By Tenzin Monlam
DHARAMSHALA, November 10: The Chinese authorities are planning to use the anti-corruption campaign against Tibetan government officials who secretly hold religious beliefs and follow the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, reviled by China as ‘monk in a wolf’s robes’.
Chen Quanguo, Party Secretary of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), said that the party vows to clampdown on ‘officials who have an incorrect view on minority people’s (issues) and profess no religious belief but secretly believe.’
“The party would go after officials who follow the Dalai Lama, go on pilgrimages to worship him, listen to religious sermons or send their children to schools organized by followers of the Dalai Lama,” Chen said.
In 2013, Chen infamously vowed to “educate and guide cadres and ordinary people of various ethnic groups to separate Tibetan Buddhism from the fourteenth Dalai Lama, and separate the fourteenth Dalai Lama from the title of Dalai Lama.”
Despite President Xi Jinping’s tightening grip on corrupt officials, only 15 minor party officials in Tibet have been investigated and punished for relatively minor embezzlement and corruption schemes since 2012, leading some to comment that party officials in Tibet are deliberately misinterpreting Xi’s corruption campaign by deflecting focus onto often imagined ‘separatist threats’, and thus shielding themselves from the real corruption investigations.
In the White Paper published on the anniversary of so called TAR, China has claimed that it has pulled out the Tibetan people from “Old and backward Tibet” to “Golden Age”.
However, many rights watch groups and Tibetan government in exile say that they present China as a champion of human rights by providing misleading information and ignoring the real human rights situation in Tibet and China.
They continue to rule the region with an iron fist and constant suppressions, which leads to protests. So far, 143 Tibetans have self-immolated themselves as a form of protest against Beijing rule.
