Hack Tibet

The most pernicious threat to Tibetan cybersecurity is WeChat, a Chinese smartphone app that combines features from Instagram, Skype, and Facebook. WeChat is itself malware: it's malicious.
BY JONATHAN KAIMAN

DHARAMSALA, India — Lobsang Gyatso Sither sits at the front of a Tibetan school auditorium, the bright rectangle of his PowerPoint presentation dimly illuminating the first few rows of students before him. "Never open attachments unless you are expecting them," Sither says. 

The students nod. 

A portrait of the Dalai Lama hangs above the stage, framed by flickering electronic candles; a stray dog ambles behind the crowd. 

"Never give anyone else your passwords," Sither says, clicking to a new slide, which explains the dangers of using an unfamiliar thumb drive. 

"The Chinese government or others could take control of your computer."
Welcome to Dharamsala, population 20,000 and one of the most hacked places in the world. 

This small city in India's lush Himalayan foothills is home to the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader; the Central Tibetan Administration, or CTA (formerly called the Tibetan government in exile); and a host of Tibetan media outlets and nongovernmental organizations, some of which the Chinese government classifies as terrorist groups. 

The Dalai Lama fled here in 1959 after communist troops violently suppressed an uprising in Lhasa, now the capital of western China's Tibetan Autonomous Region. 

India embraced the Dalai Lama as a token of religious diversity, and tens of thousands of refugees followed suit. 

About 130,000 Tibetans live in exile, according to a 2009 census; Dharamsala is the closest thing they have to a political capital.
The city has an ancient feel. 

Homes cling to precipitous mountain roads that weave through dense cedar forests; macaque monkeys prance among the rooftops. 

Yet it is changing, moving cautiously into the future. 

Computers have become ubiquitous. 

Roadside cafes offer double espressos and wireless Internet (common passwords include "FreeTibet" and "Independence"). 

Young Tibetans are snapping up iPhones, which, unlike competing devices, offer the option of a Tibetan-language keyboard.
Communication between the city's Tibetan community and Tibet itself is easier than it has ever been. 

Yet the risk of dialing home has never been greater. 

"If we don't use secure lines of communication, Tibetans in Tibet could be prosecuted" for sending sensitive information abroad, says Sither, a field coordinator for the Tibet Action Institute, a New York-based nonprofit that sponsors education initiatives and trains activists on secure communications systems.
The Chinese government is everywhere and nowhere in Dharamsala, planting malware and intercepting messages in ways that are nearly undetectable and difficult to trace. 

The CTA's Chinese-language website was hacked in August. 

Everyone within the Tibetan community is a target, from the Dalai Lama's advisors to any smartphone-wielding refugee.
In early November, Tibet's Communist Party chief, Chen Quanguo, proposed a raft of measures to stamp out the Dalai Lama's voice in Tibet, including clamping down on online communications. 

"Work hard to ensure … that the voice and image of the enemy forces and the Dalai clique are neither seen nor heard," he wrote in Qiushi, a leading party journal.
A brutal, centuries-old form of protest has caught fire in Tibet, and Beijing is resorting to tactics both heavy-handed and high-tech to quell the unrest. 

Since February 2009, at least 120 Tibetans in the Himalayan region have self-immolated to protest Chinese rule -- men and women, old and young, monks and lay people. 

Chinese authorities have responded violently, deploying troops, cutting phone lines, and forcing monks to undergo draconian "patriotic education" programs. 

They blame "hostile foreign forces" for inciting the immolations -- mainly from Dharamsala, where advocacy groups gather information about the fiery protests and distribute that information abroad. 

Experts say that the hacks may be part of an elaborate campaign to identify possible protests and preempt them.
Few cyberattacks on Dharamsala are strategically tailored to monitor or control the city's network infrastructure, say experts. 

The most common attacks are spearphishing attempts: Tibetans, especially those working for the CTA or pro-independence organizations, say they frequently receive strange emails purporting to be from friends or associates. 

They often contain attachments that, once downloaded, infect the user's computer with malware, allowing a hacker to operate the system remotely. 

The computer essentially becomes shared; keystrokes are recorded, passwords saved, contacts downloaded. Everything is compromised.
Kelsang Aukatsang, a former advisor to the Tibetan prime minister in exile, remembers the shock of realizing that he'd been hacked. 

