Top security official of China Chen Wenqing visited Tibet in the second week of September and instructed the local authorities to step up a crackdown against ethnic Tibetans, branding them as ‘separatists.’ It is a different question who these separatists are as China is in illegal occupation of Tibet. The move by the Chinese Communist Party to step up security in Tibet is believed to be a knee-jerk reaction to the passage in the U.S. Congress of the Resolve Tibet Act which empowers the U.S. government to put pressure on Beijing to hold talks with the Dalai Lama.
Coming from the Head of the dreaded Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the CCP, the threat is a cause of serious concern for the Tibetan people. The Commission oversees the vast coercive apparatus of the party-state. It is the main agency of the CCP, headed by a politburo member of the party, to maintain the supremacy of the CCP over the coercive apparatus of the state, to organize surveillance and to supervise campaigns of repression.
