Chinese adventurism and the Tibet factor

Xi Zhongxun (President Xi's father) and the Panchen Lama (ca 1951)

My article Chinese adventurism and the Tibet factor appeared in The Edit Page of The Pioneer.

Here is the link...

Had China extended the 1962 war against India, it would have had to battle it out at various fronts simultaneously. The situation in Tibet was grim and a power tussle was on within the ruling party

The Dalai Lama, Beijing’s bête noire, was recently awarded the Professor ML Sondhi Prize for International Politics 2016. Sondhi, a renowned academic, a Jan Sangh politician as well as a visionary diplomat, was probably the first to advocate normal relations with Israel, at a time when India was still living in a dream-world of non-alignment with the Hebrew state.
During the function, the Tibetan spiritual leader, in a veiled threat to Beijing, stated that China will have to think of Tibet in case of a conflict with India, as handling both simultaneously (India and Tibet) would not be an ‘easy’ task for Beijing. At the same time, the Dalai Lama played down the possibility of a military conflict.
He, however, added that since India has become a military power, the only option for China was ‘compromise’: “India is not a small country. It is gaining military power. So the only thing is compromise. The Chinese have to think about the situation inside Tibet when it comes to conflict with India.”
This raises an important issue: The significance of the ‘Tibet factor’ in the history of the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict; the highly-unstable situation on the plateau in the months which preceded the Chinese attack in the NEFA and Ladakh played a restraining role for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in October 19622 — particularly the 70,000-character petition of the Panchen Lama addressed to Premier Zhou Enlai and another high official, Xi Zhongxun, President Xi Jinping’s father.

The Panchen Lama in Tashilhunpo before 'dying'

At the beginning of the 1960s, resentment was at its peak in Tibet. In January 1962, during a speech at an important party forum, Mao Zedong brought up the issue of the Panchen Lama and the situation in Tibet. The young Tibetan Lama, who had been made Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region when the Dalai Lama left for India in 1959, had started to criticise the Communist Party’s policy in Tibet.
The Tibetan issue was to became a crucial factor which impeded longer military operations against India at the end of 1962. In the 70,000-character petition, (dubbed by Mao as a “poisonous arrow”), the Panchen Lama listed several problems on the plateau.
In the summer of 1962, when the PLA started to work on the details of the military operations, it soon realised that the campaign could not be sustained for a long time. It was, therefore, decided to terminate the war ‘with a unilateral Chinese halt, ceasefire, and withdrawal’. Historian Shi Bo believes that in view of “practical difficulties associated with China’s domestic situation”, the PLA, after achieving its military objectives, had to “quickly disengage and end the fighting as quickly as possible”. China’s ‘domestic situation’ is referring to the power struggle within the Party (Xi Zhongxun would be purged in July) and the situation in Tibet. With discontent brewing on the Roof of the World, the supply lines to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had been greatly weakened.
Tibet’s instability appears clearly in the 70,000-character petition sent by the Panchen Lama to Zhou Enlai who requested Xi Zhongxun and Li Weihan, responsible of the United Front Work Department dealing with ‘minorities’, General Zhang Jingwu, the Representative of the Central Committee in Tibet and General Zhang Guohua, the Commander of the Chinese forces during the 1962 war, to read and study the Panchen Lama’s petition.
Interestingly, when the Panchen Lama died in 1989, Xi Zhongxun wrote in The People’s Daily that the Tibet experts found “most of the comments and suggestions [of the Panchen Lama were] good; they could be implemented, but some had gone too far”. Indeed, he had gone ‘too far’ for the communist leadership.
He had criticised the handling of the 1959 ‘rebellion’ (‘uprising’ for the Tibetans). Xi Sr commented: “[It] was counter-revolutionary in nature, being against the party, the motherland, the people, democracy and socialism. Its crimes were very grave. Thus, it was entirely correct, essential, necessary and appropriate for the party to adopt the policy of suppressing the rebellion.”
In separate chapters entitled, ‘Democratic Reforms’; ‘Production in Agriculture and Animal Herding’; ‘Surviving of the People’; ‘Nationalities’ Policy’; ‘Dictatorship of the Party’; and finally, ‘Freedom of Religion’, the Panchen had mentioned the deep grievances of the Tibetan population. He paid a heavy price for having dared to write what everyone knew; he spent the years from 1964 to 1978 in solitary confinement and rehabilitation camps.
Few analysts have pointed out that a longer war would have been difficult to sustain in the atmosphere of ‘rebellion’ prevalent on the Roof of the World at that time. Though openly siding with the ‘reformists’ camp led by Lui Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, the Panchen Lama was also warning the communist leadership of the resentment of the so-called nationalities.
Some new historical documents regarding the 70,000 characters’ letter have recently appeared in English on a blog, War in Tibet. The transcripts make fascinating reading. In the Summary of a Meeting between Comrade Xi Zhongxun, Comrade Li Weihan and Panchen held on June 21, 1962, in The Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Jaazharlal Nehru and India are several times mentioned. At one point, Xi Zhongxun intervenes and recalls his encounters with the ‘Master’, the Panchen Lama: “We held several meetings here just for you to vent your anger and figure out ways to solve problems.... if you are angry, let it out. If you have disagreement, speak out. Problems should be solved through consultation and discussion.” But the Panchen Lama’s anger venting would take him to jail for 14 years.
About the restive situation in Tibet, Xi speaks of Nehru: “This requires that we do our work better under the leadership of the [Tibet] Work Committee [implementing the ‘reforms’], and construct our motherland better. Nehru is laughing now, but don’t let him have the last laugh."
At another point, during the three-day discussions, Xi Zhongxun mentions other implications of the Panchen Lama’s letter: “Tibet is the front line of national defence, and there is struggle against enemies as well.” He adds: “This is the joint work of Nehru and Dalai. If they messed up Nepal, how can they not want to mess up Tibet? What’s their purpose? They just want to overthrow the current leadership in Tibet and restore the old order. …Things are difficult in Tibet, but solutions and hope do exist, and our future is bright.”
Though the situation is relatively stable in Tibet today (it is not the case in Xinjiang), it would certainly be an important factor in case of Chinese adventurism. Indian planners should take note of this crucial strategic issue and in-depth studies should be undertaken on the situation in Tibet in the eventuality of a Sino-Indian conflict.

Ngabo, Xi Sr., the Panchen Lama (ca 1986)

Xi Sr., the Panchen Lama (ca 1951)

Xi Sr., the Panchen Lama (ca 1951)

Don’t give India a chance to amuse themselves by our failure

Panchen Lama, Dalai Lama, Chen Yi, Zhou Enlai, Nehru, Indira Gandhi in 1956

The Tibetan factor impeded longer military operations against India in the fall of 1962. With discontent brewing on the Roof of the World, the supply lines to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), had been greatly weakened.
This is an important to understand the ‘short’ Sino-Indian border war.
Tibet's instabilty appears clearly in the 70,000-character petition sent by the Panchen Lama to Zhou Enlai in May 1962.The Tibetan Lama who had been made Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region when the Dalai Lama left for India in 1959, dared (‘with anger’) to criticize the policies of the Party in Tibet.
The Chinese Premier requested Xi Zhongxun, Vice-Premier and father of Xi Jinping, Li Weihan, the minister of the United Front Work Department dealing with ‘Minorities’, General Zhang Jingwu, the Representative of the Central Committee in Tibet and General Zhang Guohua, the Secretary of the CPC Tibet Committee and main commander during the 1962 war, to read and study the Panchen Lama's petition.
Interestingly, when the Panchen Lama died in 1989, Xi Zhongxun wrote in The People’s Daily that the Tibet experts found “most of the comments and suggestions [of the Panchen Lama were] good; they could be implemented, but some had gone too far.”
Indeed, he had gone 'too far' for the Communist leadership; Mao called it a 'Poisonous Arrow". 
The Panchen Lama listed several problems such the ‘suppression of the Rebellion’ in 1959.
Each time, after agreeing with the official line, he criticized it:

The rebellion in Tibet was counter-revolutionary in nature, being against the Party, the motherland, the people, democracy and socialism. Its crimes were very grave. Thus, it was entirely correct, essential, necessary and appropriate for the Party to adopt the policy of suppressing the rebellion. However, when these points were implemented…

And then he mentioned the grievances of the Tibetan population.
Then he took on the ‘Democratic Reform’, the ‘Production in Agriculture and Animal Herding’, ‘Livelihood of the People’, the United Front policy for the ‘nationalities’, ‘Democratic Centralism’, the Dictatorship of the Party and finally the most important for him, the freedom of religion. Each time, he used the same pattern.
The Panchen Lama paid a heavy price for having dared to write what everyone knew. He eventually spent the years from 1964 to 1978 in solitary confinement and rehabilitation camps.
Very few analysts have pointed out that a longer war would have been very difficult to sustain in the atmosphere of 'rebellion' prevalent on the Roof of the World at that time. Though openly siding with the 'reformists' camp led by Lui Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, the Panchen Lama was also warning the Communist leadership of the resentment of the so-called nationalities.
During his speech at Beidaihe in August 1962, Mao, who for months had been in the wilderness, staged a comeback using the case of the Panchen Lama.
Dr Li Zhisui, Mao’s physician, recounts:

Then [Mao] turned his opprobrium against the Panchen Lama of Tibet, denouncing him as ‘an enemy of our class’. [After the 1959] crackdown, the Panchen Lama, ordinarily subservient to Beijing, was now arguing that Beijing's so-called ‘democratic reforms’ had moved too far to the left. He hoped that the ultra-leftist trend in Tibet could be corrected.

