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Fresh anti-Western protests have broken out in China, with angry demonstrators targeting US broadcaster CNN and French store Carrefour in rows over perceived bias, Tibet and the Beijing Olympics.

Protesters in Xian, Harbin and Jinan defied a huge police crackdown to chant slogans and hold banners that read "Oppose Tibet independence," "Oppose CNN's anti-China statements" and "Boycott Carrefour," a participant said.

"This was a patriotic movement, people want CNN and Carrefour to apologise," a protester at a Carrefour store in the northern city of Xian, Wang Zheng said.

"We oppose Tibetan and Taiwan independence and we also oppose the politicalisation of the Olympic Games."

As demonstrations continued, France said it was sending two envoys with messages from President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been unpopular over his threat to boycott the Olympics opening ceremony.

Chinese all over the world are protesting against the West. We should be careful not to stir the sleeping dragon.

Just like Australia was proud and came together at the Sydney Games, the Chinese will rightly be drawn together during the Beijing Games. We forget about our record concerning our indigenous population. We should cut some slack for China. For every finger we point three come back to us.

A high level meeting between China's President, Hu Jintao, and the man who will become Taiwan's next Vice-President, Vincent Siew, was historic - the highest level meeting between officials the two sides since 1949. 

It was also, many analysts believe, likely to set the two sides on a path for better relations in the future.

Pictures of the men shaking hands and sitting down together in China's Hainan island, on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia, were splashed on the front pages of Taiwan's newspapers.

Among the Chinese-language papers, the United Daily News said the meeting had created a "great opportunity because of their [the two men's] pragmatism and low-key approach".

The Apple Daily called the meeting "ice-breaking", saying it had created a "win-win opportunity".

First Rudd's visit, now a meeting between China's President and Taiwan's new Vice President. It's all happening in China at the moment. A step in the right direction, I am sure the two Chinas will benefit from a closer relationship and step away from a possible conflict.

China says it has uncovered a criminal ring planning to kidnap athletes and others at the Beijing Olympic games, Associated Press has reported.

Ministry of Public Security spokesman Wu Heping told a news conference today the Xinjiang ring was one of two broken up by Chinese authorities. Wu said 35 people had been arrested between March 26 and April 6 for plotting to kidnap athletes, foreign journalists and other visitors to the Olympics in August.

Terrorism at the Beijing Olympics is a real threat to all who attend.

Remember how we had to learn about the Shia, the Sunnis, the Kurds and all the smaller agents of Iraqi fragmentation? Over the next four months, until the Beijing Olympics open, the world is going to get a crash course in China’s various ethnic and religious minority groups and their resentments.

Violent stirrings in Tibet are just the beginning. With the world as stage, the Uighur Muslims of the northwestern Xinjiang region, the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement, Mongols and Kazakhs and whoever else wants his moment in the sun will have a dream opportunity to rail.

I hope violence is contained, and the Chinese authorities show flexibility, but I’m not optimistic after a big demonstration in London on Sunday.

If a Tibetan monk grabs the Olympic torch in San Francisco this week and immolates himself, nobody should be astonished. If the 19th anniversary on June 4 of the Tiananmen Square crackdown passes quietly, everyone should be surprised.

Playing in the major leagues is no breeze. That’s where China is after the remarkable transformation that led to the hosting of the Olympics. No talk of “peaceful rise,” “harmony,” “multilateralism” - self-effacing Chinese buzzwords all - can hide that a global power must make tough calls, decide what it represents, and be judged......

For a long time the core question about China has been whether a dictatorship with an open market economy can resist its internal contradictions. The core question now is how you federalize a diverse society under one-party control.

Or, as Raja Mahan, an Indian political scientist, put it to me: “In a country that does not separate party and state, how do you create the space for different peoples to express themselves?”

Big questions for China, as over a billion people come to grips with their diversity. Let's hope the coming out of China will be a peaceful process.

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has called on President George W Bush to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics unless there are "major changes by the Chinese Government" on human rights issues.

"The violent clashes in Tibet and the failure of the Chinese Government to use its full leverage with Sudan to stop the genocide in Darfur are opportunities for presidential leadership," Senator Clinton said.

