BEIJING — China's controversial choice as the second highest Tibetan Buddhist leader visited the country's earthquake zone Friday to hold prayer services for victims of the disaster, state media reported.
The visit by Gyaincain Norbu, chosen by Beijing as the Panchen Lama after it rejected a boy selected by the exiled Dalai Lama, comes after China snubbed a request by the Tibetan spiritual leader to be allowed into the quake area.
The 6.9-magnitude quake struck April 14, killing more than 2,000 people and flattening thousands of homes in the ethnically Tibetan region of Yushu in northwestern China.
The Dalai Lama had appealed to the government to allow him into China for the first time in 51 years to visit the quake zone in Qinghai province, where he was born. China did not publicly respond.
The region's ethnic Tibetan people revere the Dalai Lama as their spiritual guide despite Chinese attempts to demonise him as a separatist bent on fomenting unrest in his restive homeland.
The Dalai Lama denies such charges, saying he wants only a meaningful form of autonomy in Tibet, where he says China has waged a campaign to exterminate traditional Tibetan culture.
Gyaincain Norbu, 20, was named by China as the 11th Panchen Lama in a 1995 ceremony overseen by the Communist Party.
The Dalai Lama's choice for Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, quickly disappeared from public view and is believed to have been under a form of house arrest ever since.
In the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, the Panchen Lama is second only to the Dalai Lama.
China has been steadily raising the profile of its Panchen Lama choice as he has grown up. In recent appearances he has routinely praised the Communist Party leadership and China's rule of Tibet.
Tibetan exiles dismiss him as a puppet of Beijing.
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