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INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET
the Minister of Finance, are therefore two of the most senior economic planning
officials in the PRC, whose presence on the working group is almost certainly to ensure
Tibet’s integration and inclusion in overall economic planning, as well as to
legitimize the enormous fiscal subsidies sent to Tibet by the central government in
Beijing. 33
The United Front Work Department
The United Front Work Department (UFWD) is an organization within the Central
Committee of the CCP that acts as a gate-keeper for “non-Party” groups and individuals,
both foreign and domestic, engaging with the Party on a select range of issues. The Chinese
officials who meet with the Dalai Lama’s special envoys are from the UFWD.
As a gateway for contact with the Party and government, the UFWD has little actual
executive authority to affect policy change in China and Tibet. The UFWD also plays
an advisory role for China’s national legislature, the National People’s Congress, and
is extremely influential in instilling the Party line throughout government and Party
offices, particularly those in contact with individuals and organizations from abroad.
Du Qinglin has headed the UFWD since late 2007, and as with many senior Party appointees
he rose to prominence in President Hu Jintao’s power base, the Communist
Youth League of China. Du has only very limited personal experience of Tibet having
briefly served as Party Secretary of Sichuan province from 2006 to 2007, during which
time he toured parts of Kardze, an area of Tibet which saw a large number of protests
in this latest wave of unrest. He is nevertheless a senior and experienced politician
having served as the Minister for Agriculture from 2001 to 2007.
Although Du Qinglin is Director of the UFWD, the main interlocutor during negotiations
with representatives of the Dalai Lama has in recent years most often been
Zhu Weiqun, a deputy director of the UFWD with special responsibility for Tibet,
along with Sithar, an ethnic Tibetan and also a Deputy Director of the UFWD.
The UFWD itself has little if any genuine executive authority in China’s political establishment,
and the view has been expressed by Tibetan exiles that dialogue should
instead be the purview of a top government ministry, if not the office of the Chinese
president.
Du Qinglin led the UFWD’s delegation when meeting with representatives of the
Dalai Lama in Beijing in early July 2008 for the seventh round of dialog since 2002,
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