Xi visits Tibet to mark 60 years of control: His second trip comes 4 years after ‘follow the party’ appeal

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in the  Tibetan capital of Lhasa on Wednesday for his second-ever visit as China’s leader to mark the 60th anniversary of  Tibet’s founding as an autonomous region.

Six years after the 14th Dalai Lama fled into exile in India following a failed uprising, China’s ruling Communist Party established the  Tibet  Autonomous Region in 1965, the country’s fifth and final autonomous region after Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Guangxi and Ningxia.

The designation was meant to offer local ethnic minority groups such as the  Tibetans greater say over policy matters, including freedom of religious belief. But international human rights groups and exiles routinely describe China’s rule in  Tibet  as “oppressive”, an accusation that Beijing rejects.

“To govern, stabilise and develop  Tibet, the first thing is to maintain political stability, social stability, ethnic unity and religious harmony,” state media cited Xi as saying to senior  Tibet  officials on Wednesday.

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Xi last flew to  Tibet  in July 2021 where he urged people there to “follow the party” in a visit largely perceived by outside observers to signal the Communist Party’s confidence that order had finally been established in a region with a long history of protest against Chinese rule.

During a brief period following the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when China further opened its doors to the outside world,  Tibet  was rocked by protests by monks and nuns, and then a series of self-immolations.

Tibetan Buddhism must be guided to adapt to China’s socialist system, Xi said.

Prior to 2021, the last Chinese leader to visit  Tibet  was Jiang Zemin in 1990.

More broadly,  Tibet  is a highly strategic region for China due to its border with India. Troops from both sides had clashed at their border over the years. The Himalayan region also possesses abundant natural resources including immense hydropower potential.

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Xi’s arrival in  Tibet  coincided with a rare trip this week by China’s top diplomat Wang Yi to India, where both countries pledged to rebuild ties damaged by a deadly 2020 border skirmish.

China’s latest mega hydropower project in  Tibet  has also unsettled India downstream.

Xi said the project must be “vigorously” pursued as part of China’s carbon reduction goals while protecting Asia’s “water tower”.

Xi was accompanied by Wang Huning and Cai Qi, the party’s fourth and fifth-ranked leaders.

In 2015, the party sent the now retired Yu Zhengsheng, who held the equivalent rank of Wang at the time, to  Tibet  for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the  Tibet  Autonomous Region.