west regions as they are usually far apart.
So far, several provinces and regions in the west, including Shaanxi Province in the northwest and Guizhou in the southwest, have laid out ambitious plans for high-speed rail construction over the next five years.
Currently, high-speed rail has linked Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi, with Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province. More such links between Xi'an and other west cities like Chengdu and Yinchuan are either under construction or in the planning.
At the political sessions held in early March, high-speed rail remained one of the hottest topics among national legislators and political advisors, particularly as the high-growth industry was shrouded in uncertainties following the sacking of former railway minister Liu Zhijun in February on suspicion of graft.
Sheng Guangzu, the new railway minister, said Liu's case was only an individual one and that China would continue to develop the industry in the coming years in accordance with the country's mid-and-long-term railway network plan.
Under China's economic master plan unveiled in March for the next five years, China aims to have more than 16,000 kilometers of high-speed railway by 2015. Currently, more than 8,000 kilometers of high-speed rail line are in operation, already the most in the world.
As to concerns about the massive debts caused by high construction costs and low occupancy rate due to expensive ticket prices, Sheng said the debt ratio of around 56 percent is normal and controllable.
Sheng also has pledged strict and high quality standards on the construction of high-speed rails to ensure safety.
However, legislators and political advisors have called for a restraint on the expansion of the high-speed rail network to avoid over-investment driven by an irrational pursuit for speed.
Political advisor Feng Pei'en suggested that new railway construction plans be made public to solicit feedback and that decisions be made based on objective analysis of passenger flows by air, rail and road.
Zhuang Wei, another political advisor, argued that China should focus on building railways with speeds at around 250 kilometers per hour because those at higher than 300 kilometers an hour are not only much more expensive but also tend to produce more pollution.

Not only in POK, in Nepal too

The Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Hong Lei denied the presence of the PLA troops in POK. Unfortunately, Chinese soldiers are not only present in POK, but also in large number in Nepal. A friend recently sent me these pictures taken in a small mountain village of Nepal. Apparently the Chinese were not too happy to be photographed.
What is Delhi doing about this? The Minister will probably say that South Block is closely monitoring the situation.

China rejects reports about troop presence in POK
Saibal Dasgupta,
Times of India
Apr 7, 2011
BEIJING: China on Thursday dismissed reports about the presence of Chinese troops in Pakistan occupied Kashmir as "baseless and ridiculous".
The statement comes ahead of the planned meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese president Hu Jintao in mid-April.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Hong Lei brushed aside a statement by a Indian army general, who recently expressed worry about the China-Pakistan build-up with Chinese troops being present in POK areas. The issue is likely to come up during the meeting of leaders of the two countries on the sidelines of the BRICS summit to be attended by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in the Chinese coastal city of Sanya in April 13-15.
The Indian government had formally raised the issue with China last year after reports in the US media suggested a large presence of Chinese forces in the Gilgit-Baltistan areas of POK.
Beijing reacted by saying that its personnel were present in POK only for the purpose of providing relief to victims of massive floods that affected the areas.

The Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet

It is surprising that the Second Tibetan National General Meeting is scheduled to be concluded on May 23. This date will mark the 60th anniversary of the signature between China and Tibet of an ‘Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet’. It is also known as the 17-Point Agreement.  
In his memoirs, the Dalai Lama has said that the Agreement had been signed 'under duress' and that the seals on the Agreement would have been forged.
When he crossed the Indian border in March 1959 and reached Tezpur in Assam, he denounced the Agreement. He stated (using the third person) that in any case, the Chinese never respected the accord:

In 1951, under pressure of the Chinese Government, a 17-Point Agreement was made between China and Tibet. In that Agreement, the suzerainty of China was accepted as there was no alternative left to the Tibetans. But even in the Agreement, it was stated that Tibet would enjoy full autonomy. Though the control of External Affairs and Defence were to be in the hands of the Chinese Government, it was agreed that there would be no interference by the Chinese Government with the Tibetan religion and customs and her internal administration. In fact, after the occupation of Tibet by the Chinese armies, the Tibetan Government did not enjoy any measure of autonomy even in internal matters, and the Chinese Government exercised full powers in Tibet's affairs. In 1956, a Preparatory Committee was set up for Tibet with the Dalai Lama as Chairman, the Panchen Lama as Vice-Chairman and General Chang Kuo Hun as the Representative of the Chinese Government. In practice, even this body had little power, and decisions in all important matters were taken by the Chinese authorities. The Dalai Lama and his Government tried their best to adhere to the 17 Point Agreement, but the interference of the Chinese authorities persisted.

Later on June 20, 1959, in a press conference in Mussorie, the Dalai Lama was more explicit. He explained:

To understand and appreciate the significance and implication of the recent tragic happenings in Tibet, it is necessary to refer to the main events which have occurred in the country since 1950.It is recognised by every independent observer that Tibet had virtually been independent by enjoying and exercising all rights of sovereignty,whether internal or external. This has also been impliedly admitted by the Communist Government of China, for the very structure, terms and conditions of the so-called agreement of 1951 conclusively show that it was an agreement between two independent and sovereign States. It follows, therefore, that when the Chinese armies violated the territorial integrity of Tibet they were committing a flagrant act of aggression. The agreement which followed the invasion of Tibet was also thrust upon its people and government by the threat of arms. It was never accepted by them of their own free will. The consent of the government was secured under duress and at the point of the bayonet. My representatives were compelled to sign the agreement under threat of further military operations against Tibet by the invading armies of China leading to utter ravage and ruin of the country. Even the Tibetan seal which was affixed to the agreement was not the seal of my representatives but a seal copied and fabricated by the Chinese authorities in Peking, and kept in their possession ever since.

It is therefore a strange coincidence that the General Meeting will conclude the day the Chinese authorities will be celebrating the 'Liberation of Tibet'.

Retirement of Dalai Lama: Meet in May
Naresh Kumar Sharma, TNN | Apr 1, 2011, 03.06am IST
DHARAMSHALA: The second Tibetan national general meeting would be held at Dharamshala from May 21 to 23 to deliberate on Dalai Lama's formal proposal to retire from political duties.
The Tibetan parliamentary secretariat said the proceedings of the general meeting were finalized on Wednesday at a meeting of the members of the exiled Tibetan government's cabinet (kashag) and the parliament's standing committee, presided over by the speaker.
The general meeting will be held in accordance with the final resolution passed during the 11th session of the parliament to follow up the Dalai Lama's proposal to devolve political authority to a democratically elected Tibetan leadership.
Regarding the composition of the participants, it said the de facto prime minister of Tibet, members of the Kashag, former ministers (kalons), elected prime minister of the 14th kashag, members of parliament, former members of parliament, elected members of the 15th Tibetan parliament, Dharamshala-based officials above joint secretary level, one representative each from the local assemblies and one each   from Tibetan settlements which do not have any local assemblies, one member each from Bod Rawang Denpai Legul Tsogchung, six representatives each from the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon religion, one member each from the overseas Tibetan Associations, two members each from the Tibetan non-governmental organizations and one representative each from autonomous institutions, 50 voluntary participants comprising scholars, experts and social activists, 30 from India, Nepal and Bhutan and 20 from other countries can attend the general meeting.
The Tibetan parliament will apprise the Dalai Lama about the final recommendations of the general meeting on May 24, 2011.
Accordingly, recommendations concerning the amendment of the charter will be tabled in an additional session of the 14th Tibetan parliament for final approval, it added.

