China’s President Xi Jinping made his first visit to the Tibet Autonomous Region as national leader this week and urged people there to “follow the party”, state news agency Xinhua said on Friday.
Xi’s July 21-22 visit – the first to Tibet by a Chinese leader in 30 years – comes as the country faces increased security concerns as a result of clashes with India and the withdrawal of US-led troops from Afghanistan.
The visit also shows the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s confidence in having established order and gained support in the region, analysts say.
Xi flew into the city of Nyingchi on Wednesday and took a train to the Tibetan capital Lhasa the following day along a section of the high-elevation railway being built to link the mountainous border region with Sichuan province.
In footage released Friday by state broadcaster CCTV, Xi was seen greeting a crowd wearing ethnic costumes and waving Chinese flags as he left his plane, in a red carpet welcome as dancers performed around him.
After a “warm welcome by cadres and masses of all ethnic groups”, Xi went to the Nyang River Bridge to learn about ecological and environmental protection of the Yarlung Tsangpo River and the Nyang River, CCTV said.
In Lhasa, Xi visited a monastery and the Potala Palace Square, and “inspected ethnic religion work” and Tibetan cultural heritage protection, according to Xinhua.
The palace is the traditional home of Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who is in exile and has been branded a dangerous separatist by Beijing.
State television network CCTV showed a Tibetan woman wiping away tears as she joined a crowd of people dressed in traditional costume clapping enthusiastically to welcome Xi.
Xi instructed local provincial officials to work towards making people in Tibet identify more with the “great motherland, Chinese people, Chinese culture, the Chinese Communist Party and socialism with Chinese characteristics”, according to Xinhua.
He also said that only when the people “follow the party” can the “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” be realised.
