Chinese politicians have increased their attacks on foreigners in Tibet this

year, saying that the Tibetan pro-independence movement is manipulated by

"Western hostile forces led by America" whose ambition is to "westernise"

China and Tibet. In previous campaigns, such as the drives against "bourgeois

liberalisation" in 1987 and "peaceful evolution" in 1990, Chinese references

to foreigners have usually been non-specific, citing "foreign hostile forces"

without giving details.

The "westernisation" which currently threatens China is apparently a term

which refers to the "western" idea of separating Tibet and Inner Mongolia

from China, rather than to western cultural practices such as materialism,

pornography, alcoholism or consumerism, all of which are being energetically

encouraged in Tibet by the Chinese.

The style of the current anti-Westerner campaign suggests increased police

surveillance of tourists rather than an attempt to engender a mass crusade

against foreigners in general. If police were told to target westerners in

Tibet for surveillance, Ms Robin would have been an obvious choice. There are

estimated to be just over one dozen western residents working in Tibet,

mostly staff at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Lhasa, traders in fledgling joint

ventures, or aid workers with the charities Medecins sans Frontieres, Save

the Children Fund, or the Swiss Red Cross, but few if any of these foreigners

speak Tibetan or Chinese.

The westerners who do speak Tibetan are to be found amongst the 20 or so

foreigners who are teaching English in Lhasa or studying Tibetan at the

University of Tibet. The majority of these people are unlikely to have been

regarded by the Chinese police as sympathetic to the Tibetans because most

are believed to he covert protestant missionaries, apparently learning

Tibetan or operating as English teachers in order to facilitate future

conversion work. Most modern fundamentalist evangelists eschew any

involvement or activity other than evangelising which might make it difficult

for them to remain in their target country.

"It seems that the Chinese know exactly what is going on with these would-be

missionaries and find some benefit in it," said one informed Westerner in

Lhasa. "For the Chinese a Tibetan who converts to Christianity is one recruit

less for the Dalai Lama,"

Christian missionaries have been trying for centuries to convert the

Tibetans, and many Protestant organisations took advantage of the 1980

liberalisation to spread the word in Tibet, apparently without success (see

TIN Background Briefing Paper No. 19, "Evangelicals in Central Tibet",

September 1992.) 19th Century missionaries in the Himalayas found Tibetans

happy to accept the accounts of a Christian God but puzzled by the

missionaries' insistence that the Buddha had to be discarded.

The University of Lhasa first opened a Tibetan language course for foreigners

in 1993, at a cost of US$ 1,000 a term plus US$4 per day for accommodation.

Some students have criticised the standard of teaching. "They have no sense

how to teach foreigners," a former student said of one class.

The nine foreign students who joined the University's Tibetan course in 1993

came from countries including Germany, England, the US and Denmark, and were

reportedly connected to Jesco, a Hong Kong-based organisation which sends

teachers and students to colleges and institutes all over China, allegedly

with the objective of training evangelists to work in China or Tibet.

The phenomenon of fundamentalist groups sending covert missionaries for

Tibetan language training is not new: 14 of the 15 foreigners studying

Tibetan languages in Chengdu in 1991 were reportedly affiliated to Christian

evangelical organisations. Since 1989 most foreign teachers of English in

Lhasa have come from the US-based organisation ELI, "English Language

Institute", also believed to have evangelical links. "For the Chinese the

teachers from Christian groups are cheaper than using teachers from

development organisations - and they don't get involved," said one former

teacher in Tibet.

There are 15 foreign students currently attending the University course in

Lhasa, of whom 13, from the US, Switzerland, the Philippines, Australia and

South Korea, are believed to be affiliated to Christian groups, mainly the

Hong Kong based organisations like Jesco. One American studying in Lhasa is

reportedly a member of the controversial US-based organisation the "Summer

Institute of Linguistics", a fundamentalist Bible translation group widely

condemned by anthropologists in the early 1980s for aiding the disruption or

destruction of a number of indigenous Indian communities in Amazonia.

It is not known if the students and teachers are actively evangelising,

although some teachers are said by Tibetans to use Christian teaching

materials. Attempts by some of the foreign students to visit nearby nomad

camps apparently "to discuss religion" were curtailed by police, who asked

the students to return to the University.

"It seems that all this missionary activity causes more concern to other

westerners than to the Tibetans themselves. They don't have any interest in

them," said a tourist who visits Lhasa frequently.

Conditions for the foreign students are nevertheless "quite restrictive",

according to one source. Foreign students are told on arrival that they

cannot stay out at night and those who are not Christians have been told that

they cannot have photographs of the Dalai Lama in their rooms. "They told us

not to interfere with politics and to tell them where we went at weekends,"

said one former student. The students have to be back before 11pm and police

have been known to check their whereabouts. In May, shortly after the

detention of Ms Robin, new regulations were introduced obliging foreign

students at the university to register the names of any visitors and banning

the students from leaving Lhasa without a permit.

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