Meeting Xi’s father

Xi Jinping is unlike any other princeling I knew in China. He was born in Beijing but he grew up in the countryside where he got brainwashed by Mao Zedong’s ideology. Today, he is the only second-generation princeling who can be called a modern-day Red Guard. It is the biggest qualification that sets him apart and could help him get a third term, if not life term, as president.

- KHEDROOB THONDUP

During the time I spent in China, I discovered that the princelings were brainwashed by the official line. I was there along with my father, Gyalo Thondup, who was the Dalai Lama’s first personal representative. From 1980 to 1993, I followed my father to China. It was during those visits that we got acquainted with Xi Jinping’s father, Xi Zhongxun. He was a politburo member and one of the leading officials who interacted with the Dalai Lama when he visited Beijing in 1954 to meet Mao. Xi Zhongxun was a reformer who realised that China had committed a lot of mistakes in Tibet. The Dalai Lama got along very well with him and even gifted him a Rolex.