Tibet To Stay Closed Until After Olympics??

The Adventurist posted a link to this article from Reuters that indicates that China may not re-open Tibet until after the Olympics this summer.

According to the International Campaign for Tibet, a Tibetan rights group based in the United States, they have “reliable reports” that China has no intention of opening the countries borders before the Olympics Games ended in August. Naturally, the Tibetan National Tourism Administration, nor the Tibetan or Chinese Governments, have commented on the report.

Following the recent uprisings in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, in recent weeks, China took the steps of expelling foreign press and closing the borders to the Himalayan country to outsiders. There have been some indications that those borders would open again at the beginning of May, but continued unrest, and other reports have suggested that that date might not hold firm.

At this point, I guess we’ll have to wait to see if this prediction will come true, but I won’t be surprised in the least if it does come to pass. The protests along the Olympic Torch route continue to mount, casting a shadow over the games months before they are to even begin. International calls for boycotts of the opening ceremonies continue to mount, with some calling for outright boycotts of the games as a whole. Were China to reopen the borders in May as planned, Tibet would immediately become a world-wide focal point once more, and there is a chance that the demonstrations would flare up once again as the press returned, and at this point, I’m not sure the Chinese want to risk further embarrassment on such a public stage.

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Kraig Becker

Kraig is an outdoor and adventure travel writer based in Nashville, TN. Over the course of his career, he has contributed to numerous online and print outlets, including Popular Mechanics, Gear Junkie, Outside Online, National Geographic, Digital Trends, Business Insider, TripSavvy, about.com, and of course The Adventure Blog.