IMPACTS OF ECONOMIC REFORM AND OPENING UP POLICIES
ON LOCAL ETHNIC POPULATION LIVING STANDARDS IN
CHINA: THE CASE IN TIBET
Arthur Holcombe
President of the Tibet Poverty Alleviation Fund and
Associate at Harvard University’s John Fairbank Center
for East Asian Research
To be presented at the Conference on
Financial Sector Reform in China
September 11-13, 2001
Draft August 2001
THE IMPACTS OF ECONOMIC REFORM AND OPENING UP POLICIES ON
LOCAL ETHNIC POPULATION LIVING STANDARDS IN CHINA:
THE CASE OF TIBET
Arthur N. Holcombe1
1.
Summary
In the early period (1965-1980), economic and social development policies for the
Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) focused on improving productivity in the traditional
agricultural and nomadic livestock sectors as a way to promote economic growth and
improved living standards for Tibetan families. With the introduction of Deng Xiaoping's
economic reforms and opening up policies in the TAR after the mid-1980's, priority was
also given to improving transport and urban infrastructure and services, and to
encouraging migration of Han migrant entrepreneurs and semiskilled workers. The policy
assumed that migrants from more developed areas of China could provide the range of
skills needed for Tibet's rapid economic expansion and modernization processes--skills
that were lacking in the local Tibetan population.
The economic reform and opening up policies of the 1980s and 1990s led to rapid
urban growth and modernization in the TAR, and improved living standards for Han
migrant and Tibetan populations employed in urban areas. These policies also contributed
to a rapidly increasing income disparity between people living in urban and rural areas,
and between Han and Tibetan ethnic populations, as most Tibetans live in rural areas,
dependent on traditional agriculture and livestock livelihoods. The reliance on migrant
entrepreneurs and semiskilled workers to spearhead rapid growth and modernization in
the TAR did help to compensate for the inability of the TAR's own formal and nonformal education system to provide local Tibetans with the skills needed to play these
catalytic roles. During the 1980s and 1990s, the TAR government faced difficulties in
upgrading and expanding Tibetan language education at the primary and secondary
levels, and in implementing vocational and technical skills training to prepare Tibetans
for available jobs in the modern sector. The inadequacies of the Tibetan education system
frustrated TAR efforts to reduce poverty among Tibetans in rural and urban areas, and
contributed to perceptions of the Tibetan culture being inferior and an obstacle to
development.
The recently introduced Western Development Strategy in the PRC has created
new opportunity for the TAR and other Western Provinces to further boost their
1
Arthur N. Holcombe is President of the Tibet Poverty Alleviation Fund and an Associate at the Fairbank
Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University. He served as Resident Coordinator of UN
Operational Activities in China during 1992-1998.
2
economic growth and development efforts, and to reduce high levels of poverty among
local populations. However, to date, priorities for Western Development Strategy
investment in the TAR appear to favor transport needed for natural resources
development. There are also indications that the major construction activities foreseen
under the Western Development Strategy in the TAR will again rely on the skills of
migrants, particularly Hans, and will not give priority to local skills training enabling
Tibetans to participate substantially from the Western Development investment
activities. The paper concludes that TAR development activities, including those
associated with the Western Development Strategy, should give greater priority to
Tibetan capacity building as an integral part of investments being made. The initial
experience of a vocational training center in Nakchu Prefecture being transformed into a
secondary level Tibetan "community college" suggests that training of Tibetans for
employment in rural and urban semi-skilled jobs is practical and affordable. Such training
would also help to stem the further increase of urban-rural and Han-Tibetan income
disparities.
2.
