Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme, a senior Chinese legislator and political advisor, passed away in Beijing on Wednesday just short of his 100th birthday, the Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.

Ngapoi, ethnic Tibetan, was also a former Tibetan army commander. In 1951, as commander-in-chief of the Tibetan armed forces and governor of Chamdo, Ngapoi headed the Tibetan delegation to the Beijing peace negotiations and signed the Seventeen Point Agreements with the Chinese central government.

Ngapoi , a son of Tibetan aristocrat, was born in Lhasa in 1910. He studied in Britain in the early 1930s and was married to Ngapoi Cedain Zhoigar, vice president of Tibet Women's Federation.

On returning from Britain in 1932, he joined the Tibetan army and began his career in Chamdo as a local politician in 1936. Ngapoi was once serving as a cabinet member under the Dalai Lama.

After the foundation of the People's Republic of China, Ngapoi was Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region from 1964 to 1968. He also served as vice chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee from 1964 to 1993, and vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) for many years.

In the early 1980s, Ngapoi was head of the NPC delegations to Colombia, Guyana, West Indies, Sri Lanka and Nepal. He was also an honorary president of the "Buddhist association" beginning in 1980. He was also elected president of the "Association for the Protection and Development of Tibetan Culture", which was established in 2004.
In a statement released by the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Ngapoi was described as "a great patriot, renowned social activist, good son of Tibetan people, outstanding leader of China's ethnic work and close friend of the CPC."

Source

Xinhua News Agency