Some new historical documents regarding the 70,000 characters letter have now been translated in English, by two independent researchers, Jianglin Li and Matthew Akester.
The transcripts make fascinating reading.
In the Summary of a Meeting between Comrade Xi Zhongxun, Comrade Li Weihan and Panchen held on June 21, 1962 in The Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Nehru and India are several times cited.

I am posting here some extracts of the longish discussions.
The entire transcript is available on the bog of Jianglin Li and Matthew Akester.

Xi [Zhongxun, Xi Jinping’s father] intervenes: “I had a meeting with the Master [the Panchen Lama] once, and the Master expressed his support for the [Tibet] Work Committee’s leadership [the so-called Communist reforms]. This is very good. This can be seen in the report too. It is possible that you have a few opinions about each other, this is quite natural. We held several meetings here just for you to vent your anger and figure out ways to solve problems. This is a beginning. You should do the same after returning [to Tibet]. If you are angry, let it out. If you have disagreement, speak out. Problems should be solved through consultation and discussion.”
In 1964, the Panchen Lama’s ‘anger’ will take him for 14 years to jail.
Later, the issue of the Dalai Lama’s flight and India came again in the discussion. Xi explains:

Comrades in Tibet should be clear of the fact that through a big struggle, the reactionary Dalai clique had split off. Through suppressing rebellion and implementing reform, we have laid an initial foundation for our work in Tibet, which is the foundation for development and prosperity within the big family of motherland.

It has to be noted that according to Chinese figures 87,000 died in the first week of the ‘suppression’. For Communist China, it was the ‘base’ of the ‘Liberation’.
Xi admits:

There might be tens and thousands of shortcomings and mistakes, however, as long as we have this foundation, all shortcomings and mistakes can be corrected. Our work during the past few years should be cherished. Achievements cannot be denied, our power should be truly strengthened. Dalai is watching us in India right now. He is dreaming that all we have implemented in Tibet will fall apart, and Banchan [Panchen] will meet his downfall. If we don't want his dreams to come true, we must do our work diligently and prudently. First of all, we must strengthen our unity, and unite every person that can be united. If this work is not done well, Dalai will laugh at us, and Nehru will laugh at us too. Don’t give them a chance to amuse themselves by our failure.

This shows that Xi Jinping’s father was not really a ‘moderate’ and those who believe the Xi Jinping will follow his footsteps and ‘open up’ China were wrong.
Xi again cites Nehru:

This requires that we do our work better under the leadership of the [Tibet] Work Committee [implementing the ‘reforms’], and construct our motherland better. Nehru is laughing now, but don’t let him have the last laugh. Nehru launched an anti-communist satellite, we will launch a revolutionary satellite. We will compete with him on this point.

It is interesting to see that even so-called moderate leaders like Xi, put squarely the blame on Nehru and his government for the Dalai Lama’s flight to India. It will result in the ‘punishment’ three years later, on the slopes of the Thagla ridge and in Ladakh.

At another point came up during the three-day discussions, Xi Zhongxun mentions other implications of the Panchen Lama’s letter:

…Specific problems still need to be solved through consultation and discussion. In Tibet, the workload is very heavy, internal matters are quite difficult, foreign affairs are arduous too. Tibet is the front line of national defence, and there is struggle against enemies as well. Rebels are meddling in Nepal, they took over a county government there and sent spies and rebels to make trouble in Nepal,” and Xi adds: “This is the joint work of Nehru and Dalai. If they messed up Nepal, how can they not want to mess up Tibet? What’s their purpose? They just want to overthrow the current leadership in Tibet and restore the old order. This is not only a current struggle, it is also a long term and arduous one. We must unite ourselves closely; otherwise we won’t be able to handle this situation. Things are difficult in Tibet, but solutions and hope do exist, and our future is bright.

After the three days meeting in June, the same officials had an ‘audience’ with the Premier, Zhou Enlai, who gave a long, tortuous ideological speech. Zhou mentions the historical background:

First was Director Banchan’s [Panchen] report, which was submitted on May 18 [1962]. After that, the Tibetan and Chinese texts were double checked, and submitted again in June.  Now by July 19, four documents had been formulated, two months in between. This is a big job, and is well done. All of you at present have been kept in the mainland for ten months, the past two months being most important. Your task has been well accomplished. Based on the written report, four documents, Director Banchan’s two speeches and opinions from other comrades, [the four documents have been prepared].

Let us not forget that the Party was on the boil, with Mao preparing his come-back a few weeks later.
The Premier says:

We now have these four documents, primarily because Director Banchan submitted his report, and raised questions. The attitude of raising questions is in line with the frank, sincere and outspoken attitude shared by our nation’s senior cadres. Regardless of the content, [the report] recorded all or most of what he saw and what was in his mind. It is a good thing, and applaudable as [General Zhang] Jingwu said just now. In the past we didn’t have such a relationship with Dalai. He didn’t speak out when he had objections, playing a double game, saying one thing to us and another to Nehru; one thing in front of us and another thing to the conspirators behind our back, so we couldn’t be sure what he was up to. We communists were frank with him, but he thought the way.

Zhou Enlai refers to the visit of the Dalai Lama to India in 1956-57 and the long talks with the Indian Prime Minister (Incidentally, Nehru strongly advocated that the Dalai Lama should go back to Tibet and ‘work’ with the Chinese).
Zhou says that in March 1959, China had no clue that the Tibetans would revolt:

we had no clue when he [the Dalai Lama] started the rebellion. Even Apei [Ngabo Ngawang Jigme] was in the dark. We dispatched troops there only after the rebellion broke out. Why did Dalai play a double game? He took us as enemies instead of comrades and friends, and took Nehru as his own circle, the conspirators who plotted rebellion as his own circle, thus it was inevitable for him to play a double game. We were sincere and honest when we told him the Party’s attitude; for example, I talked with him twice in New Delhi and told him the Party’s attitude, but he wouldn’t listen, he listened to Nehru instead. So this made it hard for us to get along. This means that rebellion in Tibet was bound to happen, since he took Nehru as friend and took us as enemy. Now, the attitude adopted by Master Banchan is basically different from that of Dalai.

Zhow Enlai then explains:

When problems arise, the Party will make sure to solve them; you must know this particular characteristic of the Party by now. Do not evade problems and solve problems when they arise, this is the Party’s tradition over the past forty years. When problems are raised, they must be solved; however, this does not mean that all the problems raised are correct. Some are correct, some are not. As both situations exist, careful investigation is required. Correct ones should be accepted, as for the incorrect ones, either raise one’s opinions in a positive way, or criticize from an opposing angle.

The Panchen Lama assessment must have been very incorrect as he will have to spend from 1964 to 1978 in jail.
The next few weeks saw the ‘return’ of Mao on the stage, the purge of Xi Zhongxun and a war against India to make ‘Nehru’ pay for giving asylum to the Dalai Lama.
I have dealt with this in a separate paper.

Xi Jinping's spouse praising Tibet

I am reposting here an old piece on Xi Jinping (then Vice-President), his wife Peng Liyuan ...and Tibet.
The video shows Peng Liyuan praising Tibet, something she may not do while in India.
Today, The Hindustan Times consecrates an article to Mrs. Peng,explaining:

"Peng became a household name after she performed on China Central Television, China’s national broadcaster, during the Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year, gala programme in the early 1980s. The yearly programme which is still popular is viewed by millions every year. Earlier this year, Forbes magazine named her the 57th most powerful woman in the world, comparing her to Michelle Obama." 

Of course, since her husband has become China's strong man, her rating has considerably improved.
The Hindustan Times quotes Forbes describing her:

"Parallels between China's First Lady Peng Liyuan and her U.S. counterpart, Michelle Obama, include their sharp sense of style, prominence on the global stage, and commitment to their nation's health and education.” 

The daily adds: "She is also known to use China-made accessories like clutch bags rather than opt for MNC brands Her sense of dressing has also caught the eye of both the media and common Chinese citizens, with many commenting favourably on her style."

The South China Morning Post describes her thus:

"Peng appears to like structured clothing. Tailored jackets, nipped in at the waist, seem to have become a favourite of hers. She also likes modernised Chinese qipao dresses, Chinese floral motifs and mandarin collars - a stylistic statement and a strong visual theme for her brand of ‘soft power." 

As India has no First Lady, who will take her around, when Modi and her husband discuss the future of the Sino-Indian relations?
Wait next week for the answer.

Bapa Phuntsok Wangyal and Xi Zhongxun

Gyalo Thondup (Dalai Lama's brother),
the Panchen Lama and Phuntsok Wangyal

Here again an old piece on Bapa Phuntsok Wangyal republished.

Bapa Phuntsok Wangyal, alias Phüntso Wangye, alias Phünwang was the first Tibetan Communist in the 1930’s. He was arrested and accused to be a ‘local nationalist’ in 1958 and rehabilitated at the end of the 1970’s. 
In 1980, he decided to participate to the redrafting of the Chinese Constitution. During his 18 years in confinement, he had become extremely knowledgeable about the issue of ‘nationalities’ of the People Republic of China. Unfortunately, his report did not please everybody.
In 1982, he was called by Li Weihan who had been the first principal of the Party School of the Central Committee in the 1930’s and headed the Chinese delegation during the Seventeen-Point Agreement (1951) with Tibet.
Li was a senior Party Leader involved in nationalities affairs.

This excerpt of A Tibetan Revolutionary — The Political Life and Times of Bapa Phüntso Wangye is fascinating. It shows:
1- The inner-Party  manipulations, even at a time when Communist China was opening up.
2- The functioning of the Party at the highest level of the hierarchy and the way to find solutions to tricky ideological issues.
3- The important role of Xi Zhongxun, father of Vice-President Xi Jinping in 'Tibetan' and 'nationalities' affairs.
I have given a short description of the persona between [].

