BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s ruling Communist Party appointed a new senior official on Sunday to run Tibet, considered one of the country’s most politically sensitive positions due to periodic anti-Chinese unrest in the devoutly Buddhist Himalayan region.

The official Xinhua news agency named Wu Yingjie as Tibet’s next party secretary. New leaders were also appointed in two other key provinces, part of a broad reshuffle ahead of an important party meeting next year.

Wu has worked almost his entire career in Tibet, according to his official resume, having previously served as a deputy governor and propaganda chief, among other roles.

Wu, like his predecessor Chen Quanguo, belongs to China’s majority Han Chinese ethnic group. Xinhua said Chen would be taking another position, without giving further details.

Communist troops marched in and took control of Tibet in 1950 in what Beijing calls a “peaceful liberation”. Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 following a failed uprising against the Chinese.

China says its rule has bought prosperity and stability, rejecting claims from Tibetan exiles and rights groups of widespread repression.

Xinhua said new party bosses had also been appointed to serve in the strategically located southwestern province of Yunnan and the populous southern province of Hunan.

In Yunnan, which sits of the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, Chen Hao replaced Li Jiheng, while in Hunan, Du Jiahao has assumed the party’s top job, Xinhua said.

Both Chen and Du worked with President Xi Jinping when he ran China’s commercial capital, Shanghai, as its Communist Party chief for a year in 2007, according to their resumes.

The party will hold a once-every-five-years congress next autumn where Xi is expected to further cement his hold on power by seeking to appoint close allies into the party’s ruling inner core, the politburo and the politburo standing committee.

The year leading up to that will see Xi appoint more new people into major provincial and government positions, sources with ties to the leadership say.

(Story refiles to fix typo in fourth paragraph, drops the word ‘rather’.)</s>The Chinese Communist leadership has reshuffled senior posts in key regions after its annual closed-door meeting in the seaside town of Beidaihe, putting a new cadre in control in the politically sensitive region of Tibet, as well as Yunnan and Hunan.

Wu Yingjie has been named as Tibet’s next Communist Party secretary, the official Xinhua news agency reported, while his predecessor Chen Quanguo is reportedly on his way to the restive region of Xinjiang in the far west.

Both men belong to the majority Han Chinese ethnic group. In both Tibet and Xinjiang, members of local ethnic groups, the Tibetans and the Uighurs respectively, chafe against rule by the Han.

Mr Wu (59) has been deputy party chief in the Himalayan region since 2011, and has been based there since 1974. He worked on farms and at a power plant there before doing his university degree in the provincial capital Lhasa.

His appointment comes ahead of a key party congress next year, which takes place once every five years, during which President Xi Jinping will further cement his hold on power. It marks the end of his first five-year period in office and the retirement of some of his political rivals from the seven-man Standing Committee of the Politburo. Mr Xi is expected to put his allies into key positions on both the 25-person Politburo and the Standing Committee at the meeting.

Beijing has run Tibet with a firm hand since People’s Liberation Army troops marched into the overwhelmingly Buddhist Himalayan region in 1950.

The Chinese say they were liberating the Tibetan serfs from a theocracy until the god-king Dalai Lama fled into exile in India after a failed uprising in 1959, and they accuse the Dalai Lama of agitating for independence from there.

Tibet has seen sporadic outbreaks of violence and nearly 150 people have set themselves on fire since 2009 in acts of self-immolation to protest rule by Beijing and calling for the return of the Dalai Lama.

Beijing says it is bringing prosperity to a traditionally impoverished area and rejects claims by Tibetan exile groups of widespread repression.

State media has also been giving high profile of late to public appearances by the 11th Panchen Lama, Gyaltsen Norbu, the second most powerful figure in Tibetan Buddhism.

The Dalai Lama chose a six-year-old child, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, to be the 11th Panchen Lama, after the 10th Panchen Lama died in 1989.

However, Gyaltsen Norbu, who was also six years of age, was imposed by Beijing, and the young Gedhun disappeared and has not been seen since.

Xinhua said that Du Jiahao had replaced Xu Shousheng as secretary of the Hunan party, while Chen Hao had replaced Li Jiheng as party secretary in Yunnan, which borders Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar.
Du Jiahao becomes Communist Party Secretary of Hunan, replacing Xu Shousheng.