Time to ‘sinicise’ Tibetan Buddhism, build fortress around Tibet, says Xi

BEIJING: It is important to promote the “sinicisation” of Tibetan Buddhism and build an “impregnable fortress” to maintain stability in Tibet, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Saturday.

Xi said it’s necessary to strengthen border defence and frontier security of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), which borders India and Bhutan, adding that it was also necessary to educate Tibetans to strengthen the struggle against separatism.

The Chinese president was addressing the country’s top leadership in Beijing at a two-day forum on future governance in Tibet.

Beijing seized control over Tibet in 1950 in what is described in the Chinese narrative as a “peaceful liberation”, which aided the high-altitude Himalayan region to throw off its “feudalist” past.

Exiled Tibetan groups, led by exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, and rights groups say Beijing’s rule amounts to “cultural genocide”.