General Secretary of the Chines Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping visited Tibet on the 60th anniversary of foundation of the Tibet Autonomous Region. His trip was a carefully orchestrated display of unity and strength by the CCP. Its optics, timing and significance suggest the party seeks to reinforce and accelerate the implementation of its vision for Tibet, especially in light of the 14th Dalai Lama’s statement regarding his reincarnation. The delegation of high-level central leaders travelling to Lhasa underlined the drivers and contours giving shape to the CCP’s governance of Tibet: political stability, regional development, and securing party control. But the focus on domestic governance tells only half the story.
Xi’s TAR visit was about China’s external relations as much as it was about domestic political priorities. The visit, which took place just as Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in New Delhi to discuss bilateral relations with India, sends a message conveying the centrality of Tibet in China’s security thinking, and by extension to the stability of China-India relations. With external dynamics evolving alongside domestic political priorities, the Tibet trip is a sharp reminder that the TAR’s domestic political and development trajectory remains highly relevant to India’s security and is central to the security and strategic engagement between India and China. With the CCP’s insistence on stability and border security, and infrastructure projects like the Yarlung Tsangpo River mega-dam threatening the water security of downstream states, India is likely to become increasingly wary of internal developments and dynamics of the TAR.
Spectacle of Strength Amid Tightening Policy
Xi’s Tibet visit stands out because it was the first time a general secretary of the CCP has attended such an event. Previously, the highest-ranking leader at anniversary celebrations in the TAR was the then-chairman of the National Committee of the CPPCC, Yu Zhengsheng, in 2015. Xi’s presence at the celebrations raised the political profile of the TAR, and its political and security situation is now more closely associated with his image.
The general secretary was accompanied by a large entourage of high-profile leaders, which suggests a desire to strengthen centralization of policy action and project the importance of the TAR for China’s external and internal objectives. Besides Xi, his delegation included five Politburo members – Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Zhang Guoqing, He Lifeng and Li Ganjie, with the first two also being on the Politburo Standing Committee – along with central government and military officials like Wang Xiaohong, Hu Chunhua, and Zhang Shengmin. Speeches and activities by the delegation underscored the CCP’s governance priorities for the TAR: ensuring stability, accelerating development, and maintaining party authority.
The focus on stability by high-level leaders was the defining policy priority at the 60th anniversary celebrations. This is unsurprising as it reflects the continuous effort by Beijing to secure its control of far-flung provinces where non-Han ethnic groups are a majority of the population. Xi Jinping’s remark that “governing, stabilizing, and developing Tibet primarily requires maintaining political stability, social stability, ethnic unity, and religious harmony in Tibet” made it clear that stability is prized over all other objectives in Tibet.
This stability is maintained through the large presence of armed forces and security infrastructure. Zhang Guoqing justified this, stating that “political and legal teams stationed in Tibet are important forces in maintaining national security.” The emphasis on stability and national security is perhaps a reflex to pre-empt any potential internal or external disruptions.
Stability also involves a greater focus on policies to integrate Tibetans with Chinese socialism, a process underway for more than a decade. Policy decisions in the name of “ethnic unity” are likely to accelerate, with Xi calling for promotion of the standard written and spoken Chinese language. Furthermore, trends like the migration of Han Chinese into Tibet, urbanization of population centers, deployment of party cadres from around the country to Tibet, and adjustments of Tibetan Buddhism to align with CCP ideology will likely intensify following the directives issued by party leaders.
Regional development is also set to intensify and expand, a directive issued in Wang Huning’s speech that “Tibet’s modernization drive also stands at a new historical starting point.” Although Tibet’s development has disproportionally focused on infrastructure projects, like rail lines and hydroelectric projects, party leaders have backed this approach. Furthermore, the domestic development trajectory of Tibet is now set to have wider, external implications. For instance, Xi told local government leaders to accelerate major projects in Tibet like hydropower dams on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo, a veiled reference to the dam in Medog county, called China’s project of the century. The dam is emerging as a major flashpoint in China-India relations and increasingly brings into focus the domestic development trajectory of Tibet for the two countries’ strategic and security relations.
