Jamphel Gyatso, a prominent senior Tibetan scholar
Jamphel Gyatso, a prominent senior Tibetan scholar from the Chinese Academy of Social Science, has publicly blasted senior Communist Party official Zhu Weiqun who is advisor with the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and former executive Vice Minister of the United Front Work Department. Gyatso has also spoken out about Ye Xiaowen, the former Director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs.
The row was sparked when a video went viral, prompting huge debate about Tibetan Buddhism with responses and protests from both Tibetan netizens and Chinese officials. The video showed Chinese actor Zhang Tielin being enthroned as a Trulku or Rinpocheby Padma Woser – a Hong Kong based, self-proclaimed Trulku. Zhu Weiqun’s response to this was to say “Some fake Rinpoches have posed threats to national security, as they use money they collect to sponsor illegal or even separatist activities in Tibet” and to call on the authorities to take action against these fake lamas.
The senior Tibetan scholar slammed Zhu Weiqun on these levels; shirking responsibilities, diverting attention and harbouring ill intentions with ulterior motives. According to High Peaks Pure Earth, the immensely popular and influential blog on Tibetan issues, Jamphel Gyatso’s post has been deleted and his blog had been heavily censored. Nevertheless it has been circulated widely among public on Wechat and Weibo, the two most used social media in China.
The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) quoted Zhu as saying on state television that people are posing as living Buddhas and going to eastern regions to carry out swindles. Jamphel Gyatso’s reaction to this was to question Zhu’s approach to his responsibilities as a senior Communist Party member who has worked in the Tibet region over a long period, and suggested that Zhu is complicit with those who “pose as living Buddhas and go to the eastern regions to carry out swindles.”
Zhu Weiqun, former executive Vice Minister of the United Front Work Department
Zhu has declared that “After taking some of their assets back into Tibetan areas, the [fake lamas] in fact continue to engage in various kinds of actions that contravene the law, even using some of the money to support splittist activities”. Jamphel Gyatso’s response to this allegation is to say that lamas (whether fake or real) cheating people is a question of morality and not law, and added that Zhu should name people and provide proper evidence or he will be guilty himself of committing crimes of defamation.
Gyatso has suggested that Zhu is using the row sparked by the video as an opportunity to speak about Tibetan Buddhism and reincarnated Lamas generally, and that he does so with ulterior motives and ill intentions. Gyatso says that when questioned about the video, Zhu Weiqun does not respond to the questions but “kept changing the subject and turning it back to Tibetan areas and back to Tibetan lamas”.
Gyatso has also criticised Ye Xiaowen, the former Director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs. When Ye Xiaowen was in office China introduced new legislation which stated that living Buddhas must have government approval. Gyatso has written “As soon as something happens in Tibet and other Tibetan areas, Ye Xiaowen and Zhu Weiqun connect it with ‘splittism’, then later add their ‘righteous’ criticism and become heroes of ‘anti-splittism’…anti-splittism is a basket into which every problem is stuffed.”
Thupten Phuntsok, a Tibetan Professor based in Chengdu who has previously worked for many years at Minzu University of China in Beijing wrote a short piece in Tibetan entitled A Message to all Tibetan Youth praising Jamphel Gyatso’s courage to speak out, and saying that he and others have voiced concerns and fought for the truth. Thupten Phuntsok said that whenever Tibetans suffer at the hands of tyranny, only Tibetan civil servants and intellectuals stand up to fight for the truth.
Jamphel Gyatso’s commentary piece was published on his blog on December 13 and translated into English by the ICT. Gyatso worked for Communist party in the 1950s and is known to have translated for Mao Zedong and other party officials as well as for the 10th Panchen Lama.
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