Directive on Building Roads into Tibet

Zhou and Nie:

Regarding entry into Tibet from Xinjiang, according to Wang Zhen[1], the road construction can be undertaken by the troops without requesting additional funds from the Central Government, requiring only five hundred trucks. As for the five thousand cavalry, they need not all be dispatched at once in 1951; only a little over a thousand will go this year. Regarding entry into Tibet from Qinghai, there are two issues: first, with the eight hundred cavalry currently in Yushu as the core, recruit a number of Qinghai Tibetans to participate—however many can be recruited—to serve as the escort force for the Panchen Lama[2] entering Tibet and subsequently serve as the Panchen Lama's guard unit. Second, whether there are funds for road construction; if there are no funds to build the road as far as Shigatse, can the Northwest Bureau be tasked with responsibility for building it as far as Heihe? The above is submitted for consideration and discussion, with a view to drafting a reply.

Mao Zedong
January 4

[1] Wang Zhen, then serving as Acting Commander and Acting Political Commissar of the Xinjiang Military Region of the People's Liberation Army.
[2] The Panchen Lama, namely the Panchen Erdeni Chökyi Gyaltsen, one of the religious leaders of Tibet, who was then in Qinghai.