Early Efforts to Improve Rural Tibetan Living Standards
Poverty was deeply rooted in rural Tibet long before the founding of the PRC in
1949. The persistence of poverty since 1965, when the Tibet Autonomous Region was
established, is widely believed to be due to a combination of complex and relatively
intractable factors, some of which are unique to the physical characteristics of the high
Tibetan plateau. They include:
1. Geography and climate, and particularly high altitude and cold temperatures,
contribute to frequent droughts, floods, heavy snows in pasture areas,
landslides, hailstorms and windstorms that frequently reduce production and
threaten family food and income security;
2. Widespread reliance on traditional agricultural and livestock production
practices that limit outputs and therefore incomes to a subsistence level;
3. Lack of access to modern production technologies and practices, and to
financing that might enable rural households to diversify production and
expand small enterprises;
4. Low education levels and widespread illiteracy which exclude rural Tibetans
from new ideas and opportunities that might improve productivity and output;
5. Poor quality of drinking water in many areas that in turn contributes to poor
health; and
6. Relatively high rural population growth rates exceeding the ability of the local
economy and fragile ecosystem to support, resulting in poor nutrition and
slowed physical and mental development. (1)
Efforts to improve rural living conditions in Tibet were given new impetus after
Deng Xiaoping came into power in 1978. He was determined to "solve" the Tibet
Question, and sent Hu Yaobang, then the China Communist Party General Secretary, on
an inspection tour in 1980. Hu Yaobang was reportedly shocked by the backward
economic and social conditions that he found, and instigated a series of social and
3
economic reforms. In particular, the central government decided to introduce a series of
preferential measures it hoped would boost agricultural and livestock production and
contribute to improved family incomes and living conditions. The more important
measures included the following:
1. Abolition of the unpopular agricultural and nomadic livestock area
communes, and distribution of land to individual households under the same
"household responsibility system" being introduced elsewhere in China at the
time;
2. Waiver of local taxes and other fees on agricultural and livestock production
and on other rural commercial and industrial activities;
3. Waiver of local fees and other charges on basic rural education and health
care services being made available to Tibetan households;
4. Continued substantial central government subsidy of TAR capital and
recurrent budget costs (averaging up to 90 percent of the total budget
revenues);
5. Requirement that 14 Chinese provincial and municipal governments in more
developed areas finance about 250 rural and urban infrastructure,
communications, energy, agricultural, irrigation, education and health
projects; and
6. Financing of the replacement or restoration of monasteries destroyed during
the cultural revolution period (but not other new monasteries). (2)
TAR government policies during the 1965-94 period did contribute to the
expansion of agricultural and livestock production, and to the reduction of the number of
people living below the government's poverty threshold. According to Government data,
grain production increased from about 291,000 metric tons in 1965 to 640,000 in 1994,
while livestock increased from about 17 million in 1965 to about 22.9 million in 1994.
Government data also indicate that the central government spent about 19.1 billion RMB
(over $2.3 billion) on development in the TAR during the 1965-1994 period. This
financing, which constituted about 87 percent of all financial income during this period,
among other things established 113,000 hectares of irrigated farming, reclaimed 20,000
hectares of depleted farmland soils, and established 200,000 hectares of watered
grassland for nomadic livestock. (3) Government data also indicate that by 1994, the
number of people in poverty, defined as having average annual per capita family income
under 500 RMB ($60), had dropped to about 480,000, or about 22 percent of the total
population of about 2.2 million at the time. (4)
In 1994, the TAR Government launched its first poverty alleviation program. The
goal was to eradicate absolute poverty among 275,000 poor people living in 18 nationally
and regionally designated poor counties, whose average family per capita annual income
was less than 500 RMB. While limited information is available on the extent to which
this program was successful in achieving its poverty alleviation goals, it is known that in
the first three years, a total of about 700 million RMB was spent, mostly on about 100
poverty alleviation projects. These projects supported the development of rural
infrastructure, and the provision of supplies and equipment such as fertilizer and fencing
4
intended to improve agricultural and livestock productivity and output and to promote
county and township level enterprises. (5) The poverty alleviation activities did not
include small loans targeting individual poor households to finance income generating
activities, and in this respect missed an opportunity to reach poor rural households.
