Mr. Hu's Tibet Replay

The last time Beijing cracked down on Tibet, it was 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and Hu Jintao ran the province. Today, violent scenes are playing out again in Tibet -- this time with Mr. Hu as China's president. It's a reminder that despite China's economic liberalization and some political opening, the authoritarian instincts of the country's leadership haven't changed.

AP

Demonstrators on a street in Lhasa, Tibet, taken from Chinese television CCTV.

The confrontation started with a peaceful protest led by monks last Monday, the anniversary of Tibet's national uprising against China in 1959, nine years after Chinese troops invaded. Beijing's swift response -- arresting several of the monks -- led to further protests, which escalated to mob violence in Lhasa on Friday. Cars were burned, shops looted and witnesses reported gunfire; state-run media said 10 civilians died in fires. The Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala says the death toll is at least 80.

China has controlled Tibet for more than half a century, and across those years countless Tibetans have been killed and thousands of monasteries have been destroyed. It is still forbidden to display a photograph of the Dalai Lama in Tibet, much less call for freedom of religion, speech or assembly. In 1989, the military arrested peaceful protesters and Mr. Hu declared martial law for 14 months.

This time around, China's one-party leadership has another incentive to muffle protests: the Olympics. China won the Games after assuring the International Olympic Committee that it would respect human rights. The Tibetan uprising is thus a major embarrassment, all the more so because Beijing has been increasing its heavy-handed control of the province.

In August Beijing declared that reincarnated lamas, or religious leaders, could be appointed only by Beijing's State Administration for Religious Affairs, not by other monks, as Tibet's brand of Buddhism dictates. Beijing has also reignited its propaganda war against the Dalai Lama, calling him a "splittist" and forcing monks to disavow him. Chinese government officials and state-run media are blaming him for the unrest this week and claim the "Dalai clique" organized the protests.

On Saturday sympathy protests rippled across greater Tibet, extending into Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan provinces, which have sizable Tibetan populations. Yesterday, protesters in Sichuan burned down a local police station, while thousands of monks in a different part of the province were placed under lockdown after a spontaneous protest. After an emergency meeting of provincial leaders on Saturday night, the standing committee of the Tibet Communist Party released a statement declaring a "people's war to oppose separatism and protect stability."

The irony is that since the early 1970s the Dalai Lama has advocated autonomy, not independence, for Tibet, and repeatedly disavows violence. He has called for China to deliver on the promises inherent in its constitution, which guarantees "regional autonomy" and "organs of self-government" for areas inhabited by minority nationalities. On Friday, he issued a statement urging Beijing to "stop using force" and urged "my fellow Tibetans not to resort to violence."

There's much Beijing could do to improve its rule in Lhasa. Allowing Tibetans to practice their religion freely would be a good place to start. Ending subsidies for Chinese settlers to move to Tibet and stopping the forced resettlement of Tibetan nomads would be welcome moves. Beijing could also benefit from taking its dialogue with the Dalai Lama more seriously; after he's gone, there's no guarantee that an equally moderate voice will take his place.

The Olympics were supposed to be a showcase for Chinese progress. Instead, the government's fear of political dissent and its authoritarian overreaction are showing the world that far too little has changed since Tiananmen.