U.S. ambassador makes Tibet trip

XINING, China – The U.S. ambassador to China, Gary Locke, paid a rare visit to Tibet this week as human rights advocates blasted the Chinese government’s policy of luring Tibetan nomads into concrete housing projects with few job opportunities.

In meetings with residents and officials, Locke stressed the need to preserve Tibetan culture and urged authorities to allow foreigners to travel more freely in the tightly controlled region.

The Tibetan Autonomous Region, as it is known, has been mostly closed to Western diplomats and journalists since an uprising in 2008 against Chinese rule. Locke’s three-day visit to Lhasa, which concludes today, is the first time the U.S. Embassy has gotten approval for a visit since 2010, the embassy said.

Nearly 120 Tibetans have immolated themselves since 2009 in protests against Chinese rule.

A report released by Human Rights Watch said more than 2 million others had been lured into “new socialist villages” since 2006 in one of the largest upheavals of the population since the 1950s.

“The scale and speed at which the Tibetan rural population is being remodeled by mass rehousing and relocation policies are unprecedented in the post-Mao era,” said Sophie Richardson, China director of the human rights group.