Xi Jinping makes rare visit to Tibet as 60 years of Chinese rule celebrated

According to state media reports, Xi Jinping, the president of China, has made a remarkably rare trip to Tibet to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of Chinese rule in the region’s tumultuous Himalayan territory.

Xi was met by about 20 000 officials and locals from “all ethnic groups and all walks of life,” according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency, who was based in Lhasa, Tibet’s regional capital.

Xi in Lhasa advocated the creation of a “modern socialist” Tibet that was “united, prosperous, civilized, harmonious, and beautiful,” according to Xinhua.

According to Xi, the need to “guid Tibetan Buddhism in adapting itself to socialist society” was underlined by the state broadcaster CCTV.

Tibet has traditionally been a part of its territory, according to China, but many Tibetans claim that they were essentially independent there for the most part during their own Buddhist theocracy.

A grand rally commemorating the 60th anniversary of the #Xizang Autonomous Region’s founding took place in Lhasa on Thursday morning. 26 marching contingents and floats marched in a large parade before moving on to festive music. The first image is… twitter.com/qi2yNt09Wv

Tibet was taken over by communist forces in 1951, and Mao Zedong’s one-party government established the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965.

Following years of political repression, a significant amount of Han Chinese population migration has taken place in the high-altitude region in recent years.

Journalists and foreigners are largely barred from Tibet.

China also insists that the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s highest-ranking spiritual leader, be reincarnated and lives in self-imposed exile in neighboring India after escaping Chinese rule in 1959.

Wang Yi, the foreign minister of China, made a rare trip to India this week, where Beijing and New Delhi pledged to repair ties that had been harmed by a deadly border clash in 2020 that involved troops from both countries.

Tibet has a strategic relationship with India, but Beijing’s most recent megahydropower project in the Tibetan plateau has also stifled India downstream.