A Tibetan exile set himself on fire in New Delhi yesterday as the police forcibly took three hunger strikers to hospital, ending their 49-day fast against the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Police said Thupten Ngodup (55) had severe burns and his chances of survival were "slim".
The Tibetans have accused the Indian authorities of breaking up their hunger strike to appease Gen Fu Quanyou, chief of the People's Liberation Army, who has arrived in Delhi on a six-day official visit.
Police forced three other Tibetans to abandon their hunger strike on Sunday. Gen Fu, who is leading a high-powered delegation, is the most senior Chinese soldier to visit India. The world's two most populous neighbours fought a war in 1962 over a territorial dispute which remains unresolved. But they have been trying to improve diplomatic and security relations during the past decade.
India has also offered a home in exile to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader, but discouraged him and 100,000 of his followers from engaging in political and anti-Chinese activities. The protesting Tibetans want the United Nations to send human-rights investigators to Tibet - which China occupied 47 years ago - to supervise a referendum on independence.
India and China have signed agreements to reduce troops on either side of their disputed border and committed themselves against launching military attacks on one another. But India is fearful of its powerful neighbour and officials said all bilateral talks were "Bejing driven". They said none of the contentious issues - China supplying Pakistan with missile and nuclear components, frequent incursions by Chinese soldiers into Indian territory, and Tibet - were ever raised.
India has fought three wars with Pakistan since independence 51 years ago and is currently locked in a nuclear and missile race over an unresolved territorial dispute in northern Kashmir state. Suspicion of China has led to India raising a new naval command on the Andaman Islands off its east coast in the Bay of Bengal to counter Beijing's growing presence in the region. Officials said India was also worried about China's military assistance to Burma, helping it to modernise its naval bases, set up radar stations and naval "listening posts" to monitor Indian missile tests off the eastern Orissa coastline and training Burmese naval intelligence officials.
They said China was also modernising its navy and initiating moves to build an aircraft carrier with a view to increasing its presence as an expansionist force in the Indian Ocean.