China Names Newest Warship After Tibetan Capital Lhasa

In a move certain to anger the Tibetan refugee community, China has named its newest warship, a 10,000-tonne guided-missile destroyer of the PLA Navy as ‘Lhasa,’ after the Tibetan capital which was usurped by China in 1950.

The warship was recently unveiled in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong Province.

“The 10,000-tonne guided-missile destroyer of the PLA Navy has been named as Lhasa” China Military quoted the Civil Affairs Bureau of Lhasa as stating in response to a letter enquiring about the naming process in late 2018.

China in mid-2018 had also conducted a poll asking voters what the newly acquired Type 055 guided-missile destroyers had to be named. The most popular answer was “Taipei,” capital of Taiwan, LTN reported August last year.

According to China's "Naval Vessel's Naming Regulations," aircraft carriers and battle cruisers will be named after an administrative province or region, and destroyers and corvettes must be named after cities governed by China.

The PLA could name the vessels after Lhasa, Tibet, Naning, Guangxi, Nanchang, Jianxi, or Taipei, the August report had stated further.