March 24, 2008
By Wang Qian and Chang Qing
Sound of Hope

The violent riots that the Chinese state-run media have reported as having taken place in Lhasa are not what they seem to be, according to a former highly placed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official.

Mr. Ruan Ming claims the CCP carefully staged the incidents in Tibet in order to force the Dalai Lama to resign and to justify future repression of the Tibetans.

Since 1997 Ruan has lived in Taiwan, where he has served as a diplomatic advisor to President Chen Shui-bian. He is also the author, among other books, of Deng Xiaoping: Chronicle of an Empire.

Earlier in his life, he worked as the main speechwriter for Mr. Hu Yaobang, who served as General Secretary of the CCP from 1981-1987 and was admired by democracy activists as a reformer. Hu's death in 1989 is said to have sparked the student demonstrations in Beijing of that year.

In an interview with Sound of Hope, Ruan warned international society that in considering the unrest in Lhasa, it must keep its eyes open and be aware of the CCP's violent and deceptive nature.

At the heart of the deception in Lhasa was the murder of peaceful monks.

"The CCP carefully staged the unrest in Tibet to deceive the world. Before the incident, the authorities drove away all foreign reporters and even forbade them from going out," according to Ruan.

"The demonstration on March 10 was meant to be peaceful. You can see from the pictures that the demonstration was all monks," Ruan explained.

"The CCP arrested some of these monks and killed them. The killing angered some young Tibetans. By March 14, the Tibetans could no longer stand the killing of innocent monks and protested."

According to Ruan, when the young Tibetans reacted, they fell into the CCP's trap.

"The CCP seized this opportunity and took pictures of these Tibetans in violent actions and sent out officers to do a door-to-door search, calling on the 'guilty' to surrender themselves."

While Ruan said the CCP meticulously staged the whole thing in Lhasa, there were things it missed.

"All pictures from inside Lhasa came from the CCP, but the CCP forgot about the small Tibetan autonomous counties in Gansu, Qinghai, and Sichuan Provinces. Pictures of the dead bodies of those killed by the CCP that we saw came from outside of Lhasa. The CCP couldn't have imagined pictures of its killing would leak out from these small villages."

Ruan believes the events in Tibet are aimed at influencing world opinion.

"This time the CCP has a more thorough plot with carefully designed propaganda," said Ruan.

"The Dalai Lama has always proposed a peaceful solution to Tibet issues and has won the world's recognition. With all that in mind, the CCP has framed the Dalai Lama for having 'carefully planned and stirred up the event.'

"This is exactly like how the CCP framed Zhao Ziyang for the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989 and accused Zhao of 'splitting the Party and supporting unrest.'

"The Dalai Lama had already said he would resign if the unrest continued. The Dalai Lama is influential globally and if he really retired, the CCP could gradually push and label the Tibetans as terrorists like the Xinjiang independence movement.

"This will give the CCP an excuse to ignore Tibetans appeals and to further repress them."

The CCP has kept out foreign media, because their reports might expose what is really happening there, according to Ruan.

"If the CCP opens up Tibet for foreign media, someone brave has got to talk. I don't believe there wasn't a single picture taken during the suppression.

"Why did the CCP need to do a door-to-door search right after the suppression? They fear there were pictures taken during the suppression and don't want them to leak out and circulate around.

"What could the CCP be searching for door-to-door if it wasn't for the pictures? I doubt it was for guns and weapons. It there were only few violent protestors as they claimed, how come 170 people are said to have confessed?

"How many monks have the CCP arrested and killed? The international media should be allowed to go into Tibet to investigate."