Zhao Kezhi, the 'Tibetan' arrives in India

Zhao Khezi (left) with Zhao Leji (center), member of the Politburo's Standing Committee
meeting the Tibetan delegates at the NPC, Wu Jingjie, Tibet's Party Secretary (right)

Zhao Kezhi, China's Minister of Public Security will be in India tomorrow.
He will meet Home Minister Rajnath Singh and discuss security cooperation between India and China. During his stay in Delhi, Zhao will also sign a bilateral internal security cooperation agreement.
According to PTI: “The proposed pact is expected to cover areas of intelligence sharing, exchange programme, sharing of best practices, cooperation in disaster mitigation besides others.”
A Chinese delegation has already met some Indian officials on August 28 to discuss Zhao’s visit and the proposed pact.
An Indian official told the news agency: “This will be the first such agreement between the authorities of India and China which look after the internal security of the respective countries.”
PTI added: “While Singh is the head of eight central armed police forces with a combined strength of about 10 lakh personnel, Zhao is responsible for day-to-day law enforcement in China and commands about 19 lakh personnel.”
More interesting Zhao is personally responsible for Tibet in the Communist set-up, being one of the 20 ‘Tibetan’ delegates at the National People’s Congress.
A few months ago, I wrote about his personnel interest in the Tibet affairs.

My March post
In March 2013, I wrote about the Chinese Hans from 'Tibet' on this blog.
I mentioned the nomination of three Han cadres in the Tibet delegation to the National People’s Congress (NPC).
The three members were then
Chang Xiaobing, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd (he was later investigated and sacked), Prof Ding Zhongli, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Wang Huning, who since then, has reached the Communist paradise; he is now a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo.

A new list
Now three new 'Han Tibetans' have been nominated for the 13th NPC.
This time there is no member of the politburo, however Zhao Kezhi (赵克志) the Minister of Public Security will 'represent' Tibet. 
Other members are Guo Qingping (郭庆平) Deputy Governor of the People's Bank of China and Jing Hanchao (景汉朝）Deputy Secretary of the National Political & Legal Committee and member of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Zhao Kezhi (赵克志)
Zhao is born in December 1953. He is presently Minister and Party Secretary of the Ministry of Public Security.
He earlier served as Party Secretary in Hebei and Guizhou provinces and has been Governor of Guizhou province and vice governor of Shandong and Jiangsu provinces.
According to his biography, Zhao was born in Laixi, Shandong province. 
Zhao Kezhi entered the work force in March 1973 as a middle school teacher in his native Laixi, Shandong province; he joined the Communist Party of China in January 1975.
In April 1984, he became the mayor and deputy Communist Party Chief of Laixi County; in March 1987, he was transferred and served as mayor and deputy party chief of nearby Jimo and later became party chief of Jimo in 1989.
In December 1997, he was promoted to be the party chief of Dezhou, a prefecture-level city in Shandong.
From February 2001 to March 2006 he was a vice governor of Shandong province.
In 2006, Zhao Kezhi was transferred to neighbouring Jiangsu province, where he was the executive vice governor until August 2010, when he was sent again to southwestern Guizhou province as deputy party chief and acting governor.
A month later, he was elected governor by the Guizhou Provincial Congress.
In July 2012, Zhao was promoted to concurrently serve as the Communist Party Secretary of Guizhou; in December he relinquished his governor post, and Chen Min'er (now politburo member) was selected as his successor.
In July 2015, following the dismissal of Zhou Benshun, Zhao was named party chief of Hebei province.
In October 2017, shortly after the 19th Party Congress, Zhao, then 63, was appointed as the Party Committee Secretary of the Ministry of Public Security.
He took over as Minister of Public Security on November 4, 2017.
He is a member of the 19th Central Committees of the Communist Party of China.

Guo Qingping

Guo Qingping (郭庆平)
The second nominated member of the Tibet delegation for the NPC is Guo Qingping. 
Since March 2015, Guo, a senior economist, is Vice Governor of the People's Bank of China (PBC).
He was born in August 1956.
Here are some details about his career.