In July 2012, Aukatsang sent an email to a U.S. senator to arrange a meeting for the prime minister, Lobsang Sangay. 

The following morning, the senator received a surprise call from the Chinese Embassy in Washington, urging her not to attend. 

The meeting ultimately proceeded as planned. 

"But the bigger point is that they knew -- that exchange got intercepted," Aukatsang said. 

"You wonder what more you can do to feel safe. There's a real sense of being at risk, of being watched."
MORE THAN HALF THE CTA'S COMPUTERS contain some sort of malware, estimates the government in exile's press officer, Tsering Wangchuk. 

"Most of the key computers in our city, in Dharamsala, are in some way compromised," he says. 

The administration's technical staff of 13 spends much of its time simply trawling through hard disks, finding and eliminating malicious code. 

"They go after us all the time, diligently," said another administration employee who requested anonymity. 

"If with every 100,000 attempts they have one success, they use that one success to exploit everything that they can."
Cybersecurity experts call this "advanced persistent threat" (APT) -- a constant onslaught of targeted attacks requiring resources that are normally unavailable to individual hackers. 

"Dharamsala is ground zero for advanced persistent threat, really," says Greg Walton, a doctoral candidate at Oxford University's Center for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security. 

Walton traveled to Dharamsala in 2008 to help the Dalai Lama's private office better understand what, and who, had been compromising its systems. 

His team discovered that the most likely culprit was a shadowy hacker group responsible for a series of network intrusions that American investigators had dubbed "Byzantine Hades." 

The group, according to U.S. State Department cables released by WikiLeaks, had ties to a unit of the People's Liberation Army, China's military, based in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu.
Many Dharamsala-based Tibetan NGOs, Walton says, have been attacked by groups that are better known for infiltrating Western corporations, military contractors, and government agencies. 

One, dubbed "APT1" by cybersecurity firm Mandiant, is an elite cyber-espionage outfit affiliated with the Chinese military. 

Another group is a corporate espionage unit that stole secret documents and formulas from major global chemical companies in 2011 in an attack campaign dubbed "Nitro" by computer security firm Symantec. 

"In the most pessimistic light, there's very little that the Tibetans can do in exile, because they're so underresourced," says Walton. 

"If you have a situation where the State Department or the Pentagon is being compromised by the same groups, what hope do refugees in the foothills of the Himalayas have to deal with that problem?" 

He describes China's APT strategy as gathering "a thousand grains of sand," hoping that some piece of information, no matter how small, will bear strategic value.
PERHAPS AN EVEN MORE PERNICIOUS THREAT to Tibetan cybersecurity is WeChat, a Chinese smartphone app that combines features from Instagram, Skype, and Facebook. 

The program has more than 500 million users, with 100 million of them outside China; its popularity has exploded in Dharamsala over the past few years as an easy way for refugees to contact relatives back home. "All of my friends here use WeChat," says Tashi Nangyal, a 22-year-old Tibetan refugee who fled to India on foot across the Himalayas. 

"Since Tibetans inside Tibet are all using WeChat, we don't think of using any alternatives."
The program was developed by Tencent, a Shenzhen-based Internet empire that, like all major Chinese Internet companies, is rumored to enjoy close ties to the country's leadership. 

"From Tibetan civil society's point of view, WeChat is itself malware -- it's malicious," says Walton. 

"All of the traffic is being channeled through Shanghai. It's presumably being piped into China's equivalent of PRISM," he adds, referring to the U.S. National Security Agency's top-secret surveillance program, which was exposed by leaker Edward Snowden. 

Advocacy groups reported this summer that two monks in Tibetan areas of China were arrested after posting pictures of self-immolation protests to WeChat. 

One received a six-year prison sentence; the other will likely spend the rest of his life in jail. 

Tencent did not reply to a request for comment.
In recent years, short stints in Dharamsala have become a popular way for security experts to analyze little-known cyberattacks, says Shishir Nagaraja, a computer scientist at the University of Birmingham who has also aided the Dalai Lama's private office. 

"You don't have to pay people for this stuff. Some of the brightest minds at Cambridge will be more than happy to contribute to securing the Tibetans' Internet freedom rights," he says. 

Many are young, left-leaning idealists who are attracted by the novelty of the job. 

