The Chinese have announced that they will reopen the borders to Tibet on April 5th, just ahead of the high season for tourism and mountaineering in the country. You may recall that they shut down the borders in early March for fear that there would be violent protests in the country to mark the anniversary of the Dalai Lama fleeing to India 50 years ago.
This comes as good news for the few remaining teams on the North Side of Everest, and for those that have been planning trips to Cho Oyu as well. As of now, I believe there are about a half-dozen teams still planning on climbing from the North, and with the China-Tibet Mountaineering Assocation promising to fix the lines, it’s beginning to look like the patience of the teams that elected to stick it out, will be rewarded. They’re likely to have a very quiet and tranquil base camp, two words that will not be used to describe the counterpart on the South Side. The lack of traffic will also likely prove very advantageous on Summit Day as well.
Hopefully the reopening of the borders will also mean an influx of tourists to Tibet. The country was already suffering economically thanks to a general downturn in travel due to global economic conditions. This past month there has been no foreign visitors at all to Tibet, which has further hurt the many people who earn a living in the tourism trade that is so vital there. Perhaps this is a signal that things will return to normal soon.
There are reports however that the Chinese military is still maintaining a strong presence in the country, and that foreign press and aid workers are still not allowed to travel unescorted. it seems that while the borders may once again be open, China still isn’t ready to completely loosen its grip on Tibet.
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I hope this isn’t an April Fool’s joke.
Oh, wait, it can’t be. The government in occupation of Tibet has no sense of humor…
Jon
http://www.therestofeverest.com
No April Fools jokes on this blog. I’ll save that for other places that I write. 😉
Good news for Tibet in general, but you’re right, China doesn’t really have much of a sense of humor when dealing with Tibet or anywhere else for that matter.
I just read your reply to my comment on the previous post. I must concede to your argument regarding the Tibetan’s well-being. It would be interesting to see if the Dalai Lama has any opinion on this. I cannot even pretend to know all the issues at hand here. I’m sure he does know them.
The Dalai Lama would like to see his country out from under Chinese rule of course, but also takes a tactful approach generally. He is deeply concerned about the Tibetan people though, and doesn’t want to do anything that will cause more strife there.
You’re right, it is a very complex situation with some very strong feelings on both sides of the issue.
His Holiness has only himself to blame for allowing himself to be manipulated by his own monks and nobilities for their own vested interest, and to be exploited by CIA and the West that use him to put pressure on China and to slow down China’s economic growth. At most HH represents 100K Tibetan nobilities, and may be another couple of hundreds of foreigners including European and American mercenaries, professional agitators, quasi academic researchers, not to mention the Geres and the Seagalls and other Hollywood personalities whose stars are on the wane.. It’s about time HH return to China to see for himself how Tibet has progressed and how the life of the average Tibetan has dramatically improved – a change that he himself, articulated in his biography, had wanted to carry out. vjie, singapore
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Betty
http://laptopprocessor.info
Riots happens everywhere in the world but that country doesn’t shutdown the particular area off completly to outside world. Chinese govt. closed access to tibet because they have to hide the people speaking against them, the have to shutdown tibet, because they were using force to crackdown on tibetans. My tears rolled down after watching the crackdown, tibetan are beatten very badly even when their hands are cuffed. That’s the reason why H.H Dalai Lama had said and i quote: :” Tibetan in Tibet has witness inferno like hell on the earth.” My humble request to all tourist going there. Chinese will always try to hide the real thing and show you something else. So talk to local tibetan poeple there and try to get their side of the story.
And what Dalia lama has to do with CIA? He denounce violence long before. He was requesting tibetan not to fight and kill chinese when he left tibet. Yes, we agree that CIA tried to help us and we are not hiding it. Watch “The CIA Shadow circus” and you will know that we are not hiding the fact. But what Chinese govt. is doing is called “censored” That’s black TV screen for CNN and BBC news channel and even for a news channel from HK.
so next time, when you go tibet, don’t be lost in the beauty of snow-capped mountain but do research and try to find out why tibet was shutdown for rest of the world.
Thanks for your comments Tenzin. Believe me, I think most of the people that read this blog know exactly why Tibet was closed off to the world. Many of the readers have been their, and have climbed in the Himalaya, so we have an understanding of what is happening.
You offer great advice. Talk to the people there and find out what is really happening. Thanks you!