"These events underscore why I believe the Bush administration has been wrong to downplay human rights in its policy towards China.

"At this time, and in light of recent events, I believe President Bush should not plan on attending the opening ceremonies in Beijing, absent major changes by the Chinese Government."

The White House reiterated its opposition to boycotting the Beijing Olympics and said it was not surprised by the protests that have greeted the Olympic flame in London and Paris.

Mr Bush has insisted that he will attend the opening ceremony in August.

As pressure mounts for a boycott of the Olympic opening ceremony it will be very interesting to see if Mr Rudd will refuse to attend.

The Beijing Olympic flame has ended its chaotic relay journey through Paris, amid city-wide protests against China's crackdown in Tibet that forced the torchbearers to extinguish the flame and take refuge in a bus.

The flame arrived in a bus escorted by around 30 police officers for a ceremony at the Charlety Stadium after its journey by foot was cut short half-way to its final destination.

Moments after the Olympic torch set off from the Eiffel Tower, protests forced the organisers to extinguish the torch, and place the flame on the accompanying bus for safety.

The torchbearers were forced on and off the bus at least four times until organisers finally cut short the relay, skipping a planned ceremony at Paris city hall.

As protesters around the world meet the Olympic torchbearers it is not only the flame that is extinguished. The Olympic spirit too has been lost.

The decision to hold the Olympics in China must now be regretted by the IOC.

Burma's military government has sentenced an activist to life in prison for holding up placards calling for parliament to open and for inflation to be curbed, his lawyer said today.

 Ohn Than, believed to be in his 60s, was arrested on August 23 after he stood outside the US embassy in downtown Rangoon and silently held up his signs.

It is not only China that is ignoring human rights. The Burmese government is also afraid of protesters. 

The resilience of the Burmese military junta has been possibly partly because of the political and economic support it receives from China, Russia and India – all of whom have fully supported the actions of the regime in the past. At the same time, the lack of a clear and firm political stand by ASEAN has also provided another basis of support for the Myanmar military junta.

The support China gives to the Burmese military junta is helping to keep another totalitarian government in power.

Fresh ethnic violence has erupted in a Tibetan region of southwestern China, with disputed reports of eight people shot dead by the police, and the Chinese government on Friday vowed swift and severe punishment of Tibetans accused of rioting and taking part in last month’s anti government protests. Police officers on Thursday evening fired on a crowd of protesters outside government offices in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province...........

Signs of ethnic unrest in another area, in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, have also begun to emerge in recent days, with details of protests and rumoured plotting by Muslim separatists in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and of police crackdowns............

Like Tibetans, Uighurs, who are the predominant ethnic group in Xinjiang, harbour memories of political independence and deep resentment of Chinese control, particularly over the practise of their Islamic faith.

Residents of townships and villages near Gulja, a city in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, said that about 25 Uighur Muslims were arrested last week on a tip that people in the area were making bombs. Residents said the police search had turned up three bombs in a cowshed, but the authorities were still looking for more devices that they believed were hidden in the area.

China is finding it increasingly difficult to keep the lid on ethnic tensions. The threat of violence will only keep the peace for short intervals; eventually the built up tensions explode.

A Chinese court has jailed one of the government's most prominent critics for three and a half years on subversion charges, prompting an international outcry.

The US immediately criticised the ruling and the European Union called for the release of Hu Jia, a dissident who has pursued issues ranging from democratic rights, support for Aids sufferers and self-determination for Tibet.

Human rights groups also put pressure on the International Olympic Committee - currently in Beijing to finalise arrangements for the August games - to speak out about the repression of activists.

They warned that Hu's sentencing this morning reflected a systematic crackdown on critics ahead of the Olympics, pointing out that he is the third activist to be convicted on the same charge in just two months.

The 34-year-old had been held under house arrest in his flat at the Freedom City complex for more than 200 days before his detention in December. During this time he made a video diary showing the intense scrutiny he was subjected to. His wife and baby daughter remain under house arrest....

Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch added: "Hu Jia's arrest was unjustified, his trial unfair, and his sentence unjust.

"The timing of the announcement of the verdict - right when the IOC is meeting in Beijing - highlights how complacent the IOC has been in disregarding human rights violations generated by the preparation of the games.

