West holds back on Tibet - analysts
February 1 2012 at 02:53pm
By Pascale Trouillard
The international community is treading warily on the Tibetan issue, reluctant to antagonise an increasingly powerful China with whom it has growing economic and diplomatic ties, analysts say.
Western countries have in the past expressed concern over China's treatment of Tibetans - particularly in 2008 when riots in Tibetan-inhabited areas provoked a huge crackdown - but now they are generally prudent and discreet.
A call from Lobsang Sangay, head of the exiled Tibetan government - which is not recognised by any country - for outside intervention after deadly police shootings last week in Sichuan province has fallen on deaf ears.
“China's emergence as a great economic power and a strong desire to tap into its markets come first,” said Katia Buffetrille, an ethnologist and Tibet expert at the Paris-based Ecole pratique des hautes etudes, a leading research institute.
http://www.pretorianews.co.za/west-hold-back-on-tibet-analysts-1.1225168
