Xi Jinping is on a visit to Tibet, the Chinese president’s first visit to the roof of the world in 31 years. The Chinese head of state arrived in the city of Ningchi on Wednesday, located in the southeast of the Autonomous Region. This was reported by the Chinese news agency Xinhua, but 48 hours later.
The visit coincides with the 70th anniversary of the communist invasion of Tibet, an event celebrated in Beijing as a “peaceful liberation.”
The delicate political nature of the region is evidenced by the fact that only one incumbent president of China has visited Tibet since China’s founding in 1949 – Jiang Zemin in July 1990.
Footage broadcast on national television shows Xi Jinping greeting several people in national costumes waving Chinese flags as they go ashore. According to state television, the Chinese president was “warmly welcomed by officials and the masses of all ethnic groups.”
He then boarded a train to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. According to the anti-Tibetan movement “International Campaign for Tibet”, residents of Lhasa “reported unusual activities and inspections where they were going” before the visit, recalling the closed roads and increased surveillance by police.
After the anti-Chinese unrest in the region in 2008, Beijing invested heavily in Tibet, hoping to repel the influence of the Dalai Lama, a Tibetan spiritual leader who has lived in exile in India since 1959. However, protests have not disappeared and are sporadic, including the self-immolation of Buddhist monks loyal to the Dalai Lama, according to AFP.