Tibet: it takes two to start a propaganda war

With no foreign journalists allowed into Tibet, the Western media must rely on statements released by the Chinese government and the Tibetan government in exile (currently in India). The trouble is that neither can verify the claims they are making.

What we know for sure is that the wave of popular dissent has spread from the city of Lhasa beyond the Tibetan plateaux. Cameraphone footage of violent riots in Gansu province and reports of deaths in Sichuan and Qinghai unnerved Beijing to the extent that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao went on TV to accuse the Dalai Lama and his 'clique' of orchestrating the violence.

Admissions of domestic turmoil are rare on state television; the government is keen to paint the uprising in their own colours before 1.3bn Chinese people are able to come to their own

conclusions.

On the other side of the propaganda divide, organisations such as Students for a Free Tibet back up claims made by the Dalai Lama's exiled government that the number killed in the protests far exceeds Beijing's figure of 16 so far. Photographs of Tibetans with bullet holes in their necks have been distributed and used as evidence that hundreds have been killed by Chinese troops.

Although there is little doubt China is prepared to use lethal force to settle the matter, the media are wrong to depict the Tibetans only as hapless victims: films showing sword-wielding Tibetan mobs mugging Han Chinese (as well as Muslims) provoked the Dalai Lama to say he would 'quit' if the violence continued.

China's main concern is that the unrest will drag on through to the Olympics in August. Gordon Brown said on Wednesday that Wen Jiabao had previously told him he is open to a dialogue with the Dalai Lama - an unprecedented idea which may represent China's only bloodless path to a successful summer Games.