The unusually heavy snowfalls of 1997-1998 contributed to substantial loss of
livestock and income, and to recidivism in the poverty alleviation program. During this
period, over 4 million livestock died as a result of being unable to forage for grasses on
the snow-covered plains. The TAR government confirmed that the loss of livestock had
the effect of doubling the numbers of rural Tibetans under the poverty threshold,
particularly in the more northern and western nomad livestock areas.
While the poverty alleviation program did not achieve its objectives, it did lay
foundations for a more ambitious program now proposed to be carried out by the TAR
government during the 10th five year development plan period (2000-2005). During this
period, poverty alleviation efforts are to be expanded from the 18 officially designated
poor counties to all 75 counties in Tibet, and funds provided by the central government
are to be doubled to 6.46 billion RMB ($782 million) for 10 poverty alleviation
initiatives. These include:
1. Improved drinking water for rural households to reduce health problems
stemming from dependence on polluted drinking water sources;
2. Construction of rural roads to 1000 townships;
3. Construction of simple houses for all nomads lacking permanent dwellings in
their winter village areas (as part of the policy of settling all nomads in their
administrative village areas);
4. Introduction of electric power in all villages, with extensive use of photovoltaic energy where villages are not connected to power grids;
5. Organization of village people into work teams to undertake rural road
construction, small irrigation, drinking water and other such schemes;
6. Resettlement of all nomads out of areas over 5000 meters, moving them to
lower administrative village areas and providing them with housing;
7. Relocation of some rural youth to urban areas to be given manual labor jobs
and experience in the market economy;
8. Expansion of rural vocational skills training to help build up rural skills;
9. Training of managers for special enterprises with particular promise (eg.
cashmere production); and
10. Responsibility of each TAR government unit for getting one village or
township out of poverty. (6)
The highly ambitious rural poverty alleviation activities were largely based on policies
and programs introduced or envisaged during the previous 9th five year development plan
period. By mid 2001, funding for the program from the Central Government had just
been agreed upon.
5
3.
TAR Policies to Promote Investment and Economic Growth
In 1992, senior-most leaders at the central government level made a critical
decision to provide special incentives to encourage Han, Hui Muslim and other outside
entrepreneurs and semi-skilled workers to migrate to the TAR and to play a leading role
in its economic growth and development. At the meeting there were two schools of
thought. One school advocated that Tibetans should be trained and encouraged to take
leading roles in the TAR market economy and modernization process. The other school
urged that preparing Tibetans for leading roles would take too long, and that Hans with
experience with rapid growth and economic reforms should play the leading role,
particularly in the early period. The view of the second school was adopted, and a series
of further economic reforms were introduced to facilitate the migration of Han
populations willing to seek their fortunes in the TAR. These included:
1. Simplified procedures for Han entrepreneurs and semi-skilled Han workers
motivated by income opportunities in the TAR whereby they could become
temporary residents of the TAR with only a license or permit which was
renewable annually;
2. More flexible work arrangements for Han professionals enabling them to
maintain their official residences in mainland China, while receiving the
liberal food, housing, schooling, health and other benefits provided with a
local residence in the TAR. The liberal residence benefits were often
supplemented by generous leave benefits to allow them to visit their families
in mainland China and seek alternative employment at the end of their
assignments in the TAR; and
3. The declaration of central Tibetan towns to be an official PRC special
economic zone with financial incentives to entrepreneurs such as access to
credit and tax relief. (7)
In Lhasa, the TAR Commercial and Industry Bureau has played an important role
in monitoring and facilitating the Han migration process. The Bureau has had three
important functions:
1. Registration of all enterprises. The obligatory registration process is designed
to monitor enterprise investment activities in the TAR, but also to facilitate
access to local benefits, such as space for enterprises to be located, access to
local utilities and personal amenities such as housing and schooling for
children. There are currently about 34,321 such enterprises formally registered
with the Bureau in urban areas. There are reportedly many more that have
been established without formal registry.