• 1982-1991 Vice President, Fuxin City Branch of the PBC
• 1992-October 1998 Vice President, Liaoning Provincial Branch of the PBC; President, Shenyang City Branch of the PBC
• November 1998-November 1999, Vice President, Shenyang Branch of the PBC
• December 1999-January 2003, Director-General, Internal Auditing Department of the PBC as well as Director-General, Asset Disposal Office of the PBC
• February 2003-November 2008, President, Tianjin Branch of the PBC
• December 2008, Assistant Governor, PBC

Is he going to put some order in the accounts of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) or help the region to secure more funds for its development?
In December 2016, The China Daily reported that Guo had announced that Beijing would strengthen its anti-money laundering cooperation with countries and regions along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Guo affirmed that China would “enhance domestic enforcement of international sanctions at home. …Combating the financing of terrorism regimes and spread of massive weapons of destruction have become the new battle field for anti-money laundering."
He was speaking at the Sixth China Anti-Money Laundering Summit at Fudan University in Shanghai. He also said that China had “established an inter-ministerial mechanism led by the bank with 22 other government agencies, including the Ministry of Public Security and the Supreme People's Court, to combat illegal money transfers.”
What does it mean for Tibet is not clear?
There is a high probability that he will push for an integration of TAR with the BRI in particular with Nepal.

Jing Hanchao

Jing Hanchao (景汉朝)
The third nominated Han in the Tibet delegation is Jing Hanchao.
He is currently Vice-President of the Supreme People's Court.
He is born in 1960 in Shen County of Hebei Province.
In 2009, he became Vice-President, Supreme People's Court.
He started his career in 1984 as a clerk in the Higher People's Court of Hebei Province (at provincial level)
Later he became Assistant Judge in the same Court; he was later promoted Vice-President and then President.
Between 1994 and 1996, he did a Master of Laws at Beijing University while serving Judge in the Economic Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court.
From 1996 to 2006, he was Deputy Secretary Party Committee of the Higher People's Court.
Between 2000 and 2003, he followed a course to become Doctor of Laws from the Southwest University of Political Science and Law in Chongqing.
From 2006 to 2009, he served a member of the Leading Party Group of the Supreme People's Court.
Later he became a Member of the Judicial Committee and the Director of the General Office of the Supreme People's Court.
In February 2017, Jing Hanchao addressed the opening ceremony of a 'public open day' in East China's Zhejiang province, detailing the progress of dealing with individuals and companies who ignore civil court rulings. 
What will be his role in the Tibet delegation to the NPC is not clear, but he will probably make sure that the corruption is tackled and that the Tibetan flies and tigers are caught.

I will come back on the 17 other members on the TAR delegation in a few days.

The Tale of Three Zhaos

Many of us have been introduced to Tibet by the famous cartoon The Adventures of Tintin.
One can’t forget the two detectives, Thomson and Thompson (in French, Dupond et Dupont). Though they are rather poor detectives (like Inspector Jacques Clouseau), they provide so comic relief to the reader..
These characters, who look like identical twins (despite their different, though sounding-same surnames), came back to mind, when I saw the picture of China’s two main detectives, Zhao Leji and Zhao Kezhi attending a session with the Tibetan delegates at the 13th National People Congress (NPC).
Zhao Leji is the Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, (CCDI) the party's top anti-corruption body. He is also a member of the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee.
Zhao Kezhi is Minister and Party Secretary of the Ministry of Public Security; in other words, he is responsible for the security in the Middle Kingdom. As mentioned earlier on this blog is also a centrally-nominated delegate from Tibet to the NPC.
Let us not forget that the CCDI has the power to summon and detain without charge any member it suspects of breaching party rules and regulations. Suspects are barred from seeing a lawyer while they are detained.

