Of the more than 30 self-immolations since March 2011, 19 occurred in the Ngaba prefecture of Sichuan province and another six occurred elsewhere in Sichuan (graphic). Six more self-immolations took place in Qinghai, one occurred in Gansu and one occurred in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). These self-immolations have occurred within traditional Tibetan areas. These extend far beyond the current boundaries of the TAR, which makes up less than half of traditional Tibetan territory. Greater Tibet includes Western Tibet, or Ngari (currently in the western portion of the TAR), Central Tibet or U-Tsang (comprising U and Tsang, and later Ngari, in what is currently the central portion of the TAR) and Eastern Tibet, comprising Amdo (which stretched through Qinghai to parts of southern Gansu and northern Sichuan) and Kham (which reached from the eastern TAR into western Sichuan and part of Yunnan).
Ten of the self-immolations in Sichuan's Ngaba prefecture occurred in or around the Kirti monastery, located in an area that once was the Kham region of Eastern Tibet. Kirti is one of the largest monasteries in the region and has several smaller daughter monasteries throughout the area. The Kirti rinpoche, the spiritual leader of the monastery, fled Tibet with the Dalai Lama in 1959 and is currently based in Dharamsala, India, where he has established a Kirti monastery.
The spread of self-immolations across several provinces can probably be attributed in part to the lines of communication between monasteries, now supplemented by other forms of communication like cellphones and the Internet. In Tibetan Buddhism, monks and nuns customarily travel between monasteries to teach principles and doctrines and to lead debates and discussions. Beijing has tried recently to halt the movements of these "floating monks" out of concern that they are instigating self-immolations and could organize other protest activities.
The Start of the Series
The recent wave of self-immolations began outside the Kirti monastery March 16, 2011, when Tibetan Buddhist monk Rigzin Phuntsog set himself on fire while shouting slogans calling for a free Tibet. March 16 was the anniversary of a protest at Kirti in 2008 during which security forces fatally shot at least 10 ethnic Tibetan protesters, according to reports from exiled Tibetan groups. Tensions had run high in eastern Tibet and around the Kirti monastery since March 14, 2008, when riots broke out in Lhasa, capital of the TAR. The riots followed days of protests marking the anniversary of the March 10, 1959, uprising against Chinese rule. They triggered additional government crackdowns in eastern Tibet and Sichuan, including at the Kirti monastery.
The use of self-immolation as a political tool is not unprecedented in Asia or elsewhere, but it had been unusual in recent Tibetan activism. In an isolated incident, a monk from the Kirti monastery self-immolated in February 2009 amid protests after the government canceled prayer ceremonies that were part of the Tibetan New Year celebration.
Several factors could have led Rigzin to decide to use self-immolation as his means of protest. His action coincided with the height of the Arab Spring, during which international media tied the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor to the downfall of the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes. It also occurred in the midst of the Jasmine gatherings in China, when the government was particularly sensitive about any form of political protest. These events would have given self-immolation a new political context. Furthermore, self-immolation only requires the participation of one person (or in some cases a few people), whereas organized public demonstrations require planning and coordination. And given the graphic and painful nature of the personal sacrifice, self-immolation is a way to attract significant attention to a cause without harming others.
Beijing's Response
China responded to the Rigzin self-immolation by cracking down harder on Eastern Tibet and the Kirti monastery in particular. According to reports from Tibetan groups overseas, Beijing changed the minimum age for Tibetans to become monks, effectively removing several hundred young monks from monasteries (many of the self-immolations have been carried out by young former monks, suggesting they were from this pool). Other government efforts to reduce the number of monks in monasteries included stationing a government security force on monastery grounds, discouraging or blocking other monks from returning to the monasteries, arresting monks and demanding that monks denounce the Dalai Lama.
Monks and nuns were not the only ones affected by the security crackdown; Chinese forces conducted house-to-house interviews and arrested any suspicious or sympathetic laypeople. Although the response to the crackdown came primarily from the monasteries, 12 laypeople self-immolated in the past year.
