Beijing: China has again lashed out at the Dalai Lama, accusing the exiled Buddhist leader of 'sabotagei to slow the development of Tibet that China sees as key to creating support for its rule there.
Fifty years after the Dalai Lama fled Tibet and China quashed a Tibetan uprising, China has stepped up its defence of its rule over the mountainous region.
"It's the current Tibet that allows Tibetans to enjoy the fruits of the reform and opening up and the feeling of being their own masters," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Tibet Communist Party secretary Zhang Qingli as saying.
Tibet plans to start construction this year on the region's first expressway, a four-lane road stretching 40 km (25 miles) from Lhasa, and to provide all counties with roads by next year and electricity by 2015, Xinhua said, citing officials.
"The Dalai Lama and his followers have constantly organised sabotage activities and had tried 'by all means to prevent Tibet's development'," Xinhua quoted Legqog, the ethnic Tibetan head of the region's congress, as saying.
Demonstrations by monks in Lhasa last March escalated into deadly riots and triggered protests against Chinese rule across the Tibetan plateau, especially in the run-up to the August Beijing Olympics.
China blamed the unrest of the Dalai Lama, whom it regularly brands a 'splittist', or separatist.
The Dalai Lama denies the charge, saying he is only seeking greater autonomy for the region.
Rights groups say China has suppressed religious freedom and employed strong-arm tactics against dissidents in the tightly policed region.
China this week is likely to establish a 'serfs' emancipation holiday' to mark the start of Chinese rule after the Dalai Lama fled into exile following the failed 1959 uprising.
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