![Gyalo Dhondup at Yabshi Takster](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Gyalo_Dhondup_at_Yabshi_Takster.jpg)
Gyalo Thondup (; ), born c.1927,
is the second-eldest brother of the
14th Dalai Lama
The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...
. He often acted as the Dalai Lama's unofficial envoy.
Early life
In late fall of 1927,
Gyalo Thondup was born in the village of
Taktser
Taktser or Tengtser (; meaning 'Place on the Heights'") or Hongya Village () is a village in , Ping'an District, Haidong, in the east of Qinghai province, China, (also known as Amdo or Kokonor). Tibetan, Han and Hui Chinese people populate the vil ...
, Amdo (
Ping'an District
Ping'an District () also known as Ping'anyi (), is an administrative district and the seat of the city of Haidong, in the east of Qinghai province of the People's Republic of China, located about east from Xining. Its postal code is 810600, and it ...
,
Qinghai
Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...
province). In 1939, he moved with his family to
Lhasa
Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Region in Southwest China. The inner urban area of Lhas ...
.
In 1942, at the age of 14, Thondup went to
Nanjing
Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...
, the capital of
Republican China, to study
Standard Chinese and the history of China. He often visited
Chiang Kai-shek at his home and ate dinner with him.
"In fact, young Gyalo Thondup ate his meals at the Chiang family table, from April 1947 until the summer of 1949, and tutors selected by Chiang educated the boy."
In 1948, he married
Zhu Dan
Zhu or ZHU may refer to:
* Zhu (surname), common Chinese surnames
*Zhu River, or Pearl River, in southern China
*Zhu (state), ancient Chinese state, later renamed Zou
* House of Zhu, the ruling house of the Ming dynasty in Chinese history
*Zhu (st ...
, the daughter of a
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
general.
Political involvement
In 1949, before the
Communist revolution of that year in China, Thondup left Nanjing for India via
British Hong Kong. "Gyalo Thondup... was the first officially acknowledged Tibetan to visit Taiwan since 1949. Taipei Radio announced the meeting between President Chang Kai-shek on 21 May 1950."
Fluent in Chinese, Tibetan and English,
he "later facilitated semi-official contacts between the Tibetan-government-in-exile and the Republic of China (ROC) as well as with the People's Republic of China (PRC) government in 1979."
United States activities
In 1951, he traveled to America and became the main source of information on Tibet for the
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
.
America's
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
promised to
make Tibet independent from China in exchange for Thondup's support in organizing guerrilla units to fight against the
People's Liberation Army, an offer which Thondup accepted.
Thondup maintains that he did not inform the
14th Dalai Lama
The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...
about the CIA's actions,
and this support ended after the
1972 Nixon visit to China
The 1972 visit by United States President Richard Nixon to the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an important strategic and diplomatic overture that marked the culmination of the Nixon administration's resumption of harmonious relations betwe ...
.
Later career
With the permission of the Dalai Lama, Thondup met Chinese leader
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CCP ...
in 1979 for open political talks, which Thondup terminated in 1993, feeling them to be useless.
In the 1990s, Thondup made several official visits to China, acting as the Dalai Lama's unofficial envoy.
In recent years, Thondup has repeatedly stated that dialogue is the only way to achieve progress with China. In 1998, the
Central Tibetan Administration
The Central Tibetan Administration (, , ), often referred to as the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, is a non-profit political organization based in Dharamshala, India. Its organization is modeled after an elective parliamentary government, comp ...
in exile criticized Thondup for not letting the Dalai Lama know about the
CIA's involvement in Tibet.
Over a decade later, Thondup accused his sister-in-law's father of embezzling money from the
Central Tibetan Administration
The Central Tibetan Administration (, , ), often referred to as the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, is a non-profit political organization based in Dharamshala, India. Its organization is modeled after an elective parliamentary government, comp ...
.
See also
*
Thubten Norbu
Publications
* (with Anne F. Thurston), ''The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong: The Untold Story of the Dalai Lama and the Secret Struggle for Tibet'', PublicAffairs, 2015
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thondup, Gyalo
Tibetan politicians
Prime Ministers of Tibet
1920s births
Living people
People from Ping'an