Zhao Leji (center), Zhao Khezi (left) and Wu Yingje (right)

Zhao and Zhao do not bring comic relief to anyone in the Kingdom.
The South China Morning Post noted: “A new supervision law detailing how the new super agency will operate is to be put to a vote on March 20, the last day of the legislative meeting.”
According to the Hong Kong newspaper, the new agency will be a merger of several government and prosecutorial anti-graft departments: “A  whole chapter in the amended constitution is dedicated to the new agency. Its chairperson will be appointed by the National People’s Congress, which is the only body overseeing the commission. The legislature also has the power to dismiss the agency’s chairperson.”
Zhao Leji will be chairman of the new Commission.
The fact that China’s two supreme detectives attended the meeting of the Tibet delegation does not augur well for the aspirations of the Tibetans.
A website site mentioned in an earlier post said: “The TAR spends around three to five times more on domestic security than the average of all provinces and regions. Likewise, Xinjiang’s spending between 2014 and 2016 has been double that of the national regional average, and over triple in 2017. While domestic security spending across all provinces and regions rose by 215 percent between 2007 and 2016, Xinjiang’s grew by 411 percent, the TAR’s by 404 percent, and Qinghai Province’s by 316 percent (Qinghai’s population is 25 percent Tibetan). Spending in Sichuan Province increased by 234 percent, but spending in Sichuan’s two Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures, Ganzi and Aba, which have seen numerous self-immolations since 2008, grew by 295 percent.”
The same website remarked: “Incredibly, the TAR and Xinjiang are beginning to rival the per capita domestic security expenditures of the United States. This is despite the fact that Chinese human resource and local security technology costs are far lower than in the West.”

Meeting the Tibetan delegates
While President Xi Jinping met with the NPC’s deputies from the Chongqing municipality to urge them to follow a ‘clean and upright political ecology’, Zhao Leji told the Tibetan delegation that “the campaign against the mentality and action of privilege seeking should be continued.”
According to Xinhua, he called “for actions against formalities for formalities' sake, bureaucratism and various kinds of misconduct, so as to keep the pressure on conduct problems.”
It is at least what was reported...

Drolkar alias Choekar

Stability of the borders with India
In the meantime the propaganda about the Indian borders continues.
Drolkar (earlier spelt Choekar), the deputy of Yume, north of the McMahon Line, said that she wants to build her hometown as beautiful as kalsang flower (a reference to the letter that she received from Xi Jinping).
"Great changes have been seen in my hometown," she affirmed.
She added: "We have highways, we have power, and new homes are being built as well. We also have stores, restaurants, and family inns right in the village. You even don't need cash when shopping, for everything can be paid via your cellphone,"
Border people are happy in China according to Drolkar with their “more and more convenient life in hometown.”
Drolkar said she will continue to safeguard the border region in future.
For half a century, her family grazes their sheep and cattle there to safeguard the border area, asserted Drolkar.
Xinhua commented that her story has deeply touched the heart of people across the country.
So, where is the need of the two top detectives of the Kingdom, Zhao and Zhao, monitoring Tibet affairs, is people are so happy?
And one should not forget the Third Zhao, General Zhao Zhongqi, the commander of the Western Theater Command, who looks after the Indian borders and is said to have started the conflict in Doklam last year.
The Tale of the Three Zhao is a sad story.

Dalai Lama, China and the homecoming urge

My article Dalai Lama, China and the homecoming urge appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer

Here is the link...