Yet "it's a very temporary arrangement," he said. 

Most stay for only two or three years, while China's hacking never ends.
"We are very vulnerable," says Tenzin Paldon, the Dharamsala-based editor in chief of Voice of Tibet, a radio station that broadcasts Tibet news into China via shortwave radio. 

Paldon's personal email account has been hacked; the broadcaster's website has been crippled repeatedly. Yet Paldon refuses to be cowed. 

If Tibetans continue to self-immolate, she says, she will continue to report their stories. 

"I think it's our duty to spread the word about what these people did, and why they're doing it, to the outside world."
Meanwhile, Dharamsala's Tibetan community has formed an incipient defense. 

In March, cyberactivists launched a secure Tibetan-language messaging application called YakChat. 

And the Tibetan government in exile recently procured a grant to lay new cables, update its servers, and train new staff, sources say, though they're keeping the details under wraps.
"What we're trying to do now is provide more opportunities for Tibetans themselves to become experts in cybersecurity," says Walton, the Oxford researcher. 

Many students at the Tibetan Children's Village, the leafy school campus where Sither gave his presentation, will go on to work in advocacy NGOs; some will join the CTA. 

Most are learning about cybersecurity for the first time, and experts hope that the lessons will resonate. 

"It's a gradual process, teaching people to guard their privacy. 

The Internet is quite a new thing in their lives," said Phuntsok Dorje, the head of the school's computer program.
IT'S TWILIGHT BY THE TIME SITHER FINISHES his PowerPoint presentation, and the students file out of the auditorium and into the cool, damp air of the rainy season. 

Nangyal, the 22-year-old refugee, says that students are not allowed to keep phones on campus and that he can only contact his family on holidays. 

The assembly has made him reflective. 

"I used to talk about His Holiness the Dalai Lama on WeChat," he says, his brow furrowed. 

I ask him whether he now understands that the Chinese may be listening in. 

Maybe he'll download a Korean messaging app, he offers, to make his communications less traceable. 

Or maybe, from now on, he'll just be more careful about what he says.

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Tibetan immolations: Desperation as world looks away

By Damian Grammaticas

It's sunrise and 20 degrees below zero. 

The sound of monks at prayer drifts across the snow-lined valley. We are high in the jagged mountains that rise towards the Tibetan plateau. 

Harsh and beautiful, this region outside Tibet itself is home to six million Tibetans.
A monk is sweeping snow from the steps that lead to a small stupa. Tibetans, wrapped in blankets to keep out the cold, circle inside it, spinning prayer wheels.

Further up the hillside, a morning mist hangs over the golden roofs of the monastery behind. 

Scattered through these Alpine valleys, the monasteries preserve Tibet's way of life.
Monks in claret robes emerge from their morning devotions, while women adorned with beads circle the monastery, then prostrate themselves on the ground.

Tibetans in China are nervous of contact with foreign journalists

Since Chinese troops asserted control over Tibet more than half a century ago, and the Dalai Lama fled into exile, the number of monasteries has fallen precipitously.
And for months now, journalists have been kept out of Tibetan areas as tensions have simmered in the region.
We slipped in unnoticed. 

China does not want foreign interference here.
The monks we approached were nervous, China has been stepping up surveillance.
One young monk shook his head indicating he didn't want to talk; other monks waved us away or retreated into their quarters. 

They have good reason to be cautious. China has been tightening its hold, not just on the monasteries, but all aspects of Tibetan life and culture.

Monasteries and stupas preserve Tibetans' way of life

Amongst Tibetans there have been growing frustrations. 

And there's an impression that, since the financial crisis, the outside world, and the West in particular, are not so keen to tackle China on its human rights record.
What nations want is access to China's markets and its finances.
So Tibetans have been resorting to extreme protests, setting themselves on fire. 

More than 120 are thought to have done so in the past three years in protest at Chinese rule in their homeland.

Some are said to have called for the return of the Dalai Lama as they have carried out their immolations.
Acts of desperation they may be, but China says the immolators are incited, even paid by the Dalai Lama.

Tibetans are discriminated against in the rest of China
Fearing widespread unrest, it has clamped down even harder, arresting and even jailing Tibetans accused of aiding those who have self-immolated.
Prayer flags flutter outside the home of home of one man who took his own life. 