Lastly, an unsaid but equally important feature of the CCP’s priorities in Tibet has to do with centralized control. Over the last year, the party has purged or removed numerous high-ranking Tibetan and non-Tibetan officials and several lower-level ones working in the TAR on charges of corruption. For example, one Tibetan former governor of the TAR, Qi Zhala, was removed for accepting bribes and participating in “superstitious activities,” a reference to religious practices banned for officials. The sharp increase in purged officials indicates that the CCP is pursuing greater centralization of the governance and administrative apparatus in the TAR.
External Subtext
While the domestic governance contours of China’s Tibet policy are compelling and were made abundantly clear by the CCP, the external policy signals of Xi’s TAR visit lie below the surface. Xi’s visit happened just as Wang Yi’s visit to India was concluded, a subtle signal that Tibet’s security is a component of the China-India border equation for Beijing. The TAR visit is a sign that China’s security concerns in Tibet may be inextricable from any resolution of the China-India border dispute.
In fact, since the 18th Party Congress, Xi has routinely emphasized the importance of border security as one of the “four major tasks” in the TAR. During his visit, Xi repeated this theme. He visited troops stationed in Tibet and met with officers above the colonel rank, emphasizing Tibet’s role as a “national security barrier” – not just the context of domestic governance but also in China’s external relations with India.
The visit confirms that Beijing is striving to cultivate advantages in Tibet that give it the upper hand in the balance of power and border negotiations with India. The July 21 announcement by Li Qiang that the Medog county dam will begin construction and now, Xi’s veiled directive to accelerate its construction, makes it almost certain that the dam will be developed into a flashpoint in China-India security dynamics. Perhaps China is cultivating a bargaining chip for negotiations with India, but with the sanction of the top leadership, riparian relations between India and China are now certain to become further securitized.
Moreover, China’s position that the Medog county dam and development policies of Tibet are an internal matter is likely to harden as India raises objections to such projects. Tibet’s development trajectory and infrastructure projects are becoming increasingly relevant to India’s border security and entangled with security competition with China.
Another sensitivity with an external dimension is the issue of the Dalai Lama’s succession. Xi’s visit to the TAR and reiteration of stability and security is a clear indication that Beijing is unwilling to allow the Dalai Lama’s succession issue to impact China’s control in Tibet. A high-profile visit to the TAR just a month after the Dalai Lama’s announcement that his successor would be found outside China and outside China’s influence, signals a hardening stance by Beijing. China will persist with its integration strategy in Tibet and legitimize CCP-appointed Tibetan institutions. Perhaps Xi’s visit is preparing the ground for China’s counter-measures in the TAR when the Dalai Lama’s succession process is initiated.
For India, this means China is also preparing for a decision by New Delhi to support or legitimize the Dalai Lama’s succession.
Future Outlook
India and China’s bilateral relations have moved closer toward normalization since October 2024. Wang Yi’s latest visit to Delhi has seen India and China invest greater diplomatic capital in dialogue and negotiation to address the troublesome boundary question. However, developments in Tibet are likely to exert significant influence on India and China’s security outlook.
Xi’s visit to the TAR was a sharp reminder that developments in Tibet are closely tied to border security concerns for India. The Medog county dam is raising significant concerns about a “water bomb” in some Indian states and its construction could greatly accentuate security dilemmas in sensitive border regions.
For China, the Dalai Lama’s recent remarks on the succession issue have possibly resulted in Beijing’s hardening stance and reiteration of control in Tibet. New CCP moves are preparing the ground for succession outcomes. Both the domestic governance priorities of the party and China’s external signaling are indicating an increasing in the complexity of security dynamics between India and China.
This article was previously published by the Organisation for Research on China and Asia (ORCA) and is republished here with permission.