Beijing, Aug 30(ANI): Former Tibet Communist Party chief Zhang Qingli, also known as 'bulldog of Tibet' has been appointed as Hebei province 's Communist Party Secretary.
Qingli, who had had spearheaded Beijing's tough response to the Dalai Lama and his Tibetan Buddhist supporters, now faces a challenge to oversee the Hebei region, which is home to around a quarter of China's Roman Catholics population.
The appointment was revealed amid a Chinese court verdict sentencing a Tibetan Buddhist monk to 11 years imprisonment for hiding another monk who had set himself ablaze.
The monk's death was seen as a protest against China's high-handed control on Tibetan Buddhism and had earlier provoked a stand-off between country's security forces and monks, the Independent reports.
The tensions between China and the Vatican City are at the climax in the Hebei province, where Catholics are required to join the official Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
The association's naming of bishops without the Vatican's approval has constantly irked the country.
It estimates that about eight million Chinese Catholics worship secretly in churches whcih not recognized by the government out of which most of them are located in Hebei province.
Zhang had gained a reputation as an unyielding leader during his tenure as Communist Party chief, which has large Buddhist population.
He was particularly well known for his tough stance against the exiled Dalai Lama, and had once described him as "a wolf in monk's robes, a devil with a human face but the heart of a beast".(ANI)
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