It has been a lifetime wish for the Lama to visit Wutaishan. But he must follow his own saying: Look at situations from all angles. It is unwise for him to go on pilgrimage in China right now

At the end of 2017, Prof Samdhong Rinpoche, former Chairman of the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala and now, the Dalai Lama’s Special Envoy, went to China to ‘negotiate’ an eventual visit of the Tibetan leader to Wutaishan in Shanxi Province of northern China.
Mount Wutai is said to be one of the four sacred mountains in Buddhism. Each of the mountains is viewed as the abode of one of the four great bodhisattvas. Wutai is the home of Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of wisdom.
Since decades, the Dalai Lama has expressed the wish to visit Wutaishan in his lifetime. While in China, Samdhong Rinpoche is said to have met senior officials of the United Front Work Department in Kunming and Wutaishan to discuss the proposed visit, which would exclude Tibet, as Beijing does not want to see the Dalai Lama returning to his native land, where he is immensely popular.
Beijing believes that China could benefit from the visit by extracting a ‘statement’ from the Dalai Lama. But can the Tibetan leader ‘admit’ to Tibet always ‘belonging’ to China?
In his Five-Point Peace Plan speech in Washington DC in 1987, which heralded his Middle Way approach, the Dalai Lama stated: “The real issue …is China’s illegal occupation of Tibet, which has given it direct access to the Indian sub-continent. The Chinese authorities have attempted to confuse the issue by claiming that Tibet has always been a part of China. This is untrue. Tibet was a fully independent State when the People’s Liberation Army invaded the country in 1949/50.”
The Dalai Lama knows history can’t (and shouldn’t) be changed. In 1987, the Lama stated: “China’s aggression, condemned by virtually all nations of the free world, was a flagrant violation of international law. …China’s military occupation of Tibet continues.”
The recent secret, though formal, contacts between Beijing and Dharamsala, could make the public believe that there was a relaxation of the Chinese position. It is not the case.
On February 11, The Global Times reported: “The public security bureau (PSB) in Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region has released details on how the public can provide tips on activities of criminal gangs connected to the separatist forces of the Dalai Lama.”
Practically, it means that the Tibetans, who worship, or even simply respect, the Dalai Lama could now be termed criminals?
The mouthpiece of the Party continued: “[the circular] warns local people to be on the lookout for the ‘evil forces’ of the Dalai Lama that might use local temples and religious control to confuse and incite people against the Party and Government.”
The circular asked people to report on the activities of ‘foreign hostile forces’. Interestingly, a few weeks ago, Beijing announced the nomination of three Han cadres in the 20-member Tibet delegation to the National People’s Congress (NPC).
One of the delegates is Zhao Kezhi, the Minister of Public Security, responsible for the dreaded PSBs; he will ‘represent’ Tibet at the NPC. Probably wanting to show the leadership his efficiency, Zhao acted fast; the PSB’s circular said: “Criminal gangs are cancers on the healthy economic and social development, and gangsters are a chronic disease that severely disgusts the public”.
It listed 22 illegal activities to be reported to the PSB; three of them mention the ‘Dalai’s clique’: “The Dalai Lama has been in exile for decades but still holds the ambition to split China’s Tibet from the Chinese territory.”

