The Return of Zhang Qingli

Zhang Qingli (left), Yu Zhengsheng (center), Du Qinglin (2nd from right)

Zhang Qingli is back!
Born in Dongping, Shandong province in 1951, Zhang Qingli joined the CPC in 1973 after graduating from the Party School of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee.
From 2006 to 2011 he served as Secretary of the CPC Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee.
He did not endear the Tibetans when he accused the Dalai Lama of being ‘a wolf in monk’s garb’.
In 2011, the Washington-based organization International Campaign for Tibet (ITC) commented: “Speculation about Zhang Qingli’s future in the TAR has remained intense since the unprecedented protests of March 2008. His open hostility towards the Dalai Lama and his determination to push through deeply unpopular security and social policies are regarded by many Tibetans and other observers as key causes of the resentment that led to the protests of 2008. Compared to his predecessors in the position of Party Secretary of the TAR, Zhang Qingli has appeared relatively frequently in the national and international media, repeatedly asserting the official line that the 2008 protests were instigated by the Dalai Lama and his supporters, and that the vast majority of Tibetans continue to readily embrace China’s policies.”
Speculations about Zhang’s future were mainly due to the fact that his term had come to an end in Tibet. He was soon after transferred to Hebei province as Party Chief.
In November 2012, he was elected a member of the 18th CPC Central Committee.
On March 11, 2013, Zhang Qingli became secretary-general of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
He will now assist Yu Zhengsheng in United Front affairs.
This is bad news for the Tibetans.
Also on the photo (on the right of Yu) is Du Qinglin, a native of Panshi city who spent most of his career in Jilin Province before becoming the head of United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee from 2007-2012. The United Front deals with Tibet, amongst other subjects
Du is also a member of the powerful Secretariat of the Central Committee. In this position he can monitor the party and state’s United Front apparatus.

A new boss for Tibet

Zhang Qingli, the Party boss in the Tibetan Autonomous Region has been transferred to an unknown position.
Is this move connected with the recent visit of Vice-President Xi Jinping's visit to Tibet?
Difficult to say!
In his first speech as Party Secretary, Chen Quanguo cited five times Hu Jintao and not a word of Xi Jinping.
Does it mean that Chen will follow the hardline policies put in place by Hu Jintao when he was Tibet Party Secretary at the end of the 1980's (till 1992).
Probably.
One worrying sign has been that the hardliner Tibetan cadre Raidi has been seen everywhere in the Tibetan region since Xi Jinping’s visit (the Vice-President visited his house in Lhasa).
He presided at the annual summer pastoral festival in his home prefecture of Nagchu.Poor nomads had to wave Red Flags.
A knowledgeable friend pointed out “when the Chinese media would go into overdrive about the wonderful benefits of this or that policy, it meant that that policy probably existed nowhere in the country and officials not only were bickering among themselves about it but more importantly were having trouble getting the masses to even think about it. I suspect all this national flag business falls roughly into the same category.”

Raidi also participated in other official meetings in Nagchu and Lhasa.

He sat prominently on the stage during Third Meeting of the China Tibet Cultural Preservation and Development Forum next to Zhang Qingli, the then Party Secretary and read the Work Report for the Forum.
All this means that the hardliners are not far. It is difficult to expect radical changes in the months to come.

China replaces Tibet's hard-line party boss
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press – 14 hours ago
BEIJING (AP) — China on Thursday replaced Tibet's hard-line Communist Party boss under whom bloody rioting broke out in the Himalayan region three years ago.
The official Xinhua News Agency said Zhang Qingli, the region's highest-ranking official, is being moved to another position which it did not identify. It said he will be replaced by Chen Quanguo, a longtime party official in the eastern province of Henan who last served as governor of Hebei province surrounding Beijing.
Like all of Tibet's party chiefs, Chen is not Tibetan but a member of China's majority Han ethnic group.
No reason was given for the move, although Zhang has served five years in the position, roughly the standard term for provincial officials.
China's policies for Tibet are set at the highest levels in Beijing and there is no reason to believe the move heralds any major change.
Zhang, a former top official in Xinjiang, another ethnically troubled region, took over as Tibet party secretary in 2006 during a relatively quiet period.
Two years later, deadly anti-government rioting broke out among Tibetans in the capital, Lhasa, spreading quickly to Tibetan areas of western China in the most severe and sustained unrest in decades.
Security forces poured in and a massive crackdown ensued, with China closing Tibet to foreign tourists for a year. Foreign journalists remain barred from Tibet except on rare, tightly scripted government-organized trips.
During his term, Zhang saved his harshest rhetoric for Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, calling the 76-year-old cleric a "wolf in monk's robes" and the "scum of Buddhism."
Beijing considers Chinese sovereignty over Tibet unquestionable and inviolable. It says Tibet has been its territory for centuries, although many Tibetans say they were essentially an independent nation until Communist forces invaded in 1950.
The Dalai Lama recently shifted his political responsibilities to the prime minister of the self-proclaimed India-based Tibetan government-in-exile, Lobsang Sangay, a 43-year-old Harvard legal scholar who grew up a refugee.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Zhang Qingli in Nepal

