Update | Founder of Tibet’s Communist Party makes a final plea for Dalai Lama’s return

The founder of Tibet’s Communist Party has pleaded with the Chinese central government to allow the return of Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to his homeland in an autobiography soon to be published in Hong Kong.

New Century Press, which published disgraced Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang’s autobiography, is set to release Bapa Phuntso Wangye’s autobiography A Long Way to Equality and Unity on Friday.

In it, the 92-year-old, also known as Phunwang, asks the Beijing government to compromise with Tibet’s exile government in Dharamsala, India, and allow the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet. 

Phunwang appealed to former President Hu Jintao and several members of the Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee to "allow the hundreds of thousands of exiled Tibetan compatriots headed by the Dalai Lama to return home, live and work in peace," he wrote in the book, adding that his advice has been ignored. 

The publication coincides with the first annual plenum of the National People’s Congress in Beijing under Xi Jinping's presidency and follows a knife attack by Xinjiang separatists in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, which left 29 dead last Saturday.

Phunwang in his book accuses the central government of having exacerbated tensions between China’s Han-majority population and ethnic minorities. In a chapter titled "We cannot walk the road towards a Chinese Empire", he warns the government in Beijing that it should not rely on violence and economic development to cement its rule over its Tibetan population.