Tibet Information Network

London, 9 July (TIN) 10,000 people attended official celebrations in Lhasa to mark the handover of Hong Kong last week, amid a surge of speeches linking the event to the defeat of the pro-independence movement in Tibet, according to reports by the Chinese press.

"The fluttering coloured flags around the square and the waving, brightly-coloured red flags bearing five stars stood tall and upright in the centre of the square, adding radiance and beauty to the blue sky and white clouds", said Xinhua of the main celebration, held in the new square in front of the Potala Palace on the morning of 1st July.

The Potala was decorated with coloured ribbons to mark the occasion "in special Tibetan form", according to Xinhua, which said that 1,997 pigeons and 1,997 balloons were released - one for each year - while the Chinese national anthem was sung to celebrate "the return of the Hong Kong compatriots to the embrace of the motherland".

But an unofficial source in the Tibetan capital claimed that the rally, at which government employees were expected to sing songs or perform dances to celebrate Hong Kong's return, was only given the go-ahead at the last minute because of concerns about security.

"There were Chinese flags on almost every rooftop, including the Potala and the Jokhang Temple, but the celebrations were almost cancelled because of security fears and lasted less than two hours," said the source, who did not want to be named.

"Local neighbourhood committee officials went into houses and selected people at random who were then obliged to attend the festivities," he claimed. The report could not be verified. There were unconfirmed reports from another Lhasa resident of a semi-official curfew in the city from 8pm on the days leading up to the handover period, but the restriction was not formally announced and was only loosely enforced, according to the source.

"Over the past few days, Lhasa has been permeated with a festive atmosphere," reported Xinhua on 1 July. "Streets were decorated with lanterns and coloured hangings, and old and young people sang, talked and laughed merrily. Eye-catching posters with slogans celebrating the reversion of Hong Kong, safeguarding the re-unification of the motherland, and strengthening national unity, were hung on the gate of the Dazhao [Jokhang] Temple," stated Xinhua.

Hong Kong: Proof that Independence Movement Will Fail -

Speeches given by Chinese and Tibetan leaders during the hand-over period in Tibet also emphasised security considerations, with most speeches linking Hong Kong's return to the struggle against the independence movement.

"In thirty days our nation resumes the exercise of sovereignty in Hong Kong," Chen Kuiyuan, Regional Party Secretary, said in the most triumphalist of the Hong Kong speeches in Lhasa, delivered to a Party meeting in early June.

"The old line capitalist British Empire of former times that bloodily slaughtered the people of Tibet and hatched plots to split Tibet off from the great family of the motherland, with its history of oppressing the Chinese people and occupying Chinese territory, along with its blighting of our Chinese dream, is gone forever," continued Chen, according to the Tibet Daily on 20th June.

Other high-level officials described the return of Hong Kong to China as proof of a historical process which will bring failure to the Dalai Lama's attempts to help "Western anti-Chinese forces" divide China.

"Hong Kong's century-old interchange of land and sea truly recorded the arduous and hard course through which the Chinese nation moved from humiliation to rejuvenation," Gyaltsen Norbu, chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) government, told the 1st July rally. "History has confirmed an irrefutable truth that the re-unification of the motherland and its prosperity are where the fundamental interests of the Chinese nation lies, and are the common desire of the people of various nationalities in China," he said.

"Western anti-Chinese forces do not have the ability to resist the historic tide of unity for the motherland and nor does the Dalai Lama," reported Tibet Daily, according to a Reuters report on 18th June, which did not give the date of the newspaper article.

"The only exit for the Dalai Lama is to go with the historic tide of unifying the motherland and totally abandon thoughts of splitting it," stated the Tibet Daily. "The historic trend of uniting the motherland cannot be reversed," it said.

Last week Pasang, a deputy secretary of the Tibet Communist Party, gave a similar warning. "The return of Hong Kong should permit us ... to carry on until the end of the battle against the separatist clique of the Dalai Lama," she said, according to a report by the French news agency AFP, citing the Tibet Daily edition of 5th July.

