BEIJING – Chinese President Hu Jintao underscored Communist Party support on Thursday for the boy Beijing recognises as Tibet’s second-most important religious figure despite a different choice by the Dalai Lama.
On the eve of his 15th birthday, the boy regarded by China’s atheist Communist leaders as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama met Hu at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
China Central Television showed pictures of the meeting between Hu, dressed in a Western suit, and the Panchen Lama in his ceremonial robes in the latest gesture by the party to remind Tibetans to respect their choice of the restive region’s second-most senior monk.
Hu presented the Panchen Lama with a hada, a traditional white scarf that denotes respect in Tibet, and asked him to be “a Living Buddha with full love to the country and his religion”, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Beijing anointed Gyaltsen Norbu as the 11th Panchen Lama in 1995, rejecting the nominee of Tibet’s god-king, the Dalai Lama.
The Dalai Lama fled to India after an abortive anti-Chinese uprising nine years after Chinese troops entered the deeply Buddhist Himalayan region in 1950. Beijing has refused to allow him back, saying he wants independence for Tibet.
At a meeting of senior religious leaders in a Tibetan area in western Qinghai province late last year, the Chinese authorities voiced displeasure at what they said was a lack of support for Beijing’s chosen Panchen Lama, sources have said.
The Dalai Lama’s nominee has never been seen and is believed to be under house arrest.
Hu expressed hope that the Panchen lama would pursue his religious and academic studies to better serve society and win respect from the religious community, Xinhua said.
Many Tibetans believe China’s choice of Panchen Lama is a sham and remain secretly loyal to the Dalai Lama’s selection.
The thorny issue is critical to the future of Tibet because the Panchen Lama traditionally identifies new reincarnations of the Dalai Lama. The current Dalai Lama, a Nobel peace prize laureate, turns 70 in July.
Last September, envoys of the Dalai Lama visited China as part of a delicate and slow-moving process to pave the way for a dialogue on the future of Tibet and possibly the eventual return of the Dalai Lama to Lhasa.
The exiled spiritual leader says he wants a mutually agreeable solution that entails greater autonomy, but not independence, for Tibetan regions.