Consequences of the Dalai Lama's resignation

The recent 'resignation' of the Dalai Lama has been commented worldwide.
In his 10 March Annual Statement, the Tibetan leader announced: "As early as the 1960s, I have repeatedly stressed that Tibetans need a leader, elected freely by the Tibetan people, to whom I can devolve power. Now, we have clearly reached the time to put this into effect. During the forthcoming eleventh session of the fourteenth Tibetan Parliament in Exile, which begins on 14th March, I will formally propose that the necessary amendments be made to the Charter for Tibetans in Exile, reflecting my decision to devolve my formal authority to the elected leader.
He continued: "Since I made my intention clear I have received repeated and earnest requests both from within Tibet and outside, to continue to provide political leadership. My desire to devolve authority has nothing to do with a wish to shirk responsibility. It is to benefit Tibetans in the long run. It is not because I feel disheartened. Tibetans have placed such faith and trust in me that as one among them."

One of most obvious immediate implications is the end of the negotiations with China. Beijing had always made clear that it was only interested to talk with the 'representatives' of the Dalai Lama, not with envoys from the Kashag or the Tibetan Assembly.
In 1981, CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang gave a written statement to Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama's brother (and at that time, his representative). Entitled, 'China's Five-Point Policy Towards The Dalai Lama', it was a policy statement which would guide all further talks; it only mentioned the status of the Dalai Lama and his future role in case he returned to the ‘motherland’.
Here is the text of the Five-Point communiqué from Beijing:

1. The Dalai Lama should be confident that China has entered a new stage of long term political stability, steady economic growth and mutual help among all nationalities.
2. The Dalai Lama and his representatives should be frank and sincere with the Central Government, not beat around the bush. There should be no more quibbling over the events in 1959.
3. The central authorities sincerely welcome the Dalai Lama and his followers to come back to live. This is based on the hope that they will contribute to upholding China's unity and promoting solidarity between the Han and Tibetan nationalities, and among all nationalities, and the modernization programme.
4. The Dalai Lama will enjoy the same political status and living conditions as he had before 1959. It is suggested that he not go to live in Tibet or hold local posts there. Of course, he may go back to Tibet from time to time. His followers need not worry about their jobs and living conditions. These will only be better than before.
5. When the Dalai Lama wishes to come back, he can issue a brief statement to the press. It is up to him to decide what he would like to say in the statement.

At that time (and still today) this was not acceptable to the Dalai Lama and his exiled administration. The Tibetan leader wanted to talk about the happiness and the fate of his 6 million countrymen, not about his own status. However, this issue would be a recurring obstacle during the years to come.
The Chinese position was reitarated in April 1982, when a delegation comprising Juchen Thubten Namgyal, the senior most ministers of the Kashag, Phuntsok Tashi Takla and Lodi Gyari Gyatsen left for Beijing for preliminary talks with the Chinese authorities.
Namgyal remembered: "My first trip to China was in 1982, when I was chairman of the Kashag. I was part of the high level exploratory delegation sent by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. When we first landed in China, the Chinese officials came forward to greet us. For a moment, I did not know what to do: if I shake hands with them, it would a betrayal of the thousands Tibetans as well as my family members. At that moment, I had a flashback of my grandmother and my brothers who died under indescribable circumstances. I thought that if I shake hands, I would betray all those Tibetans who died. Many Tibetans had a similar experience."
The talks eventually started. Namgyal continued: "These negotiations were kept secret. Very few in Dharamsala were in the know that a delegation had gone to Beijing to hold talks [with the Chinese]. Even after our return, we refused to brief not only the press, but also the Tibetan people of what transpired during the ‘negotiations’."
It is only twenty years later that we could get some details from the then head of the delegation. This secrecy clause imposed by the Chinese was not appreciated by many in Dharamsala.
Juchen Thubten Namgyal explained: “We discussed with three Chinese officials of the United Front Work Department. One of the objectives was to enquire about the letter sent by the Dalai Lama to Deng [Xiaoping in 1981].”
The Envoys first discussed the nine-point offer from the Communists to the Kuomintang regime in Taiwan. Namgyal recalled that many believed at that time that the ‘Taiwan’ formula, providing local autonomy, could be the basis for a solution to the Tibet issue.
This formula was a proof that Beijing did not want to impose a communist regime on the rebel island.
Namgyal elaborated: “At a time the Taiwanese people (themselves Chinese by race) were granted this by the Communist regime; we, as [non-Chinese] asked logically for more liberties for the people of Tibet.”
The Chinese answered: “Taiwan has to be liberated, you cannot argue by using the case of Taiwan. Tibet has already been liberated 33 years ago and decisions have already been made. It is because Taiwan has not been liberated, that we made this nine-point offer. It is not the case for Tibet.”
Though the ‘negotiations’ lasted more than a month, nothing came out of it.
At the end the Chinese asked: “Are you taking these positions because you are representatives of the Dalai Lama or as representatives of the Tibetan Government in exile? If you are saying all this as representatives of the Tibetan Government in exile, we have nothing to say to you?”
Clearly, the Chinese authorities wanted to stick to the 5-point plan for the Dalai Lama and did not want to discuss the fate or rights of the Tibetan people.
The Chinese have kept the same position since then.
In July 2008, I wrote in The Pioneer:

The Tibetans are back to square one.
After the recent encounter between the Dalai Lama’s Envoys and the Chinese officials, Dong Yunhu, the new director-general of the Information Office of the State Council, declared: "The Central Government will never discuss the future of Tibet with the Dalai Lama. What we can discuss with him is his future and that of some of his supporters."
This was after the last meeting held on July 2 in Beijing. Though termed as the 7th Round (the first Round was held in September 2002), the ‘dialogue’ between the 2 parties which started in 1978/79 is as good as dead."

Repeatedly for the past 30 years the Dalai Lama has stated that he was not bothered by his status, but was only interested in the welfare of the 6 million Tibetans on the Roof of the World. But the Chinese are still ready to speak of the Tibetan leader’s status only.