We tracked down his family, but have to keep their identity secret.
His brother told us the father of two had not received money from the Dalai Lama. The mere suggestion, he said, was insulting.
He said the authorities had been many times to question him. 

They wanted to know why his brother had set fire to himself, but all he could tell them was his brother was a good man acting out of conscience. 

Tibetans, he added, are frustrated.
"I often feel as a Tibetan I am inferior," he explained. 

"I feel very bad about this.
"Tibetans who go to the cities to find work are seen as darker and dirtier than other people; we're often discriminated against. I do think I am treated differently."
He insisted there had been no reprisals against his family by the authorities. 

But the man's father and mother were clearly nervous about talking to foreign reporters.

Tibetans fear that their culture is being eroded

In these bleak and windswept mountains, where herders tend the shaggy black yaks that roam the hillsides, there are few jobs for Tibetans. 

China says it is changing this, building roads, bringing new wealth. But development is another source of conflict.
In mid-August there was a protest in central Tibet by people worried the local environment would be damaged by mining developments. 

Many Tibetans feel their resources are being exploited for Chinese gain.
China's response to the protest, as to much Tibetan opposition, was harsh. 

Tibetan exile groups said police moved in, firing tear gas and using electric prods, to clear the demonstration.
In another village we found a woman stacking piles of straw for winter fodder for her animals. 

She told us there have been five or six immolations at the monastery near her home.
She did not want to give us her name but told us of the crackdowns that followed the immolations.
"We feel under pressure. There have been arrests. Police came and detained people.

"Families don't even know where their relatives have been taken."

Tibetans are not listened to in China

Not far away Tibetans were circling a shrine, spinning the prayer wheels. 

A group of elderly ladies bowed before the building, clasping their hands. 

Then they lay face down reciting prayers.
After the clampdown and the media blackout, the immolations are now less frequent.
But what is not being addressed are the grievances here: Tibetans fear that they are being marginalised, their culture eroded, their voices silenced, all while the rest of the world looks away.

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Blonde Ambition: How Xinhua Used A Foreign “Reporter” To Sex Up Its Propaganda

By Rfh

Xinhua host and moonlighter for the Daily Mail’s venerable China Bureau Nikki Aaron has been blissfully peddling the British tabloid yarns of her “China adventures” for the last few months. 

All well and good.
Here’s her latest, on dating, a subject she has visited before. 

The extremely confessional tone of the Mail piece begs the question: who is Nikki Aaron? 

On her website, she describes herself as “a versatile news anchor and TV presenter with global network experience… Nikki co-founded MetroStyle bilingual magazine in 2010.”
Here’s more, from an interview with – and apparently this actually exists – a publication called Nee Hao magazine: “I’ve been quite successful in the sense that I run my own magazine and work as TV presenter for a respected news agency, but I worked my ass off for 6 years… Xinhua is the state-owned News agency in China, and quite an honor to work for.”
In fact, Aaron has been giving regular interviews to the press back home about her “high-profile position” in Beijing. 

Here she is in the Derby Telegraph talking about fame on a visit to Hong Kong: “I was secretly hoping someone might point me out, considering my show is aired on the giant screens at Hong Kong airport, as well as on the subway trains there. But alas, nobody did!”
In Nee Hao again, discussing her work: “I’ve become a bit of a China expert over the past two years… I won an award for the best documentary last year, in which I travelled to Qinghai province (bordering Tibet), where I met and interviewed the family of the Dalai Lama, visited the birthplace of the Dalai Lama, and explored Tibetan Buddhism in China. It was quite a ground-breaking programme.”
Unhappily, readers, future employers and little children should be aware that, for a select few, working for an “honorable” news agency comes with a few strings. 

At least one of which includes peddling hardcore Chinese propaganda on “somewhat” sensitive issues:

In the above, released in March, Aaron’s professional-sounding voice and accent are used to lend considerable authority to a 15-minute Xinhua documentary on a channel called “China View,” entitled Life in Flames: The Story Behind Tibetan Self-Immolation. (The program might have baffled regular Xinhua viewers: up until that point, the broadcaster had completely ignored the 100 or so self-immolations which have occurred in Tibet over the last year or so.)
The documentary purports to take “a closer look at what’s really behind these extreme suicides.” 