[Excerpts of A Tibetan Revolutionary — The Political Life and Times of Bapa Phüntso Wangye]
Before long, Li Weihan came in, helped by two people. He was eighty-six and not in good health (he was living in a hospital and would die two years later, in August 1984). He had been attacked and demoted during the Cultural Revolution, and this was the first time he had been at the United Front Work Department since his rehabilitation. I was moved when I saw him and immediately rose, shook his hand, and told him how sorry I was to have been the cause of his having to come today.
Then we all sat down, and the meeting started.
"Phünwang," Li Weihan began, "thirty-one years ago you made a great contribution by helping to bring about the Seventeen-Point Agreement and the return of Tibet to the great motherland. But recently, people are saying that your understanding of Marxist theory is seriously flawed. I have examined what you said and have written a report about it. Have you seen that report?"
"Yes," I said, "I received the document and I have looked at it." Then I took out the statement I had prepared and read it.
I could tell from their expressions that Yang Jingren [head of the State Nationalities Affairs Commission in the early 1980’s] and the others were displeased when I said that I would not respond to Li's criticisms at this time. I directed my next remarks to Li.
"Director Li," I said, "you have just said that thirty-one years ago I made a great contribution. Do you know what happened to me after that?"
"No. Please tell me."
"Not long after my great contribution," I said, "I was accused of being a 'local nationalist' and imprisoned for eighteen years."
"Were you really imprisoned for eighteen years?" he asked. "You must have suffered terribly." He seemed stunned and said he hadn't known. At that time, he himself had been under attack, so probably he hadn't heard about any of it.
Yang Jingren and the others didn't like this turn of events at all, and Yang interrupted.
"Phünwang," he said sharply, "you promised to prepare a detailed written response. When, may we ask, will that be?"
"You have written a ten-thousand-character document," I said coolly.
"It will take me some time to study it and respond."
"It will take some time, will it?" Yang hissed angrily. "You don't seem to realize that you have not been accused of minor mistakes. Li Weihan is a famous Marxist theoretician. He is the one who has criticized your ideas, and so your mistakes are extremely serious. Moreover, it is Deng Xiaoping who is really confronting you today. He was too busy to come himself, so he asked Xi Zhongxun [vice chairman of the National People's Congress and father of Xi Jinping] to handle the matter for him, and Xi is the one who chose Li Weihan to examine your writings."
I did not lose my composure. I simply said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, that it would be difficult to specify a time when I would be finished with my detailed response. "Director Li has thought carefully about his criticisms, and his points deserve equally careful examination."
At that, they all spoke at once, all trying to criticize and attack me, until finally Li intervened.
"Listen, everyone, please!" he said with some emotion. "I believe Phünwang should be given time to write his opinions in full. He may criticize my report or even rebut it, and he should be given all the time he needs to do it."
He paused and then smiled, saying, "I am pleased today. When I came, I thought I would have to argue with Phünwang, but we got along very well. Now let's all go to eat."
He took my hand as we left the room, and I sat beside him at the meal.
My strategy had worked. They had wanted to attack me at the meeting and afterward report either that I accepted my mistakes or that I tried to argue back. I would have lost either way. If I had accepted my errors, they would have said that I was persuaded of my mistakes by Li Weihan.
If I hadn't, they would have said that Li Weihan advised me kindly and tried his best to educate me, but I stubbornly refused to listen. However, because Li himself made the suggestion that I be given more time and clearly seemed to have affection for me, there was nothing they could do, and so the meeting was concluded.
A week after the meeting, I sent a letter to Hu Yaobang [Secretary General of the CCP]. By then, I had begun my detailed response, and I estimated now that it would take some weeks to finish. So I sent Hu something brief to explain that Li's report had many points that were not factually accurate, and to request that the Central Committee investigate it carefully. I wanted to buy myself some more time, and I didn't want the only voices he heard to be those of my enemies.
It took several more weeks to finish my response, which ended up containing twenty-five thousand characters. I sent it to Li Weihan and also to Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang, Xi Zhongxun, and others because I was afraid that Yang Jingren wouldn't allow my comments to be passed along. I therefore thought that I had assured myself a fair hearing at the highest levels. I soon found out differently.
On July 27 1982, Li Weihan sent a letter to Deng Xiaoping, along with a brief summary of our meeting, his ten-thousand-character document, and my one-page response-but not my full-length rebuttal. I learned that Deng Xiaoping himself saw all these documents and sent them to Hu Yaobang with a note saying, "Comrade Li Weihan has made a good presentation. Please distribute these documents to each member of the Central Committee and to the officials of the Secretariat of the Central Committee.” Hu did so, in accordance with Comrade Deng's order.
I was, of course, upset because the documents now being distributed at the highest levels did not contain my full-length response to Li's criticisms. I subsequently wrote letters requesting that my complete response be read together with Li's comments, and I went to visit Li in the hospital, because I had suspicions I hoped to confirm.
I found him sitting on a sofa. I shook his hand, sat down next to him, and said, "Director Li, you knew me well. I served under you in 1951 and in 1953. I have the greatest respect for you. If I had made mistakes in my thoughts and you had critiqued me honestly, I would have listened to you. I believe, however, that the ten-thousand-character critique was made by the people who put me in prison in the past. Now they want to attack me again. They are using your name to attack me, and I believe that you never saw all of the things I wrote. Therefore, I felt I had no choice but to respond strongly to your critique. But I want you to know that my comments are not aimed at you but at them." He didn't say yes or no, he just nodded his head.
Then things got worse. The packet of materials-again without my response-was sent to Yin Fatang, the head of the party in Tibet [between 1980 and 1985]. Yin immediately distributed it to the members of the TAR Party Leaders Committee and called a big meeting to discuss it. Many Tibetan and Han officials criticized me strongly at this meeting. Only Yangling Dorje did not follow the party line [born in 1931 in Kham, Yangling Dorjee became a member of the Communist Party at the age of eighteen. In the 1980s, he rose to levels of Party to which few Tibetans have access; he however continued to make forthright remarks about the system]. I was told later that he stood up and said, "If Director Li is correct, then Phünwang has made a serious mistake. However, in the one-page letter Phünwang submitted, he said that many things in Li's essay are not factually correct and that he will submit a detailed written argument that responds to these inaccuracies. I think we need to read Phünwang's response to know the whole story."
Yin Fatang did not appreciate Yangling Dorje's interference, calling his attitude ambiguous and later accusing him of being my ‘representative’ in Tibet. Yin went on to distribute the materials to officials at the county level, where more meetings were held to attack me. It was a smear campaign, and it was extremely troubling.
In Beijing, I wrote several letters to the Central Committee telling them that I had written a twenty-five-thousand-character response to Li Weihan's ten-thousand-character essay and suggested that they ought to be evaluating the two arguments because this was not a trivial debate. Until now, I said bluntly, there had been no comparable debate in the party on nationality affairs. I stressed that the outcome was likely to have a huge impact on future work in minority nationality areas, and I therefore requested that the Central Committee set up a small investigation group to evaluate both Li's and my arguments. I sent letters making the same request to Deng Xiaoping and Hu Yaobang.
While waiting for an answer and preparing to attend the Sixth National People's Congress (which was to start in mid-1983), I got another shock. One day, quite by accident, I met Wang Guangmei, the widow of Liu Shaoqi [former PRC President]. She told me that my name was not on the list of Sichuan delegates. I didn't pay this much attention, since what she said seemed impossible, but the following week, I met her again and she reiterated that she had checked and my name was not on the list. "You should pay attention to this," she said. This time I did.
Since I was a deputy party secretary of the Nationalities Committee of the National People's Congress, I had access to the list of representatives. As she had warned, I found that my name was missing and realized that this was another attempt to push me aside. Angry and frustrated, I immediately called Xi Zhongxun and asked for a meeting.
Xi, who was one of the top leaders in the party and a member of the Politburo, didn't know what I was talking about.
"No changes have been planned," he said. "You are still a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and a deputy party secretary of the Nationalities Committee."
"Then why has my name been dropped from the list of Sichuan representatives?" I asked.
Instead of responding, he turned to the lists, I think to show me that my fears were groundless. But the lists were so long-filling between ten and fifteen volumes that while I sat sipping a glass of tea, he stopped searching through them and called Yang Jingren directly.
"What happened to Phünwang's status as a delegate to the National People's Congress from Sichuan?" he asked bluntly. "Did you forget to put his name on the list?"
"I reported this to you some time ago," Yang said smoothly. "That report was so long I didn't read it all. Can you tell me what happened?"
"As you know," said Yang, "Phünwang has been accused of being one of three people harming the party's work in Tibet. Then there were his comments about adding nationality clauses to the constitution, and finally there was the debate with Li Weihan. For these reasons, I have withdrawn him from the coming National People's Congress and instead have placed him as a candidate for membership on the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference."
"Why didn't you discuss such an important thing with me first?" Xi said angrily. "And why did you bury an important decision like this under thousands of names on your endless list?" He paused, and continued, "You made a big mistake. Phünwang's position should not be changed. I am going to report this to Hu Yaobang! You must reinstate Phünwang immediately. Do you understand?"
After the phone call, I had a serious talk with Xi.
"Till now," I said, "I have never asked for a personal favor. However, as you can plainly see, the people who attacked me before are attacking me again. I have a right to be a delegate for the Tibetan people to the National People's Congress. You said just now that you will report this matter to Hu Yaobang. I will also report this to Hu-and to Deng Xiaoping himself if necessary-and I will fight to represent the Tibetan people."
After I left Xi, I did write letters, and so, I believe, did Xi. And before long, Hu Yaobang and Deng Xiaoping sent a message informing me that they had instructed Yang Jingren not to change my position as a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. The decision meant a great deal to me, and soon my fortunes began to improve on another front.
My detailed criticisms of Li Weihan's report posed a difficult problem for the party. Li had made his judgments on behalf of the Central Committee, which in a sense meant that he represented Deng Xiaoping. Thus, if the Central Committee said I was right, it meant Li-and by extension Deng-was wrong. They came up with an interesting solution.
At the National People's Congress, Xi Zhongxun, representing the Central Committee, made a speech introducing the members of the Standing Committee. When he introduced me, he praised me as a party member who had done good revolutionary work for many years. "He has made a great contribution," he said, and then he added, "In our party, there are different thoughts on ideology, and according to the party's constitution, one has the right to hold different views." He didn't mention my name, but what he was talking about was clear to those who knew of the dispute. And it was now clear to me what the Central Committee had done. Indirectly and cleverly they had declared that Li Weihan and I had the right to hold our different views. It was not necessary to decide whether one was right and one wrong. I wasn't declared right, but in this battle of criticism and debate, I felt I had won a victory against enormous odds. Not only had the party leadership declined to support the attack on my views, but they also sent a message that people in the party like me were free to speak their minds.
I also had an impact on the constitution al front. I didn't get the specific clauses I had suggested accepted, but I was able to persuade Peng Zhen, Politburo member and chairman of the National People's Congress (and de facto head of the Constitution Revisions Committee), to phrase a section of the preamble so that the word "equality" preceded the words "unity" and "cooperation." I thought this made a big difference in orientation because without equality first there cannot be unity. The final version approved on December 4, 1982, said, "The People's Republic of China is a unitary multinational state created jointly by the people of all its nationalities. Socialist relations of equality, unit y, and mutual assistance have been established among the nationalities and will continue to be strengthened." [The previous 1978 constitution had said only, "The unit y between all nationalities of the country should be strengthened.")
On the other main front-the "three enemies of the party" campaign against me-I also eventually was vindicated.
In spring 1984, a number of TAR officials (including Yin Fatang, Ragdi [later Executive Deputy Secretary of the Tibet Communist Party and the highest ranking Tibetan in the Tibet Autonomous  Region in the1990’s], and Yangling Dorje) came to Beijing. During this visit, Yangling Dorje met with Premier Zhao Ziyang, whom he knew well from their days together in Sichuan. At their meeting, Zhao asked him about Tibet, and Yangling Dorje told him frankly, "After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party in 1978, the whole nation shifted its priority away from political struggle to issues concerning economic development. However, Yin Fatang and others in Lhasa continued to proceed on the assumption that in Tibet the priority was political struggle. They have said that the primary targets of this political struggle are the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama, and Phünwang. They also criticized Phünwang's views on nationality theory without even reading his response to Li Weihan."
"What is going on in Tibet is wrong," Zhao said. "Economic development is the work priority for the nation-including Tibet. Phünwang and the Panchen Lama are both our people, and we are trying to win over the Dalai Lama. Therefore, it is wrong to make them objects of political attack."
The next day, Yangling Dorje went to see Hu Yaobang, and when Hu heard what he had to say, he became angry. "Economic development is the priority of the whole nation," he said. "Because of class struggle, our country has had very hard times. If we do not pay attention to economic development in Tibet and improve the people's living conditions there, we will never achieve the kinds of political results we want." He also said that it was wrong to single out three people and make them targets of political struggle.
I didn't know about any of this until one afternoon when there was a knock on my door. It was Yangling Dorje, and he was smiling broadly.
"A rag, he said [a rag is a term of greeting that means roughly "my friend" in Khampa dialects), "I no longer need to be afraid to visit." (He meant, of course, that while I was under political attack, it was a risk for anyone to seem too close to me.)
"Today," he continued, "I bring two swords in my hands. One is from Hu Yaobang, and the other is from Zhao Ziyang. They are the ones who have asked me to visit you." He then proceeded to tell me about Hu's and Zhao's responses.
Not long after these events, the Central Committee actually criticized Yin Fatang publicly for his attack on the "three enemies," and then one day in early April 1984, Yin Fatang, Ragdi, Yangling Dorje, and Dorje Tseden [a top Tibetan cadre in the TAR government] unexpectedly came to see me. They came to tell me that the Central Committee had told them their campaign against me was wrong. They had visited the Panchen Lama yesterday, and today they had come to apologize to me. They admitted they had made a mistake!
It was more than I ever dreamed would happen.
Finally, in the fall of 1985, I also got closure on the status of our Tibetan Communist Party. When I had contacted the Chinese Communist Party in Yunnan in 1949, the local party leader agreed to accept me and the others in my party as members of the CCP but said that the date when our party membership should start would have to be decided later by the Central Committee. It was the mid-198os now. Many of our members were close to retirement, and there was still confusion about the date at which their party membership had begun. Therefore, the United Front Work Department and the State Nationalities Affairs Commission conducted an investigation and reported their results to the Central Committee.
In a document that was signed by Xi Zhongxun, Hu Qili [from 1982 to 1987, director of General Office and a member of the Political Bureau of CPC Central Committees], and others, the Central Committee determined that after I met with Ye Jianying [Army general, Ye assisted Liu Bocheng in directing the crossing of the Yangtze River at Anshunchang and Luding Bridge during the Long March; he was appointed director of the offices that liaised with the KMT after 1936. Later he became Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress from 1978 to 1983] in Chongqing in 1940, I established a Communist Party in Tartsedo and Lhasa and enrolled many members. My revolutionary work therefore officially began in 1940. I thought that they should consider my relationship with the Chinese Communist Party to have started when I met with Ye Jianying in 1940, but they said that because Ye Jianying, who was then in his nineties, could not remember our meetings, they did not accept us as part of the CCP until 1949, when I arrived in Yunnan. I decided not to contest this. I was satisfied that they had officially recognized our Tibetan party as a Communist Party, and it did not matter to me whether it belonged to the Soviet Communist Party or the Chinese Communist Party or was its own Tibetan party.
And so events had finally come full circle. I had not only been rehabilitated, but now my revolutionary work since 1940 had been accepted. The terrible years in prison could not be wiped away, but the historical record was now clean.