In 2008, Lodi Gyari, the Dalai Lama's Special Envoy had once more clarified: “Throughout our talks we have reiterated to our counterparts that the issue at hand is the welfare of the Tibetan people and is not about the personal status and affairs of His Holiness the Dalai Lama or that of the Tibetans in exile.”
The fact that the Chinese position has not moved an inch during the past three decades is rather disturbing for the Tibetans.
Basically, Beijing was quite happy with the status quo and this could have continued like this for decades, but the stakes are today different: the Dalai Lama is no more on the political scene.
This will bring several crucial questions which will be raised on this blog during the next few weeks.

The murder of a baby

Dr Rammanohar Lohia

While ‘political’ India is fast degenerating, we are celebrating the centenary of a political giant of another age: Dr Rammanohar Lohia.
George Fernandes rightly wrote: “[Lohia] was a political seer whose foresight into events always put him in a situation of being at least twenty years ahead of his time.”
An issue on which Dr Lohia had an incredible foresight is the invasion of Tibet by the People’s Republic of China in October 1950.
The Socialist leader immediately stated: “China has invaded Tibet which can only mean that the giant has moved to rub out the life of a child.”
He made clear his position: “Tibet's present rulers may or may not be reactionary and tyrannical but of her independence from foreign control there can be doubt” (Nehru also knew this. In November 1950, he spoke of Tibet as a nation ‘verging independence’).
When the India Government decided to accept the Chinese violent action as a fait-accompli, Lohia noted: “to call the invasion of Tibet an effort to liberate three million Tibetans is to make language lose all meaning and stop all human communication and understanding. Freedom and slavery, bravery and cowardice, loyalty and treason, truth will become synonyms.”
Unfortunately, the leadership of the time did not have the political vision to anticipate the consequences of the Communist rulers’ actions.
It is not that Lohia did not believe in friendly relations with China, but he wanted a dignified relation: “Our friendship and esteem for the people of China will never dim, but we must state our conviction that the present government of China will not be able to wash out the infamy of this invasion and baby murder”.
To close his eyes on the most imperialist deed of the 20th century was Nehru’s sin; by allowing it, he did not enhance India’s friendship with China, but only became, to put it in Mao’s parlance, a ‘lackey’ of Beijing.
Lohia had another remarkable argument: if India and China were really friends, Delhi should advise Beijing in a ‘friendly’ manner to withdraw its army from Tibet and “offer its services in the arranging of a plebiscite [for the Tibetan people to choose their future]”.
More than 60 years later, one can see the consequences for India of the ‘baby murder’: an unfriendly neighbour, a constant military threat and a ‘disputed’ border’.
As for the people of Tibet, they lost their century-old independence; they have been victims of constant human right violations and their peace-loving civilisation is on the verge of extinction.
But there is another consequence which touches the entire Asia: it is the control of rivers of Tibet which provides fresh water to most of the populations of China, Indo-China and the sub-continent. By killing the ‘baby’, Beijing robbed the Tibetan plateau and most of Asia of its water resources.
During the last decades, China has gained a great expertise in dam building. In recent years only, 25,800 large dams have been constructed in China; it is more than any other country on the planet.
From where are the dammed rivers coming from? The answer is obvious: from the Tibetan plateau! By controlling Tibet, China controls the Roof of the World’s rivers.
Since a few years in Beijing, powerful lobbies work hard to get the government’s green light to recklessly continue the construction of hydropower plants; the Chinese kowtow is even now exported: Chinese banks and dam companies are involved in the construction of some 269 dams in 67 different countries, particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia …and PoK (legally an Indian territory).
Unfortunately, there is no free meal: these projects have forced the relocation of more than 10 million people and have caused unimaginable damage to the environment (India does not want to be left behind, the business is too lucrative. A recent BJP report on the functioning of the Congress governments in the Northeast has equated the ‘hydropower project scams’ in Arunachal Pradesh with the 2G scandal).
An article published in the ‘official’ Global Times shows the Chinese lobbies have even been able to revert a decision taken by Premier Wen Jiabao in April 2004. Wen had then given an assurance that the large hydropower plants on the Tibetan plateau and on its marches would be “seriously reviewed and decided scientifically.” As a result, for several years, not a single major hydropower project received the green light from Beijing.
With the 12th Five-Year Plan, the wind has changed. The South China Morning Post (SCMP) noted the ‘scientific’ change: “analysts say mainland authorities have clearly pinned their hopes on renewable energy such as wind, solar and hydropower, to help reduce the mainland's reliance on coal amid mounting concern over the country's environmental woes and huge carbon emissions”.
Weng Lida, former head of the Yangtze River Water Resources Protection Bureau told the SCMP: “Power companies and planning authorities have apparently gained an upper hand in the debate over hydropower development and used the need to cut carbon emissions and pollution as an excuse to gloss over problems resulting from irrational dam-building across the country."
Tibet’s resources are now fully utilized by China (it is also true for mineral deposits). In the name of global warming and environment protection, the dam lobby is able to restart their nefarious activities on the plateau. The provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan (formerly the Kham Province of Tibet) are particularly famed for the abundance of waters (the three Parallel Rivers: the Mekong, the Yangtze and the Salween flow from there).
The dam builders — often managed by Princelings or children of Politburo members — have been biding their time. With the new policy (announced along with the 12th Five-Year Plan), they will make a killing using the huge hydro-potential of Tibetan rivers; ironically with an ‘environmental’ rationale.
The ‘planners’ of the Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Planning and Design of the Ministry of Water Resources are delighted, they will be able to build enough hydropower stations to reach their 83,000 megawatts target. The temporary ban had resulted in less than one third of the proposed projects in China's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10) being constructed.
The powerful development lobbies are back with a vengeance. Wang Jian, a river specialist from Beijing who visited sections of the major rivers in December told the Global Times that smaller projects, which do not need Central Government approval, have burgeoned, "They are as dense as the stars in the sky", he said.
Some local officials told the Economic Observer, a Chinese weekly considered as one of the best economic publications in China, that 60 tributaries of Salween will be dammed (42 hydropower projects have been completed and 88 are in the pipeline).
Though the dam lobby says: “Building hydropower stations actually helps protect the rivers and the environment," many do not share his opinion. Dai Qing, a senior journalist believes that the present trend will show that China is always one step behind the world. "In many Western countries, dam builders are out of favor, but here in China, we are still busy building dams."
Wang Yongchen wrote an op-ed in The Global Times: “In the past, hydroelectric power has been assumed to be a clean energy, since it consumes no fossil fuels and emits no pollutants. However, plenty of recent scientific research suggests that the environmental consequences of the construction of dams and operation of hydropower stations are considerable”.
He gives the example of the emission of methane, a greenhouse gas resulting from the decaying forests submerged by the higher water level. Many in China still remember the Banqiao Dam. Built on the Ruhe River in 1952 to ‘control’ the Yellow River, it collapsed on August 8, 1975. Though it was designed to withstand a ‘one-in-1,000-year’ flood, it was washed away and 26,000 people died in a few minutes. Later 145,000 people perished from epidemics and famine. The number of people affected by the disaster exceeded 12 million. In 2005, a Discovery Channel program rated the disaster as No.1 on a list of the ‘Top 10 Technological Catastrophes of the World’ before Bhopal. All this was before Fukushima and considering that these dams are built in highly seismic zones, one realizes the tremendous danger of an unwise policy.
The building of dams on the Salween, Mekong or Brahmaputra has also strategic consequences for the countries downstream.
Unfortunately in India, the Union Ministry of Power believes that a “timely grant of environment and forest clearances for the proposed hydel projects in Arunachal Pradesh is crucial to ensure India’s right over the Brahmaputra”. This is a legal non-sense for the simple reason that India and China are not bound by a convention or a treaty (like the Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan or the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses).
All this shows the tragic consequences of the ‘baby murder’; Tibet might have been a ‘baby’ in terms of military power, but its strategic position and hydrological potential as well as its age-old civilization made it a giant amongst nations.
In April 1959, a few days after the Dalai Lama escaped to India, Dr Lohia spoke again about Tibet: “A fundamental lack in foreign policy opinions is that they are formed not on the anvil of the question of justice or injustice, but around such passing considerations as national interests, party interests or personal interests. [In 1950], the Indian government had such friendly relations with the China government that no party or leader in India dared to speak boldly on the Tibetan issue.”
In 1959, it was already too late: Mao controlled the Rood of the World.
The problem is, as the Socialist leader said: “People worship power, however merciless.”
Sixty years after the murder, heads of state still run to Beijing to know-tow to the new emperors and accept their diktats.
The recent resignation of the Dalai Lama as the temporal leader of Tibet would have pleased the ‘democrat’ in Dr Lohia. Already in 1959, he wrote: “The political authority of the Lamas must be brought to an end. It is said that the Chinese are doing that. But the China government is doing it at the point of bayonet and thus it may turn out to be worse than the Lama rule itself. The efforts of sane people should be directed towards awakening the Tibetan masses so that their attitude towards the Lamas may change and the rule of the Lamas may be liquidated.”
In the present case, though the vox populi wanted him to stay, the Dalai Lama ‘liquidated’ his political avatar in his own. Quite a democrat!