"The truth is that the moral void in which the IOC operates is harming the protection of human rights in China and elsewhere."

Bequelin said Hu's arrest had a chilling effect on dissent, adding: "It showed even the most well known activists would be arrested. Human rights activists have stopped their activities and stopped going public because they know it's a direct track to jail."

China is ignoring its promise to improve human rights and the IOC is going against the Olympic charter.

Despite an ongoing crackdown on ethnic Tibetans, a military lockdown of the region, and a denial by the Chinese authorities to allow an international commission of enquiry to go to Tibet.

The HRW urged the Commission, an independent body in charge of elaborating ethical principles based on the values and principles enshrined in the Olympic Charter, to articulate standards compatible with the respect of human rights to guide the Olympic movement.

It also asked the IOC to publicly assess the extent to which current human rights violations linked to the preparation of the Games were violating the commitments made by China at the time of its bid to host the Olympic Games, and to establish a standing mechanism to address human rights concerns.

According to the IOC rules, the principles elaborated by the Ethics Commission must be respected by the IOC and its members, by the cities wishing to organise the Olympic Games, by the Organising Committees of the Olympic Games, by the National Olympic Committees as well as by the participants in the Olympic Games.

"The IOC seems determined to take the Chinese government's line -- that human rights are a political matter and shouldn't be discussed," said Richardson.

"But that's inconsistent with the Olympic movement's original aim of fostering 'respect for universal fundamental ethical principles."

Is the disregard of human rights the price we are willing to pay to see a successful Beijing Olympics?

A BILL was introduced today in the US House of Representatives seeking to prohibit US President George W. Bush from attending the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing.

It was "to prohibit Federal government officials and employees from attending the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games held in communist China based upon communist China brutalising protesters in Tibet", according to a copy of the bill.

Mr Bush is planning to attend the Olympic Games in Beijing in August despite calls for world leaders to boycott the opening ceremony in protest at the Chinese government's crackdown on demonstrations against its rule in Tibet.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she will not attend the ceremony, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy has not ruled out following suit.

Beijing said rioters killed 18 innocent civilians and two police officers so far during the protests, but exiled leaders of the Himalayan province say between 135 and 140 people were killed in the Chinese crackdown.

World leaders are still thinking twice about going to Beijing's opening ceremony. 

I fully recognise that boycotting the Beijing Olympics will not stop all the human rights abuses of the Chinese government. I know that a boycott is a blunt and very imperfect instrument and is in many ways extremely unfair on athletes who have sacrificed enormous amounts. But I can’t stop thinking that the Olympics presents a very rare opportunity for the people of the world to send a message that is so strong that even an enormously powerful government like the Chinese regime will be unable to ignore it or dismiss it.

Everyone knows that the Chinese government does not have a good record on human rights. But I don’t think it is fully appreciated just how appalling current practices are.  I am all for maintaining dialogue and communication to try to encourage improvement.  But eventually one has to recognise that in some circumstances that is not enough. 

It is not unreasonable to draw parallels with the Olympic Games held in Berlin in 1936 when Adolf Hitler was in power.  In hindsight, do people believe it was right for Australia to have participated in that? Does anyone seriously suggest that Hitler improved his human rights record as a result of Berlin hosting the Games? Of course, international norms around human rights have developed enormously since those days, in part in reaction to what Hitler did in ensuring years........

A “peoples’ boycott” isn’t about governments saying their nation won’t participate. Nor is it just about pressuring athletes not to participate. Athletes can participate but still strongly voice their concerns about the serious human rights abuses.  People can refuse to attend the Games. People can pressure governments to make stronger statements and demand they use their influence. People can pressure the many corporations who are sponsoring the Beijing Games to make statement and to use their position to demand real change, and refuse to buy their products if they will not act.  Sponsors include Visa, Kodak, Samsung, Panasonic, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald’s, General Electric, and Coca-Cola. They clearly have both economic and diplomatic power to exert influence on the Chinese regime. Given the clear evidence of major human rights abuses in China, failure for them to act is a legitimate cause for criticism.

Senator Andrew Bartlett is drawing parallels with the Berlin Olympics and the Beijing Olympics. 

