DZONGSAR MONASTERY, China — The monks, dressed in crimson robes and wielding blue plastic swords, were rehearsing a dance they would perform the next day in celebration of the Tibetan New Year. Then a uniformed police officer appeared in the temple and said there were a few questions to answer.

So began nearly 17 hours in police custody for me and a French photographer, Gilles Sabrié, a long though not uncommon experience for foreign correspondents in China. It was hardly an ordeal, to be clear; journalists face far worse threats and abuse in China and elsewhere. It was, rather, a bother.

For the Chinese, though, it was a self-inflicted embarrassment. We had traveled high into the mountains of the Tibetan plateau last week to write about holiday traditions in that part of China. By detaining us, and ultimately expelling us from the region, the authorities succeeded in preventing that. So I am writing this instead.

China is a country that exudes confidence in its rising place on the world stage — and yet its officials belie that confidence with their hypersensitivity to what a foreign correspondent might encounter traveling untethered, and thus uncensored.