The Hackers Hacked

45% of Chinese netizens encountered virus in 2010. It is a lot! Chinese 'experts' probably practice the Art of Hacking on their own countrymen.
For Beijing, how to control 450 millions of netizens is today the main problem for the regime, Great Firewall or not.  
The new  White Paper on National Defence states that the goals and tasks of China's national defense are (amongst others)
— Safeguarding national sovereignty, security and interests of national development. China's national defense is tasked to guard against and resist aggression, defend the security of China's lands, inland waters, territorial waters and airspace, safeguard its maritime rights and interests, and maintain its security interests in space, electromagnetic space and cyber space. 
It is, of course, also tasked "to oppose and contain the separatist forces for 'Taiwan independence', crack down on separatist forces for 'East Turkistan independence' and 'Tibet independence', and defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity."
But more importantly:
— Maintaining social harmony and stability. ...Taking the maintenance of overall social stability as a critical task, the armed forces resolutely subdue all subversive and sabotage activities by hostile forces, as well as violent and terrorist activities. The Chinese armed forces carry on the glorious tradition of supporting the government and cherishing the people, strictly abide by state policies, laws and regulations and consolidate the unity between the military and the government and between the military and the people".
It is not an easy task to control 450 millions netizens to 'maintain social harmony and stability".


45.8% of Internet Users in China Encountered Virus or Trojan Malware Attacks in 2010    
China News Service
March 29, 2011
According to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), in 2010, 45.8% of Chinese Internet users encountered virus or Trojan malware attacks and 21.8% experienced account or password theft. CNNIC also noticed that, by the end of 2010, the number of Internet users in China had reached 457 million, an increase of 73.3 million over 2009.
http://www.chinanews.com/it/2011/03-29/2938890.shtm

The War of 1962: Henderson Brooks-Bhagat Report

My paper on the Henderson-Brooks-Bhagat Report appeared in the last issue of the Indian Defence Review.

"Regarding the border being a live issue, if some portions of the Report do not tally with the present position of the Government of India, it could very well be sanitized or explained that the view of the Inquiry Committee was not (and is not) that of the Government.
The release of the Report would certainly trigger further historical research on the subject, particularly in view of the opening of the US, Russian and Chinese archives. Today, as we have seen in the opening paras, Neville Maxwell’s interpretation alone is ‘authoritative’. This is unfortunate for India.
In my opinion, by keeping the Report under wraps, the Government is doing a disservice to the nation."

The Red Blue Print

The Dalai Lama recently  said that China needs to learn from India about democracy. According to him, it has brought harmony among people of different languages and ethnic backgrounds: "In India, because of the rule of law, there is harmony in society, which has different languages and scripts.
Democracy in this country is very deeply rooted not because of the country's poor conditions, but because of transparency." 
In an interview to The Nation, Thailand's leading English daily, he noted that the world trend was the rule of law, transparency, fairness, honesty and respect for human values and that "military occupation would not solve problems... People in China should learn from India's experience."   
As this article, in the China Brief of the Jamestown Foundation explains huge amounts of money are 'invested' in implementing 'social management'. 
The budget for 2011 is 624.4 billion yuan ($95.18 billion), 23.3 billion yuan ($3.55 billion) more than that of the PLA. 
It is quite unbelievable.
And at the end, nothing is solved. Rule of law, transparency, fairness, honesty and respect for human values is far more sustainable (and cheaper). 
Is China ready to learn from India? Probably not yet!
It raises another issue, what will happen if China does not earn these billions in foreign currency? After a short period of chaos, perhaps more harmony and democracy!
History of mankind has shown that you can suppress the aspirations of the masses for sometime, but not forever.

