Could this be the beginning of the end?

The Chinese themselves are now rising up against the police state apparatus of the ruling Communist Party junta.

In Gansu, some of those protesting may well be Tibetan or from some other ethnic minority.

But in Sichuan, they are Han Chinese, albeit not of the type to kow-tow to the whims of Beijing. In my experience, the Sichuanese are as fiery as the chilis they dose their famous cuisine with.

Hopefully, the solidarity they are showing with their Tibetan neighbours will be as potent and long-lasting.

The Beijing Junta can no longer lie that the protests are in anyway being co-ordinated by what they pathetically call the 'Dalai Lama clique'. Now it is Chinese who are protesting for their freedoms too, taking a lead from the Tibetans.

Hopefully this will now spread to the Eastern cities. Specifically, it would be fantastic to see people protesting the dictatorship in Shanghai and Beijing.

While some might have trepidations about a second Tiananmen Square massacre, I personally suspect that simultaneous, sustained protests in the West and the East would be sufficient to finally bring down the most murderous regime in human history.

What cannot happen is for there to be any wavering outside of China. Gordon Brown must ignore the Chinese and meet with the Dalai Lama. We in the privilege of European democracies must keep the pressure on the Chinese.

Write to the Department of Foreign Affairs demanding a statement of condemnation from Dermot Ahern. And boycott the Beijing genocide Olympics.