2. Political training. For Han migrants, this includes advice on policies in the
TAR, and how best to take advantage of services available to outside migrants
from the various TAR government bureau. For Tibetans, this includes advice
on social welfare programs available to those getting poorer as a result of the
growing Han predominance in urban employment and product markets.
6
3. Vocational Training. The incentives have had the effect of attracting large
numbers of Han entrepreneurs and semi-skilled workers, but also substantial
numbers of poor, unskilled and unemployed Han migrants who have been
attracted to the TAR by the hope of new economic opportunities for
themselves. The Bureau provides periodic training in such areas as: vehicle
and bicycle repair, household appliance maintenance and repair; watch repair;
cobbler and tailoring skills; and beautician services. Tibetans can also pay the
5-10 RMB fee and receive such training, but generally they are unaware of it,
or do not participate for language or other reasons. (8)
The incentives and supporting services proved successful in attracting steadily
expanding numbers of small Han entrepreneurs, Hui Muslim semi-skilled workers and
other trades people after 1992, coming to the TAR from Sichuan, Gansu, and from
Eastern provinces. In many cases they have been unemployed or underemployed
shopkeepers, laborers and farmers coming with and without families to make money and
return to their native villages and cities. They were in effect a "private sector"
phenomenon. By 2000, they completely dominated greenhouse vegetable production
around Lhasa and other major towns on lands rented from Tibetans. They also dominated
in the urban retail, trade, restaurant and increasingly the tourist sectors.
There are no clear figures on the total number of non-Tibetan ethnic people in the
TAR today. Official government figures suggest that the non-Tibetan population in the
TAR was about 5 percent of the total TAR population of 2.44 million in 1998, or about
122,000 in that year.(9) Some observers believe that when taking into account the
military presence, and particularly the non-registered Han migrants on temporary permits
in the private sector, the number of non-Tibetans in the TAR by 2000 could have been
about 15 percent of the total population. In any case, the Han migrant populations
stimulated a dynamic urban economic growth process.
4.
Income Disparities Resulting from Private Sector Led Growth
Since 1994, outside migrants have been contributing decisively to some of the
most rapid economic growth of any Province in China--between 9-10 percent per annum
according to Government reports. By 1997, the TAR's GDP was about 7.35 billion RMB,
or $885 million. The economic growth has been primarily an urban growth process,
reflecting the predominantly urban location of the Han population and their investment
activities. Data for Lhasa from the TAR Industrial and Commercial Bureau in Table 1
below indicates a predominant influence of Han-owned household enterprises in all main
industrial sectors, including the "traditional" handicraft sector generally believed to be a
main source of employment and income generation for Tibetan household enterprises.
The dominance of Han over Tibetan enterprises in urban areas tends to be reinforced by
Han enterprises generally having larger capitalization, better access to outside sources of
supply, and more experienced and profit-oriented management.
7
Table 1: Private Industrial and Commercial Households --Lhasa Municipality (1999)
Industrial Sector
Tibetan
"Outside"
Household
Household
Enterprises
Enterprises
Commercial (Grocery, Electrical Appliances, hardware, 2,040
4,295
Construction Materials, Auto Parts, Grain, other)
Services (Entertainment, Restaurants, Hair Dressing, 185
900
Hotels, Dry Cleaning, Photography, Seal Making, other)
Handicrafts (Jewelry, Garments, Furniture, other)
28
340
Repair (Auto, Bicycle, Electronic, Watch, other)
12
314
Other
721
2,344
Total
2,986
8,193
Total sales (RMB)
146.4 million
606.6 million
Source: Lhasa Industrial and Commercial Bureau
There is some recent evidence that the rapidly expanding volume of Han investments has
contributed to a growing saturation of urban sector demand for products and services,
resulting in an increasing squeeze on profit margins. It may also indicate that the recent
rapid growth rate of close to 10 percent per annum may not be sustainable in the longer
run. (10)
The predominantly urban nature of the growth process has contributed to a
growing income disparity. According to government data, during the 1991-1996 period,
average per capita annual incomes of urban families increased by 250 percent to 5,030
RMB ($606), while average per capita annual incomes of rural families increased by only
50 percent during this same period to 975 RMB ($117). (11) The continued rapid growth
in urban areas suggest that these trends continue to widen income disparities. Because
most Tibetan people live in rural areas, the data indicate not only a growing income
disparity between urban and rural areas, but also an increasing income disparity between
the ethnic Han and Tibetan communities in Tibet.