Beijing's blueprint for Tackling mass Incidents and social management
Chief Brief
Jamestown Fondation
Volume XI Issue 5  March 25, 2011
Willy Lam
China’s previous five-year plans were generally focused on the economy and little else. Yet, the outline of the 12th Five-Year Blueprint on Economic and Social Development for 2011 to 2015 (hereafter Blueprint), which was released at the end of the National People’s Congress (NPC) last week, had a lot to say about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) new imperative of imposing tighter control over the populace (See “Beijing’s ‘Wei-Wen’ Imperative Steals the Thunder at NPC,” China Brief, March 10). The Blueprint contained lengthy sections on buttressing public security, tackling “mass incidents,” as well as implementing “social management” (shehui guanli), which are code words for boosting socio-political stability.
The conservative turn in Chinese politics was honed in by NPC Chairman Wu Bangguo’s hard-line Legislative Work Report at the plenary parliamentary session. Wu, also a Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) member, warned that abandoning CCP leadership and orthodox socialist precepts would “plunge the country into the abyss of internal chaos” (Xinhua News Agency, March 10; Ming Pao [Hong Kong], March 11).
The Blueprint began by pointing out that due to deep-seated changes in the domestic and global arenas, the Chinese leadership was “up against risks and uncertainties that are both anticipated and hard to foretell.” “We must raise our consciousness about opportunities as well as risks—and take the initiative in adapting to changes in the environment,” the document said. It added that Beijing “must effectively defuse various kinds of contradictions” in order to attain socio-economic goals in the coming five years. While the Blueprint enumerated challenges in fields ranging from resources and technology to human resources, it was obvious that internal political stability was a key concern. It cited “obviously increasing social contradictions” as a primary impediment to the nation’s grand modernization objectives (Xinhua News Agency, March 17; China News Service, March 17).
The Blueprint disclosed for the first time the CCP leadership’s elaborate plans to build a nationwide “yingji xitong [rapid-response system] for tackling emergency incidents.” This was an apparent reaction to the estimated 100,000-odd mass incidents—including riots and disturbances—that had struck the country annually since the late 2000s. While the document did not mention “color revolutions,” the CCP leadership has both before and after the NPC played up its resolve to prevent “hostile anti-Chinese forces” from fomenting disorder in the country (Christian Science Monitor, March 3; Reuters, March 21).
The Blueprint pointed out that the planned yingji xitong “must be under a comprehensive, unified command, rationally structured, capable of nimble reactions—and that it must have guaranteed capability and high-efficiency operations.” The “backbone” of this mechanism would consist of the police, People’s Armed Police (PAP) and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers. The latter would be supplemented by public security experts and professionals, full-time and part-time staff in security-related enterprises; as well as volunteers. While no deadline has been mentioned, this labyrinthine wei-wen (“upholding stability”) apparatus, which is under the overall supervision of the CCP’s Central Commission for Political and Legal Affairs (CCPLA), is expected to be put together by 2015. It is apparently due to the huge costs involved that the wei-wen budget for 2011 was set at 624.4 billion yuan ($95.18 billion), which was 23.3 billion yuan ($3.55 billion) more than that of the PLA (See “The Wen-Wen Imperative Steals the Thunder at NPC,” China Brief, March 10).
A related section of the Blueprint, which was devoted to the new concept of “social management,” is focused on bolstering public order and harmony. As President Hu Jintao instructed at a Politburo meeting in February, social management was geared toward “promoting benevolent social order, and ensuring that society will be full of vigor on the one hand, and harmony and stability on the other” (Xinhua News Agency, February 19; People’s Daily, February 20). To this end, social-management offices are being set up nationwide: there will be at least one such unit for every major street in big cities as well as for each of the country’s 40,000-odd towns and rural townships. The Blueprint noted that apart from handling matters relating to public services and social-welfare provisions, the new offices would take charge of the “comprehensive treatment of law-and-order problems,” enhancing socio-political stability, and handling petitions filed by citizens with grievances against party and government departments. It is envisaged that these social-management outfits will work closely with the Wei-Wen Offices that have been established in most provinces and major cities since 2008 (New York Times, February 28; Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2009).
The CCP’s much more aggressive approach to wei-wen requires the large-scale recruitment of volunteers. The Blueprint indicated that one out of ten residents in most community districts would become a “registered social volunteer.” The massive deployment of wei-wen volunteers is apparently based on the experience of the Summer Olympics of 2008 and the Shanghai Expo of 2010, when up to 1 million vigilantes were recruited by the Beijing and Shanghai municipalities to maintain law and order. It was also during the Beijing Olympics that CCPLA officers first came up with the idea of putting together
a “people’s warfare-style” public-security apparatus to combat destabilizing forces (See “Beijing Revives Mao’s ‘People’s Warfare’ to Ensure Trouble-Free Olympics, China Brief, July 1, 2008).
Also significant is the Blueprint’s recommendation that “social organizations” (shehui zuzhi), which is the official term of Chinese-style NGOs, be put under
tighter government surveillance. Various party and government departments were urged to “institute a set of code of practices and criteria for social organizations’ activities, and to raise the effectiveness of government supervision.” The document noted that NGOs should be subject to a system of controls that consists of “a synthesis of legal supervision, government supervision, social supervision and self-supervision.” Given the role that NGOs have played in color revolutions in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, it is perhaps not surprising that Beijing is anxious about keeping close tabs on non-government-affiliated organizations, particularly those that seem to have ties with Western countries. The Chinese government’s guarded approach was clearly demonstrated last year when the China branch of Oxfam, a London-based poverty-alleviation organization, was accused by the Chinese government of seeking to “infiltrate” the country (The Guardian, February 23, 2010; BBC News, February 23, 2010).
The Blueprint included a section on junmin ronghe, or the “synthesis between the military and civilians.” The document laid utmost emphasis on “the fundamental principle and system of the party’s absolute leadership over army.” It also highlighted the ideal of the “unity between the army and the government, as well as between the army and the people.” The PAP, whose major task is combating threats to internal security, should “boost its ability to handle emergency incidents, fight terrorism and uphold stability.” As late patriarch Deng Xiaoping pointed out soon after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the PLA and PAP were a “Great Wall of Steel” that safeguarded the CCP’s power and prerogatives (Asia Times, March 11; Far Eastern Economic Review, September 2009). Under the junmin ronghe rubric, the PLA and the PAP are free to tap economic, technological and human resources in civilian sectors in peacetime as well as during a national crisis.
How about more political participation by the people as a means to defusing the country’s mushrooming internal contradictions? The Blueprint did contain a section on “developing socialist democratic politics,” where it indicated that Chinese citizens had “the right to know, the right to participate [in politics], the right to express themselves, and the right to supervise [the government].” It also pledged that Beijing would push forward “democratic elections, democratic decision-making, democratic management and democratic supervision” according to law. It is true, however, these and similar pledges made by the CCP leadership in recent years have been more rhetorical than substantial. For example, since Deng introduced village-level elections in 1979, little efforts have been made to extend the polls to higher-level administrations. While talking to reporters at the end of the NPC last week, Premier Wen apparently tried to explain the lack of progress on elections by saying that “this requires a [long] procedure and duration.” He added that political reform could only be “implemented in an orderly fashion under a stable, harmonious social environment—and under the party’s leadership” (China News Service, March 14; Ming Pao, March 15).
The CCP’s call for tighter “social management” has come in the wake of a major swing toward conservatism— and quasi-Maoist ideals—in Chinese politics. This was attested to by the tough NPC address made by Chairman Wu Bangguo. Wu’s “seven nos” viewpoint on Chinese politics attracted international attention. They included no adoption of Western values; no adoption of a “system of multiple parties holding office in rotation”; no pluralization of the guiding [state] dogma; no tripartite division of power among the executive, legislature and judiciary; no adoption of a bicameral legislature; no to a federal system, and no privatization. He added that to
ensure China’s “correct political orientation,” China’s institutions, Constitution and the laws must safeguard “the status of the CCP as the country’s leading core” (China News Service, March 9; The Associated Press, March 9; BBC News, March 10).
Moreover, President of the Supreme People’s Court Wang Shengjun pledged in his NPC report that the courts would “diligently uphold social harmony and stability.” “We will strengthen and be innovative about social management so as to bolster social harmony and stability,” Wang said. “We will severely punish criminal activities that jeopardize state security and social stability.” In an apparent repudiation of the principle of the independence of the judiciary,
Wang vowed to boost senior judicial officials’ “education in the party’s [ideological] nature, party style and party discipline” so as to “enhance their resistance against corruption and against degeneration [into adherents of Western values].” The chief judge also urged his junior colleagues to follow the “strong leadership of the CCP central authorities under comrade Hu Jintao and to raise high the great flag of Chinese socialism” (Xinhua News
Agency, March 19; Sina.com, March 19).
According to liberal intellectual Bao Tong, the CCP’s renewed determination to spurn so-called Western norms would only exacerbate the country’s socio-political tensions. Bao, once a close aide to ousted party chief Zhao Ziyang, pointed out that values such as privatization, pluralistic political norms and the tripartite division of power were “good systems universally recognized by the
international community.” He added that only by adopting global democratic standards can the CCP “achieve real stability and real social harmony” (Radio Free Asia, March 19). The methodical way in which the Blueprint— and senior CCP cadres—has gone about reinstating quasi-Maoist ideas and institutions, however, means that the hopes of Bao and other progressive intellectuals may be dashed at least in the short-to-medium term.
Willy Wo-Lap Lam, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation. He has worked in senior editorial positions in international media including Asiaweek newsmagazine, South China Morning Post, and the Asia-Pacific Headquarters of CNN. He is the author of five books on China, including the
recently published “Chinese Politics in the Hu Jintao Era: New Leaders, New Challenges.” Lam is an Adjunct Professor of China studies at Akita International University, Japan, and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Beware the Pakistani Cloud