Xi goes red

A meeting of the Central Committee at Xibaipo

My article One Xi taught a lesson, another fails to learn it appeared in The Pioneer today.


Click here to read... 

President Xi Jinping has been talking a great deal of reclaiming the past glories of communism in China and building on it a new ‘dream’ for his country. What if that dream sours, like others did in the past?

The 10th Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party's 8th Central Committee was held in September 1962 in Beijing. It was to be a crucial meet not only because Mao Zedong had decided to attack ‘arrogant’ India, but because it witnessed the first purge which culminated in the Cultural Revolution a few years later.
According to Dr Li Zhisui, Mao’s private physician and author of The Private Life of Chairman Mao: “During the Plenum, Mao retook the upper hand on the Party and his old comrades. He reemphasized class struggle in order to prevent the emergence of revisionism.”
The main casualty of the Plenum was Xi Zhongxun. The Vice-Premier’s mistake was that he was too close to Marshal Peng Dehuai who had dared to criticize Mao’s Great Leap Forward in 1959; further, Xi Zhongxun was suspected to support the ‘Three Nis’, thanks to the Chinese pronunciation: Kennedy (Ken-ni-di), Nikita Khrushchev (Ni-ji-ta), Nehru (Ni-he-lu).
At the time of the Plenum, Xi Zhongxun’s son was a young boy; he was only 9 years-old. He must have been deeply traumatized when his father was sent to the wilderness of Chinese gaols for the next 16 years. Senior Xi would only be rehabilitated by his old Comrade Deng Xiaoping in 1978.
Fifty-one year later, Xi Zhongxun’s son, today China’s President and General Secretary of the Communist Party, exhorts the Chinese nation to return to the good old Communist values.
It is difficult to comprehend, but last week, Xinhua reported ‘Xi urges China to keep red’.
The new Emperor paid a visit to Xibaipo in the northern province of Hebei; it was the old revolutionary base, where from May 1948 to early 1949, the Communist leadership worked on the blueprint of the new Red China.
According to Xinhua, addressing the Party cadres, Xi Junior “urged the 85 million members of the Communist Party of China to work hard and serve the people wholeheartedly to ensure the color of red China will never change.”
Xi warned the Party cadres against the Four Decadences: formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance.
While fighting laxity, mediocrity and corruption, Xi said the campaign should focus on self-purification, self-perfection, self-renewal and self-progression.
Xi called for "thorough inspection, overhaul and cleanup”.
He probably did not have in mind the rectification session of the 10th Plenum, when he said: “Late Chinese leader Mao Zedong's remarks on Party members' work styles prior to the founding of New China in 1949 still have far-reaching ideological and historical significance.”
His recent leitmotiv has been: “If every CPC member and every grass-roots organ …do a good job, the Party will be strong, the country will be strong and people will be strong. Thus, the Party's rule will have a solid foundation."
The President asked the senior provincial officials to take the lead in the ‘Campaign on Mass Line Education and Practice’; Mao Zedong used the word, ‘mass line’ to explain the need for the Party to stay in touch with the ‘masses’.
President Xi’s point is that if the Party is unable to do this, it will die. The ‘chaos’ so feared by the old emperors will then follow. At the same time, he does not want to blindly follow the ‘western’ style of democracy which would, according to him, destroy the ‘Chinese characteristics’ of the Middle Kingdom. He probably believes that the Indian model is not efficient enough.
The new drive is not limited to the cadres, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) too have to “nurture the core values of the contemporary revolutionary soldier” and have to do “a better job in educating, nurturing and molding the soldier’s character”.
This mass line scheme follows a campaign calling for a Chinese Dream, the catchword of the new Chinese leadership. The People's Daily explains Xi’s Dream: “The Chinese dream is a dream for development.” The leadership today believes that China has become the stabilizer of the world economy and following the international financial crisis, its new engine.
For the new President: “The Chinese dream is a dream for harmony. Unfair and unreasonable old international order which has not been fundamentally changed is the most important cause of world chaos and dilemma.”
That is not all, the Chinese dream is a dream for cooperation and finally a dream for peace: “China stands for peace settlement for global disputes and issues and the new security concept of mutual trust, mutual benefit and cooperation.”
The South China Morning Post quotes Prof. Wang Yukai of the Chinese Academy of Governance agreeing with Xi: “The key to the Party's rule is to improve its capacity to rule and maintain its internal vitality.”
That sounds nice. Chinese like it so much that hundreds of think-tanks, universities, national and regional institutions have started studying ‘The Dream’ and begun publishing comments and dissertations on it.
Even the PLA is praising the Dream. The People's Liberation Daily has even gone a step further: “it is like seeing a ship's mast in the sea, like seeing the radiant sun rise in the east”. The Editor added: "It is the dogma of my belief, the cosmic truth. ...The dream is more important than anything …it is like water that carries the ship; like the wind that sustains the wings.”
It is rare for the Chinese Army to have glimpses of the 'cosmic truth'.
Is it this 'cosmic' experience which guided some Chinese jawans to the Depsang Plain, near Daulat Beg Oldi in the rarefied altitude of Ladakh or in Chumar, when some of them stole ‘dysfunctional’ surveillance cameras from the Indian side of the LAC?
After the Ladakh incidents, one could ask is this dream good for India?
But some voices already doubt the new campaign. Li Haiqing, a Communist Party historian at the Central Party School writes in Study Times, the School newspaper: “The mass line is not an effective substitute that can realise the function of democracy.”
This reminds me of the thoughts of Dr. Li, when looking at the flat ECG of the Great Helmsman who had just passed away: “In the beginning, I had adulated Mao. He was China’s savior, the country messiah. But this had long since passed. My dream of a new China, where all men would be equal and exploitation ended, had been shattered years before. I had no faith in the Communist party, of which I was still a member; [today], an era has ended, Mao’s time has passed.”
President Xi wants to revive the past, it seems a pipedream.
The problem is that if the Dream turns sour, it may have serious consequences for China as well as its neighbours. India should watch carefully.

