Ragdi, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the 10th National People's Congress, is delivering a speech on the 1st session of the 2nd conference of Tibet Autonomous Region Development Consultative Committee, photo by Xing Guangli from Xinhua, March 19.

A veteran Tibetan official Ragdi said in Beijing Wednesday morning that the recent riot in Lhasa has exposed a cut-throat combat between the Tibetan people and the Dalai clique with its Western supporters.

"The cut-throat combat between us and the Dalai clique with its antagonistic supporters in some Western countries is a significant political competition for choice on separation on unification," said Ragdi, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), or China's top legislature.

"The severe violence and riot which occurred in Lhasa recently is neither a social security problem, nor an ethnic problem," he said.

"It has nothing to do with democracy," Ragdi, also honorary chairman of the Counseling Committee on Development of the Tibet Autonomous Region, told a meeting of the counseling committee.