Top China official
slams foreign influence on Tibetan Buddhism
15 August
2016 The
News International
A senior Chinese official has called on Tibetans to
resist foreign influence on their Buddhist religion, state media
said Sunday, in the latest comments apparently targeting exiled
spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
Yu Zhengsheng, one of the ruling Communist party’s
seven most powerful officials, told locals to “firmly resist
foreign influence on Tibetan Buddhism,” in a visit to the Himalayan
region, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The report did not elaborate on the alleged foreign
influence.
“We should guide and support representative Tibetan
Buddhist figures to use the leading principles of the core
socialist values to explain doctrine, and promote the adaption of
Buddhism to socialist society,” Yu added in comments at the Galden
Jampaling Monastery on Saturday.
Beijing says its troops “peacefully liberated” Tibet
in 1951 and insists it has since brought development to a
previously backward region where serfs were exploited.
But many Tibetans accuse officials of repressing
their religion and eroding their culture, adding that natural
resources are exploited to benefit China‘s ethnic Han
majority at the expense of the environment.
Yu’s other remarks stressed the importance of
economic development and the construction of electric power
lines.
More than 140 Tibetans have set themselves on fire
since 2009 in protest against Beijing’s rule, according to tallies
from rights groups. Most have died.
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled to
India after a failed uprising in 1959, but is still deeply revered
by many Tibetans inChina.
Beijing accuses the Nobel Peace Prize laureate of
being a “wolf in monk’s robes” who seeks Tibetan independence
through “spiritual terrorism”.