Top-ranking Chinese leaders have increased significantly in Tibetan areas, including the Tibetan Autonomous Region.
[Posted on T.T Tibetan site 15 December 2022] This is a departure from the customary practice of appointing rubber-stamp Tibetan leaders as mayors of cities and Chinese for the official post of Communist Party General Secretary in Tibetan regions.
During the third meeting of the 12th People’s Congress on the 13th of this month, a Chinese citizen named Wang Qiang (ཝང་ཆང་) was appointed as the Lhasa City Mayor. Eleven vice mayors and one general secretary took the oath of office from the Mayor. However, among the appointed leadership, only three were Tibetan; a woman named Tashi Palden, and two men, Losay and Dhamdul.
Wang Qiang has served the party under various capacities, including the Director of the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture’s Farming Technology Division, Assistant to the Director of the Agriculture Office of ཀེའུ་ཀྲུའུ་ Province, Assistant Director of Poverty eradication and the Lhasa Region’s Secretary for the same office, Deputy of the Beijing City Development and Reform Committee, Lhasa City’s Communist Party Deputy Secretary and as the Secretary of the Communist Party Office in Lhasa, among others.
Last year on the 25th of November, during the first meeting of the 12th People’s Congress, a Tibetan man named Gogo (གོ་གོ་) was appointed as the Mayor of Lhasa City. He was assisted by 14 vice mayors, out of which, only three Tibetans; a Tibetan woman named Tashi Palden, and two men, Losay and Dhamdul.
Similarly, on the 11th of December last year, Tou Feng (ཀྲོ་ཧྥོང་) was appointed Shigatse city mayor at the second meeting of the 2nd People’s Congress. However, on December 14th, during the 20th meeting of Shigatse City’s 2nd People’s Congress Standing Committee, Wang Fanghong (ཝང་ཧྥང་ཧོང་) was appointed the mayor of the city.
Likewise, on the 8th of this month, during the 16th meeting of the 8th People’s Congress of Chamdo City, a Chinese named Chen Jun (ཁྲིན་ཆིན་) was succeeded by another Chinese named Luo Qingwu (ལོ་ཆིན་ཝུའུ་) as the Mayor.
