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INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET
nine most senior politicians in the PRC — his main Party
position is Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative
Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body to China’s
national legislature, and a position which has earned him
the informal title “China’s top political advisor” in China’s
English-language press.
Jia appears to have had a limited public role on Tibet during
and after the protests, restricting his comments to very
broad generalizations about Tibet’s status within the PRC
and about the need for CPPCC members to “give full expression
to their superiority” in their work on Tibet. 24
Chairman of the
CPPCC, Jia Qinglin
Jia Qinglin led a delegation of central government figures to Lhasa in 2005 to participate
in official celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of the founding of the TAR,
but otherwise there is little apparent evidence that he has spent much time in Tibet,
despite being chairman of working group.
Jia has publicly commented on the need to protect Tibetan culture, and on the positive
role that religions in the PRC have to play in society as a whole. However, according
to Jia, religion’s acceptable role is to “promote social harmony”, in other words,
to conform to the Party’s dictats. The implicit understanding is for religion to support
and play a secondary role to Party and government attempts to create a “harmonious
society.” 25 Similarly, while Jia has spoken of the “long-term historic task” to
protect Tibetan culture, that task is primarily assigned to the Party and government,
rather than to the people of Tibet themselves. 26
Commander of the People’s Armed Police,
Wu Shuangzhan
Perhaps the most notable change to the personnel of the Central Tibet Work Coordination
Working Group has been the reported addition of the Commander of the People’s
Armed Police (PAP), Wu Shuangzhan. His addition, apparently the first time the
PAP has been represented on the working group, strongly suggests that hardened,
militarized security considerations beyond those already taken by ordinary police in
Tibet are to be an even more prominent feature of future policy work on Tibet —
most likely a direct response to this most recent wave of protests.
Prior to his inclusion in the working group and indeed, prior to the protests in March
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