China Arrests Nine Monks in Bomb Plot

China has been getting real bad press these days from the ongoing demonstrations during the Olympic torch runs against Chinese actions against Tibetans, its policies relating to Darfur, and its general disregard for human and civil rights.

So, keep that in mind as China now claims to have disrupted a bomb plot involving Tibetan monks.

China has arrested nine Tibetan Buddhist monks who have been accused of a bomb attack, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Chinese officials said the monks' homemade bomb exploded in a government building in eastern Tibet on 23 March.

Xinhua news agency did not explain why the alleged bomb incident was not reported at the time.

News of the arrests came as Beijing continued to attack overseas critics of its crackdown in the Himalayan region.

Xinhua said the monks confessed to planting the explosive in Gyanbe township.

Beijing's claims that the recent Tibetan protests were part of a violent campaign by the Dalai Lama, the region's exiled spiritual leader, to disrupt Chinese rule in Tibet and sabotage the Beijing Olympics in August.

There are conflicting issues at play here. On the one hand, China wants to project that they have a stable security situation at home, and that the country doesn't have a fiscal, social, or political crisis on its hands. On the other, they need to try and spin the current Tibetan crisis as one of the Tibetans own doing - to make the world believe that the real bad guys are the Tibetan monks, not the Chinese government who has been occupying the country.

UPDATE:
Via Hot Air, Big Lizards notes that the guy seen accosting the Olympic torch bearer in a wheelchair may not be who the media claims he is. While the photo shows that he's wearing a Tibetan flag bandana on his head, photos taken before the dustup show him marching along in solidarity with pro-Chinese demonstrators.

In other words, are the Chinese purposefully planting demonstrators to undermine Tibetan support by attempting to show that the Chinese are the wronged parties here? The evidence certainly seems to be growing in that direction.