China’s leader, Xi Jinping, made a rare visit to the capital of Tibet on Wednesday, highlighting his resolve to keep a firm grip over Tibet’s Buddhist believers, push more of them to speak standard Chinese and ensure that the once-rebellious region stays firmly under Beijing’s rule.

周三，中国领导人习近平罕见地来到西藏首府，此举凸显了他坚持对西藏的佛教信徒实行严格控制的决心，旨在推动更多人讲标准汉语，并确保这个曾经叛乱的地区被牢牢掌握在北京的统治之下。

Mr. Xi emphasized the Communist Party’s vision for the region in a speech to China’s regional government in Tibet, marking 60 years since the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region. His published comments did not mention the Dalai Lama, the exiled Buddhist leader who is revered by many Tibetans but reviled by the Chinese government.

在向西藏自治区政府发表的讲话中，习近平强调了共产党对该地区的愿景，这次讲话恰逢西藏自治区成立60周年。他公开的讲话内容并未提及深受许多藏人敬仰、却遭到中国政府谴责的流亡佛教领袖——达赖喇嘛。

But Mr. Xi’s tightly choreographed trip, his first since 2021 to Lhasa, the capital, reflected the Chinese leadership’s concern with redoubling control ahead of a potential succession fight after the eventual death of the current and 14th Dalai Lama, who is 90.

但这次精心安排的视察——这是他自2021年以来首次前往西藏首府拉萨——反映出在现任第十四世达赖喇嘛（现年90岁）去世后可能引发的继任者之争前，中国领导层对加倍强化控制的关切。

“To govern Tibet and make it stable and prosperous, the priority must be maintaining Tibet’s political order, social stability, ethnic unity and religious harmony,” Mr. Xi said, according to an official summary of his speech. He called for stronger regulation of “religious affairs" and to “guide Tibetan Buddhism to adapt to socialist society.”

根据官方发布的讲话摘要，习近平表示：“治藏稳藏兴藏，首先是要保持西藏的政治安定、社会稳定、民族团结、宗教和顺。”他呼吁要加强对“宗教事务”的管理，并“引导藏传佛教与社会主义社会相适应”。

Tibetan Buddhists believe that the Dalai Lama is reincarnated in his successor, who is identified after a search, in the form of a young boy. Last month, the Dalai Lama announced that this tradition would prevail after his death, free from Chinese or external influence. China’s leaders claim that only the governing Communist Party, an avowedly atheist organization, has the power to oversee choosing the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama.

藏传佛教徒相信，达赖喇嘛会转世为继任者，通常是以一个小男孩的形象出现，通过寻访来确认。上个月，达赖喇嘛宣布，这一传统将在他去世后继续延续，不受中国或任何外部势力的影响。中国领导人则声称，只有执政的共产党——一个公开宣称无神论的组织——才有权主导下一世达赖喇嘛的认定过程。

达赖喇嘛的传统居所布达拉宫俯瞰着拉萨，摄于3月。

“The succession of the Dalai Lama is a symbolic battleground and symbolic opportunity for the party” to make a fundamental claim about who rules Tibet, said Robert Barnett, a scholar of Tibet at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

“达赖喇嘛的继任问题是一个具有象征意义的斗争场，也是共产党宣示对西藏统治权的象征性机会，”伦敦大学亚非学院的西藏问题学者罗伯特·巴内特表示。

But the succession alone does not reflect an “existential threat” to Chinese power, Mr. Barnett said, and was most likely just one of the many Chinese ambitions at play in Mr. Xi’s visit. He said the trip reflected a broader campaign by Beijing to exert control in Tibet.

但巴内特表示，继任问题本身并不构成对中国政权的“生存性威胁”，它很可能只是习近平此行涉及的众多战略目标之一。他指出，此次行程反映出北京在西藏推进更广泛控制行动的努力。

The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule and built an exile government in the Indian Himalayas. In the following decades, the Chinese Communist Party tightened its grip on Tibet, but Buddhist monasteries and Tibetan communities often remained resistant to party control, and defiance sometimes flared into protest and rebellion. In 2008, rioting and protests against Chinese traders and residents erupted in Lhasa, and the unrest spread to other Tibetan areas.