Xi's Two Southern Tours

Xi Jinping has taken over the Chairmanship of the Central Military Commission.
China watchers have started looking at signs indicating in which direction the wind will blow. 
While the new CCP General Secretary's Southern Tour attracted a lot of attention in the Chinese and foreign media, his 'military tour' was more discreet.  
About the economic 'Southern Tour', analyst Willy Lam wrote in the China Brief of the Jamestown Foundation:

General Secretary Xi Jinping has lost no time in reassuring the world that his Chinese Communist Party (CCP) administration will not only persevere with reforms championed by late patriarch Deng Xiaoping but also 'initiate new paths'. Shenzhen, the special economic zone (SEZ) that is synonymous with the country’s 34-year-old era of reform and the open door, was the first city that Xi inspected after becoming party chief and Chairman of the Central Military Commission on November 15. While China’s intellectuals generally have responded positively to Xi’s early commitment to economic reform, many doubt whether anything substantial will be accomplished in the more controversial field of political liberalization.

Lam rightly pointed out that: "The Shenzhen SEZ is not only the brainchild of Deng but also that of Xi’s father Xi Zhongxun (1913–2002), the late Vice-Premier who was Guangdong governor and Party Secretary from 1978 to 1981. A close ally of reformist General Secretary Hu Yaobang’s (1915–1989)... At one stroke, Xi has laid claim to being the successor of the CCP’s reformist wing that was once headed by luminaries such as Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang and Xi Zhongxun."
Let us remember that after his rehabilitation in 1978, Xi Zhongxun was responsible for proposing and implementing China's first Special Economic Zone in Shenzhen. This experiment then symbolized the new direction of Communist China. Xi Jr. probably wants to walk in his father's footsteps.
Xi Zhongxun once told Deng Xiaoping "We need to reform China and implement this economic zone even if it means that we have to pave a bloody road ahead and I am to be responsible for it."
His biographers say that Old Xi is “remembered for his friendship to his colleagues, his tolerance to diverse cultures and religions, his idealism of an open market socialist country and his integrity in his beliefs”.
It is perhaps because Xi Junior 'ate bitterness' during the difficult years, particularly when his father was out of power that he wanted to pay homage to Xi Zhongxun during his first official trip outside Beijing. 
The second leg of his visit was reported by Xinhua.

Xi’s 'military' Southern Visit
China is still in a period of transition (at least till the People’s National Congress in March). It is probably why Xi made a special gesture to visit the Guangzhou Military Region (MR) soon after he had taken over as CMC Chairman. 
Meeting and interacting with officers and jawans was a way to get the PLA on his side.
During his tour, he assertively asked the officers “to adopt real combat criteria in military training and intensify such awareness among soldiers.”
Xi reaffirmed the PLA's core task of improving “its abilities to wage regional wars in the Information Age.”
While visiting a PLA unit, he stated: "Bear in mind that it is the soul of the military to obey the command of the Party without compromise, it is the top priority for the military to be able to combat and win battles.”
Nothing revolutionary, Hu Jintao would have said the same thing.
There is no question of 'changes' or 'reforms' as during the 'economic' leg of his trip.
Aboard the Haikou, a PLA Navy destroyer, he had dinner with sailors and officers. He spoke about discipline: “The PLA should unconditionally implement the principles to govern the military lawfully and austerely, train the troops through strict discipline, always focus on grassroots units and further improve fighting capabilities.”
Xi urged the PLA to uphold “the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, take Deng Xiaoping Theory, the ‘Three Represents’ and the Scientific Outlook on Development as a guide”.
It was a direct homage to his 3 predecessors, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.

Xi affirmed his firm belief that China is on the way to a 'great rejuvenation' and the role of the ‘heroic’ PLA is to carry forward China’s cause: “forge ahead into the future and effectively implement the historic mission”.
How will this translate for China’s neighbours is too early to say. 
Xi was accompanied by two of his CMC’s colleagues General Fan Changlong and General Wu Shengli, the PLAN Commander (Naval Chief).
At the same time, The New York Times asserted: ‘China Steps Up Pressure on Japan in Island Dispute’. Its correspondent reported: “A modest-looking twin-propeller Chinese aircraft loaded with radar and other surveillance equipment swooped low over the waters close to disputed islands in the East China Sea on Thursday, the latest move by China to increase the pressure on Japan over who owns the uninhabited island chain.  By itself, the less than 30-minute flight by the nine-year-old plane into what Japan considers its airspace did not amount to much. Japanese F-15 jets were sent in response, but the Chinese plane had left by the time they got to the area.
But the Chinese sortie was part of a steady escalation in the air, on the sea and in public statements by China against Japan, a strategy that analysts say was fixed upon three months ago to take back the islands known as Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan. The strategy, they say, is being overseen by the new leader, Xi Jinping.”
An assertive CMC Chairman does not augur too well for the rest of Asia.

Mao’s cult may have no place in China’s future

My article Mao’s cult may have no place in China’s future appeared today in the DNA.