5.
TAR Policy for Tibetan Education and Skills Training
The TAR opening up to the outside during the 1990s included development of
international tourism, but also opening up to "outside" Han entrepreneurs and workers
who possessed experience and skills believed needed for rapid growth and development
but not produced by the local TAR education system. (12)
Prior to 1980, education for most rural Tibetans of primary school age was limited
to 2-3 years in a village community financed school where Tibetan language, arithmetic
and "patriotic study" were the main emphasis. These community schools were initially
8
promoted vigorously within the framework of rural communes, which covered the main
costs involved. After 1980, education policy changed, giving emphasis to the
abolishment of the community schools in favor of much improved six-year state primary
schools, frequently planned with five-day boarding facilities to accommodate students
from outlying villages. However, many of the ambitious plans for the construction of
state schools in rural townships went unimplemented for lack of government funding. As
a consequence, many village community schools were closed or consolidated without
being replaced by state schools. This led to a precipitous (55 percent) reduction of
primary school attendance. By 1980, the TAR Education Bureau had achieved about a 78
percent primary school enrolment rate. After the precipitous fall in enrolment, other
factors continued to constrain adequate funding levels for rural education, and by 1995,
the enrolment rate achieved in 1978 still not been regained. (13) The TAR Education
Bureau is currently giving high priority to universal primary school education, and hopes
to have all rural primary school aged children receiving six years of primary education by
2003. In urban areas, it hopes to have all primary school aged children receiving eight
years of primary and middle school education by 2003.
After 1980, the TAR Education Bureau continued to have problems securing the
financing needed to establish a rural state education system providing Tibetan students
with the opportunity to proceed upward to middle, secondary, vocational and tertiary
schooling. Financing for rural education in Tibet was further complicated by the national
education reforms introduced in 1985, which involved the decentralization of
responsibility for the financing of basic education to local government (generally at the
county level and below) and to households. At this level, available financial resources
had to compete with other pressing demands, including support to income and tax
generating activities and other social services. Likewise, as a result of central government
policy decisions, households were waived of any responsibility to pay school tuition fees,
and were to be provided modest schooling stipends to help enable them to pay for other
education expenses such as books, clothing and food.
A decision was also taken in 1980 to introduce the Tibetan language as the main
language of the Tibetan school system at all levels in order to enable Tibetan youth
without mastery of Chinese to attend through the secondary level. At the time, Tibetan
was the language of instruction at the primary level. Chinese language was introduced at
the middle school level, along with basic sciences, which were also taught in Chinese.
The failure to implement the decision on Tibetan language tended to be an increasing
barrier to Tibetan student advancement at the middle and secondary levels. In the urban
areas it also put Tibetans at a disadvantage when competing for school places with Han
students. A main reason for not implementing the 1980 decision was the growing
number of Han students, particularly in urban areas, unable to function in a Tibetan
school medium.
The lack of government funding for rural education meant that TAR Education
Bureau efforts to expand rural schooling had to depend largely on the maintenance and
expansion of village community schools, which were considerably cheaper to build and
operate than the envisaged state primary schools. The obvious disadvantage was that
9
most Tibetan youth would continue to receive only 2-3 years of rural community school
education, and be ill prepared for employment in semiskilled positions in the modern
sector. Table 2 below shows that most Tibetans (about 85 percent of the primary aged
students) drop out during or after primary education.
