In one cell the Tibetan singer Lolo, now serving a six-year sentence for what the Chinese government calls "splittism," warbles a plea for Tibetan independence over pizzicato strings.
Fen lie, with China's official translation of "splittism," has long been a hot-button word in Chinese communist terminology, and not just directed against Tibetans objecting to the ravishing of their culture.
What would be the correct communist term for describing that, Mr Barnett wonders: Meta-Über-Reverse Splittism, perhaps?Others respond that a plateau culture predating the migration is in fact compatible with the science.
They accuse him of "blasphemy" and "splittism," refer to him as a "wolf in monk's robes," and, most egregiously, want to exercise complete control over his reincarnation.
In 1996, China launched the first of a series of "strike hard" campaigns to ostensibly fight "splittism and illegal religious activities". Heavy police presence became a constant in Xinjiang, where most Uighurs live.
Names "with a strong religious flavor, such as Jihad" or those with "connotations of holy war or of splittism [Xinjiang independence]" are no longer allowed, a local police station employee told Radio Free Asia.
And maybe (as Chait would probably argue) there is a distinctive form of whiny, self-defeating "splittism" on the left that's largely absent on the right.
