China has completed a seven-year renovation of Tibet’s Potala Palace — home to the Dalai Lamas until the region’s spiritual leader fled during an aborted uprising against Communist rule 50 years ago.
China said the project was part of its plan to promote Tibetan culture and language in the region as it develops its economy, of which tourism forms a major part. The renovation, which also repaired the Norbu Lingka, a summer palace for the Dalai Lamas, cost 300 million yuan (US$43.9 million), a report from the state-run news agency said yesterday.
But many Tibetan exiles say the Himalayan region’s cultural heritage has been threatened by Beijing’s restrictions on the native Buddhist religion and the Tibetan language as well as a government-orchestrated mass migration of Han Chinese in the last three decades.
PHOTO: AP
A large number of monasteries and other artifacts also were destroyed the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976, although the Potala was spared in the violence.
In March last year, riots erupted in Lhasa to protest Chinese rule. In response, Beijing poured troops into Tibetan areas and intensified its vilification of the Dalai Lama, accusing him of instigating the unrest.
The spiritual leader, who fled China in 1959 and now lives in exile in India, has said that restrictions on Tibet’s religious practices have resulted in a “cultural genocide.”
A ceremony was held on Sunday on the square in front of the Potala — whose facade looms over the city of Lhasa — Xinhua news agency said.
“The reparation of the three key cultural relics is an important part in the conservation of the Tibetan culture,” said Liu Yandong (劉延東), a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo, who attended the ceremony.
More than 189,000 workers were involved, and the government also spent 94.74 million yuan repairing the Sagya Monastery, which houses classical Buddhist texts, Xinhua said.
Xinhua quoted a former director of the Potala’s administration office saying the palace could now accommodate 1,000 visitors a day.
The renovations are part of a 570 million yuan plan to promote tourism to Tibet, a mainstay of the region’s economy, and include the repair to 22 cultural sites.
Earlier this year China tightened restrictions on advertising and construction outside the palace, following calls from the UN to better preserve the UNESCO World Heritage Site’s natural setting.
Although palaces have existed on the grounds of the Potala since the seventh century, the current building dates from the rule of the fifth Dalai Lama, known as the “Great Fifth,” who started its construction in 1645.
It was then used as living quarters and a winter palace by the Dalai Lamas.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS