More than 30 self-immolations have occurred in China since early 2011, beginning with an incident outside the Kirti monastery March 16, 2011, when Tibetan Buddhist monk Rigzin Phuntsog set himself on fire while shouting slogans calling for a free Tibet. The use of self-immolation as a political tool is not unprecedented in Asia or elsewhere, but it had been unusual in recent Tibetan activism. In an isolated incident, a monk from the Kirti monastery self-immolated in February 2009 amid protests after the government canceled prayer ceremonies that were part of the Tibetan New Year celebration. Several factors could have led Rigzin to decide to use self-immolation as his means of protest. His action coincided with the height of the Arab Spring, during which international media tied the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor to the downfall of the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes. It also occurred in the midst of the Jasmine gatherings in China, when the government was particularly sensitive about any form of political protest. These events would have given self-immolation a new political context. Furthermore, self-immolation only requires the participation of one person (or in some cases a few people), whereas organized public demonstrations require planning and coordination. And given the graphic and painful nature of the personal sacrifice, self-immolation is a way to attract significant attention to a cause without harming others. In some sense, the self-immolations and other suicides of ethnic Tibetans in Eastern Tibet do not pose a fundamental threat to China. They are not organized acts of militant resistance, but individual acts with minimal physical effects to anyone but the actor. Western powers have not yet taken a strong overt interest in the self-immolations or the continued crackdown by Chinese authorities. But Beijing has seen foreign pressure build over its management of internal ethnic and social issues in the past and does not want to face that kind of pressure again.
