Unrest Spreading in China

China reported that 19 people died in riots in Tibet last week. However, exiled Tibetans claim the figure is much higher. Unrest is spreading to the Xinjiang, a province with a large muslim population. Reuters

KANGDING, China (Reuters) - China said 19 people died in riots in the Tibetan capital last week and official media warned against the unrest spreading to the northwest region of Xinjiang, where Uighur Muslims bridle under Chinese control.

Eighteen were burnt or hacked to death in the Lhasa violence, Xinhua news agency said. It has repeatedly quoted officials as saying separatists backed by the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, engineered the protests.

But China's handling of the unrest has been met by mounting international concern, overshadowing the run-up to the Beijing Olympic Games in August the host wants to a celebration of its arrival as a world power.

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Xinhua said 18 civilians and a policeman died in Lhasa. A total of 382 people were wounded, 58 seriously in the violence.

Exiled Tibetans claim as many as 100 have died in the protests which spilled over this week into neighboring ethnic-Tibetan areas.

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"China and Beijing's holding of the Olympic Games in 2008 has led separatists at home and abroad to believe they have a golden opportunity. To put it bluntly, if they don't wreck things, they won't feel comfortable, because they won't have achieved their goal of spoiling China's image."

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier pressed Beijing to be more open and let the rest of the world see for itself what is happening in Tibet.

"China is only hurting itself by preventing foreign observers from seeing what is going on," he told the Bild newspaper.

Beijing has poured troops into the region but has barred foreigners from entering Tibet and some neighboring ethnic-Tibetan areas.