Some Communist party officials in Tibet ‘funding Dalai Lama’

The Communist Party of China has accused its own party officials in the Tibet Autonomous Region of donating funds to the Dalai Lama.

The unnamed officials were accused of donating funds to the Tibetan spiritual leader, joining underground pro-independence organisations and leaking secrets to overseas groups. Their activity “severely undermines the Party’s fight against separatism”, a Communist Party magazine cited an official as having written. The report did not say if the officials were of Tibetan ethnicity.

Such accusations are rare but not unprecedented. In January 2015, Chinese anti-corruption authorities had found 15 senior Communist Party officials in Tibet guilty of corruption and punished them. On Tuesday, the magazine quoted a top anti-graft official levelling similar charges.

“Some party officials have neglected important political issues and the country's anti-separatist struggle,” Wang Yongjun, head of the discipline watchdog in the Tibet Autonomous Region was quoted as saying.

“Some have even donated to the 14th Dalai Lama clique, joined illegal underground organisations and provided intelligence to overseas organisations,” Wang wrote in the magazine run by the Communist Party’s Central Commission of Discipline Inspection.

Such behaviour “affected the CPC’s coherence and ability to fight separatism”, Wang wrote, adding a few officials were failing to “uphold their political integrity" and were “completely ignoring political discipline”.