(TibetanReview.net, Feb28’19) – Beijing wants to see its 11th Panchen Lama, Gyaltsen Norbu, to do more in Tibet to push the Xi Jinping-thought-oriented policy for a new era as Mr You Quan the head of the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) met with him in Beijing on Feb 26.
He expressed the hope that the Panchen Lama could make new achievements in maintaining China’s reunification and ethnic unity as well as in promoting Tibetan Buddhism to be more adaptable to the socialist society, reported China’s official Xinhua news agency Feb 26.
The report also said You, a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and head of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, had congratulated Gyaltsen Norbu for the progress he had made last year.
The report cited Gyaltsen Norbu as having said in his turn that he will closely follow the CPC Central Committee in terms of thinking, political orientation and actions.
In a further suggestion of his willingness do more for the party and China, the report cited him as saying “he will keep his responsibilities in mind, serve the believers and further contribute to national reunification, ethnic unity, religious harmony, and people’s well-being”.
The Panchen Lama is the second most influential religious figure in Tibet, although Gyaltsen Norbu, a Chinese replacement, is not accepted by most of the Tibetans. Another boy, the then six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was kidnapped by the Chinese government within days of his recognition by the Dalai Lama as the 11th Panchen Lama in 1995 and remains disappeared ever since.
