Beijing hastens the tempo of war drums on the border with India

Tibet brings out the pathological worse in China's leaders.
His holiness the Dalai Lama has been China's bete noire for more than a half century. It is not difficult to grasp the reason. He has refused to become its puppet; he escaped to India, and there established a Tibet in exile, so to speak. In spite of the influx of Han emigrants into the high Tibetan plateaux, China's policy of making Chinese out of Tibetans has failed utterly, Guam Diary suggests. Suppression of uprisings has not quieted a visceral homegrown nationalism which Chinese troops have never been able to eradicate, short of genocide. The spontaneous 'revolt' in spring 2008, a few months before the Summer Olympics in Beijing and its harsh repression, spoilt Beijing's charm offensive to seduce the world in a false image of a Potemkin Village in China, and seriously made China lose face.
For China's Communist rulers, unrest and non ending challenge to its authority in Tibet lay at the feet of the Dalai Lama, a spiritual leader without an army who preaches non violence and reconciliation. They call him a 'splitist' who seeks to destroy the unity of China. And yet, the Dalai Lama is not calling for independence, but simply for autonomy within the Chinese nation, one yellow star among the 5 stars on China's red flag symbolising the major groups making up the country. But the Communist leaders admit nothing unless it's unconditional surrender to the steel fist of their control. And dehispite long years of trying, China has failed totally to gain the loyalty unless severly coerced, and even then, the Chinese leaders can never be assured.
Foreign pressure has moved Beijing to parliament with the Delai Lama's representatives, but like the Israeli 'negotiating' with the Palestinians, they are not playing from a straight deck. They do everything to make talks fail.
As mentioned above, the Delai Lama is soon setting out to visit the monastery in Twang. And the mere presence of this incarnation of a Buddha has setting the Communist leaders in Beijing to making threatens, quicken the pace of border violations with India, beef up military stationed on the Arunchal Pradesh border with India. They have grumbled, stamped feet, thumped tables with fists, beat a madding tattoo on the drums of war, issuing endless threats. Another spoon in the broth is the rising economic rival that India has become to China's 'industrialisation', thanks to foreign capital investment. India thus is a challenger to Beijing's self appointed role as 'referee' of all things Asian. A strong India reduces that posturing to dust.
The Indian province of Arunchal Pradesh is in the very area of the 1962 war with India which China 'won', in the sense it led to the end of the Jarawharlal Nehru's political life and the fall of his government. Nothing was achieved in the Himalayas to redraw boundary lines Beijing claimed, saying they were drawn by British imperialists at a time of China's weakness. India demurred. But the sting of war has left a sour taste in New Delhi's mouth since then, although relations with China have improved, and most recently. China's bullying will not move India's resolve one whit, since Arunchal Pradesh is its province, not even renewed war which won't serve China's purpose.
In addition, the mere presence of the Dalai Lama in Twang, in a region of his own birth, is enough to set Beijing's teeth on edge. The spiritual power of the man is enough to renew the devotion the majority of Tibetans accord him. It is a slap in the Chinese leadership's face, and make hollow the claim they own the hearts and minds of Tibetans. The causes are found in China's imperialist pretension; its ethnic cleansing; its cultural genocide; its demoralising corruption, and the list goes on and on. China, in a word, is its own worst enemy, not the Dalai Lama!
The Dalai Lama won't give into this form of blackmail. In Japan, for example, he has roundly criticised Beijing for its sham democracy and for holding the Chinese people in dictatorial bondage. Thus, the words of words continue unabated.
The Communist leadership's claim of its right to rule Tibet is belied by a 26 minute documentary shot by an amateur Tibetan film maker, now being tried by a Black Star Chinese court, out of public view, and the worst is feared for his sort. The Tibetans in the film, with a boldness to defy the Chinese warlords, speak without hiding their faces. They know they are risking their lives, but they do it to show they are loyal to the Dalai Lama, their true leader, and know the full measure of punishment they run if caught.
China's repression has not abated. In the last few days [today as of this posting, it is 1 November 2009], Beijing has ordered the execution of 4 Tibetans who dared protest China's colonial rule.
In a sense, China has hoisted its own petard.