(TibetanReview.net, Aug21’25) – In a visit meant to showcase who is in charge and strengthen control, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Tibet’s capital Lhasa on Aug 20 and observed, on the following day, a grand parade and gathering before the Potala palace, marked by pomp and circumstance to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), returning to Beijing later in the day.
While in TAR, he called for unity and development, and posed for a series of photos with groups that included representatives of Chinese cadres working in TAR, top regional officials, judicial workers and police officers, “patriotic” members of the religious circles in Lhasa, and military personnel stationed in the region while speaking to them to exhort their mission to Sinicize Tibet, including its Buddhism.
Xi’s entourage, including senior official Cai Qi, director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, returned by the same flight.
Instructed by Xi, a central delegation with Wang Huning as the leader will visit and convey greetings to people of all ethnic groups and from all sectors of society in TAR from Aug 21 top 23, reported China’s official Xinhua news agency Aug 21. Wang is the chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
The trip underscores Beijing’s focus on tightening party control over ethnic minorities, especially in the restive region, said the wsj.com Aug 21.
The report said Xi travelled to Tibet to drive home a message of control to the restive region on China’s western periphery, where he demanded more efforts to reinforce Communist Party rule over the heartland of Tibetan Buddhism.
He told officials to get Tibetans to speak more Mandarin Chinese and bring Buddhist devotees closer in line with socialist principles—part of efforts to forge a stronger national identity among China’s 1.4 billion people, the report noted.
To govern, stabilize and develop Tibet, we must first maintain political and social stability, as well as ethnic unity and religious harmony in Tibet,” Xinhua has cited Xi as having told officials. “To handle Tibetan affairs well, we must always adhere to the party’s leadership,” Xi has emphasized.
Xi called for his government to tighten its ethnic-assimilation campaign, noted bloomberg.com Aug 21.
While he didn’t speak at the commemoration ceremony, attended by some 20,000 people and televised to the nation, Xinhua has reported that Xi told local officials maintaining political stability, social order, ethnic solidarity and religious harmony are key for Tibet’s development.
Xi’s visit indicates Beijing attaches high importance to the region’s development, according to Xinhua, given that the president is personally leading a central government delegation to Tibet for the first time.
In his speech at the ceremony in Lhasa, Wang, China’s No 4 official, called for ensuring border stability in China’s fight against separatism. He has called on cadres in the region to “strengthen innovative social governance, and form an iron wall for maintaining stability.”
Wang called for renewed efforts to foster a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation and advance the four main tasks for governing Xizang: ensuring stability, facilitating development, protecting eco-environment, and strengthening frontiers, reported Xinhua Aug 21.
Xi previously visited TAR in 2021 — more than three decades after Jiang Zemin became the last Chinese leader to visit the region, noted the bloomberg.com report.
By visiting Tibet this time, the Chinese leadership has once again placed the region at the centre of its national agenda, reminding both domestic and international audiences that “Tibet‑related work is of strategic importance to the overall work of the Party and the state,” said trendingonweibo.com Aug 20.
China began its armed invasion of Tibet after the founding of the PRC on Oct 1, 1949, annexed it in an agreement it imposed on Lhasa in 1951, took complete control of the region in 1959 with a brutal suppression of a Tibetan uprising, and introduced a civilian government system with the founding of the TAR on Sep 9, 1965.