BEIJING ? A relative of the Dalai Lama has joined China's ruling Communist Party, state media reported on Wednesday.

"I'm proud to join the CPC (Communist Party of China)," Xinhua news agency quoted Deying Drolma, the grand niece of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, as saying.

"My grandmother Khyi Losel is a cousin of the Dalai Lama. When he fled to India in 1959, he asked her and her family to go with him but she refused. She told us we shall never betray our motherland."

The 35-year-old, a soldier in the People's Liberation Army, took her oath to join the party on June 26, Xinhua said, in a report from the northwestern province of Gansu where she apparently resides.

The ruling party has long maintained that the Dalai Lama is a "splittist" seeking to establish an independent Tibet. The 1989 Nobel Peace prize winner denies that, saying he seeks only more autonomy for the Himalayan region.

Deying Drolma had earlier considered joining the party, but feared her family ties would make that impossible, the report said.

China has ruled Tibet since 1951 after sending in troops to "peacefully liberate" the region from what it maintains was a Buddhist theocracy that enslaved most Tibetans.

The Dalai Lama fled in 1959 after a failed anti-Chinese uprising.

His grand niece said she hoped he could one day return to his hometown in Qinghai province, which neighbors Tibet.

"He is an old man now and old people tend to miss their hometown. I wish he can come back to have a visit," she said.