Tibet: Peking’s problem

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33944, 10 September 1975, Page 17

Tibet: Peking’s problem

(By a correspondent of “The Times," through the “New York Times" and N.Z.P.A.)

PEKING, September 9. The tenth anniversary of the establishment of the Tibetan autonomous region will not signal its opening to foreigners.

Chinese officials in Peking have confirmed that the territory will remain closed for the foreseeable future, except for the handful of Nepalese Consulate staff who are allowed access to Lhasa, the capital. The composition of the Chinese Government delegation that went to Lhasa in advance of the celebrations emphasised Peking’s continuing concern with security problems in Tibet. The delegation was headed by Mr Hua Kuo-feng, who, besides being a member of the Politburo, is the Minister of Public Security. Jt ineluded Mr Yen Cheng, chief political commissar of the Chengtu military region, under which Tibet comes, and Mr Yang Kuei, who is described as “a leading member” of the Ministry of Public Security.

Reports of unrest and armed rebellions continue to emanate from Tibetans who have fled to India and Nepal, but all that ever appears in the Peking press is that there are “class enemies and class struggles” in Tibet, as in the rest of China.

A report last year that the Dalai Lama was hoping to return soon under a new

settlement with Peking were never commented on officially in Peking, but the Dalai Lama was denounced as “a scorpion living in the same den as Lin Piao and Confucius.”

This hardly suggested that the Chinese authorities were contemplating his early return; and Peking would seem to have no motive to encourage a resurgence of Tibetan religious nationalism through the return of the Dalai Lama. If China can maintain strong centralised control over Tibet for another generation, the whole question of Lama Buddhism and monastic orders will become academic.

Meanwhile, China continues to make efforts to develop education, communications, industry, agriculture and public health in this economically underdeveloped part of Asia. Heavy emphasis is laid in training young Tibetan cadres, many of whom are studying in Peking and other cities of China proper. The opening of motor roads and air routes has ended Tibet’s physical isolation. Nonetheless, Peking remains exceedingly sensitive about the question of foreigners having access to the territory.

N.Z.P.A.-Reuter reports from Hong Kong that China said today that Tibet had its “inalienable part,” and called for strengthened unity to help Tibetans to assume

The official New China News Agency, quoting an editorial from the Peking “People’s Daily,” said that Chinese officials and troops of the People’s Liberation Army, who entered Tibet in 1959. should respect the habits and customs of the minority nationalities, and learn their languages.

“The P.L.A. units stationed in Tibet should continue to

local government responsibilities.

carry forward the fine tradition of our army, being at the same time a fighting force, a political work force, and a production corps, and should join the Tibetan people in their arduous struggle,” said the editorial, marking the anniversary.

“We should continue to train a large number of Communist cadres of the minority nationalities, with particular attention to training women cadres, so that cadres of minority nationalities will gradually constitute a majority in the total.

“Tibet is an inalienable part of the great motherland . . . we sincerely hope that the people of various nationalities in Tibet will unite still more closely and win greater victories in advancing along Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line.”