Table 2: Educational Statistics for the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1995*
Item \ Level
No. of Schools
No. of Students entering in 1995
No. of Students graduated in 1995
No. of Students attending schools
No. of School staff
No. of Teaching staff
No. of Students to one teacher
* TAR Education Bureau
Primary
3,950
59,963
14,412
258,651
14,090
13,349
19.38
Secondary
87
12,239
7,155
32,711
3,666
2,834
11.54
Vocational
19
1,707
1,196
5,575
1,463
746
7.47
Tertiary
4
1,175
525
3,878
1,818
782
4.96
A disproportionately large number of the students at the primary, secondary,
vocational and tertiary levels are found in urban areas where schools tend to be better
equipped, better staffed with teachers, and more likely to graduate students to higher
levels. In this connection, while about 14 percent of primary schools were located in
urban areas, about 25 percent of the general secondary schools were located in urban
areas by 1995. (14)
In addition, the TAR had 17 specialized secondary schools, or specialized training
attached to general secondary schools, in such fields as agriculture and animal husbandry,
finance and business, health care, teacher training, telecommunications and engineering,
and art and sports. These specialized vocational and technical secondary schools were
mostly located in Lhasa, and oriented toward meeting the specialized skill requirements
of the public sector. (15)
Particularly in urban areas, the failure to implement the decision on introducing
Tibetan at all levels forced Tibetans to compete in their second language for secondary
school positions against Han children using their mother tongue. Tibetans who are
admitted to the secondary level are then faced with a system broken down into fast and
slow streams, based on capacity to master subjects in the Chinese language. This has had
the unfortunate effect of placing most Tibetans in the slow stream that tends to have
poorer facilities and less qualified teachers. The stream system has become racially
inequitable, and tending to reinforce prejudice and resentment between the nationalities.
(16)
The TAR Bureau of Education has not been able to secure funding for an overall
strategy for the training of Tibetans in commercial skills required in the modern urban
sector. Rather, focus has been on the training in basic rural skill requirements at four
prefecture and county level middle and secondary schools. They include: in Lhasa
10
Municipality, the Dadze and Chushui Middle Schools; in Lhoka Prefecture, the Gongar
Middle School; and in Nakchu, the Nakchu Vocational Secondary School. The basic
vocational skills taught and current numbers of students, are shown in Table 3 below:
Table 3: Trades Training at Four Tibetan Middle and Secondary Schools (2000)
Item
Chushui
Dadze
Gongar
Nakchu
Total Students/Female
1,550/650 361/175
408/147
143/79
Vocational Trainers
11
14
4
6
Veterinary Medicine/Female
89/52
Vegetable Growing/Female
45/35
21/5
96/32
Animal Production/Female
24/0
249/94
Traditional Painting/Female
35/0
36/0
28/0
Weaving Skills/Female
83/57
91/91
Sewing Skills/Female
50/50
75/75
62/62
Carpentry/Female
37/0
65/0
56/0
Automotive Mechanics/ Female 22/0
14/3
86/0
Haircutting Skills/Female
36/0
Horticulture Skills/Female
42/21
Electrician Skills/Female
42/0
Source: Tibet Poverty Alleviation Fund
The types of rural vocational training activities conducted at these four schools have
recently been extended to 22 other nearby primary and middle schools. With the help of
an external donor (the Tibet Poverty Alleviation Fund), the Education Bureau is also
currently developing teacher training capacity for the further introduction of such
vocational skills curricula in 100 primary and middle schools participating in a 21 county
pilot program. These programs are helpful in qualifying rural Tibetan youth for increased
income opportunities in the rural sector. They are not oriented toward improving the
qualifications of Tibetans for employment as semi-skilled workers in the modern sector.
