Fight against ‘Dalai Lama clique’ must continue: Politburo member Yu

Yu Zhengsheng,67, Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. January 9: China’s new leadership is showing no signs of softening its stance on Tibet with one of it newly selected politburo standing committee members calling for continuing the “fight against the Dalai Lama clique.” Yu Zhengsheng, one of China’s seven top leaders, who was appointed last November along with Xi Jinping, made those remarks while on an inspection tour in Kardze region of eastern Tibet. "The fight against the Dalai Lama clique should continue in order to create a favorable social and political environment for economic development and the improvement of people's well-being," China’s state news agency Xinhua quoted Yu as saying. His visit to Tibet and comments on the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama marks the first by a member of the newly appointed Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. Addressing a seminar held with “Tibetan Buddhist representatives,” Yu called on monks and nuns to “support the government's efforts to manage monasteries in accordance with the law” and also encouraged them to be “patriotic and observe the law and monastic rules.” "The government should offer public services to monasteries while enhancing their management, as well as help Tibetan Buddhism to correspond with socialist society," Yu said. During his inspection tour from January 6 to 8, Yu is said to have visited “herdsmen, poverty-stricken villagers, and a middle school” and called for the improvement of infrastructure in Tibet and increase in incomes of farmers and herdsmen. Protest against China’s rule in Tibet has escalated over the years with the region witnessing a wave of self-immolations and mass protests. Since 2009, as many as 95 known Tibetans have set themselves in fire in Tibet demanding freedom and return of the Dalai Lama from exile. China’s top leader Xi Jinping, when he visited Tibet’s capital Lhasa in July 2011, had promised to "smash" any attempts to destabilise Tibet and walked the party line of fighting against "separatist activities" linked to the Dalai Lama. Speaking in front of the Potala Palace, which is the Dalai Lama's traditional seat, Xi had called on the country to “thoroughly fight against separatist activities by the Dalai clique by firmly relying on all ethnic groups... and completely smash any plot to destroy stability in Tibet and jeopardise national unity." "The extraordinary development of Tibet over the past 60 years points to an irrefutable truth: Without the Chinese Communist Party, there would have been no new China, no new Tibet."