Mother of 4 Is Said to Be 110th Tibetan to Self-Immolate

BEIJING â€" A mother of four, Kal Kyi, set fire to herself on Sunday afternoon in Aba, a Tibetan area of Sichuan Province in China, becoming the 110th Tibetan to self-immolate in protest over Chinese rule since 2009, according to a report on an India-based Tibetan Web site, Phayul.com.

Her death comes more than two months since a respected Tibetan writer, Naktsang Nulo, published an online essay calling for the Dalai Lama to ask Tibetans to stop self-immolating. Unusually, the essay is still available on China’s censored Internet, where mention of the self-immolations is normally removed quickly. Even more unusually, Naktsang Nulo’s essay states bluntly he doesn’t believe the self-immolators have been “incited.” The Chinese government alleges the Dalai Lama and others are behind the wave of immolations, but Naktsang Nulo wrote: “Some shameless people have remarked among other things that self-immolators were incited and fooled by others to do so,” adding, “I can understand that perhaps it is possible for one or two young people to be influenced by others to carry out self-immolation protests, but I cannot imagine learned lamas, monks, nuns and grown-up men and women have been incited or influenced by others.”

The Associated Press cited Radio Free Asia as saying Kal Kyi died at the scene and her body was placed in the nearby Jonang Tibetan Buddhist monastery.

Her children, three sons and one daughter, are all under 15, according to Radio Free Asia. She set herself afire “to highlight the Chinese policy of violent rule in Tibet and Tibetan populated areas,” its Tibetan service reported, citing an unidentified source inside Tibet.

I reported last month on sympathy for the protest suicides among ordinary Tibetans, who have been praying through the winter for their happy reincarnation, citing an eyewitness of such prayer meetings from a Tibetan area of Qinghai Province.

Yet Naktsang Nulo, who lives in the Tibetan area of Amdo in China, wrote in mid-January, when the number of suicides was at 97, in an article on his Bodrigs.com Web site:

“Unless one is deaf or blind, we can assume that everyone has seen or heard about the non-violent protests through self-immolation being carried out by many Tibetans in the last few years,” (the article was translated into English on the site of High Peaks Pure Earth, which gathers writings and other materials from the Tibetan Autonomous Region and elsewhere in China).

He continues that “wherever one goes or wherever one may reside one can hear and know that the united call of the self-immolators is the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet. There is no disagreement on this. This is the wish not only of the self-immolators but the unwavering hope of all Tibetans. The world has clear knowledge of this.”

He continues with a plea to the Dalai Lama:

“No matter how pure and incomparable your hopes and faiths are please do not set yourself on fire. I particularly want to request our root guru, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to pray for the sea of suffering in Tibet and kindly make a statement to ask the brave Tibetans not to self-immolate.”

The Dalai Lama has not explicitly supported the self-immolations, but he has not condemned them, either.

Naktsang Nulo instead appeals for Tibetans to pursue their rights through legal means:

“There are many ways to fight for freedom, to fulfill one’s aspirations and to struggle against the government. At a time when there is a so-called good leadership of the Communist Party, good governance from the administration, good economic development and good livelihood for the people, it seems that an individual, a group of people or a nationality can demand rights from the government, regional authorities or even the Communist Party by submitting appeals and through legal channels. It appears that one may not necessarily have to resort to self-immolation.”

Talk of World Dreams and Business on Chinese President’s First Overseas Trip

BEIJING â€" Even as President Barack Obama was wrapping up a Mideast trip - his first to Israel as president - during which he discussed war and peace, a new world leader, Xi Jinping, had begun his first overseas trip as the Chinese president, amid talk of dreams, business and even “a new type of inter-power relations.”

His destinations Russia, with which China shares a long border (the two nations have been both close allies and bitter enemies in the six-plus decades since China’s revolution in 1949) and Africa, where Chinese investment is leapfrogging, from less then $100 million in 2003 to about $14.7 billion now, according to the International Business Times. China’s annual trade with Africa has boomed to around $200 billion, the report said, citing China’s Ministry of Commerce, compared with just $10.5 billion in 2000. China overtook the U.S. as Africa’s largest trading partner in 2009.

