Translated by Tashi Namgyal
The Chinese government is investigating former communist party secretary of Tibet autonomous region, Wu Yingjie who served the party over 18 years, for suspicion of serious violation of discipline and laws.
On 16 May 2024, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of CPC was reportedly investigating Wu Yingjie for suspicion of serious violation of Party’s law. He is the fifth high-profile official of the so-called Tibet autonomous region since after China’s 20th communist party’s congress. From January to June of this year, a total of 33 Senior officials of the Tibet autonomous region were put under investigation.
Wu Yingjie was born in Shandong province and he joined the Chinese communist party in 1987. From 2003 onwards, he worked for his entire career in Tibet, as vice chairman of the Tibet Autonomous region, regional propaganda portfolio, member of regional party standing committee, executive Vice chairman of the region, deputy regional party chief and executive deputy party chief. Later, He was also appointed as the communist party secretary of Tibet autonomous region from 2016 till 2021.
During his leadership, restrictions in the region including Lhasa were intensified such as severe restrictions for Tibetans from other parts of Tibet entering Lhasa and not allowing regional officials, teachers and students from Tibet University to visit Potala Palace.
China places a political significance on the regions of Tibet and Xinjiang. Strategically, the government always appoints Party’s secretaries of these regions for who would act as a mouthpiece of the communist party, and even Sometimes, the party’s secretaries of these two regions were exchanged internally.
Under China’s anti-corruption campaign “Tigers, Flies, and Everything in Between”, Xi Jinping’s government has punished numerous leading officials from occupied Tibet, south Mongolia, and Xinjiang on charges of violating party’s discipline and laws. In the past one year, six Senior Level officials from the Tibet autonomous region were removed from their post and put under investigation such as Wang yong, the former vice chairman of Tibet Autonomous Regional People’s Government, and Zhang Yongze, the former vice chairman of Communist party of Tibet autonomous region in January, Ji Guogang, the former vice chairman of people’s congress of the Tibet Autonomous region in March. Similarly, Jiang Jie, the vice chairman of the Tibet autonomous regional committee of the Chinese people’s political consultative conference was being investigated in June last year.
