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Danzeng Langjie, director of Tibet's Ethnic Minority and Religious Affairs Commission, has been 'removed' from his post, according to a statement posted on the website of the Tibet Daily newspaper.
It gave no further details on Danzeng's background or reasons for his removal.
It said he had been replaced by Luosang Jiumei, another ethnic Tibetan who has been vice secretary of the Communist Party committee of the capital Lhasa since 2004 after occupying a long list of district posts.
The change is believed to be the first announced by China following deadly rioting that hit Lhasa on March 14 and spread to Tibetan-populated areas of adjacent Chinese provinces.
The crisis, the biggest challenge to China's rule of Tibet in decades, appeared to catch authorities off-guard.
China has so far maintained the violence was instigated by pro-independence forces loyal to the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, denying that Chinese political and religious controls were responsible for fuelling public anger in the region.
The announcement on Sunday gave only the Chinese versions of the two men's names. Their actual Tibetan names could not be immediately confirmed.
It also announced a reshuffle of several other posts, mainly Tibetan judicial positions.
It was not immediately clear if those reshuffles were part of normal rotations or a consequence of the unrest.
The protests began in Lhasa to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet, an event that saw the Dalai Lama flee to India where he was lived ever since.
26 arrested, weapons seized from China monastery
Police have arrested 26 people and seized guns and other weapons from a monastery in southwestern China whose Tibetan monks rioted this month, state-controlled Xinhua news agency said.
Police found 30 guns, 498 bullets, four kilogrammes of explosives and a 'large amount' of knives on Friday in the Geerdeng monastery in Sichuan province, said the report issued late on Saturday, which cited local police.
It said 26 'suspects' were arrested for alleged involvement in the clash on March 16 with local authorities but did not specify whether they were monks.
Monks from the monastery, located in Aba county, were among those who attacked government buildings in the violent outburst following deadly anti-China rioting in the Tibetan capital Lhasa two days earlier, according to official Chinese accounts and those of overseas Tibet activists.
It was impossible to independently verify the report as Aba is within a wide swathe of territory sealed off by China as it seeks to prevent the Tibetan unrest from tarnishing the Olympics which Beijing hosts in August.
The report also said police had seized satellite phones, receivers for overseas TV channels, fax machines and computers, the banned flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile and banners calling for Tibet independence.
A monk-led protest in Lhasa on March 10 to mark a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule escalated days later into widespread rioting that spilled into neighbouring Chinese provinces populated by Tibetans.
Beijing says rioters have killed 18 civilians and two police officers.
Exiled Tibetan leaders have put the death toll from the Chinese crackdown at 135-140 Tibetans, with another 1,000 injured and many detained. -- AFP