It is worth noting that the Fundamental Principles of Olympism, part of the Olympic Charter adopted by the IOC, include the following:

• Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.
• The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity
• Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.

It is obvious that the Chinese Government's human rights policy is far from the Olympic ideal.

Boycott the Berling Olympics?

Why not? The commies led a boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, after all.

And pinkos have no qualms about boycotting Israeli academics because they're, you know, "racist".

They should be delighted to boycott the Berling Olympics.

A nice touch would be if every time China won a medal, it was announced as a win for Tibet - seeing as Tibet is China apparently.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus says those who voted to give the Games to China should now not be surprised by the recent trouble.

"China is what it is," he said.

Mr Klaus and some Czech ministers will boycott the ceremony.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk questioned whether world leaders should attend, given China's conduct.

"The presence of politicians at the Games' inauguration seems inappropriate," he said.

Mr Tusk says he will try to convince other European Union countries that they should speak out more strongly on the issue of Tibet.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is currently visiting London, repeated that he may also boycott the ceremony.

But British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says he will be attending.

As more of the world's leaders think twice about attending the opening ceremony of the Olympics, our new Prime Minister must make a choice between business and support for human rights.  

As summer approaches and excitement builds for the start of the Games, no one knows how Chinese authorities will respond to an escalating “Genocide Olympics” campaign abroad or the actions of agent provocateurs at home. A security consultant working on the Olympics for a media outlet told me that his chief worry is an isolated overreaction, perhaps from a municipal police officer, that then spins out of control. “It just takes one banner and one televised beating for everything to go to hell,” he said. China watchers are deeply concerned about the ramifications of China’s massive installation of surveillance technology across Beijing. The city-to-city torch procession that is a lead-up to the Games is also a potential powder keg. Groups representing aggrieved minorities in China, like the Falun Gong religious sect and the ethnic Uighurs in China’s western Xinjiang Province, hint at planned “street actions” almost certain to spark an angry police response. The torch-carrying route from Greece leads to the summit of Mount Everest to Beijing — and right through Tibet.

This article in the New York Times is by Ilan Greenberg, an adjunct fellow with the Asia Society. China promised to improve its human rights law in its effort to win its right to hold the Olympic games it is time the world held China to its promise.

China's crackdown on protests in Tibet has left at least 135 people dead, 1,000 injured and 400 arrested, the head of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile says.

"Information from Tibet is very difficult to get, but we have sources who are very reliable, who phone us at the risk of their lives," parliamentary speaker Karma Chophel told reporters at the European Parliament in Brussels.

"Confirmed killings, we put it as of yesterday at 135," he said.

"We believe the number of people dying, injured, arrested, could be 10 times more than the confirmed reports."

Tibet's government-in-exile has previously said that 140 people were killed in the unrest, while China has reported a total of 20 deaths, 19 of them in the Tibetan capital Lhasa.

Protests against Beijing's rule of Tibet began in Lhasa on March 10, the anniversary of the 1959 uprising.

Tibetans are sacrificing their lives "to voice their dissent against Chinese rule," Mr Chophel said.

"They are doing this at the cost of their lives thinking that European countries who have political power, economic power will speak up."

He urged Europe to make sure its "moral power is not compromised in order to have good trade relations with China".

Mr Chophel will address the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva today.

"We are trying to awake the conscience of the world community to what is happening in Tibet, the situation is very urgent, it is a crisis situation,'' he said.

"It is high time for people to speak up for the legitimate rights of the Tibetan people."

The ABC is reporting that the death toll is rising in Tibet. The Tibetan people have a right to exist, the world will not have a better chance to effect change in China than it has now in the lead up to the Olympics.

China has not lived up to its promise to improve human rights and the world should now voice its disapproval and shift the games to another country. Even if it means a delay.

Dylan Kissane, concerning how "China and Japan are rising" and how in "only a decade's time" this new epicentre of power will force a re-alignment of economic and security dependency in the region, I'd take that sort of thing with a grain of salt, actually.

I mean, in some respects, China is now more or less where Japan was in the 1930s, challenging the US and other powers in the Pacific, and in other respects where Japan was in the 1960s, her economic growth about to "overwhelm" the west and the USA in particular.