Mt Wutai in China

Dai, a professor at Public Security University of China told The Global Times: “Collusion with criminal gangs is a tactic the Dalai group uses to spreading its message of separatism. These kinds of gangsters were involved in the Lhasa rebellion in the 1950s and the violent incident in 2008 in Tibet.”
Dai added “the spread of separatist gangs in Tibet is rampant. Only a campaign against the ‘gangsters’ would deter secessionist activities by the Dalai.”
Wang Xiaobin, a Chinese scholar at the Beijing-based China Tibetology Research Center, explained that the primary task for Tibet is “to maintain national and ethnic unity”. He cited a few groups in China “closely connected with the Dalai group…The Dalai group always interferes in national affairs by controlling temples, including lamas and living Buddhas, and by spreading a kind of ‘middle way’ to the world.”
Xinhua had earlier reported that the campaign would involve targeting “protective umbrellas of gang crime — the officials who shelter the criminals.”
This explains another Han nomination in the NPC’s Tibet delegation, Jing Hanchao, who is currently Vice-President of the Supreme People’s Court. Jing will make sure that the ‘criminals’ caught in the nets of Zhao Kezhi are heavily sentenced.
All this comes at a time when Beijing has just introduced sophisticated facial recognition softwares on the plateau. The circular promised that the PSB informers’ identity and safety will be protected: “The targets are gangsters who threaten political stability and infiltrate politics, or encourage the public to go against the Party.”
Beijing has also taken the campaign against the Dalai Lama internationally; there too it has been ferocious.
On February 8, The People’s Daily Online titled: ‘Mercedes-Benz: Don’t dare challenge China’s core interest’ while announcing that the German car company had apologised for quoting the Dalai Lama ‘in an extremely wrong message’. What did Mercedes-Benz do so wrong?
Next to one of its luxury cars, the German firm had quoted the Dalai Lama: “Look at situations from all angles, and you will become more open.”
You may think that it is a nice quote, but Beijing is not amused: “The post not only hurt the feelings of the Chinese people, but also challenged their bottom line on national sovereignty.”
The challenge is clear: If the firm, which sold 600,000 new cars in China in 2017, wants to continue to do business in the Middle Kingdom, it has to follow the paranoid regime’s diktats. The same misadventure had recently happened to the US hotel chain Marriott, who had to profusely apologise for wrongly marking Tibet and Taiwan as independent countries.
President Xi Jinping would have said in 2015 that foreign interference in China’s domestic affairs is intolerable: “Country, enterprise, or individual should not challenge the core interests of China, and [have] any activity to split China.”
Even after due apology by Mercedes-Benz, the Chinese newspaper said that “the apology lacks sincerity and reflects the German carmaker’s lack of understanding of Chinese culture and values. China’s core interests cannot be challenged.”
The paper even compared the Dalai Lama to Hitler: “How will the German people react if a foreign enterprise speaks highly of Adolf Hitler.”
It seems definitely unwise for the Dalai Lama, considered by Beijing as the ‘head of the gangsters’, to go on pilgrimage in China right now. Let us hope that the spiritual leader will not accept the diktats of the bully regime in Beijing.

The Tibetan 'gangsters' in the net of Mr Zhao?

At the end of 2017, it was reported that China had received Prof Samdhong Rinpoche, former Prime Minister of the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala and now Special Envoy of the Dalai Lama to ‘negotiate’ an eventual visit of the Tibetan leader to Wutai shan (Mount) in Shanxi province of Northern China.
Mount Wutai is said to be one of the Four Sacred Mountains in Chinese Buddhism. Each of the mountains is viewed as the abode of one of the four great bodhisattvas. Wutai is the home of Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of wisdom. It is believed that Manjusri has been associated with Mount Wutai since ancient times.
For years, if not decades, the Dalai Lama had expressed the wish to visit Wutai shan in this lifetime. During his tour, Samdhong Rinpoche is said to have met senior officials of the United Front Work Department in Kunming, Wutai shan and Beijing to discuss the proposed visit, which would exclude Tibet, as Beijing is not ready to take the risk to have the Dalai Lama is in native land.

A Statement extracted?
Beijing believes that a ‘statement’ could be extracted from the Dalai Lama during the visit. But could the Tibetan leader 'admit', while in the Mainland, hat Tibet has always 'belonged' to China ?
It seems difficult.
In his Five-Point Peace Plan speech in Washington DC in 1987, the Dalai Lama stated: “The real issue …is China's illegal occupation of Tibet, which has given it direct access to the Indian sub-continent. The Chinese authorities have attempted to confuse the issue by claiming that Tibet has always been a part of China.  This is untrue. Tibet was a fully independent state when the People's Liberation Army invaded the country in 1949/50.”
Can this be changed now?
The Dalai Lama also stated: “China's aggression, condemned by virtually all nations of the free world, was a flagrant violation of international law. As China's military occupation of Tibet continues, the world should remember that though Tibetans have lost their freedom, under international law Tibet today is still an independent state under illegal occupation.”


