Tibet Protests Drawing Undesired Attention Ahead of Olympics

By allowing pro-Tibet protests to swell before sending in large numbers of Chinese troops into Tibet and nearby regions to quell the demonstrations, Chinese authorities appear to have learned little from the pro-democracy protests of 1989, Time magazine says this week. The apparent paralysis as to how to respond echoed the similar government disarray that allowed students to occupy Tiananmen Square for three weeks before the Army reclaimed it with considerable bloodshed. "Even though Chinese authorities have had almost two decades to learn the lessons of Tiananmen Square — after which it spent time in the diplomatic doghouse — the events in Lhasa were almost a textbook example of how not to handle a crisis: dithering and indecision followed by the application of massive force."