‘Mao will lead China forever’ was the title of a very famous poster during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution led by the Great Helmsman who, in Problems of War and Strategy, affirmed: “Some people have ridiculed us as the advocates of omnipotence of war. Yes, we are: we are the advocates of the omnipotence of the revolutionary war, which is not bad at all, but good and is Marxist.”
This was one of the many ‘thoughts’ of ‘Chairman Mao’.
One can ask, will this continue to lead China forever?
"To include Mao or not to include Mao? That is the tough question China's rulers are facing as the nation prepares for the once-a-decade leadership transition", writes Cary Huang in The South China Morning Post.
One can understand that Xi Jinping, the expected new leader of China does not really believe in Mao’s cult.
Xi was nine years-old when he saw his father, Xi Zhongxun, then PRC’s Vice-Premier unfairly purged by Mao.
This happened in September 1962 as Mao was preparing to go to war with India. What a traumatic experience it must have been for young Xi!
Xi Zhongxun only reappeared in 1978, when Deng Xiaoping gave him the task to start economic reforms in China's coastal areas.
Let us return to 1958.
It is today fashionable to speak of crimes against humanity. One of the greatest, known as the 'Great Leap Forward', began in China in February 1958 and resulted in the largest man-made starvation in human history. By initiating his Leap Forward, Mao Zedong's objective was to surpass Great Britain in industrial production within 15 years; every Chinese had to start producing steel at home, with a backyard furnace. In agriculture, Mao thought that very large communes would cater for a many-fold increase in the cereal production to make China into a heaven of abundance. Introduced and managed with frantic fanaticism, it did not take much time before the program collapsed.
In 1959, one man raised his voice against the general madness and sycophancy. This was Peng Denhai, Defence Minister and old companion of Mao during the Long March. Marshal Peng, who was a simple, honest and straightforward soldier wrote a long personal letter to Mao on what he had seen in the countryside and the misery of the people. Mao immediately 'purged' Old Peng for daring to criticize him. The Great Leap Forward was to continue for 3 years and it is today estimated that between 40-50 million died of hunger in China during those three years.
As tension kept increasing on the Indian border in the early 1960’s, did Nehru realize that China was a starving nation?
Moreover, the ‘great’ Indian Intelligence Chief, B.N. Mullik was blissfully unaware that by the end of 1961 Mao was practically out of power?
Dr. Zhisui Li, his personal physician recounts that the Chairman was: “…depressed over the agricultural crisis… Mao was in temporary eclipse, spending most his time in bed”.
In January 1962, Mao's position remained grim, Dr. Li noted: “In January, when he convened another expanded Central Committee work conference to discuss the continuing disaster, his support within the party was at its lowest.”
It is only by the Fall of 1962 that Mao would return with a bang. The conflict with India was closely linked with his comeback.
Mao decided to first ‘fix’ Marshal Peng; for the purpose, he used the Machiavellian Kang Sheng, later responsible for the security and intelligence during the Cultural Revolution, to do the dirty job.
The pretext was the Gao Gang affair. Gao, a senior Communist leader and at one point in time, Mao’s heir-apparent had been the victim of the first major purge within the CCP in 1953-54. Mao believed that Marshal Peng had been involved in the Gao Gang episode in the 1950’s.
The easiest way to get Peng out was to attack one of his closest collaborators, Xi Zhongxun, who had served as his Political Commissar, when the First Field Army entered Eastern Tibet in 1949.
Kang Sheng suggested a flimsy pretext (Xi Zhongxun would have edited a novel mentioning a character similar to Gao Gang). In The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, the US scholar Roderick MacFarquhar wrote: “At the 10th-Plenum [September 1962], Kang Sheng was thus free to lead the attack on Xi, and thereafter to lead the second special case review commission in its investigation of the supposed 'anti-party group' led by Xi.”
Thus for no fault of his, Xi Zhongxun, Xi Jinping’s father, was ‘sent in the wilderness’.
During the last few days, China’s watchers have been analyzing the omission of Mao Zedong's name in a Xinhua communique about the CCP's 18th Congress, which is to begin on November 8.
The statement issued by the 24-member Politburo made references to President Hu Jintao , his predecessor Jiang Zemin , and Deng Xiaoping, the architect of the ‘reform and opening up policy’, but no trace of Mao.
The future will tell us if the Constitution is amended and Mao’s name is forever dropped, but one can understand that Xi Jinping, the next leader of China, has some doubts about the greatness of Mao’s Thoughts.

Mao will not lead China forever

Mao is for ever with us, says the poster.
Perhaps not.
"To include Mao, or not to include Mao? That is the tough question China's rulers are facing as the nation prepares for the once-a-decade leadership transition", writes Cary Huang in The South China Morning Post.
One can understand that Xi Jinping, the expected new leader of China does not believe in the cult of Mao. 
As I mentioned in another posting, Xi Jinping was nine years-old when he saw his father, Xi Zhongxun, then Vice-Premier of the People's Republic of China,  unjustly purged by Mao. 
This happened in September 1962 as Mao was preparing to go to war with India. Xi Zhongxun only reappeared in 1978, when Deng Xiaoping gave him the task to start economic reforms in China's coastal areas.
What a traumatic experience, it must have been for young Xi!
Here is an extract of The Origins of the Cultural Revolution (Volume 2) written by the great scholar Roderick MacFarquhar:

Xi Zhongxun and his sons

The day of the jackal
The Gao Gang affair [Gao was the victim of the first major purge within the CCP in 1953-54] was still alive issue in 1962. As we have seen, by the time of the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference [January 1962] , it was Peng Dehuai's alleged involvement in it that had to be used as the major justification for Mao's refusal to rehabilitate the marshal, since his trenchant criticisms of the GLF [Great Leap Forward] had been proved correct.
Thus it was no wonder that Kang Sheng should prick up his ears at the mention of a new Gao Gang angle. In the tense atmosphere of intra-party struggle revived at Beidaihe by Mao, here was a heaven-sent opportunity for Kang to prove again to the Chairman his indispensability in ferreting out traitors.
Among Kang's current positions was vice-head of the CC's Culture and Education Small Group and head of its theory section, and on that authority he ordered the Propaganda Department to stop any further publication of chapters from Liu Zhidan, even though at this point he had not even seen the manuscript. He ordered 300 copies of the third draft and 600 copies of the fifth draft to be printed and distributed for examination by the Beidaihe conferees.
On 24 August, he wrote to the CC's General Office to say that this was not simply a literary issue but had political implications. He coined the phrase 'using novels to promote anti-party activities' is a great invention, which Mao embraced with enthusiasm, and which indeed was subsequently attributed to the Chairman. But author Li Jiantong was small fry, and so Kang Sheng concocted the idea of a high-level plot masterminded by Xi Zhongxun.
Why did Mao seize on the Liu Zhidan affair and give Kang Sheng his head without really looking into the matter, or indeed believing the charges?
Did he not have enough to do discouraging his leagues from pursuing revisionist policies in the countryside and abroad?
One reason was probably that he welcomed a fresh case seemingly tailor-made to justify his warnings on the need for class struggle and eternal vigilance.
Secondly, ever since the Hungarian revolt and the Hundred Flowers in China, he had been extremely wary of the ability of intellectuals to use their professional skill for nefarious political purposes, what might be called the Petofi Circle syndrome.
Kang's new concept resonated with him, and as the 1960s progressed, Mao would increase the pressure on the intellectuals. Finally, as Kang Sheng doubtless intuited, attacking Liu Zhidan was an excellent way to demonstrate the continuing relevance of the Gao Gang affair, and thus provide additional justification for the refusal to rehabilitate Peng Dehuai.
For his own reasons, Liu Shaoqi had to fall in with this strategy vis-à-vis Peng Dehuai, but at the 10th plenum he also condemned Xi Zhongxun and Liu Zhidan in the same terms. There is no record of Zhou Enlai attempting to save a man he evidently regarded as a key member of his State Council team; with Mao's permission and  Chen Yi in attendance, the premier tried only to comfort Xi Zhongxun with an assurance that if the Liu Zhidan accusation was a mistake, it would be corrected.
At the 10th-plenum, Kang Sheng was thus free to lead the attack on Xi, and thereafter to lead the second special case review commission in its investigation of the supposed 'anti-party group' led by Xi; Jia Tuofu, a one-time associate of Liu Zhidan and currently a CC member and a vice-chairman of the State Planning Commission; and the author's husband, Liu Zhidan's brother, Liu Jingfan. Kang Sheng alleged that a character in the novel named Luo Yan represented Gao Gang, just as three years later he would claim that Hai Rui was Peng Dehuai. Officials at the publishing house and throughout the northwest were investigated, and the case had still not been concluded when the Cultural Revolution broke out and it became public knowledge. Kang Sheng's reward was promotion to the CC's secretariat at the 10th plenum.

Thus Xi Zhongxun was purged, for no fault of his.

Will Mao Zedong's philosophy live on in party constitution?
South China Morning Post
LEADERSHIP TRANSITION
Cary Huang in Beijing
Analysts are divided on whether omission of Mao Zedong's name in recent statement means his philosophy may be cut from constitution
To include Mao, or not to include Mao? That is the tough question China's rulers are facing as the nation prepares for the once-a-decade leadership transition in two weeks.
The omission of Mao Zedong's name from a recent Xinhua statement has triggered speculation as to whether the Communist Party's 18th congress, which begins on November 8, will make a historic decision about how much emphasis to accord one of the party's founding fathers, as the practical impact of Mao's legacy on the party wanes.
The statement, issued after the party's 24-member Politburo met on Monday, made references to President Hu Jintao , his predecessor Jiang Zemin , and Deng Xiaoping , the architect of China's transformational "reform and opening up" policy, but did not mention Mao. The statement also said the congress would revise the party constitution to incorporate "significant" theories.
Analysts are divided on whether the omission was an indication that the party leadership had reached a consensus on Mao's controversial theories.
"This is not a new development. The omission has happened before in the past decade," said Professor Steve Tsang, who teaches contemporary Chinese studies at the University of Nottingham, where he is also director of the China Policy Institute.
Tsang said the practice of citing the "contributions" made by successive generations of top leaders had become too long and unwieldy to include the full citation from Karl Marx to Hu.
"Do not read too much into the omission," said Professor Liu Kang, director of Duke University's China Research Centre.
Liu said the party was uncertain about its ideological legitimacy but still tended to preserve its ideological continuity. "The party is unlikely to deliberately trigger a political controversy and jettison a figure on whose memory it depends for legitimacy and continuity," he said.
The party announced yesterday the planned naming of four halls in the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square after revolutionary places related to Mao.
The places are Jinggangshan and Yanan , which were Red Army headquarters; Shaoshan , Mao's birthplace; and Zunyi , where Mao was appointed top leader of the Red Army.
Some analysts agree that the omission of Mao's name from the recent statement may hint at a pivotal change in the party's outlook, even as time is running out for the government to fix structural flaws in the way the country is run.
Zhang Ming , a political scientist at Renmin University, said it had become imperative, and therefore likely, that the party would reach a decision on whether to acknowledge Mao's ideology, particularly after the Bo Xilai saga this year.
Bo, a high-flying Politburo member until his recent downfall, had gained considerable popularity through his Maoist revival campaign.
"The party as a whole is extremely averse to the idea of another Mao appearing, and they understand that China's future depends on overcoming its attachment to Mao," Zhang said.

