Gyalo Thondup facts for kids
Gyalo Thondup (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་ལོ་དོན་འགྲུབ, Wylie: rgyal lo don 'grub; Chinese: 嘉乐顿珠; pinyin: Jiālè Dùnzhū; born around 1928, and passed away on February 8, 2025) was an important person from Tibet. He was the second-oldest brother of the 14th Dalai Lama, who is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Gyalo Thondup often worked as a special messenger or representative for the Dalai Lama.
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Early Life and Studies
Gyalo Thondup was born in a village called Taktser in Tibet around late 1928. When he was about 11 years old, in 1939, he moved with his family to Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet.
In 1942, when he was 14, Thondup traveled to Nanjing, which was the capital of China at that time. He went there to study Standard Chinese and learn about Chinese history. During his time there, he often visited and had dinner with Chiang Kai-shek, a very important leader in China. From 1947 to 1949, young Gyalo Thondup lived with Chiang Kai-shek's family and was taught by teachers chosen by Chiang. In 1948, he married Zhu Dan, whose father was a general in the Chinese army.
Getting Involved in Politics
In 1949, before a big change in China where the Communist Party took over, Thondup left Nanjing and went to India. He was the first Tibetan person officially known to visit Taiwan after 1949. Because he could speak Chinese, Tibetan, and English very well, he later helped set up unofficial meetings between the Tibetan government-in-exile and both the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China (mainland China) in 1979.
Helping Tibet from the United States
In 1951, Gyalo Thondup went to America. There, he became a main source of information about Tibet for the United States government. The American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) offered to help Tibet become independent from China. In return, they asked Thondup to help organize groups of Tibetans to stand up against the Chinese army. Thondup agreed to this offer. He has said that he did not tell the 14th Dalai Lama about the CIA's actions. This support from the CIA stopped after the American President Nixon visited China in 1972.
Later Work and Discussions
With the Dalai Lama's permission, Thondup met with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 to have open talks about politics. However, Thondup ended these talks in 1993 because he felt they were not leading to any progress. In the 1990s, Thondup made several official visits to China, still acting as the Dalai Lama's unofficial representative. In recent years, Thondup has often said that talking and discussing is the only way to make progress with China. In 1998, the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan government-in-exile) said that Thondup should have told the Dalai Lama about the CIA's involvement in Tibet.
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