China does not care for international agreements. This is not new. 
While India had to struggle for three years to get an exemption from the Nuclear Suppliers Group to be able to sign civilian nuclear agreements (with France, US and Russia amongst others), China 'offers' nuclear technology to Pakistan without going through any of these legal niceties.
At the same time, the US and France have decided to close their eyes on the Sino-Pakistani deal.
President Sarkozy on a visit in Beijing lobbied for more nuclear 'cooperation' between China and France; they have decided to 'save' nuclear technology as Le Monde wrote.
Xinhua reminded us of last year memorable visit of President Hu to France, "During the meeting, Hu said China and France should expand cooperation in burgeoning industries such as new energy, recycling and nuclear safety while deepening cooperation in traditional fields such as trade and economics."
There is however a problem. Beijing is selling outdated technology to Pakistan and if something happens to the reactors (earthquake, floods or terrorist attacks), India will be the first country to get the fumes.
Why is the Indian anti-nuclear lobby so silent on this?
They probably believe that the cloud will stop on the LoC!

China to Sell Outdated Nuclear Reactors to Pakistan
Voice of America
Stephanie Ho
Beijing
March 24, 2011
China is pressing ahead with nuclear energy cooperation with Pakistan, despite concerns that it is shipping decades-old technology to its South Asian neighbor. This comes as China suspended approvals for new nuclear power plants within China to review safety standards following the recent earthquake/tsunami disaster in Japan.
Chinese authorities have already suspended approvals of new nuclear plants within the country because of safety concerns sparked by the disasters in Japan.
But when Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu was asked Thursday about whether Beijing is similarly concerned about exporting outdated nuclear technology to Pakistan, she dismissed it as unrelated.
Jiang says there are no direct links to the two issues.  She says the Chinese government wants to see "orderly and reasonable"  nuclear development in China, and is especially concerned about safety.
As for Pakistan, though, she said only that China and Pakistan’s nuclear cooperation has been under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
China has provided two reactors to Pakistan’s Chasma nuclear power plant, with a deal that it provide two more. American officials have not expressed outright opposition, but have said if China goes ahead with Chasma 3 and 4, these actions would be "inconsistent" with commitments it made when it joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2004.
Meanwhile, reports on Chinese nuclear websites show work on Chasma is continuing, even after the nuclear crisis in Japan.
Mark Hibbs, an atomic energy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has closely followed the Chinese-Pakistani nuclear cooperation. He says China has been developing its own nuclear technology, but that it is outdated.
"So far most of the reactors that the Chinese themselves have built on the basis of their own know-how reflects a technology which was available in the West and in advanced nuclear countries outside of China about 30 years ago," he said. "The Chinese are exporting this equipment - this is the technology which China has been exporting to Pakistan. I don’t believe right now that there is a major world market outside of Pakistan which is very interested in this technology."
Hibbs says France, Japan, and the United States provide the world’s most advanced nuclear technology, so he sees China as having commercial reasons for wanting to catch up. He says China also has geopolitical concerns for wanting to help Pakistan.
"What is important for China is that this deal cements and underpins China’s strategic partnership with Pakistan in the political and military area," said Hibbs. "But it also provides a workplace for China’s nuclear industry to gain experience in building nuclear power plants abroad, an endeavor that the Chinese in the future very much want to do."
Earlier this month, in another sign that the Chasma project is moving forward, the International Atomic Energy Agency agreed to Pakistan’s request to safeguard the two new planned reactors there, to ensure that the nuclear material from the reactors is not diverted to make nuclear weapons.
In 2008, the United States won a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group before it could go ahead with a controversial nuclear power deal with India. The cartel is made up of countries that work to ensure that civilian nuclear exports are not used to make weapons.
China-Pakistan nuclear cooperation is expected to come up at the group’s annual meeting later this year, although the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Thursday did not indicate whether China would be seeking a similar waiver.

New Mega Dam on the Mekong

India should watch with interest the reactions of the Mekong Commission. The new dam on the Lanchang (Mekong) will have serious ecological consequences for the nations downstream (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam). 
Beijing has so far refused to be a member of the Mekong Commission, considering that the mighty river belongs to Middle Kingdom and therefore the Chinese leadership does not need to inform the four downstream nations when megadams are built in Yunnan Province of China. 
This is called international collaboration with Chinese characteristics.
The same process will probably be followed for the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra). Will India protest?