One TAR prefecture level institution, the Nakchu Vocational Training Center, is
currently transforming itself into a secondary level "community college" able to respond
to local community and employer needs for skilled Tibetan manpower. With external
donor support, it is providing rural Tibetan youth who have drifted into Nakchu
Municipality with the skills necessary to secure steady employment. The training has
been in such skill areas as driving, veterinary medicine, road and building construction
trades, tailoring of clothing and restaurant cooking. Starting in September 2001, the
Center will also be providing additional training to Tibetan youth and adults in vehicle
maintenance and repair skills. On a limited scale, the Center is demonstrating the
usefulness of training Tibetans in the basic skills necessary to secure steady work in the
modern sector. The TAR Education Bureau is hopeful that the Nakchu secondary level
"community college" will serve as a useful model for the later establishment of skills
training for Tibetans in other Prefectures.
11
The lack of upward continuity in education available to most Tibetans, together
with the lack of readily available skills training qualifying them for semi-skilled jobs in
the modern sector helps to ensure a continuing dependence of outside Han migrants to
meet skilled manpower needs in the modern sector. At the same time, the presence in the
TAR of large numbers of outside migrants tends to block the ability of Tibetans to secure
better education, to qualify for better job opportunities, to raise themselves above the
TAR's poverty threshold or to improve their sense of self worth as an ethnic community.
6.
Tibet and the PRC Western Development Strategy
China's campaign to develop the West was announced by Jiang Zemin in June
1999. At that time, the initiative was justified as an effort to reduce poverty among the
peoples of the Western regions, and to reverse the growing income gap between Eastern
and Western China in order to ensure national stability. A year later, it was being justified
more in a national context: providing the minerals and other natural resources critical for
the continued development of China's economy, but also helping to ensure the continued
stability of local society while contributing to China's ethnic and national unity. (17)
Central to the Western Development strategy is investment in "hard
infrastructure" such as highways, railways, pipelines, mineral extraction, dams, power
stations and irrigation facilities. Limited priority is given to "soft infrastructure" such as
health, education and local human capacity building that would enable more local
employment and participation in the modernization process. The Western Development
strategy to date has also given limited priority to investment in local agriculture and
livestock, although over 80 percent of the western population, including particularly the
ethnic populations experiencing most acute poverty, are in these two main traditional
sectors.
While the TAR was not included in the first 10 official Western Development
strategy projects in 2000, ongoing state investment in the Tibet's infrastructure indicates
the likely nature and social impact of future infrastructure projects. One of the largest
ongoing projects in 2001 has been the upgrading of the Yangbaijan-Lhasa segment of the
Qinghai to Lhasa highway. This 80 kilometer section of the road passes through a river
gorge and is being completely rebuilt with extensive stone abutments and lining work
being carried out by very large numbers of migrant Han masons and other highway
workers at an estimated cost of about 400 million RMB ($48 million). During June and
July 2001, large numbers of Han road construction workers were also engaged in the
upgrading of main roads in Lhasa itself. The construction work was consistent with a
pattern seen in most Tibetan urban areas over the last decade with central or other
provincial government financing. This pattern includes emphasis on the introduction of
modern road and urban building construction designs, techniques and materials
unfamiliar to local Tibetan workers, and the employment of migrant Han workers
familiar with the techniques involved.
The first major Western Development project in Tibet is likely to be the railway
linking Lhasa (and the TAR) to the national railway system in Qinghai. This link would
be a total of 1080 kilometers (with 564 km in Qinghai, and 516 km inside Tibet). During
12
2001, railway surveyors identified the line of the railway essentially parallel to the
Qinghai to Lhasa highway, and construction is to start in 2002 and finish in six years at
an estimated cost of about 20 billion RMB ($2.4 billion). The one railway station along
the route is to be in Amdo County in Nakchu Prefecture close to current gold mining
being carried out by Hui Muslim miners, and to a proven gas and oil field in the Lang
Tang nature preserve area of northwest Nakchu Prefecture. A second project could be
the relocation and consolidation of Tibet University at a new campus site in Lhasa.
