China appoints Qi Zhala as new Tibet Governor

DHARAMSALA, Jan 16: China has appointed Qi Zhala, former communist party chief of Lhasa as the new Governor of Tibet on Sunday.

Qi Zhala replaced Losang Gyaltsan as the governor of Tibet Autonomous Region, Chinese state media Xinhua reported on Sunday. Losang Gyaltsan was elected secretary of the region’s National People’s Congress at the fifth session of the 10th Tibet People’s Congress on Sunday, the report added.

Qi Zhala, aged 58, is a veteran of the Communist Party and has formerly served as the region’s Communist Party vice-secretary and the party boss of Lhasa. Qi hails from neighboring Yunnan province and prior to his appointment as the new Governor of the Tibet, he held official posts in Yunnan before being transferred to Tibet in 2010.

The Governor of Tibet is the second-most powerful post in the Chinese occupied Tibet after the regional Communist Party boss.