Huaneng Lancang River Hydropower largest hydropower Nuozhadu approved by the State
March 25, 2011
Xinhua
Kunming, March 25 (Xinhua Zhao Dachun) reporter from the Huaneng Lancang River Hydropower Co., Ltd. was informed that the national key project, the largest planning and construction of the Lancang River Basin hydropower - Huaneng Power Station Nuozhadu formally approved by the State.
Huaneng Lancang Nuozhadu hydropower station is located downstream of the city of Pu'er in Yunnan Province, is planning the Lancang River Cascade River "second reservoir eight" in the fifth grade, but also the scale of the Lancang River Basin project and adjust the capacity of the largest power station, the total installed capacity of power plant capacity of 5.85 million kilowatts, with a total investment of about 450 million power station installed 65 million kilowatts units 9 units to ensure the output was 240 million kilowatts, the annual average generating capacity of 23.912 billion kwh.
Huaneng Nuozhadu Hydropower Station is the "West to East" and "outgoing electric cloud," the key project, also in Yunnan hydropower-based electricity nurture pillar industries, the construction of hydropower energy base important project. After the completion of power plants, has made great economic benefits in the same time, power saving and emission reduction benefits will be fully reflected. It is estimated that all the generating units, the equivalent to saving 9.56 million tons per year for the state of standard coal, reduce carbon dioxide emissions of 18.77 million tons. At the same time, will reduce the amount of waste water, sludge, dust and other pollutants.
Huaneng Power Project Nuozhadu design indicators of high and complex geological conditions, according to the plan, the dam, spillway, and other underground plant at home and abroad a number of technical indicators are among the forefront of gravel clay core rockfill dam straight dam is the same in Asia, the world's third; underground plant is currently one of the larger underground; open spillway size of Asia, and discharge power and flow rate ranks first in the world.

Prepare for the Big Bang

My article Prepare for the Big Bang appeared in The Pioneer today. 
With China working on innumerable dams in Tibet and India planning to build dams in Arunachal Pradesh, a huge disaster awaits the region.
Click on the title to read

Japan on the side of a knife, Nu River on the blade

It is comforting to see that the Chinese public public and media are now aware of the danger caused by large dams in seismic zones.
Unfortunately, India is blissfully ignorant (or chose to be ignorant) of this fact. Corruption continues to be rampant in the sector and the dam lobby is extremely powerful.  
The Opposition is too much in a reacting mood as many Wikileaks cables show to play any positive role on this issue.
Recently, the government of Arunachal Pradesh announced that the State will be one of India's leading power producers by 2022-23, 'after most of its allotted power projects are commissioned'.
Governor Gen (Retd) J J Singh stated: "The annual revenue accrual to the state is likely to be of the order of Rs 10,000 crores after complete commission of the projects with an estimated capacity of 57,000 MW."
Provided of course that there is no earthquake before.


At fault on the Nu River
Liu Jianqiang
China Dialogue, 
March 22, 2011
As China gears up for a hydropower push in its earthquake-prone south-west, it should pause to consider events in Japan, two geologists tell Liu Jianqiang on World Water Day.
“You could say Japan is on the side of a knife, while the Nu River is on the blade.”
With the ongoing crisis at its earthquake-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, Japan is paying a heavy price for ignoring “large-scale environmental evaluations”. This is the assessment of two prominent Chinese geologists, Xu Daoyi and Sun Wenpeng, who told chinadialogue that the incident holds important lessons for China.
The two experts argue that the Japanese authorities underestimated the potential impact of deep-ocean faults and earthquakes on power plants. As a result, they failed to locate their atomic energy facilities on the country’s less vulnerable west coast and, ultimately, to avoid the radiation crisis the world has watched unfold over the past week.
There are worrying parallels in China, said Xu and Sun. But rather than focusing on the nuclear industry, their gripe is with their country’s hydropower sector – and, more specifically, the controversial plans to build a cascade of dams on the Nu River, China’s last great waterway without large-scale hydropower and the focus of an animated public campaign.
Xu, a retired researcher from the China Earthquake Administration’s Institute of Geology, and Sun, a former employee of the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), who was once in charge of evaluating the nation’s uranium resources, have written to the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, setting out their concerns. In their letter, they write that the risks of building dams on the Nu – a plan that was shelved in 2004 following a public outcry, but has recently been revived – have not been fully assessed. “We are extremely troubled by this,” they add.
Xu spent 40 years working in the field of earthquake prediction [Editor’s note: While earthquake prediction is a controversial or even discredited field of science in many parts of the world, in China it has long been part of the national earthquake administration’s programmes on quake monitoring and disaster prevention, although reports suggest it may soon be phased out.]. Sun specialises in structural geology and, before his retirement, worked at CNNC’s Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology. They argue that, as the Nu River lies on a structural fault at risk of earthquakes, there are enormous risks involved in building dams there – and that pressing ahead with these plans flies in the face of common sense.
When Xu and Sun first heard about proposals for large-scale hydropower development on the Nu River -- which starts high up on the Tibetan plateau and flows through south-west China and down to the Indian Ocean -- they were shocked. “Tectonic movement in [Yunnan’s] Three Parallel Rivers area is stronger than anywhere else in the world– how can they build a cascade of dams here?” asked Sun.
The pair pointed to three major risks. First, tectonic activity in this region means earthquakes are both strong and frequent. Second, other geological events such as mudslides are common. Third, tectonic movement has been strengthening: earthquakes and other disasters are becoming more frequent in the region, claim Xu and Sun, and the combination of climate extremes, tectonic and seismic activity is increasing the risks of a major disaster.
Debate over dams on the Nu River has been raging for eight years. The first report on hydropower development on its lower and middle-reaches recommended building a cascade of 13 dams, with generating capacity of 21.32 gigawatts. But in 2004, following a public outcry, Beijing imposed a dam-building moratorium on the river. Then, in January this year, Shi Lishan, deputy head of the New Energy and Renewable Energy Division of China’s National Energy Administration, said: “My belief is that development [on the Nu] is a must.”
This was the first time the National Energy Administration had made clear its views, and appeared to indicate that hydropower in China is about to enjoy a “great leap forward”. However, the official pronouncement has drawn fierce criticism from Chinese NGOs, the media and the public. [See chinadialogue article “Hydropower’s Green Excuse” for more detail on this].
However, Xu and Sun’s statements mark the first time in eight years that geologists have publicly expressed doubts over the plans. In their letter to Wen Jiabao – a geologist himself, who like them graduated from the China University of Geosciences -- Xu and Sun write: “No fixed steel and concrete dam can withstand the shearing movement of the Nu River fault, nor can anyone prevent the huge mountainside collapses, landslides and mudslides that still happen on the banks of the river.”
Sun and Xu say that there is no precedent for building such a large hydropower scheme over an active fault, and that we should not be lured into complacency by China’s recent successes in the construction of large dams. The unusual geology of the Nu River means that the risks here are greater than elsewhere: the fault that forms the Nu River is still active. And, if built, the cascade of dams will run directly across it. “It’s like building on the blade of a knife – we are taking a huge risk,” said Sun.
Even the geologists who drew up the plans for the Nu River dams agree, according to Xu and Sun. Everyone admits that the geological structure of the lower and middle-reaches of the Nu River is complex. The Nu River fault is the major geological feature of this stretch of the river and is the central factor in determining dam location and safety. “But we feel the planners weren’t wary enough of those geological hazards, with risk evaluations mainly, or even only, looking at the factors affecting individual dams – these were separate ‘micro-evaluations’ [and not, broader ‘macro-evaluations’],” said Xu.
Xu said that over the past two centuries, and particularly in the last 60 years, western China (and especially the south-west) has been hit by frequent earthquakes: in 1950, an 8.6-magnitude earthquake in eastern Tibet, near the Nu River; in 1976, an 7.3-magnitude quake in Longling, Yunnan; in 1988, earthquakes measuring 7.4 and 7.2 on the Nancang River and at Gengma; in 1995, an 7.3-magnitude quake on the China-Myanmar border; and in 1996 one measuring 7.0 in Lijiang. All of these are on or near the Nu River.
According to Xu, there has been a clear increase in the number of strong earthquakes in the south-west of China over the last century, a fact that should not be ignored when evaluating regional geological stability and earthquake trends. To date, he has not encountered any geologist or seismologist who does not expect a major earthquake on the Nu River during the twenty-first century.
Both Sun and Xu believe that earthquake damage is not limited to the epicentre: its extent is related to the strength of the quake, and the stability and integrity of the surrounding geology. Even a large earthquake far away from the Nu River could trigger local disasters, such as mountainside collapses, landslides and mudslides.
Xu said that one possible scenario is that a failure at one dam causes a chain reaction in dams further downstream. If one hydropower plant is damaged, particularly if it is located upstream, hundreds of millions of cubic metres of water, carrying large quantities of mud and rock, would rush down the straight, narrow and steep river valley. The damage would be devastating. “There wouldn’t even be any survivors to rescue,” said Sun. “And it’s an international river – if the disaster were to extend to countries downstream, I’m afraid China could not cover the costs.”
Another risk is that hillsides could collapse into the reservoirs, creating huge waves that threaten the dam, or forming blockages that will impact on local hydrology and on the lower reaches of the river. The huge mudslide that hit Zhouqu in Gansu, north-west China, last year – and which many have blamed on human development in the area – should be an important lesson for those considering hydropower construction on the Nu River.
Perhaps in response to the concerns raised by these two geologists, two long-standing supporters of the Nu River plans – the China Society for Hydropower Engineering and the Chinese National Committee on Large Dams – held a meeting in Beijing on March 6, to which they invited hydropower and geological experts. Speaking at the event, Xu Xiwei, head of the China Earthquake Administration’s Institute of Geology, said: “Japan lies where the Pacific plate pushes west – why can they build dams there, but we can’t do the same here?”
But Sun told chinadialogue: “He’s mixing things up. You can’t compare Japan and the Nu River.” Japan lies on one side of a fault, while the Nu River runs through the fault itself, he explained. “You could say Japan is on the side of a knife, while the Nu River is on the blade.”
In fact, recent events in Japan demonstrate just how serious the issue is for China, added Sun. The Fukushima nuclear plant wasn’t built on the fault: the problems were caused by a chain of events triggered by the tsunami. If anything happened to a dam on the Nu River the consequences could be even worse.
“Japan took a gamble by building the plant there, and lost. The officials all say the disaster could not have been predicted. In fact, the authorities were warned about the risk – and they chose to go ahead anyway.”

