China May Demolish Historic Tibet Palace

China plans to demolish an 18th-century palace in the Tibetan capital, a monitoring group in London said Thursday. A Chinese government official denied there were any such plans.

The Tromsikhang Palace will be torn down as part of a modernization drive that has led to the destruction of 350 of the 600 historic buildings in Lhasa’s downtown area, the Tibet Information Network said.

It said stables and servants’ quarters were torn down last week.

A Chinese government official in Lhasa, Suo Lang, denied there were plans to tear down the palace and said the Chinese government was committed to preserving Lhasa’s temples and historic buildings.

China has been blamed for destroying thousands of historic buildings in Tibet since it occupied the region in the 1950s. Many of the Himalayan kingdom’s Buddhist monasteries were demolished in the 1960s and early 1970s.