 A thaw between Dharamsala and Beijing?
The recent secret, tough formal, contacts could between Beijing and Dharamsala could have made the public believed that there was a relaxation of the Chinese position.
It is not the case.
On February 11, The Global Times reported: “The public security bureau in Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region has released details on how the public can provide tips on activities of ‘criminal gangs connected to the separatist forces of the Dalai Lama’.”
Does it mean that the Tibetans who worship and simply respect the Dalai Lama will now be classified as ‘criminals’?
The mouthpiece of the Party continued: “[the circular] warns local people to be on the lookout for the 'evil forces' of the Dalai Lama that might use local temples and religious control ‘to confuse and incite’ people against the Party and government.”
According to Chinese ‘experts’, the Dalai Lama works in collusion with gangsters.
The circular asked people to report on the activities of 'foreign hostile forces' that may seek financial support for the Dalai Lama.

The work of Zhao Kezhi
A few days ago, I mentioned on this blog the nomination of three Han cadres in the Tibet delegation to the National People’s Congress (NPC).
One of the ‘delegates is Zhao Kezhi, the Minister of Public Security who will 'represent' Tibet. It is Zhao who is responsible for the dreaded Public Security Bureaus (PSBs).
He did not lose time to act.
The PSB’s circular reads: “Criminal gangs are cancers on the healthy economic and social development, and gangsters are a chronic disease that severely disgusts the public"
It listed 22 illegal activities that the PSB wanted the public to report.
In three of these 22, the ‘Dalai’s clique’ is mentioned: “The Dalai Lama has been in exile for decades but still holds the ambition to split China's Tibet from the Chinese territory.”


The 'experts' speak
Wang Xiaobin, a Chinese scholar at the Beijing-based China Tibetology Research Center, explained that the primary task for Tibet “to maintain national and ethnic unity”.
Dai, a professor at Public Security University of China told The Global Times: “Collusion with criminal gangs is a tactic the Dalai group uses to spreading its message of separatism. These kinds of gangsters were involved in the Lhasa rebellion in the 1950s and the violent incident in 2008 in Tibet.”
According to the same Dai, “due to lack of development and legal knowledge, the spread of separatist gangs in Tibet is rampant. Only a campaign against the ‘gangsters’ would deter secessionist activities by the Dalai.”
Wang Xiaobin said that there are a few groups in China “closely connected with the Dalai group, and help each other at home and abroad. They challenge the Chinese government using ingenious methods and pose a huge threat to national interests.”
‘Indigenous methods’ sounds ominous.
Wang continued: “The Dalai group always interferes in national affairs by controlling temples, including lamas and living Buddhas, and by spreading a kind of "middle way" to the world, which actually advocates separatism and emphasizes the separation of sovereignty and governing rights.”
Xinhua had earlier reported that the campaign would involve fighting corruption, including lower-level corrupt officials, and deal with the ‘protective umbrellas’ of gang crime (the officials who shelter the criminals).
This explains another Han nomination in the Tibet delegation, i.e. Jing Hanchao who is currently Vice-President of the Supreme People's Court.
Jing will make sure that the ‘criminals’ caught in the nets of Zhao Kezhi are heavily sentenced.
The circular concluded: “The targets are gangsters who threaten political stability and infiltrate politics, or encourage the public to go against the Party and government under the disguise of religion, or prompting ethnic extremism. The public security departments will protect tipsters' identity and safety.”

Is it a good time for the Dalai Lama?
Presumably being considered by Beijing as the ‘head of the gangsters’ for Beijing, to go on pilgrimage in China does not seem a good idea.

Incidentally, the Five Points of the Dalai Lama’s Peace Plan were:

1. Transformation of the whole of Tibet into a zone of peace;
2. Abandonment of China's population transfer policy which threatens the very existence of the Tibetans as a people;
3. Respect for the Tibetan people's fundamental human rights and democratic freedoms;
4. Restoration and protection of Tibet's natural environment and the abandonment of China's use of Tibet for the production of nuclear weapons and dumping of nuclear waste;
5. Commencement of earnest negotiations on the future status of Tibet and of relations between the Tibetan and Chinese peoples.

It seems so far away today.