Reported by Lobsang Gelek for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Tibet’s Beijing-appointed Panchen Lama in a speech this month slammed what he called foreign interference in Tibetan affairs, saying that “anti-China forces” care nothing for the Tibetan people and only raise issues of religious freedom in order to hinder China’s development.

Speaking on March 11 at a meeting of the Chinese People’s Consultative Conference, Panchen Gyaltsen (Chinese, Gyaincain) Norbu, a member of the CPCC Standing Committee, said that “Foreign anti-China forces have been hyping Tibet issues and religious issues in China, and transforming the topics into political bargaining chips.”

“As long as a person has sanity and an objective stance, he would see the truth very clearly,’ Norbu said in remarks quoted by China’s official Global Times, which noted that the U.S. State Department in a statement the day before had said that China “shouldn’t interfere with the succession process of [exiled Tibetan spiritual leader] the Dalai Lama.”

The comments by the Panchen Gyaltsen Norbu, who is widely regarded by Tibetans as a puppet of Beijing, drew a sharp rebuke this week from Tenzin Tsetan, an analyst at the Dharamsala, India-based Tibet Policy Institute.

“The Tibet Policy and Support Act signed into law by the U.S. government imposes sanctions on Chinese Communist Party officials if they interfere with the reincarnation process of Tibetan religious leaders,” Tsetan said, referring to legislation passed in the U.S. Congress in December and signed into law by U.S. President Donald Trump.

“I think the Chinese government is manipulating [this issue] by using their own appointed Panchen Lama to assert their [own] claims,” Tsetan added.

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