Indeed, close your eyes and it could be the BBC, so perfectly has Aaron has captured the strange cadences and emphases of British news voiceovers. (In another, earlier piece of Mail gibberish, Aaron says she “landed” the Xinhua role as “a TV news anchor, reporting to a global audience of 2.5 billion” [it’s doubtful Xinhua TV pulls in 2.5 of anything].)
Despite the production value, Life in Flames is thinly sourced, controversial and perplexing, to say the least. It is a relatively recent move for Chinese media to use presentable Caucasian foreigners to add credibility to news reports – one which should probably be viewed with some skepticism (foreign journalists — such as Gady Epstein, who called Life in Flames ”remarkable propaganda” — are rarely even allowed in Tibet).
That said, it is not without precedent: at last year’s Two Sessions in November, Andrea Yu, a credentialed Australian reporter for something called the Global CAMG Media Group caused a minor sensation with her apparent ability to consistently get the attention of Chinese politicians at press conferences. 

In fact, Yu was a Party shill, planted by a company with a majority shareholding in Beijing, to ask pre-scripted softball questions. 

The ensuing controversy saw Yu being dragged through the grinder before ending up down an absolute wormhole of soft-power failure.
Sceptical of Aaron’s own “reporting,” we contacted Robbie Barnett, Adjunct Professor of Contemporary Tibetan Studies at the University of Colombia, to ask whether our conclusion was fair. 

His answer is reproduced with permission here:
"This piece is problematic as a piece of journalism, including in the smallest details. 

"The topic that it discusses concerns repeated and tragic loss of life in bitterly contested circumstances, and the ponderous approach displayed here seems a provocative choice for such an issue.
"An editorial decision has been made to support the Chinese government’s current position, and it cites only that view. 

"So this is more an advertisement than news, possibly a paid one. 

"There is no disclosure of this station’s affiliation or adherence, though it is evidently not an independent body, and its use of confessions by serving prisoners is not noted or explained. 

"Its allegations about US radio broadcasts are incorrect: according to my knowledge, they do not refer to immolators as martyrs. 

"The presenter completely mispronounces all the Tibetan names, suggesting a lack of basic research or of concern. 

"The role of the presenter in fronting this and the choice to use a stentorian speaking style can be judged by viewers for themselves".
With foreign media now battling unprecedented restrictions on their work in China (Bloomberg, Paul Mooney incident, etc.) and citizen “Big V” journalists ruthlessly monitored, why is a British journalist fronting hardline CCP propaganda for, in her words, “a respected news agency [that’s] quite an honor to work for”? Given that Aaron is, in her own words, a “China expert,” is she so naïve as to think that her Xinhua work counts as actual, real journalism – and if so, what does such credulousness say about her reporting abilities? 

Or does she stand by the video, in which case she has some serious questions to answer.
(Counterpoint: for a more sympathetic take on this dilemma, see Eric Fish’s remarks about Andrea Yu, which are still very relevant here.)
Those, like Aaron and Yu, who pursue payment, easy government relations and Mail clicks in exchange for values and professional integrity should ask where it leads in the end. 

First Xinhua, now the Daily Mail. 

Where next – the Pyongyang Bugle?

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Dalai Lama Defends Tibet Flag at Meeting with Japanese Lawmakers

www.rfa.org

The Dalai Lama greets Japanese lawmakers before his address to the All Party Parliamentarian Group at the National Diet Building in Tokyo, Nov. 20, 2013.

Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has hit back at Beijing's claims that the use of the Tibetan flag was part of a bid to split Tibet from China, saying Mao Zedong had given him personal approval to keep and fly the flag.
The Dalai Lama came to the defense of the Tibetan flag when he was about to leave the National Diet Building in Tokyo after speaking to the Japanese All Party Parliamentary Group on Wednesday, according to a report on his official website.
Standing to leave, the Dalai Lama, his attention caught by the Tibetan flag standing next to his table, said he would like to tell the Japanese lawmakers a story.
He said that during one of his meetings with Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing in 1954, Mao had asked him whether Tibet had a flag.
When the Dalai Lama cautiously answered that it did, Mao replied, “Good, you must fly it alongside the national flag,” according to the report.
"This is why, today, despite hardliners in Peking [Beijing] asserting that the Tibetan flag is a symbol of the ‘splittists’, His Holiness feels he has Mao Zedong’s personal permission to keep and fly it," the report said.
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet following a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. 

