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

nBEIJING: 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”.

Political and ideological education needed to be strengthened in Tibet’s schools in order to “plant the seeds of loving China in the depths of the hearts of every youth”, Xi said in remarks published by news agency Xinhua.

Xi was quoted as calling for efforts to ensure national security and enduring peace and stability, steadily improve people’s lives, maintain a good environment, solidify border defence and ensure frontier security.

“It is necessary to strengthen the education and guidance of the masses, extensively mobilise the masses to participate in the struggle against separatism, and form a copper wall and iron wall (which translates as “impregnable fortress” in Mandarin) for maintaining stability,” he said.

“Efforts must be made to build a new modern socialist Tibet that is united, prosperous, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful,” Xi said.

“It is necessary to actively guide Tibetan Buddhism to adapt to the socialist society and promote the sinicisation of Tibetan Buddhism,” he said.