China’s President today landed the first blow in a new propaganda war over Tibet by banishing the region’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to what he called the other side of a sturdy Great Wall.

In an extraordinarily frank admission that all is not well in the land that inspired Shangri-La, President Hu told Tibetan deputies to the ceremonial parliament, the National People’s Congress, that peace had yet to be achieved in the restive region.

Speaking on the eve of the 50th anniversary of an insurrection in which the Dalai Lama fled into exile, the former Communist Party secretary of Tibet said: “We must build a sturdy Great Wall against separatism and to protect the unity of the motherland, advancing Tibet from basic stability to ensuring lasting order and tranquillity."

His language was reminiscent of Cultural Revolution-era vocabulary when the Great Wall became entrenched as a metaphor for the People’s Liberation Army.

Beijing routinely blames the Dalai Lama’s followers for fomenting unrest on the Roof of the World, charging that they instigated the violence that rocked the regional capital, Lhasa, just a year ago. This is an emotive period for Tibetans and peaceful demonstrations by lamas last year in Lhasa spiralled into deadly anti-Chinese riots on March 14 that left 22 people dead.

Fu Hongyu, commissar of the Ministry of Public Security's Border Control Department, said that extra security was in place. "To address stability protection in Tibet, we have deployed troops to strengthen controls along the Tibetan international frontier.”

It is across that border with India that many Tibetans have fled into exile following the Dalai Lama, and Beijing fears some have returned to stir up unrest. China shares a border in the Himalayan region with India, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar.

From today, the mobile telephone system – and possibly even the internet – could become virtually inaccessible in Lhasa after a notice to subscribers of three weeks of system maintenance. A leading Tibetan website has been temporarily closed while one of China’s most popular Chinese-language Buddhist sites, www.karmapa-chinabbs.com, has also now been blocked.

A fresh flurry of unrest shook a Tibetan county of western China early this morning when a police car and fire engine were damaged after angry crowds hurled several home-made explosive devices.

The incident erupted when security officers at one of the countless checkpoints set up across Tibetan-populated areas stopped a truck near the Makahe forestry centre in Qinghai province. A quarrel erupted into a confrontation that drew a large crowd who joined in the dispute, the state Xinhua news agency said.

The head of the local Communist Party said: “The emergency lights and roofs of a police car and fire engine were destroyed by unsophisticated home-made explosives.”

The report did not specify whether those involved were Tibetans, but anti-Chinese feelings have been running high across the high Himalayan plateau since the unrest in March and April last year. Officials were furious when many Tibetans launched a campaign of quiet defiance, saying that they would not celebrate the Tibetan New Year, or Losar, on February 25 as a demonstration of mourning for those killed or imprisoned in the violence last year.

The Dalai Lama yesterday presided over a three-hour prayer offering at his home in Dharamsala in northern India for Tibetans killed in last year’s unrest, in the 1989 imposition of martial law and in the 1959 uprising. Today he is to mark the anniversary by reading a political statement, in which he is expected to urge his followers to stick to his long-standing policy of non-violence. “What he is advising Tibetans is to mark the occasion in such a way that it doesn’t provoke Beijing,” Chhime Choekyappa, a spokesman for the Dalai Lama, told The Times. “It is not worth sacrificing your life. So Tibetans should not fall into China’s trap.”

The Dalai Lama has urged people to mark today’s anniversary with restrained and solemn ceremonies, anxious to disprove China’s claims that he is a dangerous extremist, and to avoid causing trouble for Indian authorities.

However, many younger, more radical Tibetan exiles still plan to join protests in Dharamsala, Delhi and other Indian cities which they say are designed to raise tensions with China.

Tenzin Choeying, president of Students for a Free Tibet, which campaigns for outright independence, said that he expected 10,000 people to take part in the “spectacular” protests after the Dalai Lama’s statement. Indian authorities said that they had tightened security in Dharamsala and deployed police reinforcements around the Chinese embassy in Delhi.

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