At least 10 and possibly more than 100 anti-Chinese protesters have been killed in Tibet as the Chinese authorities have sought to suppress the biggest demonstrations for nearly two decades. The protesters have been given until tomorrow to surrender, with the promise of “leniency”. Those who do so can expect anything but leniency. Those who do not can expect to be violently crushed. That happened in 1989 during the last protests that preceded the Tiananmen Square massacre. The Chinese authorities, predictably and inaccurately, are claiming that the protests are “organised, premeditated and masterminded” by the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled leader.

This is a big test for China. It is desperate for this summer’s Beijing Olympics to be a success, a showcase for the country’s emergence as a global economic superpower. Steven Spielberg’s resignation as artistic director for the Games over Darfur was one blow. The withdrawal last week of world marathon record-holder Haile Gebrselassie because of Beijing pollution was another. But the brutal put-down of the Tibetan protesters could be the biggest blow of all. The China story of 2008 would become its human rights record, not its ability to stage a prestigious international event. China wants to nip the protests in the bud for fear of a wave of similar uprisings across the country between now and the Olympics. It may end up just exposing its own brutality. Calls for a boycott of the Games would grow.

The bigger test is whether China, even if it steps back from even more bloodshed in Tibet this week, can ever embrace political autonomy. Beijing’s handling of Hong Kong, where the one country-two systems policy has largely worked, has surprised sceptics. Tibet, handled wrongly, will convince the outside world that little has changed in the period since Tiananmen and that its ambition to bring Taiwan peacefully back into the fold is as distant as ever. We should pay close attention to events in Tibet in the coming days. The world is watching what China does.