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Xi Jinping secretly visited Tibet
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Chinese rulers have not visited the autonomous province since 1990, although Xi Jinping had been there before taking office as head of the PRC.
Chinese President Xi Jinping paid an unannounced visit to Tibet on July 21-22. The Chinese media reported this after the end of the visit.
As writes The GuardianThe top officials of China have not visited the problematic autonomous province for more than 30 years. The last was a visit by then leader Jiang Zemin in 1990.
Xi Jinping visited Tibet in 1998 and 2011 as the party leader of Fujian province and vice-president of the PRC.
First, the head of the PRC flew to the city of Linzhi (Nyingchi). “He was warmly greeted by local cadres and the populace of various nationalities,” Xinhua writes.
He then traveled to the provincial capital, Lhasa, on the newly built high-speed rail linking Tibet with Sichuan province. In Lhasa, he visited, according to Xinhua, “religious and cultural sites under state protection” – the historic residence of the Dalai Lama, the Potala Palace and a Buddhist monastery.
He also visited a modern agricultural enterprise on the Nyang Chu River (Nyanchu) and the Urban Planning Museum in Linzhi.
Human rights organization International Campaign for Tibet said that on the eve and during Xi Jinping’s visit to the province, a heightened security regime was established with road closures and checks on all suspicious people.
Media outlets note that Xi Jinping’s visit could be timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the agreement that established China’s control over Tibet.
The visit comes amid deteriorating relations between China and India, which share a long, contested border with Tibet.
In a statement, human rights group Campaign for Tibet International called Xi Jinping’s visit “an indicator of how high Tibet remains in China’s political discourse.”
How the visit was organized and “the complete absence of any direct coverage of the visit in the state media indicate that Tibet remains a sensitive issue and that the Chinese authorities do not believe in their legitimacy among the Tibetan people.”
Note recently China celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party countries. Read more about this in the material. Correspondent.net.
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