Like father, like son. Here’s hoping that

Xi Zhongxun with Gyalo Thondup

My article Like father, like son. Here’s hoping that was published yesterday in The Pioneer. 

Xi Jinping is slated to be China's next leader. He did a Houdini act (though only for 12 days), while the entire world media speculated about his fate. Xi Jinping is the son of Xi Zhongxun, a well-known reformist

Our story starts with the arrival of Kang Sheng, a shady character, on the Chinese political stage in 1962.
In the Fall of 1962, during the Tenth Plenum of the 8th Party’s Congress, Mao violently attacked Vice-Premier Xi Zhongxun, accusing him of supporting the rehabilitation of Gao Gang, a Communist Party leader who has been purged in 1949.
Machiavellian Kang Sheng led the charge; he announced that Xi had been ‘investigated’ for his ‘anti-party activities’.
Dr. Li Zhuixi, Mao’s personal physician later wrote: “Kang Sheng's investigations implicated more than three hundred cadres from the party, government, and military.” This included Xi Zhongxun.
Dr. Li continued: “I knew Xi Zhongxun well, and the charges against him and his supporters were fabricated. But Kang Sheng's job was to depose and destroy his fellow party members, and his continuing ‘investigations’ of ranking party leaders in the early 1960s laid the groundwork for the attacks of the Cultural Revolution to come.”
Subsequently, Vice-Premier Xi Zhongxun disappeared from public view for 16 years.
Recently, when Xi Jinping, China’s next leader did a Houdini act (though only for 12 day, while the entire world media speculated about his fate) Zhongxun’s case came back to my mind. Xi Jinping is the son of Xi Zhongxun.
The main crime of Xi Sr. was to have been associated with Marshal Peng Dehuai, the solitary critic of Mao during the Great Leap Forward (45 million of Chinese died according to the latest figures of the largest-ever man-made disaster).
To attempt guessing the future of a Chinese leader, it is always tempting to look into his past or his lineage. Interestingly, the Chinese press never mentions Xi Jinping's childhood. When his father was ignominiously purged, he was just 9 year old. Such a trauma for a kid!
At the end of the 18th Party Congress in Beijing next month, Xi will be officially anointed General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and President of the PRC; a few months later, he will become Chairman of the Central Military Commission controlling an all-powerful People’s Liberation Army.
Though Xi Jr. is mentioned in cables released by Wikileaks, his relation with his father Xi Zhongxun seems to have been neglected.
Born in 1913 in Shaanxi, Xi, the Elder joined the Communist Youth League in May 1926 and the Communist Party of China in 1928. He rose to Deputy Prime Minister from 1959 to 1962 and was later Governor of Guangdong from 1979 to 1981.
The life of Older Xi may provide some hints about the direction China could take after the Party’s Congress next month. Xi Zhongxun had two lives (one before the Kang Sheng episode and the other after 1978, with a blank gap of 16 years in-between). You will understand why the official China media has been avoiding the issue.
During the first part of his life (mainly between 1949 and 1962), Xi Zhongxun was associated with one of the most remarkable leaders of modern China: Marshal Peng Dehuai. Once the Dalai Lama confided to me, “he was my favorite Chinese”. Peng was the only person who dared to take on Mao Zedong.
In the late 1940’s, while Peng was the Commander of the First Field Army whose responsibility was to look after Northwest China, Xi Zhongxun was Political Commissar. Along with the Second Northwest Field Army (led by General Lui Bosheng and Commissar Deng Xiaoping), Peng’s Army ‘liberated’ Tibet. From that time, Xi Zhongxun was associated with the main Tibetan leaders, particularly the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.
As a representative of Mao, it was Xi who officially bid farewell to the Panchen Lama when the latter left for his maiden visit to Tibet in 1951 (born in Qinghai province, he had never visited Tibet before). He told the young Lama: “When you get back to Tibet, do not hurry to push various things. Please take account of the whole picture in Tibet. The priority is unity among Tibetans. Only when Tibetans unite can our work in Tibet really make progress." Apparently, Xi did not want to force a foreign ideology on the Tibetans: "everything in Tibet should follow the principle of cautious and steady progress. If conditions are not ripe for something, do not do it; if the upper-hierarchy patriotic public and leadership figures do not agree with it, do not do it.”
During the following years, Xi continued to work closely with Tibet and Peng, he was eventually nominated Vice-Premier of China. It is in 1954/55 that he was gifted an Omega watch by the Dalai Lama who visited Beijing for several months.
However, Xi’s fate took another turn during the Lushan Conference of July 1959, when Peng Dehuai, a native of Hunan came back from a tour of his province and decided to speak out against the Great Leap Forward, Mao’s grandiose scheme to overtake the West in 15 years. Peng told Mao in no uncertain terms that China was on the brink of the greatest calamity; as a result, he was purged and replaced as Defence Minister by the wily Lin Biao. Mao never forgave Peng for having spoken against the Great Leap Forward.
It is when Kang Sheng entered the stage.
In September 1962, during the 10th Plenum of the Party's of the 8th Party’s Central Committee, Mao, who had remained in the background after the Lushan Conference, decided to come back on the front stage. In one way, the Plenum marked the beginning of a movement which culminated in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution four years later. During the Plenum, Mao reemphasized class struggle ‘to prevent the emergence of revisionism’; he denounced 'the members of the bourgeoisie right in the party ranks'.
Mao reasserted that the Great Leap Forward was the right thing for China.
During the same Plenum, it was decided to ‘teach a lesson’ to India. The attack on India a month later, was for Mao and his new protégé Lin Biao a way to reassert their supremacy over Peng Dehuai, Lui Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.
It was also the beginning of the end for the Panchen Lama who in July had sent his 70,000 character petition to Zhou Enlai detailing the suffering of the Tibetan people between 1959 and 1962. Mao called the petition 'a poisoned arrow shot at the Party by reactionary feudal overlords'. But the biggest casualty of the Plenum was Xi Jinping’s father. He was ‘fixed’ by Kang Sheng, Mao’s wily Inquisitor, under a bogus pretext; he had been too close of Peng Dehuai and in touch with the Panchen Lama. He was demoted and sent for 16 years into the ‘wilderness’.
After his rehabilitation in 1978, Xi Zhongxun became a trusted lieutenant of Deng Xiaoping and the Governor of Guangdong. Here, he was responsible for proposing and implementing China's first Special Economic Zone in Shenzhen. This experiment symbolized the new direction of Communist China. Xi is said to have told Deng Xiaoping "We need to reform China and implement this economic zone even if it means that we have to pave a bloody road ahead and I am to be responsible for it."
His biographers say that Old Xi is “remembered for his friendship to his colleagues, his tolerance to diverse cultures and religions, his idealism of an open market socialist country and his integrity in his beliefs”.
One understands that Xi Junior 'ate bitterness' during his youth. It must have marked him for years.
Will Xi Jinping emulate his father and bring new ‘reforms’ to China? It is a billion Yuan question.

The two Xis and Tibet

This article of Reuters is interesting, though it misses several points about Xi Zhongxun.
As I mentioned in an earlier posting, Xi Jinping had a very traumatic youth. Xi Zhongxun, Xi Jinping's father was 'purged' by Mao in September 1962, mainly due to his closeness to Marshal Peng Dehuai who had dared criticizing Mao for his Great Leap Forward. 
The young Dalai Lama in 1954-55 was very close to Peng ('my favorite Chinese', he once told me), though at the end of the 1940s, Marshall Peng was the Commander of the First Field Army which invaded Amdo (Xi Senior was the Political Commissar of the same Army). 
Xi Zhongxun was probably closer to the late Panchen Lama than the Dalai Lama, as the First Field Army supported the Tashilhunpo monastery ('Back Tibet' in Chinese parlance).
Dr. Li Zhisui, Mao's Private Physician in its Private Life of Chairman Mao gave an  interesting account of Xi Zhongxun's fall during the 10th Plenum of the Party's 8th Central Committee of the CCP which was held in September 1962, in Beijing.  
In another posting, I mentioned the close relation of Xi Senior with Bapa Phuntsok Wangyal (Phunwang), the 'first' Tibetan Communist in the 1930’s. Phunwang was arrested and accused to be a ‘local nationalist’ in 1958 and rehabilitated at the end of the 1970’s. In 1980, he participated to the redrafting of the Chinese Constitution. Like Xi Senior, he spent 18 years in confinement. While in prison, Phuntsok Wangyal became knowledgeable about the issue of ‘Nationalities’ and suggested some amendments of the Constitution People Republic of China, favoring the status and role of 'nationalities'. Unfortunately, his report did not please everybody. He still lives in Beijing.
When the Reuters correspondent says that Xi Jinping's wife is a Buddhist, he does not mention how good (or bad) are Xi's relations with his wife. Many rumors circulated on the subject.
It is true that in the video posted in this blog, Maj. Gen. Peng Liyuan, Xi's wife is praising the beauty of Tibet.
Finally, it is not one person (the Party's Secretary-General) who can on its own, take decision on issue like Tibet. The Tibet Work Forum will continue to exist and Hu Jintao will be part of it, as a Senior Leader knowledgeable about the subject.  
A last thing, was it a Rolex or a Omega that the Dalai Lama gifted Old Xi? 
Some say it was a Rolex, another informant told me that it was an Omega. 
The make of the watch may not change the Fate of Tibet, but the promotion of Xi Jr. as Party boss may trigger some positive changes.