The security measures appeared to be have effectively contained demonstrations. But in August 2011, in nearby Nyitso monastery in Tawu, Sichuan, another self-immolation occurred — this time by a monk who was earlier seen handing out leaflets calling for the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet. The August self-immolation occurred just more than a year after Tibetan government-in-exile Prime Minister Lobsang Sangay took his oath of office in a ceremony that transferred political power from the Dalai Lama to the prime minister. The Dalai Lama had announced this splitting of the political and spiritual roles for the Tibetan leadership in March 2011, raising speculation in China and elsewhere about the move's consequences for the Tibetan movement and whether the removal of the Dalai Lama's political responsibilities paved the way for his return to Tibet in a purely spiritual role.
More self-immolations followed the Nyitso incident: two in September, six in October, one in November, one in December, four in January, nine in February and seven in March. According to reports from Tibetan groups overseas, numerous Tibetan monks and nuns have committed suicide since 2008 by other means, including hanging. These acts have received less attention overseas but could also motivate those carrying out self-immolations in Eastern Tibet. These suicides, and self-immolation in particular, are difficult for Beijing to contain; unlike the riots of 2008, they cause no harm to others. Chinese authorities have tried to reduce the number of monks at monasteries and limit their movements in an attempt to quell such protest actions. However, monks disrobed by Chinese authorities, acting monks, nuns and laypeople have continued to self-immolate.
Changes in the Tibetan Movement
Perhaps more significant than the shift in tactics from public demonstrations to self-immolations is the shift in the center of gravity of the Tibetan movement from the traditional Central Tibetan area to Eastern Tibet. This coincided with a change in focus, by the Tibetan government-in-exile and overseas Tibetan movements, from greater autonomy or even independence for Tibet (the TAR) to expanding the rights of ethnic Tibetans to practice and teach their religion, culture and language. This brought Eastern Tibetan regions into the spotlight and highlighted the differences between ethnic Tibetans and other Chinese minorities and the majority Han. This shift also suggested that the Tibetan movement wanted to expand back to the old Tibetan borders and that any progress toward greater autonomy or independence would not be limited to the TAR.
This change partly explains why the Chinese government became more concerned about Eastern Tibet. Because the population of Eastern Tibet is more heterogeneous than the TAR's, Beijing had paid less attention to cultural and religious activities in the region. China had largely overlooked the relationship between ethnic Tibetans in the east and foreign moral and financial backers who supported Tibetan culture, language and religion. These closer ties to overseas Tibetans and foreign supporters also leave Beijing fearing foreign instigation and interference in its domestic ethnic affairs and national sovereignty.
Beijing would find an uprising of ethnic Tibetans in Eastern Tibet harder to suppress because those regions are not under the same strict security control as the TAR. To head off the threat, the Chinese government has arrested monks and disrobed them, implemented intensive patriotic re-education programs and used security posts near and within monasteries where self-immolations have occurred. Despite the crackdowns, the self-immolations have continued — many within the same locations as previous incidents.
Difficulties for Beijing
In some sense, the self-immolations and other suicides of ethnic Tibetans in Eastern Tibet do not pose a fundamental threat to China. They are not organized acts of militant resistance, but individual acts with minimal physical effects to anyone but the actor. Western powers have not yet taken a strong overt interest in the self-immolations or the continued crackdown by Chinese authorities. But Beijing has seen foreign pressure build over its management of internal ethnic and social issues in the past and does not want to face that kind of pressure again.
The Tibetan movement's shift of attention, from the TAR to Eastern Tibet and the ideas of Tibetan language and culture, significantly expands Beijing's problem. The government is concerned about its inability to stop self-immolations at different monasteries and in different provinces. These episodes indicate that Beijing has not stopped the flow of information among monasteries. The networks spreading word of the self-immolations and possibly inspiring follow-on acts could also be used to organize a more coherent resistance movement. Even more concerning for Beijing is that this is not happening in the far-off border area of the TAR but in Sichuan, one of China's major population centers and the gateway to China's westward economic expansion.
