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BEIJING: Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping vowed to crush any attempt to undermine stability in Tibet in a speech Tuesday marking 60 years since China cemented control over the remote Himalayan region.
Xi spoke a day after the exiled Dalai Lama, the region's spiritual leader, concluded a visit to the United States during which he was welcomed warmly by President Barack Obama, angering China, which labels the monk a “separatist”.
“We should fight against separatist activities by the Dalai group... and take measures to address root causes, and smash any attempt to undermine stability in Tibet and the national unity of the motherland,” Xi said.
Xi, widely expected to take over as Chinese president by 2013, addressed an audience of thousands assembled on the central square of the Tibetan capital Lhasa in a speech broadcast live on national television.
Speaking beneath the iconic Potala palace, home of Tibet's past theocratic rulers, Xi praised the Communist Party's leadership in the region and promised even more of the rapid development that has angered many Tibetans who fear their unique Buddhist culture is being swamped.
Fresh from victory in the Chinese civil war, the People's Liberation Army of Communist leader Mao Zedong marched into Tibet in 1950 and annexed the region, an arrangement formalised the following year.
But many Tibetans bridle at Chinese control and the resentment burst out in March 2008 with deadly rioting in Lhasa that spread across the region and spilled over into neighbouring provinces with Tibetan populations.
Brushing off warnings from China, Obama met with the Dalai Lama at the White House Saturday, urging respect for human rights in Tibet and its cultural traditions.
China has lodged a protest and accused Obama of undermining relations between the world's two largest economies.
The Dalai Lama has spent more than a half-century in exile since fleeing abroad in 1959 after relations with Beijing turned sour.
The Tibetan spiritual leader, whose exile base is in northern India and who is revered as a god-king in Tibet, says he accepts that Tibet is a part of China and seeks only a limited form of Tibetan autonomy and Chinese respect for its culture.