And it's very interesting to look back to the 1960s and 1970s in particular to see what was being said then about Japan's economic growth then.

Have a look at this:

Annual average growth rates of real GDP (%)

Country             1950-1960                   1960-1970

                             Total    Per capita        Total    Per capita

Japan                 8.0       6.8                   10.6     9.4

USA                    2.9       1.2                   4.6       3.2

UK                       2.7       2.3                   2.8       2.1

West Germany   7.7       6.6                   4.6       3.6

France                 4.4       3.3                   5.7       4.6

Belgium                2.7       2.0                   4.5       3.9

Netherlands         4.6       3.3                   5.3       4.0

Sweden                3.6       2.9                   4.3       3.5

Italy                        5.5       4.9                   5.2       4.4

Source: Kevin Allen and Andrew Stevenson, ‘An introduction to the Italian economy’, 1974, p49, Barnes & Noble Imports.

ISBN is 0064901564

Not only was the United States's growth in GDP in the 1960s being surpassed by Japan at a phenomenal rate but by just about everyone else, too.

This was largely because US growth was over an enormous economic base - and more importantly, because the growth of countries like Japan and Germany was over a much lower base, so their growth rates were impressive.

Despite that, Japans growth continued to surge well into the 1970s as you can see.

Moreover, USA growth in the 1960s was much lower than recent levels of growth in the USA.

For example, US  gross domestic product (GDP) growth, adjusted by Reuters for international comparisons, was seen at 4.5 percent in 2004 before slipping to 3.9 percent in 2005.

So, it's clear the USA economy is not failing at all.

Moreover, look at the sorts of predictions that were made about Japan in the 1970s overtaking the USA economically.

This from the World Bank 'World Tables' for 1971, as published in Richard G Lipsey's Positive Economics, Fourth Edition, Harper & Rowe, July 1975, p 715.

'At the growth rates of the last two decades, many industrial countries were catching up to the American level of per capita national income," says Lipsey in 1975.

He then presents a table of figures which shows the USA with an average annual growth rate of just 2.2 per cent, being rapidly out-paced by Japan with a whopping 8.6 per cent, West Germany at 5.0 per cent, Italy at 5.1 per cent and Yugoslavia at 5.1 per cent amongst others.

Even the United Kingdom was keeping pace with US growth.

The inevitable outcome? The years in which the US would be overtaken by the top five competing economies are listed as follows:

• Japan - 1986
• West Germany - 1993
• France - 2000
• Israel - 2008
• Yugoslavia - 2039

Yugoslavia???

Kevin Rudd is making a trip to China on April 19.

There are two apparent purposes for this:

• be as far away from the embarrassment of the 2020 Gabfest launch scheduled for exactly the same day
• to get his orders concerning any future Australian involvement in the spot market for iron ore. (My prediction: "Don't ever do that again, Kevin. Okay?")

Perhaps Kevin will bring up the matter of human rights and Tibet then?

Michael de Angelos: "People often assume China is one giant homogeneous country that acts as one, rather than a series of provinces with powerful leaders without whose co-operation the central government would be mincemeat."

People often assume China is one giant homogeneous country that acts as one, rather than a series of provinces with powerful leaders without whose co-operation the central government would be mincemeat. That went for Mao who sought their co-operation and got it and it goes for the current mob.

If anyone thinks that using China's current abuses will be an excuse to attack Rudd, they must be dreaming. That includes Bob Brown who does speak the truth but knows in his heart it will be fall on deaf ears. All he can do is keep saying it and hope one day things will change.

Fantasy is the rule of the day in much of the world, as Dick Cheney demonstrated in Iraq just a few days ago when he declared the invasion a complete success while a bomb killed 30 people in a market. Same same China but the people are far more practical. Why would those powerful rulers of the provinces want the country to break up into anarchy? What's in for them? These aren't an ideological bunch – far more practical.

I also believe the Olympics are going to be a bit of a washout but mainly because it's heading that way anyway. The last great one was actually here and it's been downhill all the way since. An orgy of corporate excess that people are just becoming very tired of – a bit like that silly thing in Melbourne where those noisy cars go round in circles for a few days.

