On the Telegram by Xi Zhongxun\[1\] Regarding the Work of Cadres Entering Tibet in Conducting Ethnic Work
(13 January 1952)

Request Comrades Li Weihan and Liu Geping\[2\] to discuss and reply.
Comrade Xi Zhongxun’s opinion\[3\] merits attention.

Mao Zedong
13 January

\[1\] Xi Zhongxun, then serving as Second Secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Chairman of the Northwest Military and Administrative Committee.
\[2\] Li Weihan, then serving as Minister of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee and Chairman of the Ethnic Affairs Commission of the Central People’s Government. Liu Geping, then serving as Vice Chairman of the Ethnic Affairs Commission of the Central People’s Government.
\[3\] The main opinions put forward in Xi Zhongxun’s report to Mao Zedong on 10 January 1952 were: Our cadres entering Tibet should conduct ethnic work in accordance with actual conditions and guard against excessively urgent and overly high demands. Land reform should not be carried out for the time being in inland areas where Tibetans live in compact communities. For the present, it is best not to touch the land of lamaseries; in particular, prematurely expropriating the land of Buddhist monasteries would be disadvantageous to us. In pastoral areas, the slogan of “opposing local despots” should also not be raised, and land reform should not be carried out in semi-agricultural and semi-pastoral areas either.