He later founded the government in exile after being offered refuge by India.

He has been the face and symbol of the Tibetan freedom struggle since then.
Despite persistently denying that he is seeking independence for Tibet, the Dalai Lama continues to be vilified by the Chinese leadership, who call him a "splittist" and a "wolf in monk's clothes."

Symbol
The Dalai Lama's remarks in Tokyo followed a number of reports in recent weeks of Tibetans resisting campaigns by Beijing ordering them to fly Chinese flags in their homes, at monasteries, or at government-funded community centers.
Weeks of protests last month in Driru (in Chinese, Biru) county in the Tibet Autonomous Region by villagers who refused to fly the flags and dumped them in a river prompted a security crackdown in which Chinese police fired into unarmed crowds.
The Tibetan flag was a symbol of the military of Tibet, introduced by the 13th Dalai Lama in 1912 and used in the same capacity until 1959. 

It was designed with the help of a Japanese priest, according to reports.
The flag continues to be used by Tibetans and exile groups as a banner for seeking greater freedom.
Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijing's rule have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in 2008.
According to the report on the Dalai Lama's website, there was only time for him to be asked one question at the meeting with the Japanese lawmakers and it was related to the Tibetan self-immolation protests against Chinese rule.
The Dalai Lama said the burning protests are "sad."
He said because of "the great difficulties" Tibetans face, "these people are prepared to give up their lives."
"It’s not because they are drunk or beset by domestic problems," he said, in response to claims by the Chinese authorities.
The Dalai Lama said it is difficult for him to ask the Tibetans "to act differently" because he has "nothing to offer them."
"It’s for the Chinese authorities to investigate the situation thoroughly to establish why so many in Tibet have chosen this path," the Dalai Lama said.
He said he was sad that some of those who have set fire to themselves have been young mothers.
A total of 123 Tibetans in China have set themselves ablaze in self-immolation protests calling for Tibetan freedom.
The latest burning protest was reported on Nov. 11 in Pema (Banma) county in Qinghai province's Golog (Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

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Tibetans Call China’s Policies at Tourist Spot Stifling

   

By DAN LEVIN

 XIAHE, China — Buddhist monks in flowing burgundy robes hurried along the dirt paths of the Labrang Monastery, trying their best to ignore the scrum of Chinese tourists following their every move, many with cameras fit for paparazzi.
Pilgrims and those less spiritually inclined wandered through the ornate complex here in the mountain town of Xiahe to gaze upon towering Buddha statues bathed in incense.
Some tourists held back to indulge in distinctly unenlightened pursuits, smoking cigarettes and pouting at smartphones in the high-tech vanity ritual known as the selfie.

A Tibetan monk and pilgrims in prayer at a Buddhist temple near the Labrang Monastery in Xiahe.
Chinese tourists on the Qinghai grasslands near Xiahe.
Tourists watch Tibetan monks emerging from a hall at Labrang Monastery.

