Padma Choling

Padma Choling (Tibetan: པདྨ་འཕྲིན་ལས་, Wylie: padma 'phrin-las, Lhasa dialect IPA: [pɛ́mɑ̀ ʈʰĩ́lɪ᷈ː] ; alternatively Pema Thinley, Pelma Chiley, Baima Chilin;Chinese: 白玛赤林; pinyin: Báimă Chìlín; born October 1952) is a politician. He was the eighth and Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), China, but in January 2013, was replaced by his deputy Losang Jamcan. He now heads the Tibet Autonomous Region People's Congress. As Chairman of TAR, Choling was the "most senior ethnic Tibetan in the regional government", though he was subordinate to the TAR Communist Party Chief Zhang Qingli, and later his successor Chen Quanguo.

Biography

Padma Choling was born in 1952 in a farming family in Dêngqên County, Chamdo Prefecture. He joined the People's Liberation Army in Qinghai Province at 17, and served in the army for seventeen years. In the army he played basketball and mastered the Chinese language. He joined the Communist Party of China in October 1970. He was an official in the Tibetan regional government since December 1969, working in Xigaze and then Lhasa, rising to the vice-chairmanship of the TAR in 2003. After his anodyne handling of an earthquake in Damxung County outside Lhasa, he was elected the chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region in 2010.