China warns Tibetans:

The people of Tibet should not be taken in by the Dalai Lama’s lies and clearly understand the importance of Communist Party rule in the region, the Chinese government said ahead of March’s sensitive 60th anniversary of him fleeing into exile.

Beijing sent troops into Tibet in 1950 in what it officially terms a peaceful liberation and has ruled there with an iron fist ever since.

The Dalai Lama, the highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism, fled into exile to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

China routinely denounces him as a dangerous separatist, although the Dalai Lama says he merely wants genuine autonomy for his remote and mountainous homeland.

The official Tibet Daily said in a lengthy commentary released online late on Thursday the 83-year-old Dalai Lama had never given up promoting Tibetan independence, dismissing his intentions to seek a “middle way” of genuine autonomy.

“Whether it’s the ‘middle way’ or a ‘high degree of autonomy’, the aim is to try and negate the leadership of the party, negate the socialist system, and negate the ethnic autonomous region system,” the paper wrote.

It said the Dalai Lama has tried to use hostile forces in the Western media to spread his “rumours and slander” against China to promote Tibetan independence, ignoring the freedoms and respect accorded to the people of Tibet.