Giving up Tibet?

Recently the Chinese government gave a 30-year old scholar of Tibetan music an 18-year prison sentence for espionage. Even by Chinese standards the sentence is astonishingly log. It is also a warning to Tibetans that their already scarce liberties are now further endangered.

Ngawang Choepel fled Tibet with his family when he was two to the Tibetan exile community in Dharmsala, India. He came to the United States in 1993 to study and teach at Middlebury College. In 1995 he went to Tibet to capture on video traditional songs and dances that he feared were being lost. The basis of his conviction is unclear, but even taping Tibetan culture for export could qualify as espionage under Chinese law.

Since its invasion of Tibet in 1950, Beijing has gradually increased its efforts to erase Tibet's identity. China has arrested those who protested the takeover and tried to eradicate the people's affection for the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Chinese killed thousands of monks and nuns and destroyed virtually all Tibet's monateries. China later tried a slightly softer line, but riots in 1987 brought another crackdown. Monks have been asked to repudiate the Dalai Lama or face expulsion, and at least 700 Tibetans are now in prison for political offenses.

China's repressive policy is wrong both morally and politically. By smothering Tibetans' ability to speak, worship freely or express their culture, China risks driving them to violence. Two weeks ago a powerful, sophisticated bomb blew up outside a government building in Lhasa. Although the Dalai Lama has never wavered in his commitment to nonviolence and denies any link to the bomb, the government quickly blamed the bomb on "the Dalai Lama" and has vowed to retaliate.

-- The New York Times