Dylan Kissane says:

"Eliot rightly points to some of the moral issues that will surely come to the fore should Australia choose to 'switch' to China."

I was reflecting on this overnight. A 'switch to China' combined with the much-longed-for 'collapse of the USA' would have lots of benefits for Australia.

Take for example the recent decline in the value of the US dollar.

That alone could eliminate our pesky, irritating film industry for example, making its current competitive advantage in shooting major block-busters like the Superman series and other major location epics, or annoying, labour intensive animated features about Penguins totally void.

And American produced television will be much more attractive on international markets.

Then, why build Ford Falcons here when Ford will now be able to do do them heaps cheaper in Detroit? Or Mexico?

Why grow fruit here?

Then there's the withdrawal of USA power from the western and south Pacific - something the Left un-intelligensia have been praying for 60 years.

Now it's a possibility.

The Yanks have always favoured China over Japan and India, anyway, so having the USA out of the way will open up all sorts of opportunities for new (or revived) rivalries between the three burgeoning Asian superpowers.

Perhaps more wars over the Himalayas, Taiwan, the Kurile Islands, Korea, etc.

Australia will be optimally positioned in the cross-fire zone to benefit from the geopolitical destabilisation of the pan-Pacific region. Like in 1942.

I think the neo-Comms are on to something.

Or perhaps just on something.

Demonstrations in Tibet turned increasingly violent last week, and the Dalai Lama, speaking to reporters, urged his countrymen to show restraint.

He said that "if things become out of control" his "only option is to completely resign."

While much of the violence in Tibet has been directed against protesters, there have also been reports of Tibetan demonstrators attacking shops and burning cars.

Later, one of his top aides clarified the Dalai Lama's comments.

"If the Tibetans were to choose the path of violence he would have to resign because he is completely committed to nonviolence," Tenzin Takhla said. "He would resign as the political leader and head of state, but not as the Dalai Lama. He will always be the Dalai Lama."

This is what I  call political leadership, a politician threatening to resign if his people continue with violence. Pity other leaders don't have the same convictions. 

"AUSTRALIA'S mining giants have been blackballed from selling iron ore into the lucrative Chinese daily spot market, in a dramatic escalation of their battle to extract more value from the world's most powerful steel industry."

Evan Hadkins says:

Why has Beijing taken a hard line in Tibet? The key is "stability of state".

Don't be fooled by the glamour of Shanghai or the magnificence of Beijing. There are large swaths of disunity and disorder in the country.

For example, China claims 23 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two special administrative regions: Hong Kong and Macau. Of these, Taiwan remains recalcitrant and is effectively a separate state. Many of the Uighurs in the western province of Xinjiang want out.

Residents in Hong Kong want guarantees that Beijing will not dismantle the rights they enjoyed under British rule. And traditional Tibetans, fearful of a complete Han Chinese takeover and the suppression of their culture and religion, want more and more autonomy.

Furthermore, there is widespread disorder even in provinces that pose no challenge to Beijing's right to rule. In 2006, the latest available figures, there were 87,000 officially recorded instances of unrest, which is defined as those involving 15 or more people.

These protests are overwhelmingly spontaneous and arise from the frustration of the one billion or so "have-nots": with the hardship in their lives, against illegal taxes and land grabs by corrupt officials, against job losses and so on.

This report from John Lee in this morning's Australian shows that many are suffering in modern day China. It is going to be a very hard task for the corrupt government to keep 1 billion people under control as the cost of food and energy continues to skyrocket.

Evan Hadkins asks

TIBET'S Government has declared a "people's war" to erase support for the Dalai Lama and end any independence aspirations of the people there, Chinese state media said today.

The blitz will involve both security and propaganda campaigns to counter the message of the exiled Buddhist spiritual leader, the Tibetan Daily reported.

The people's war call was made during an emergency meeting of Tibetan political and security chiefs yesterday, the report said, following deadly protests a day earlier against China's 58-year rule of Himalayan region.

Within the Chinese Red Army, the concept of People's War was the basis of strategy against the Japanese and also against a hypothetical Russian invasion of China. The concept of people's war became less important with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the increasing possibility of conflict with the United States over Taiwan. In the 1980s and 1990s the concept of people's war was changed to include more high-technology weaponry.

