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TIBET AT A TURNING POINT: THE SPRING UPRISING AND CHINA’S NEW CRACKDOWN
tion Working Group. Prior to being installed as Minister for
Public Security, Meng was serving as Party Secretary of
Jiangxi province, and is not known to have had any notable
involvement in Tibetan issues at any previous stage of his
career, which until he was posted to Jiangxi province had
been spent entirely in Shanghai.
Meng has not yet been in his post long enough for observers
to discern what impact he personally is likely to have upon
Tibet. However, so far at least — and perhaps unsurprisingly
in the run-up to the Olympics when the Chinese government
is working hard to maintain an air of normality
around Tibet — Meng appears unlikely to represent any
hope for reform.
Minister for Public
Security, Meng Jianzhu
Meng led a high-level delegation to Lhasa on March 23–24, the first such visit since the
unrest of March 14. The delegation included Ye Xiaowen (see above), and was hosted
in Lhasa by TAR Party Secretary Zhang Qingli and TAR Government Chairman Jampa
Phuntsog. The delegation visited Sera and Drepung monasteries, as well as the Jokhang
Temple in the center of Lhasa, where Meng was quoted as saying that the authorities
had to “continue to deepen patriotic education in the monasteries” as a result of the
protests, and asserting that the violence “violated the fundamental teachings of
Tibetan Buddhism”. 32
The other remaining members of the Central Tibet Work Coordination Working
Group are Ma Kai, Zhang Ping and Xie Xuren (Du Qinglin, who also sits on the working
group, is profiled under the description of the United Front Work Department,
below).
Ma Kai currently serves as the Secretary General of the State Council, the PRC’s cabinet.
His role on the Central Tibet Work Coordination Working Group is therefore
likely to one of liaising with ministers and ministries who are not also represented on
the working group. Prior to being made Secretary General of the State Council, Ma —
who has spent his entire career in Beijing — served as the Director of the National
Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), a post which is also represented on
the working group, and which is now held by Zhang Ping.
The National Development and Reform Commission has broad administrative and
planning control over economic development in the PRC. Zhang Ping and Xie Xuren,
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