An interesting development, Zhang Qingli, the Party boss in Tibet is accompanying the Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yonkang in Nepal.
Zhang is seen on the left of the picture.
Though the Tibet issue may have not been officially discussed, the trans-boundary issues are bound to have come on the table.
Zhang was certainly not here just to enjoy the warmer air of the Kathmandu valley.
According to Phayul.com before the Chinese delegation’s arrival, some Nepali officials called upon the Dalai Lama's Representative (Voluntary Co-ordinator of Tibetan Welfare Office), Thinlay Lama to make sure that there would be no Tibetan protest during the visit.
Later, the Nepal Police arrested five Tibetans in Kathmandu. The Boudha Police Station confirmed that the five are being kept under preventive detention.

Khanal's Exit Clouds Zhou Visit
HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE
2011-08-17
KATHMANDU: The resignation of PM Jhala Nath Khanal has poured cold water over Chinese leader Zhou Yongkang’s much awaited visit to Nepal, sources said today. Zhou and his 60-member delegation, including half a dozen ministers and vice-ministers were widely expected to raise Beijing’s long standing concern about Tibetans in Nepal and their support for free-Tibet movement. The issue of reviewing Nepal-China Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1960 was also expected to figure during delegation’s meetings with Nepali leaders, according to official sources.
“PM’s resignation was the reason behind their mind change,” said a senior official.
“They might have thought that it was not the right time to raise serious issues as the government had become a caretaker one,” he added.
Zhou, the ninth ranking member of powerful Politburo Standing Committee and Chief of Politics and Law of Communist Party of China, expressed “awkwardness” of PM’s resignation during his visit in his meetings with Khanal, Maoist Chairman Puspa Kamal Dahal, NC President Sushil Koirala and Former PM Madhav Kumar Nepal. “He said China would like to see stability here,” said PM’s foreign affairs adviser Milan Raj Tuladhar, who was present during the meeting at PM’s office today.
Zhou and his team did not mention a single word regarding Tibetan issue during the hour-long meeting with Khanal, though it was widely projected as the main agenda of the visit. Nevertheless, Khanal reiterated Nepal’s long-standing ‘One China’ policy and commitment to act against anti-China activities. In his meeting with Home Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha, Zhou, however, implied that Nepal needs to improve its weak security arrangements along Nepal-China border and wished to help Nepal government to this effect.
Zhou’s delegation also called on President Dr Ram Baran Yadav at his office and expressed China’s wish for smooth transition. In the evening, he hosted a dinner at Solti Hotel for senior leaders of political parties and government officials.

Who will replace Zhang Qingli?

