Backstage Role of China's Army in Tibet Unrest Is a Contrast to 1989

In that vein, Hu recently told senior People's Armed Police officers that their mission of providing internal security was the top priority for a successful Beijing Olympics, according to the force's official newspaper.

Hu and other party leaders also are eager to avoid being seen as turning to the military for help, a Beijing-based analyst said, because that could create a political debt to the military leadership. "This is more than just image," the analyst added, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Hu, who was too young to be part of the 1930s and 1940s military struggle that brought the party to power, has taken over as head of the party's decision-making Central Military Commission but is still cementing his position as commander in chief. He has named a number of new generals, making them beholden to his leadership, but is still surrounded on the 11-member commission by officers and others whose experience dates to the previous presidency of Jiang Zemin.

Although Hu has taken to being photographed in a green uniform at military events to underline his command role, the analyst said, he would be reluctant to allow his party leadership to be seen as depending on the military for national stability.

The army has played an important political role in China since the Communist Party took over in 1949. Mao Zedong's victory over Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces was attained through conventional war, not an underground sedition campaign, giving the military a platform for strong influence. In addition, after Mao's death in 1976, the military leadership stepped in to save the country from chaos provoked by the renegade Communist leaders known as the Gang of Four.

Andrei Chang, an analyst who runs the Toronto-based Kanwa Defense Review, said in a recent study that the party increasingly has sought to assert civilian leadership despite the military tradition. Nonetheless, he noted, PLA officers account for 20 percent of the 204 Central Committee members installed at the 17th National Congress in October.

Chang and other analysts said that the PLA was not entirely absent in the recent security operations in Tibet. They cited photographs circulating on the Internet that they said show a small number of PLA troops in armored personnel carriers in Lhasa after the March 14 riots. The armored vehicles, some tracked, others wheeled, had their identifying insignia covered with paper or cloth, they noted, suggesting the military was trying to obscure whatever role it played in the Tibetan capital.

Another qualified military analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the army troops may have been called out to be on hand in case rioting escalated, to intimidate protesters by making the armored vehicles visible and to ferry People's Armed Police personnel safely into neighborhoods where Tibetans were throwing stones.

Townspeople in Zhongdian, a Tibetan-inhabited region of Yunnan province, reported seeing PLA trucks pass through carrying soldiers, apparently on the way to reinforce regular garrisons in Tibet. But security forces in their own town, they said, were all People's Armed Police and regular Public Security Bureau police.

Similarly, about 200 People's Armed Police personnel in camouflage fatigues and military helmets were seen protecting Princess Bridge on the edge of Kangding, in the Tibetan-inhabited hills of central Sichuan province, but no regular troops were spotted.