By Tenzin Tseten, Tibet Policy Institute
In the run-up to the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party expected to be convened in the fall of 2017, Tibet Autonomous Region and Xinjiang Autonomous Region also went through the highest-level of leadership reshuffle in the ongoing leadership transition. There has been no shortage of reportage and analysis on the top-level leadership transition of these two regions. However, I haven’t come across an analysis on the changes that is bound to take place after the reshuffle in the TAR Party Committee.
Not long after this, I started to speculate, who will take the post left vacant by Wu Yingjie who became the Party Secretary of the TAR after Chen Quanguo was promoted to become the Party Secretary of the XAR. Having been a keen observer of the Party tradition, I was confident that the replacement will come from the Standing Committee of the TAR Party Committee. However, I was partially wrong to predict Ding Yexian to take over the post.[i]
Prior to his TAR Party post, Che Dalha spent his entire career in Dechen Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province.[vii] He was appointed head of the TAR UFWD in 2010 before he became the Party Secretary of Lhasa Municipality replacing Qin Yizhi, a Han Chinese cadre who had been in the post since September 2006. Che Dalha’s good political record while in Yunnan Province is sometimes cited for his elevation to the TAR.[viii]
It remains to be seen whether Phagpa-lha Gelek Namgyal (76), a revered Rinpoche of Chamdo monastery who sits atop the TAR CPPCC will remain or step down. In the event he steps down, either Drupkhang Thubten Khedrup(61) or Gonpo Tashi, both vice-Chairmen of the TAR CPPCC, will most likely become its chairman. But it seems that the Party doesn’t want Phagpa-lha to retire.
After all, the highest-level promotion for Tibetans has never go beyond a deputy Party Secretary in the regional level and a member of the Central Committee in the national level.
[i] http://tibetpolicy.net/comments-briefs/a-longest-serving-han-party-cadre-in-the-tar-promoted-to-become-its-new-boss/.
[ii] http://tibet.cpc.people.com.cn/15626471.html
[iii] The book titled ” The Current Leaders in Tibet” published by the Tibet Policy Institute, a research center of the Central Tibetan Administration, shows his birthplace as Chabcha district in Tsolho prefecture (མཚོ་སྔོན་མཚོ་ལྷོ་ཆབ་ཆ་རྗོང་). See: http://tibetpolicy.net/publications/the-current-leaders-in-tibet-ii/ p. 195
[iv] Lawrence V. Susan and Martin F. Michael, Understanding China’s Political System, p. 8
[v] https://tibetanblogstation.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/tibetans-in-the-chinese-communist-party-leadership/
[vi] A popular saying in the TAR compares Ragdi with a stone fixed with a river bed, while different Party Secretaries are carried away by the current. See: Tibet 2002, A Yearbook. Tibet Information Network. No. 31, 2003. Despite his advance age, Ragdi was present among the other dignitaries during the inauguration ceremony of Wu Yingjie in Lhasa. See: http://tb.xzxw.com/zw/ldhd/201608/t20160829_1407658.html
[vii] http://tibetpolicy.net/publications/the-current-leaders-in-tibet-i/ pp. 43-44
[viii] https://www.savetibet.org/tibetan-becomes-new-lhasa-party-secretary-updates-on-leadership-in-tibetan-areas-and-the-current-climate-in-lhasa/
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*Tenzin Tseten is a research fellow at the Tibet Policy Institute. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Tibet Policy Institute.