The Dalai Lama’s escape to India in 1959 took place during an uprising that began in March, and each year, the Chinese government fears protests in Tibetan areas as the uprising’s anniversary approaches. In March 2008, widespread demonstrations that unfolded across the Tibetan Plateau struck fear into the Communist Party’s top leaders, who deployed paramilitary troops to suppress the unrest.

Last month, the authorities began barring foreign tourists from going to central Tibet, known as the Tibet Autonomous Region, according to an advocacy group based in Washington, the International Campaign for Tibet. The shutdown is expected to last until the end of March.

Also last month, a court in Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province, sentenced a popular Tibetan blogger, Druklo, to three years in prison after he had been detained for a year, the International Campaign for Tibet reported. The blogger, who writes under the pseudonym Shokjang, has advocated true Tibetan autonomy within China, the same position that the Dalai Lama takes.

Tibetans last month celebrated their new year, Losar, another time when the Chinese authorities are on the watch for protests.

On Thursday, Yu Zhengsheng, a top Communist Party official who is the chairman of a legislative advisory committee, addressed China’s ethnic policies at the opening session of the committee’s annual meeting in Beijing. “We promoted ethnic unity and religious harmony to bring together the will and strength of the people,” he said.