BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22. China’s fourth-ranking leader, Wang Huning, conducted a tour of Tibet this week, calling on authorities to safeguard social stability, enforce the new ethnic unity law, and align Tibetan Buddhism more closely with Communist Party priorities.
Wang, a member of the seven-person Politburo Standing Committee, visited Lhasa and the Ngari prefecture bordering India and Nepal on a four-day tour that concluded Wednesday, according to state media.
“To govern Tibet is foremost to stabilise Tibet,” the 70-year-old official said, stressing the need to consolidate a political and social environment of unity and stability.
His visit comes shortly after China’s new ethnic unity law, effective July 1, which allows Beijing to take action against individuals abroad whom it considers to have undermined “ethnic unity and progress” or incited ethnic separatism. The law has drawn criticism from the US and EU.
The tour coincided with the death of a Tibetan man who self-immolated near the UN headquarters in New York, an act identified by activists as a plea for independence.
