Premier Wen also said the Chinese government works for the equality of all ethnic groups, a point disputed by China's Tibetan and Uighur dissidents,among others.

VOA: standard.2009.11.07

For most Chinese observers, what happened was an outburst of vicious racist thuggery directed at ethnic Han Chinese in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.

ECONOMIST: Chinese nationalism

Woeser, a Tibetan poet and blogger, says that some ethnic-Tibetan officials privately complain about the clampdown, but Han Chinese officials in Tibet toe a uniformly hard line.

ECONOMIST: China and Tibet

Some protesters advocated independence from China, while others demonstrated against the growing influence of the Han Chinese in the area and other regions of China with ethnic Tibetan populations.

CNN: 59 arrested in Tibet for 'spreading of rumors'