One of the most important sites in Tibetan Buddhism, Labrang presents an idyllic picture of sacred devotion that is carefully curated by the Chinese government, which hopes to convince visitors that Tibetan religion and culture are swaddled in the Communist Party’s benevolent embrace.
But behind closed doors, many of the monastery’s resident monks complain about intrusive government policies, invisible to tourists, that they say are strangling their culture and identity.
“Even if we’re just praying, the government treats us as criminals,” said a young monk, who like others interviewed recently spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid government repercussions.
Such frustrations, many monks say, are what have driven more than 120 Tibetans to set fire to themselves since 2009, including 13 in the Labrang area, in a wave of protests that has gone largely unreported in Chinese news media.
International human rights advocates say that rather than address the underlying grievances — including Beijing’s deeply unpopular campaign to demonize the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader — Chinese authorities have responded with even harsher policies that punish the relatives of those who self-immolate and imprison those who disseminate news of the protests to the outside world.
Exile groups and analysts say Labrang and a handful of other monasteries across the vast Tibetan plateau in Central Asia have become showcases for Beijing’s strategy, which seeks to stifle dissent in well-trafficked tourist sites without scaring away visitors.
Monks here describe a largely unseen web of controls that keep potential troublemakers in line: ubiquitous surveillance cameras, paid informers and plainclothes security agents who mingle among the busloads of tourists.
Hidden from the throngs are the political education sessions during which monks are forced to denounce the Dalai Lama.
Stiff jail sentences await those who step out of line.
“If we don’t obey, it will be terrible for us,” the monk said.
Founded in the early 18th century, the Labrang Monastery is tucked into the dusky hills of northwestern Gansu Province.
Each day, hundreds of Chinese tourists arrive to spin colorful prayer wheels lining the monastery perimeter and sip tea at hotels designed to resemble Tibetan nomadic tents.
Along the town’s main street, they buy turquoise-encrusted amulets, dress up in monks’ robes and take turns trying on the ceremonial yellow hats that resemble mohawk-style haircuts.
Officials hope that a recently completed airport will draw even bigger crowds.
In a monastery courtyard surrounded by whitewashed mud walls, a Chinese family from the provincial capital, Lanzhou, knelt down to pray to Buddha.
“If you ask nicely, he’ll make your wish come true,” said the mother, Ming Yang, who acknowledged that her understanding of Buddhism ended there.
With an eye on the lucrative prestige of a Unesco World Heritage listing, the central government is giving the monastery a $26 million face-lift.
Around 1,000 monks and 65,000 volumes of Buddhist scripture are housed in the sprawling complex, which local officials say is in dire need of structural improvements.
Yet locals complain that much of the construction is aimed at increasing tourism, rather than benefiting Tibetans.
“It looks fancy, but in reality all the improvements are for Chinese people,” one said.
Tourism is rapidly reshaping much of the Tibetan plateau.
According to the Xinhua state news agency, six million tourists visited Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, in the first eight months of this year, a 20 percent increase over the same period in 2012.
The boom has attracted several international hotel chains to the city, which is under de facto martial law.
In May, Tibetan exile groups started a boycott campaign against the InterContinental Hotels Group, which is building a 2,000-room luxury resort next to the historic residence once occupied by the Dalai Lama.
In the wake of violent anti-Chinese protests that swept Tibet in 2008 and the wave of self-immolations that followed, security forces have tightened their grip.
The crackdown reaches deep into the folds of Tibetan spirituality.
According to the International Campaign for Tibet, officials have posted notices in Tibetan areas declaring it illegal to pray for self-immolators or to show solidarity “by burning incense, chanting religious scriptures, releasing animals from killing and lighting candles.”
At least two monks have been jailed for praying on behalf of self-immolators, the group said.
Exile groups say such tactics only alienate Tibetans further.
“Even lighting a butter lamp or incense stick becomes an act against the state,” Kate Saunders, communications director for the organization, said from London.
Yet local enforcement has been erratic.
Nowhere is this more clear than at Labrang, where a framed photo of the Dalai Lama sits on an altar beside a large golden Buddha.
For years, the government has banned photos of the Dalai Lama and forbidden Tibetans to worship him as a religious figure.
Monks at Labrang said they believed that local officials had decided to quietly tolerate such photos in an effort to head off further unrest.
On the tour, few of the Chinese day-trippers seemed to recognize the older, bespectacled man Beijing has called “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
The monk guiding the group made no mention of his identity, lest it threaten the ticket sales and donations needed to cover operating costs.
But being the main attraction on a Buddhist safari has spiritual drawbacks.
“Chinese tourists just barge in when we’re studying,” a middle-aged monk said as he fingered a set of prayer beads.
“It knocks on our minds, but they don’t care.”
Such complaints appear to be falling on deaf ears.
During a tour of the region in July, China’s top official in charge of ethnic minorities, Yu Zhengsheng, insisted that economic development was the panacea for what ailed Tibetans.
In the same breath, he condemned the Dalai Lama’s “middle way,” which calls for genuine autonomy in Tibet but not independence, saying it conflicts with China’s political system.
“Only when people’s lives have been improved can they be better united with the Chinese Communist Party and become a reliable basis for maintaining stability,” he said, according to Xinhua.
But local Tibetans seethe at China’s refusal to recognize their most basic aspirations.
“Our hope is that the Dalai Lama can return,” said a monk, looking out for eavesdroppers while sitting at a cafe.
“Without him, there is no chance our religion and culture will survive.”

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