Liu Jianqiang is the Beijing-based deputy editor of chinadialogue.

Worse than the Japanese earthquake

To put it mildly, the Indian media is very poorly informed on the different energy options for India. 
It is fashionable to put all the ills on nuclear energy (we have seen it through the debate after the visit of Dr Manmohan Singh in the US in September 2005), but has India other options if it wants to continue to grow at 8% or 9%?
To believe that solar or wind can be a solution is just unrealistic, not to say unscientific. 
This does not mean that all the precautions should not be taken when Delhi decides to acquire nuclear plants. The safest possible solutions with all the necessary guarantees should be chosen.
One of the main issues if India decides to go for French or Russian technologies is the rampant corruption of the Indian operators and their sub-contractors. How to insure that the concrete slabs will be built according to the proper norms and not according to CWG norms? The contract between the supplier and the operator should take this into account, otherwise nuclear could be a boon for new rajas (with Japanese consequences).
Once again, the hydro-power is far more dangerous than the nuclear in seismic zones like the Tibetan plateau or the Northeast. Read this article in The Telegraph and you will understand. 

Chinese earthquake may have been man-made, say scientists
An earthquake that killed at least 80,000 people in Sichuan last year may have been triggered by an enormous dam just miles from the epicentre
The Telegraph
Malcolm Moore in Shanghai  02 Feb 2009
The 511ft-high Zipingpu dam holds 315 million tonnes of water and lies just 550 yards from the fault line, and three miles from the epicentre, of the Sichuan earthquake.
Now scientists in China and the United States believe the weight of water, and the effect of it penetrating into the rock, could have affected the pressure on the fault line underneath, possibly unleashing a chain of ruptures that led to the quake.
Fan Xiao, the chief engineer of the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau in Chengdu, said it was "very likely" that the construction and filling of the reservoir in 2004 had led to the disaster.
"There have been many cases in which a water reservoir has triggered an earthquake," said Mr Fan. "This earthquake was very unusual for this area.
There have been no seismic activities greater than a magnitude seven quake along this particular seismic belt before."
The 7.9 magnitude quake struck last May and left more than five million people homeless. It remains a raw and emotional topic for most Chinese, and the government has been quick to quash any suggestion that Zipingpu may have been responsible for the catastrophe. Researchers have been denied access to seismological and geological data to examine the earthquake further.
Zipingpu is only one of nearly 400 hydroelectric dams in the earthquake zone. Mr Fan said the government had been warned of the danger of building so many large-scale projects in a seismically active area, but that the warnings had gone unheeded.
"I not only opposed the construction of Zipingpu, but also the overdevelopment of the reservoirs on Minjiang River. There are ten major reservoirs on the main river, 29 on its tributaries and a lot more smaller-scale reservoirs, all of which block the flow of the entire river, and are very hazardous to the local geology," he said.
Although Sichuan is an earthquake-prone region, many scientists were caught by surprise by the magnitude of the quake. Christian Klose, a scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said there had not been any "major seismic activity" on that fault line for millions of years.
He argued that the sudden shift of a huge quantity of water into the region could have simultaneously relaxed the tension between the two sides of the fault, allowing them to move apart, and also increased the direct pressure enough to cause a violent rupture. The effect was "25 times more" than a year's worth of natural stress from tectonic movement, he said.
Although the official government line is that its massive construction projects had nothing to do with the quake, some state researchers in Beijing have called for a full investigation. Lei Xinglin, of the China Earthquake Administration, said that the Zipingpu reservoir "clearly affected the local seismicity and it is worthwhile to study the role it played in triggering the earthquake further". He added that firm conclusions remain "premature" however.
There is a history of earthquakes triggered by dams, including several caused by the construction of the Hoover dam in the US, but none of such a magnitude.