1959年，在一场反对中国统治的藏人起义失败后，达赖喇嘛逃往印度，并在印度喜马拉雅山区建立了流亡政府。此后几十年间，中国共产党不断加强对西藏的控制，但佛教寺院和藏人社区常常抗拒党的统治，这种反抗有时还会演变为抗议甚至叛乱。2008年，拉萨爆发了针对中国商人和居民的骚乱与抗议，并蔓延至其他藏区。

Since Mr. Xi came to power in 2012, his officials have tightened restrictions on Tibetan monks and nuns, and expanded policing and surveillance, trying to stamp out any possibility of renewed mass protests.

自习近平于2012年上台以来，当局加大了对藏传佛教僧尼的管控力度，扩大了警力部署和监控措施，试图彻底消除再次爆发大规模抗议的可能性。

In Lhasa, Mr. Xi praised the Tibetan regional government for “engaging in a thoroughgoing struggle against separatism,” and cited his long-term policies aimed at absorbing Tibetans into Chinese mainstream language, culture and official values. Those policies have included a drive to send Tibetan children to boarding schools that teach almost exclusively in Chinese.

在拉萨，习近平称赞西藏自治区政府“坚决开展反分裂斗争”，并提到了他长期以来旨在将藏族人融入中国主流语言、文化和官方价值观的政策。这些政策包括推动藏族儿童入读几乎全程以汉语授课的寄宿学校。

Mr. Xi’s rare appearance in Tibet was, to officials of the leadership in exile, an indication of how China had yet to win over the hearts and minds of local residents.

对于流亡政府的官员来说，习近平罕见地现身西藏表明，中国尚未赢得当地民众的人心。

“The Chinese have found themselves on the back foot,” said Tseten Samdup Chhoekyapa, an official of the Dalai Lama’s office in northern India. He added that Mr. Xi’s visit was another attempt by China to “legitimize its occupation of Tibet,” especially in the wake of the Dalai Lama’s insistence that his post will have a successor chosen in the traditional way.

“中方目前处于被动局面，”位于印度北部的达赖喇嘛办公室的官员次丹桑珠说道。他还表示，习近平此行是中国试图“为占领西藏寻求合法性”的又一次尝试，尤其是在达赖喇嘛坚持其继任者将按照传统方式选定之后。

拉萨大昭寺的僧侣，摄于3月。

“I am really struck by the decision for Xi himself to go,” said Mr. Barnett. The decision, he said, reflects the “remaining existential anxiety in the party about religion and nationality despite years of control.”

“习近平亲自前往让我深感震惊，”次丹桑珠说道。他表示，这一决定反映出“尽管多年来加强控制，党内依然对宗教和民族问题存在根深蒂固的生存焦虑。”

Rights groups in support of Tibetan autonomy described the visit as an attempt to paper over Mr. Xi’s rights record in the region.

支持西藏自治的人权组织表示，此次访问是习近平试图掩盖其在该地区人权纪录的举动。

“For Tibetans, the anniversary of the People’s Republic of China’s creation of the Tibet Autonomous Region is no cause of celebration, but a painful reminder of China’s colonial occupation,” said Dorjee Tseten, the Asia Program Manager at the Tibet Action Institute and a member of Tibet’s exiled Parliament.

“对藏人来说，中华人民共和国建立西藏自治区的周年纪念并不是一个值得庆祝的日子，而是对中国殖民占领的痛苦提醒，”西藏行动研究所亚洲项目负责人、流亡西藏议会议员多吉才旦表示。

“Tibet remains one of China’s greatest challenges, and Tibetans will never accept Beijing’s imposed succession plan for the Dalai Lama.”

“西藏仍然是中国面临的最大挑战之一，西藏人民永远不会接受北京强加的达赖喇嘛转世继任计划。”