Does China's next leader have a soft spot for Tibet?
Reuters
By Benjamin Kang Lim and Frank Jack Daniel
BEIJING/DHARAMSALA (Reuters) - For decades, Beijing has maintained that the Dalai Lama is a separatist, but Tibet's exiled spiritual leader once had a special relationship with the father of Xi Jinping, the man in line to become China's next president.
Few people know what Xi, whose ascent to the leadership is likely to be approved at a Communist Party congress later this year, thinks of Tibet or the Dalai Lama.
But his late father, Xi Zhongxun, a liberal-minded former vice premier, had a close bond with the Tibetan leader who once gave the elder Xi an expensive watch in the 1950s, a gift that the senior party official was still wearing decades later.
The Dalai Lama, 77, recalls the elder Xi as "very friendly, comparatively more open-minded, very nice" and says he only gave watches back then to those Chinese officials he felt close to.
"We Tibetans, we get these different varieties of watch easily from India. So we take advantage of that, and brought some watches to some people when we feel some sort of close feeling, as a gift like that," the Dalai Lama said in an interview in Dharamsala, a capital for Tibetan exiles in the foothills of the Himalayas.
The Dalai Lama gave the watch to the elder Xi in 1954 during an extended visit to Beijing. Xi was one of the officials who spent time with the young Dalai Lama in the capital where he spent five to six months studying Chinese and Marxism.
The Dalai Lama fled to India five years later, after a failed uprising against Communist rule, but as late as 1979, Xi senior was still wearing the watch, the make and style of which the Dalai Lama can no longer remember.
Xi senior was a dove in the party, championing the rights of Tibetans, Uighurs and other ethnic minorities. He also opposed the army crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen student protests and was alone in criticising the sacking of liberal party chief Hu Yaobang by the Old Guard in 1987. Xi senior died in 2002.
The Dalai Lama has never met Xi junior but his fondness for the father is, for some, a sign that China's next leader may adopt a more reformist approach to Tibet once he formally succeeds President Hu Jintao next March. Some expect him to be more tolerant of Muslim Uighurs in the western region of Xinjiang, and also of Taiwan, the independently ruled island that China has vowed to take back, by force if necessary.
"To understand what kind of leader Xi Jinping will be, one must study his father's (policies)," said Bao Tong, one-time top aide to purged party chief Zhao Ziyang. Bao was jailed for seven years for sympathising with student-led demonstrations for democracy centred on Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989.
"No (Chinese) Communist will betray his father," he added.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON?
Xi senior is looked on favourably by China's leaders with plans already made to commemorate his 100th birth anniversary in mid-October next year with a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People and editorials and commentaries in state media eulogising him, sources with ties to the leadership said.
But even if Xi junior wants to pursue a reform agenda, he is likely to bide his time.
"The key is whether Xi Jinping feels confident of his power consolidation," said Lin Chong-Pin, a former Taiwan defence minister and China policy-maker who now teaches at Taipei's Tamkang University.
Lin added, however: "There will be a more tolerant policy not only (towards) Tibet, but also Xinjiang."
Taiwan, the democratic island Beijing claims as its own, may be the model for reconciliation with Tibet.
"Every generation of (Chinese) leaders must resolve problems left over from the previous generation," a source with leadership ties said.
"For Hu, it was Taiwan," the source added, referring to Hu mending fences with the island after his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, threatened it with war games in the run-up to its first direct presidential elections in 1996.
"For Xi, it's Tibet," the source said.
Asked if Xi might take a different tack on Tibet, a retired party official who used to work in Tibet said: "There has to be new thinking ... He (Xi) is surely aware of the problems."
"More and more government spending, more and more security, is not going to buy enduring stability in Tibet," the official said, referring to China pouring billions of yuan to develop Tibet, including opening a railway in 2006 linking it with the rest of China, and a crackdown in the wake of the unrest.
"The high-pressure policies can't continue forever," the official said, asking not to be identified and adding that these were his personal views.

CARDS HELD CLOSE
Xi has played his cards close to his chest and little is publicly known about his policies. Like Hu, he will be no political strongman, and will have to rule by consensus as the first among equals.
If Hu stays on as military chief, Hu may continue to hold sway over major policies, but is unlikely to oppose detente.
"Hu will not be an obstacle to (any) reconciliation" moves, a second source with leadership ties said.
Initially, Hu sought to make up for his decision to crush riots in Tibet in 1989 by issuing a decree to "protect Tibetan culture" in the early 2000s, but was taken aback when the Dalai Lama accused China of "cultural genocide".
China has defended its iron-fisted rule in Tibet, saying the region suffered from dire poverty, brutal exploitation of serfs and economic stagnation until 1950 when Communist troops "peacefully liberated" it and introduced "democratic reforms" in 1959.
Tensions over the issue are at their highest in years after a spate of protests and self-immolations by Tibetan activists, which have led to an intensified security crackdown. Fifty-one Tibetans have set themselves alight since 2009.
In the event the Dalai Lama dies in exile, it could radicalise exiled Tibetan youth who have clamoured for independence and are frustrated with his "middle way" approach that advocates autonomy within China.
It could create a rallying point for Tibetans disgruntled with Communist rule and leave a destabilising leadership vacuum.
"They (Chinese government) hope Tibet's political problem can be basically resolved once the Dalai Lama passes away," said Wang Lixiong, an author and expert on Tibet who has met the Dalai Lama several times.
Instead, Wang added, "the Dalai Lama's death could spark massive protests and even rioting."

"NORMAL HEARTS"
The outbreak of rioting in Tibet in 2008 ahead of the Beijing Olympics and a subsequent crackdown, which in turn sparked the self-immolations, may have prevented Hu from carrying out any reversal of China's hardline policy on Tibet.
At the time of the riots, Xi commented: "We should have normal hearts" - a remark that was in stark contrast to insults rained on the Dalai Lama by the region's then Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, who called the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner a "jackal in Buddhist monk's robes" with "the face of a human and the heart of a beast".
Zhang was not alone. Many Chinese party, government and military officials and many ordinary Chinese are convinced the 2008 unrest was a Western plot to demonise Beijing before the Games and try to split Tibet from China.
But tempers appear to have cooled a bit.
Hu is manoeuvring to promote one of his closest allies - Inner Mongolia party boss Hu Chunhua who speaks Tibetan, a rarity among Chinese officials - to the party's inner sanctum, two independent sources said, in a bid to retain clout after retiring. The two Hus are not related.
In a sign the party may at times be willing to reverse bad decisions or policies, it backed down recently after liberal intellectuals slammed it for forcing Tibetan Buddhist monasteries to put up portraits of Mao and other leaders. Local officials now say this is voluntary.
Xi may have more to gain than lose from resuming talks with the Dalai Lama's envoys, but this may not happen anytime soon.
"They probably will take very small, incremental steps. They cannot take big steps," said Lin, the Taiwan-based academic.
Many challenges lie ahead.
"The talks process could start again at any point, we don't know. We shouldn't rule it out even though it looks very negative at the moment," Robbie Barnett, a Tibetologist at Columbia University, said in a telephone interview.
"He may have to prove that he's very tough ... so it could make it quite difficult for Xi. He could risk heavy attack from hardliners. It's quite complicated for him."
But Robert Lawrence Kuhn, author of "How China's Leaders Think", was more optimistic.
"He is a very practical, pragmatic, very down-to-earth kind of person," said Kuhn who has met Xi half a dozen times. "I don't think he has an overblown sense of his own person, which to me is very important. People could rally around him."
The Dalai Lama has said he hopes Xi will usher in a "realistic" and more open approach to Tibet, in the same way Deng Xiaoping introduced market reforms in the late 1970s that turned China into an economic powerhouse from a backwater.
After more than 50 years of confrontation with Beijing, the Dalai Lama is cautious but hopeful.
"I can't say for definite, but according to many Chinese friends, they say the new, coming leadership seems more lenient," he said in an interview in his audience room which was decorated with Bhuddist paintings and a bust of Mahatma Gandhi.
He said there had been a stream of visitors to Dharamsala from China, including people who told him they had connections with senior Communist Party leaders. "These are very, very encouraging signs," he said. "No formal talks, but there are sort of signs among the Chinese officials or top leaders."
To watch the Dalai Lama interview, click on: link.reuters.com/cub42t
Tibetan exiles see other small signs that Xi could take a softer line on Tibet - his wife is a Buddhist, and Xi went out of his way in 2006, while party boss of Zhejiang province, to host the first World Buddhist Forum in the provincial capital.
A batch of U.S. diplomatic cables obtained and published by WikiLeaks last year said the Dalai Lama had "great affection" for Xi senior, and that Xi junior was quite taken with Buddhist mysticism at one point early in his career.
In July last year, Xi visited Tibet and pledged to crack down on the separatist "Dalai clique" and "completely smash any plot to destroy stability in Tibet and jeopardise national unity".
But a Western diplomat in Beijing cautioned that this was standard language and should not be construed to be hardline. "No one wins prizes for saying the Dalai is ok," he said.
But many exiles are skeptical.
"I do not expect Xi junior to be like his father because he is facing a completely different situation, but I hope he can be different (from Hu Jintao)," said Khedroob Thondup, a nephew of the Dalai Lama who visited China more than 10 times with his father, Gyalo Thondup, as unofficial envoys of the Dalai Lama.
Another nephew, Tenzin Taklha, who is also a secretary to the Dalai Lama, said: "Even if it does happen it won't be substantial, just to show the world the door is open again."
The Dalai Lama, too, has yet to be convinced that Beijing will soften its stance on Tibet - even if Xi turns out to have the same moderate inclination as his father - and says political reformers sometimes do not last long in the Communist Party.
"These realistic people sometime live a very short life."
(Additional reporting by John Chalmers in DHARAMSALA and Chris Buckley in BEIJING; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Mark Bendeich)