BEIJING – More than 50 Chinese government officials arrived in Tibet on Saturday for events marking the 40th anniversary of China’s formation of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, state media said.
The visit was bound to upset Tibetan activists abroad who complain that Chinese government controls are damaging Tibet’s religious institutions and eroding its culture.
Communist troops entered Tibet in 1950. Beijing says it has been part of China for centuries and has spent decades trying to suppress pro-independence sentiment.
State television showed the delegation from the ruling Communist Party disembarking from a plane in the capital, Lhasa, where they were greeted by children, dancers, a brass band and about 300 women dressed in Tibetan clothing who waved traditional white scarves in welcome. A small group of monks were shown pounding drums.
The Tibetan Autonomous Region is China’s official name for what is now commonly called Tibet, an area of about 460,000 square miles. It was established on Sept. 1, 1965.
The former kingdom of Tibet was much larger and included most of what is now the Chinese province of Qinghai and the western part of Sichuan province.
Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet along with tens of thousands of followers in 1959 amid a Chinese crackdown, says he wants some form of autonomy that would allow the exiled community to return to the Himalayan region to freely practice their culture, language and the Tibetan form of Buddhism.
