China moves quickly on Tibet

After four days hunkered 蹲下 down in his hotel as Lhasa 拉薩(西藏之首府) reeled 騷亂 between rioting and police crackdown, 19-year-old Canadian tourist John Kenwood emerged 露出 to find street sweepers wearing vests 防護背心 with 2008 Beijing Olympics logos clearing away debris.

"It seemed almost strange that normal life had returned," Kenwood told reporters after arriving in neighboring Nepal.

Though four months and 1,500 miles apart, the turmoil 騷動 in Tibet and the Aug. 8-24 Olympics have become tied in the minds of many around the world. China is furiously 熱烈興奮的 working to undo the knot 這一難題, hoping to show that calm has returned to Tibet while quickly suppressing 鎮壓 anti-government unrest erupting 爆發 across a broad stretch of territory.

In recent days, the government has sent a slew 扭轉 of officials before the media, as well as cleanup crews into Lhasa's streets, to try to prove the trouble has quickly passed.

The strategy marks a calculated turn 轉變 from the past. Unlike 1989 — when China quelled 平息 another anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet that March and the democracy movement in Beijing's Tiananmen Square that summer by imposing months of martial law — the government resorted to undeclared curfews 戒嚴;宵禁 and said it used riot and armed police, instead of the army. "No martial law was imposed," state-run China Central Television's English channel declared.

The Olympic gambit 開始的行動 on Tibet relies heavily on Beijing's gaining control speedily. Much remains unclear about the situation in Lhasa, where largely peaceful protests led by Buddhist monks descended 走下 into violence on March 14 as Tibetans attacked Chinese and set fires in a burst of pent抑制的-up anger against Chinese rule that drew Beijing's crackdown.

Even as the government maintains Lhasa is calm, arrests of Tibetans who took part in last week's protests are continuing in the city. Xinhua, the official news agency, reported 170 people had "surrendered," but gave no indication of arrests. Overseas Tibet support groups have put arrests in the hundreds, and they and witnesses have described rolling squads 小隊 of police moving street by street.

The death toll from the rioting and the ensuing counteroffensive is in dispute. China says 16 died; 80 says the exile Tibetan government led by the Dalai Lama, the revered spiritual leader of Buddhist Tibetans.

So far, no governments or major Olympic committees are calling for a boycott, although that could change should Beijing's crackdown grow too apparently heavy-handed.

Beijing has learned a lot about controlling unrest since 1989. While China contained the fallout from crushing Tibet protests that year, its bloody quelling 平息 of the democracy demonstrators in central Beijing stigmatized the government and set back the economy for several years.

The government has since poured resources into building up police and paramilitary riot squads. Protests have become commonplace in China in the past decade, by workers laid-off from restructuring, bankrupt state industries and farmers displaced from their land by development. Police have developed a play book for dealing with these incidents — keep the protesters in a confined area, defuse the situation with payoffs or promises, and settle scores later.

Beijing has tried to stanch 緩和 unrest and buy Tibetans' loyalty in recent years by investing billions of dollars in the region, lavishing 揮霍 spending on infrastructure projects.

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China moves quickly on Tibet

By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press WriterWed Mar 19, 2:08 PM ET

EDITOR'S NOTE — Charles Hutzler is The Associated Press bureau chief in China.