This essay is based on Steven Marshall’s testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on April 23, 2008 at a hearing on “The Crisis in Tibet: Finding a Path to Peace” (view the full statement on line at www.cecc.gov).
A cascade of Tibetan protests began in Lhasa on March 10, 2008, then, by the end of March, swept across much of the ethnic Tibetan area of China. Except for periods of armed conflict between Tibetan and Chinese armed forces and periods of politically driven social chaos, no Chinese government has been confronted by an upsurge of Tibetan discontent as widely dispersed, sustained, and popular since the Chinese Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China in 1949.