In Russia, Mr. Xi called for closer cooperation in foreign policy, the economy and the military, my colleagues David M. Herszenhorn and Chris Buckley reported, saying China and Russia had shared goals as they “seek to offset the influence of the developed West.”

Also, “Xi is signaling a long-term commitment to Africa,” Ross Anthony, research fellow at the Center for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University in South Africa told the International Business Times.

On Sunday, Mr. Xi was due to arrive in Tanzania for the second leg of his nine-day, four-nation tour, which will continue to South Africa and Congo Republic.

Given the scale of the strategic and business interests involved, it’s probably safe to say that the trip “will reveal some important features of Xi’s concept of world order,” as Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China, said in a story by Xinhua, the state-run news agency. Mr. Shi is close to China’s foreign policy establishment, making his views significant.

What is that world order

At home, Mr. Xi has often talked about his “China Dream”. (The new president spelled it out in his inaugural address last Sunday. Here’s how Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post analyzed it: “In his maiden speech as head of state, Xi Jinping invoked his favorite concept of the ‘China dream’ and laid out a vision of a stronger nation with a higher standard of living for its 1.3 billion people during his administration.”

“Painting his vision of a great renaissance of the nation, Xi stressed that the ‘China dream’ could only be realized by seeking ‘China’s own path,’ cultivating patriotism and following the Communist Party’s leadership. ‘We must continue to strive to achieve the China dream and the nation’s great revival,’ he said.”)

That’s Mr. Xi’s vision in China.

“Pursuing the ‘Chinese dream’ of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is conducive to realizing the ‘world dream,’ and if the ‘world dream’ comes true, it could offer a sound external environment for the country to achieve the ‘Chinese dream,’ Shi said,” according to Xinhua.

Confused

Mr. Shi was more specific, sort of: “From the destinations of Xi’s first foreign trip, we can tell that China is committed to promoting democratization in international relations as well as a more just and reasonable international order and system,” Xinhua quoted him as saying.

A comparison with former President Hu Jintao’s first overseas tour in 2003, which included Russia, Central Asian neighbors and a European nation, France, highlights China’s shifting geopolitical interests and Mr. Xi’s determination to improve China’s image abroad, other Chinese analysts said.

In fact, at play is nothing less than “a new type of inter-power relations” that Mr. Xi hopes will upend old, zero-sum theories by promoting win-win cooperation, Xinhua reported.

“China now advocates a new type of cooperative relationship among all major powers, including leading powers among developing countries,” Xinhua wrote, citing the views of Ruan Zongze, deputy head of the China Institute of International Studies. (Mr. Ruan is also considered close to China’s foreign policy establishment.)

“We should adopt a new and open attitude toward all powers,” Mr. Ruan said.

It sounds promising, though it’s worth noting that in Africa, there is already a roiling discussion about the benfits and drawbacks of China’s intense interest in the continent, which many say is aimed at securing resources it needs to feed its fast-growing economy back home.

“China is not trying to colonize Africa in a 19th century way, but economically, the trade pattern with Africa resembles something of a colonial era, whether they like it or not,” said Mr. Anthony, the Stellenbosch University scholar, according to the International Business Times.

In Tanzania, Mr. Xi’s first stop (he will also attend a BRICS summit in South Africa this week), expectations of the trip are running high. But there are warnings.

“These are key issues to crosscheck: They are looking for resources to feed their industries, which Tanzania can provide,” said Abdallah Safari, the former director of the Tanzania-Mozambique Center for Foreign Relations, in an article in The Citizen, a Tanzanian newspaper. “But what does Tanzania get in return”

“The bulk of stuff going out is raw material and the bulk of stuff coming in is manufactured goods, which is bad for African countries because they are not adding any value to the economy,” he said.

And Bashiru Ally, of the University of Dar es Salaam, called for a new approach to relations between China and Tanzania, “given that they are currently based on resources,” the newspaper wrote.

“It is a one-way relationship,” said Mr. Ally. “That means giving more while receiving less. All they are doing is define their intentions towards our resources. The ideal situation would be for the relationship to change to an equal profits one,” he said.