Chinese migrants may flee Tibet as tourism stalls

By Emma Graham-Harrison

LHASA, China (Reuters) - A year after Tibetan rioters set parts of Lhasa ablaze, aiming their fury at migrants from elsewhere in China, the mountain city is divided between migrants looking to flee and locals short of work as tourism collapses.

Many workers and traders from other ethnic groups who moved to the remote region in search of a better living said they were considering leaving for good, driven away by the tourism slump and icy anger of local Tibetans.

Beijing clamped down after the violence in which 19 died, sending away many Tibetans who had settled in Lhasa without papers -- and depriving local shopkeepers of many customers.

Tourism has plunged with just a trickle of Western visitors. Gruesome television footage of the riots and stories of unrest in other ethnically Tibetan areas deter Chinese visitors.

Compounding the traders' misery, many Tibetans are boycotting celebrations of their traditional New Year, which falls around Feb. 25, in quiet defiance of the crackdown.

"Business has not been good at all. People have less money and now many of them are not planning to celebrate the New Year. They are not coming in to buy anything for the house," said an ethnic Muslim fabric seller from northwest China who has been in Lhasa four years.

Many of the traders selling food and goods on Lhasa's streets are Hui Muslim from nearby provinces.

The fabric seller said his uncle's shop was gutted in the rioting and although his own was spared there have been growing ethnic tensions ever since.