One of the stakes of Vice-President Xi Jinping’s visit to Tibet is the fate of Zhang Qingli, the CCP Party Chief of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR).
Zhang has also been one of the most unpopular Chinese leaders to serve in Tibet in the recent years (so was his predecessor Hu Jintao, the present President who served in the ‘Autonomous Region’ between 1989 and 1992).
Interestingly, Xi’s visit to Lhasa was the second occasion to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of signature of the 17-Point Agreement considered by Beijing as the crucial document proving that Tibet has been ‘liberated’ peacefully and not invaded in 1950-51.
It is strangle and rare in the annals of the PCR that a second celebration is organized, nearly two months after the anniversary day (May 23). Chinese are usually meticulous about dates. Some observers have presumed that it was due to the tight schedule of Vice-President Xi Jinping. Perhaps!
Or was it an after-thought? Many analysts had earlier been wondering why the May celebrations were on such a low key?
International Campaign for Tibet (ITC), a Washington-based group commented at that time: “The most senior figure reported to be in attendance for the May 23 Lhasa celebrations was Zhang Qingli, the combative Party Secretary of the TAR. If any significance were to be placed on the fact that no central government officials were in Lhasa for the anniversary celebrations, the most obvious conclusion would be that their absence was intended as a deliberate snub to Zhang.”
It was only a speculation as in any case the term of Zhang is soon coming to an end as he has been serving in Tibet since November 2005 (and he officially became Party Secretary in May 2006).
For ITC: “Speculation about Zhang Qingli’s future in the TAR has remained intense since the unprecedented protests of March 2008. His open hostility towards the Dalai Lama and his determination to push through deeply unpopular security and social policies are regarded by many Tibetans and other observers as key causes of the resentment that led to the protests of 2008. Compared to his predecessors in the position of Party Secretary of the TAR, Zhang Qingli has appeared relatively frequently in the national and international media, repeatedly asserting the official line that the 2008 protests were instigated by the Dalai Lama and his supporters, and that the vast majority of Tibetans continue to readily embrace China’s policies.”
It is true that Zhang did not endear the Dalai Lama’s supporters when he accused the Tibetan leader of being ‘a wolf in monk’s garb’.
The rather low-key visit of Zhang Qingli in New Zealand and Australia attracted also commentaries as it occurred a few days before May 23. Some believed that Beijing did not want to highlight their ‘liberation’ of Tibet at a time when the situation was tense on the Roof of the World.
ITC commented: “Zhang’s visits to New Zealand and Australia were so low-key that several parliamentarians in New Zealand with a keen interest in Tibet weren’t even aware he was in the country, and they were said to be ‘furious’ that they didn’t have an opportunity to meet him”.
According to some sources Zhang left Lhasa for Beijing in early May with a large contingent of senior people from the TAR Standing Committee and local Government. Had he gone to discuss his promotion or retirement? It appears now that he most probably went to prepare Xi Jinping’s present visit to Tibet.
Many speculated about the presence of Padma Choling with Zhang to Beijing. Was he here to lobby for a post? Would he replace Zhang and be the first Tibetan to become the Party boss in Tibet?
These are only speculations.
The visit of Zhang to Australia and New Zeeland (with TAR General Secretary Gongbo Tashi) can also be seen from another angle.
As a friend put it: “This is the standard gift by the Party to senior officials about to leave their post after achieving a high performance rating. The Governor of Sichuan, Jiang Jufeng recently visited India prior to retirement”.
Zhang and Gongbo Tashi came back from New Zeeland via Hong Kong. They were there a day before the fateful Day (May 23). They probably flew the same day to Lhasa to be in time for the first part of the ‘celebrations'.
That day a forum was also organized in Beijing with all the military and PAP commanders as well as the surviving Party Secretaries and Deputy Party Secretaries of the TAR.
Only after the second ‘celebration’ of 17-Point Agreement was announced, one could understand better the low-key level of the first one, especially as the ‘real’ celebration was to be presided by the PRC’s Vice-President himself (like the then Vice-President Hu Jintao presided over the functions in Lhasa and Shigatse in May 2001 for the 50th anniversary).
It is however significant that for the first time such an important event (at least for Beijing) is celebrated two months after the proper date (July 18, instead of May 23). In 1980, the then Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang arrived in Lhasa on the right date.
ITC’s theory of that Zhang Qingli’s ‘stock is rapidly falling in Beijing’ might not be correct; the truth is probably that Zhang has completed his term.
ITC however admitted: “Well-placed observers in discussions with ICT have urged caution when attempting to interpret these and other indicators of politicians’ standing in the PRC. For example, the 60th anniversary fell during a period when the Chinese authorities have reduced the levels of aggressive propaganda across the PRC compared to previous years, and in the specific case of Tibet, there’s bound to be an awareness at the highest levels of the Party and government that aggressive propaganda has the potential to stir up resentment and undermine rapid development policies domestically, as well as create distrust, resentment and fear of China internationally.”
One of the main outcomes of the visit will be the selection of a new Party Secretary for Tibet. Will Padma Thinley (alias Pema Choling), the present Chairman of the Tibetan Autonomous Region be the first ethnic Tibetan to run the affairs of the region?
It remains doubtful that Beijing could trust a Tibetan for such an important job. However after his visit in Lhasa, Xi Jinping is bound to have a larger say in the selection process.
As I noted in previous postings, the Chinese Panchen Lama did not appear on the stage on the side of Xi during the celebrations. Is it a sign of appeasement for the Tibetans who do not believe in the legitimacy of the candidate selected by Beijing?
Possibly, though the visit to Raidi’s hosue is bound to appease the hardliners amongst the Party in Beijing.
Xi is walking on a tight rope before his elevation to the supreme job in October 2012. He has probably to please all the parties involved in the Great CCP Game.