The United States intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003 also influenced views of people's war within the PLA. Although the United States was able to achieve quick victories in both cases, in Afghanistan, the United States relied heavily on local people for ground support and in Iraq the United States received unexpected difficulties with Fedayeen Saddam using guerrilla tactics. Both situations influenced PLA thinking in that it seemed to demonstrate that technology alone was not sufficient to win wars and that support from local people was not an obsolete concept in modern warfare.

How can China call this a People's War?  

The basic concept behind People's War is to maintain the support of the population and draw the enemy deep into the interior where the population will bleed them dry through a mix of Mobile Warfare and Guerrilla warfare.  

While China claims that Tibet has always been a part of China, Tibet has a history of at least 1300 years of independence from China. In 821 China and Tibet ended almost 200 years of fighting with a treaty engraved on three stone pillars, one of which still stands in front of the Jokhang cathedral in Lhasa.

The treaty reads in part: Both Tibet and China shall keep the country and frontiers of which they are now possessed. The whole region to the East of that being the country of Great China and the whole region to the West being assuredly the country of Great Tibet, from either side there shall be no hostile invasion, and no seizure of territory... and in order that this agreement establishing a great era when Tibetans shall be happy in Tibet and Chinese shall be happy in China shall never be changed, the Three Jewels, the body of Saints, the sun and the moon, planets and stars have been invoked as witness.

The three stone pillars were erected, one outside the Chinese Emperor's palace, one on the border between the two countries, and one in Lhasa.

It is obvious that the Tibetan  people do not support the Chinese government and the invasion of Tibet.  

Today from the legal standpoint, Tibet to this day has not lost its statehood. It is an independent state under illegal occupation. Neither China's military invasion nor the continuing occupation by PLA has transferred the sovereignty of Tibet to China.

The Chinese government has not claimed to have acquired sovereignty over Tibet by conquest. Indeed, China recognises that the use or threat of force (outside the exceptional circumstances provided for in the UN charter), the imposition of an unequal treaty or the continued illegal occupation of a country can never grant an invader legal title to territory. Its claims are based solely on the alleged subjection of Tibet to a few of China's strongest foreign rulers in the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries.

How can China - one of the most ardent opponent of imperialism and colonialism - excuse its continued presence in Tibet, against the wishes of Tibetan people, by citing as justification Mongols and Manchu imperialism and its own colonial policies?

- Dr. Michael C Van Walt Van Pragg (International Lawyer) The Status of Tibet

We are seeing the major problem with globalisation and economic growth as it rears its head worldwide. It doesn't work when you add people to the equation. It was clear China would collapse years ago as anyone with brain would have seen. Like all economic growth which devours resources rapidly in wanton uncontrolled fashion purely for the greed of the elite, it's unsustainable. This year's Olympics will be a big flop as pollution, dissent and security clamp downs, along with the collapsing social and economic situations, leave Chinese leaders with no options under the gaze of the world. Hail the economic god. Reality is proving it's a myth and, just like all gods, a total failure.

John, you seem surprised that the Chinese have reneged on on their guarantees to the IOC. They will do the same with Kyoto. Maybe time for Rudd to use his Mandarin skills and speak to them, then on the other hand pigs may fly. Or maybe he could pull the Australian Olympic team out ... nah, he would not have the guts.

The ABC reports today:

The Australia Tibet Council says the International Olympic Committee must make China accountable for what it describes as grave violations of human rights in Tibet.

The council says it is pleased with the reaction from Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith, who has called for China to exercise restraint, but says a strong response from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is also needed.

The council's executive officer Paul Bourke says China has not honoured the human rights commitments that it made in its bid for this year's Beijing Olympics.

"When the Olympics were awarded to China, they gave certain guarantees about improvements in human rights and media freedom," he said.

"It's backsliding on those guarantees. For the Olympics to go ahead in China, the international community is particular the IOC must hold China to those promises that were made."

The Australian Olympic Committee has refused to comment on whether it will take any action.

It seems that guarantees about improvements in human rights have been ignored by the Chinese government. Maybe a call to boycott the Olympics might grab their attention.