The body of Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme, a senior Chinese legislator and political advisor, was cremated in Beijing Monday.

Ngapoi, of the Tibetan ethnic group, died of disease on December 23 at the age of 100, according to a statement issued by the General Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.

In the statement, the former Tibetan aristocrat was described as "a great patriot, renowned social activist, good son of Tibetan people, outstanding leader of China's ethnic work and close friend of the CPC."

Chinese President Hu Jintao, joined by former President Jiang Zemin and other top leaders Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, Jia Qinglin, Li Changchun, Xi Jinping, He Guoqiang and Zhou Yongkang, bid farewell to Ngapoi in Beijing Monday.

Monday's Tibet Daily, a major newspaper of the autonomous region, was published in dark color with a large picture of Ngapoi.

Local people held him in high esteem for his effort in preserving Tibetan culture and national unification.

Ngapoi served as vice chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee from 1964 to 1993, and vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) for many years.

He was also president of the China Association for Preservation and Development of Tibetan Culture.

"He set up examples for others with both precept and practice," said his daughter Ngapoi Tsewang.

Tsewang described him as "very kindly," "fair and square."

"Despite the fact that he was born in old Tibet (as a noble), he never put on airs to others. He was always nice and easy going, so all the people around respect him," she said.

"I believe he didn't regret for anything he had done in his life," she said.

Once a senior official of the former local government of Tibet, Ngapoi was assigned as Tibet's chief negotiator to Beijing in 1951 to reach a peaceful liberation agreement for the Himalayan region.

On May 23, 1951, the agreement was signed in Beijing, and Tibet was thus liberated peacefully.

He later became secretary-general of the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region.

The peaceful liberation enabled Tibet to "shake off the trammels imposed by imperialist aggressors," brought to an end to the long-term isolation of Tibet and stagnancy of its social development, thus creating favorable conditions for Tibet's democratic reform and social progress, according to a government white paper released in March.

Ngapoi witnessed the collapse of the old local government in Tibet and almost every major event since the democratic reform 50 years ago.

"I was born in 1910 and know all about Tibet before the reform," He wrote in March.

"The Tibetan is a great ethnic group and also an outstanding member of the Chinese nation with its splendid history and culture," Ngapoi wrote in an article on the People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China (CPC), on March 24, 2009

"The fundamental cause for the success of the reform is that the CPC has carried out a series of policies conforming with Tibetan people's primary interests."

He pointed out that if old Tibet's cruel serfdom and theocratic regime continued, the serfs would have all died soon and the aristocrats would not be able to exist either.

In that case, "the whole Tibet would be destroyed," Ngapoi said.

In an interview with Xinhua on March 23, 2008, he said that "Tibet has been an inalienable part of China since ancient times."

"From past to the present, no country in the world and no government has ever recognized 'Tibet independence'," he said in the interview.

(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2009)