China pours troops into Tibet AFP - 2 hours 18 minutes agoBEIJING (AFP) - - China ramped up security on Thursday to quell a Tibetan uprising, with hundreds of military trucks and thousands of heavily armed soldiers seen pouring into the remote Himalayan region.


Huge military convoys were heading towards Tibet, while a build-up of troops also took place in nearby provinces, after a week of violent protests against China's rule of the region, witnesses, activist groups and media reports said.
More than 400 vehicles were seen heading to Tibet through mountain passes in western China, a BBC reporter said, without specifying his location because of Chinese restrictions on foreign press reporting in the area.
"Over the past two days I've seen increasing numbers of troops heading for the Tibetan border but this is the largest deployment by far," the reporter said.
"It seems that China is dramatically increasing its military presence in Tibet just days after the riots in Lhasa."
A week of protests against China's 57-year rule of Tibet erupted into rioting in the region's capital Lhasa last Friday. Demonstrations have since spilled over into nearby Chinese provinces with ethnic Tibetan populations.
China said rioters killed 13 innocent civilians in Lhasa while denying that it used deadly force to end the protests. Exiled Tibetan leaders have said about 100 people were believed to have been killed in the Chinese crackdown.
As China sought to quash the protests, it was also forced to deal with increasing international pressure over the crackdown.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday he planned to meet with the Dalai Lama, triggering a swift response from Beijing which blames the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader for masterminding the unrest.
"We have expressed our great concern over that," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters.
Brown announced he would meet the Dalai Lama following a telephone call with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao on Wednesday, during which he pressed the premier to end the bloody violence.
Britain's heir to the throne, Prince Charles, a regular thorn in China's side, also said he would meet with the Dalai Lama during the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner's visit to London in May, a royal spokesman told AFP.
Australia added to the pressure on Thursday, with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith also expressing concern over the violence and calling on China to allow foreign journalists and diplomats access to Tibet and other hotspot areas.
China has banned foreign journalists from Lhasa and tried to block them from the nearby western provinces of China where a spate of violent protests have taken place over the past week.
But many reports of the huge troop build-up emerged on Thursday, aside from the BBC report.
Large troop movements took place in southwest China's Sichuan province, bordering on the Tibetan Autonomous Region and home to several large Tibetan populations, one foreign reporter there told AFP.
Activist groups also reported that forces had been beefed up across western China.
Sichuan has been home to some of the most violent clashes, with activist groups producing photos that they said showed at least eight people who died when police opened fire into a demonstration on Sunday.
China said Thursday it had exercised "massive restraint" in its response to violent protests outside the Tibetan region, making no mention of reports of deadly reprisals against protesters.
The protests began last week to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule of the Himalayan region.
"The series of riotous activities were not coincidental, but coordinated and closely linked with the unrest in Lhasa," said Zhang Yusheng, a spokesman with the Gansu provincial government, according to Xinhua.
Authorities have arrested 24 people linked to the protests in Lhasa, while 170 people have surrendered to police after Chinese authorities called on protesters to turn themselves in, Xinhua reported.
Activists groups said that hundreds of Tibetans had been arrested in sweeps across areas where protests had broken out, while rights groups said they feared the detainees could face brutal treatment