Tibet Film Causes "Patriotic Sensation" -

Government employees in Lhasa, and in many parts of China, have all been given free tickets to see a Chinese-made film about British aggression, apparently as part of a propaganda effort designed to coincide with the Hong Kong hand-over.

The film, Red River Valley, produced by the Shanghai Film Studios and claimed by its makers to be the first full-length film shot in Tibet, was produced independently but has received enthusiastic support from Chinese government officials and the official press.

Red River Valley is a love story set against the backdrop of the British invasion of Tibet of 1904 which, under the leadership of Francis Younghusband, resulted in the massacre of at least 2,700 Tibetans, by Younghusband's own count. Less than 40 British soldiers died during the expedition, which was designed to deter a non-existent Russian plan to extend its influence to Tibet.

Almost all of the acting parts in the film are played by Chinese soldiers from the People's Liberation Army dressed as Tibetan soldiers, monks and British troops, and the directors and producers were also all Chinese. Two American actors, Nick Love and Paul Kersey, took parts in the film as British officers, one of whom ends by criticising the British role in Tibet.

The film stresses the unity among Tibetans and Chinese in showing first friendship to peaceful foreigners and then resistance to foreign aggressors. "Both the Hans and the Tibetans united to defend their homeland against British colonists hoping to claim the exotic area as their own," explained Xinhua. "Movie-goers will get a hefty dose of Tibet's blue skies, clear rivers and snow-capped plateaux, and also be exposed to the unique customs of the Tibetan people", it continued.

"Tibet is part of an even greater land," concludes the repentant British officer at the end of the film. "This a nationality which will never give in or disappear, behind which is the East, a piece of land we can never conquer," he continues, according to Xinhua.

"Red River Valley depicts Tibetans and Hans and their show of patriotism when fighting against British invaders in the late 19th century," said Xinhua on 4th April. "The film has won favourable comments from local movie experts, who said the movie honoured the persistent spirit of the Chinese people in fighting against foreign invasions," stated the news agency in an earlier report on 7th March.

Feng Xiaoning, the director, described the film's theme as patriotism. "Patriotism is very important to a nation whenever it is in danger, or when it is stepping towards prosperity," he told Xinhua.

The film was endorsed by Sun Jiazheng, China's Minister of Radio, Film and Television, who described it as "the best film I have seen since taking my post", and in late April Xinhua said it had caused "a patriotic sensation in China". British, French, Australian and American companies including Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox had all contacted the producers about acquiring distribution rights, claimed the agency.

The film has been variously described as costing 10 or 15 million yuan ($1.2 or 1.8 million), but was said by Xinhua to have been one of the most expensive in Chinese film history. The main location filming was carried out near Gyantse in August last year with a 60-strong film crew, together with about 100 soldiers from local units of the PLA to work as extras and to provide explosions and effects.

The local authorities in Gyantse have raised 1 million yuan ($105,000) to repair the fort at Gyantse, the site of the main British battle in 1904, according to the People's Daily on 17th June. The authorities announced in December 1994 that they would develop and repair buildings at Gyantse, as well as a museum about British aggression, to "turn them into important bases for patriotic education". The sites would be useful not only "for exposing the political background of the Dalai clique and the dark side of the feudal serfdom of old Tibet, but they are also rare sites and teaching materials for education in China's modern and contemporary history and in patriotism for youths," reported the Tibet Daily at the time.

Red River Valley opened in China in late April, six weeks before a second film was launched to coincide with the Hong Kong celebrations. The Opium War, premiered at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 9 June in front of Sun Jiazheng and Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, describes China's defeat in the wars which led to the ceding of Hong Kong to the British in 1842. The film, which is billed as "history all Hong Kong people ought to know", was directed by Xie Jin, and cost $10 million. It has already been purchased for distribution in Singapore, Korea, Japan, Thailand and Taiwan, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review.