Xinhua news agency reported the appointment of Zhang Qingli in a two-line dispatch, saying it was a decision reached by the party's Central Committee in recent days.

Zhang, 55, was named acting party secretary of the Tibetan Autonomous Region in November last year. He was previously vice chairman of the predominantly Muslim region of China's northwest Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

He has also served as vice party secretary of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps since 1999.

Like Tibet, Xinjiang is a minority region that has been the scene of resistance against Chinese rule for decades.

Zhang has had a strong background in the China Youth League, Hu's power base. Zhang had previously been the league's deputy chief, and before that its workers and farmers youth section director.

Earlier this month, Zhang accused exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama of fomenting unrest at the Ganden Monastery near the regional capital of Lhasa -- one of Tibet's most sacred Buddhist monasteries.

"What the Dalai Lama has done violates the religious freedom of believers," the state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang as saying at the time.

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