Important in central government thinking behind the Western Development
strategy appears to be the conviction that Western areas lack local populations with
required skills and experience in the implementation of major infrastructure development
and natural resources exploitation projects. Because of this local skilled manpower
deficiency, it is likely that Han migrants will be encouraged to go West and carry out the
essential planning, management and skilled manpower roles. At the same time, the initial
selection of priority infrastructure investment projects under the Western Development
strategy does not appear to correspond with the priority needs of poorest populations in
the traditional agricultural and livestock sectors. To the extent that the Western
Development strategy is oriented toward the infrastructure needs of the modern sector,
and is a source of additional employment for Han migrants, it could further exacerbate
income disparities between Han migrants and local Tibetans. It could also further
reinforce the rural education, rural poverty, rural opportunity and cultural inferiority traps
referred to in the previous section.
7.
Conclusions
The economic reforms and opening up of the TAR during the 1990s have brought
many benefits to Han and Tibetan populations living in urban areas and employed in the
modern sector. The fundamental question for the TAR, and for policy makers at the
central government level, is how best to spread the benefits of rapid growth and
modernization to the relatively poor Tibetan populations depending on subsistence
agriculture and nomadic livestock production.
In answering the question, it is important to bear in mind the experience of
economic reform and opening up policies in the TAR during the 1990s:
1. Urban-oriented rapid growth strategies, relying on economic reform and
opening up to outside expertise and resources, have resulted in growing
income disparities between urban and rural populations, but also between Han
and other non-Tibetan migrants and local ethnic Tibetan populations who live
predominantly in rural areas;
2. TAR policies relying on market forces and outside trained and experienced
migrants to promote rapid economic growth have had other unintended
impacts on Tibetans, including a lower priority for Tibetan skills training, and
the effective exclusion of Tibetans from most skilled and semi-skilled job
opportunities that offer higher wages and the possibility to rise above the
poverty line;
13
3. Poverty alleviation programs directed to poor Tibetan communities in rural
areas have lacked the financing and other resources needed to overcome the
negative economic and social impacts of urban-oriented economic reform and
opening up policies;
4. Education for most Tibetans is compromised by an effective barrier to higher
general, vocational and technical education due to financial limitations and
failure to implement a 1980 decision on the use of the Tibetan language above
the primary school level;
5. On major transport and building construction projects in the TAR, Han and
other non-Tibetan migrant laborers have been recruited to carry out the
construction work because local Tibetans were not believed to have the
requisite skills and experience. The initial Western Development strategy
investment in the TAR is for railway construction facilitating mineral
resources exploitation, and again is likely to be of main benefit to outside
migrant workers with the needed skills.
It is not clear to what extent the physical infrastructure and natural resource
orientation of the Western Development strategy in Tibet will be accompanied by social
investments developing local Tibetan skills and capacities in areas essential for transport
and natural resources development. In the TAR, the Education Bureau has recognized the
value of the Nakchu Vocational Secondary School being converted into a secondary level
"community college" for Tibetans providing a broad range of employable skills training
activities. In the future, such community colleges could provide skills training for local
populations supporting Western Development strategy investments in all Western
provinces.
In the longer run, the Western Development strategy should adopt a more
balanced and equitable distribution of investment and income generation between urban
and rural sectors and ethnic groups. This will require further measures to increase the
commercial value to rural producers of output in the agricultural, livestock and rural
industry sectors. Such efforts would also have the advantage of promoting a more
sustainable development process in Tibet which invests in local human resource capacity
and is less reliant on outside capital, expertise and markets for its prosperity.
14
NOTES AND REFERENCES
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)
(14)
(15)
(16)
(17)
Tibet Poverty Alleviation Fund, Poverty Alleviation in the Tibet Autonomous Region
(1998). p. 7. TPAF commissioned the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences of the Tibet
Autonomous Region Government to prepare this document to help in guiding its work in
Tibet.
A comprehensive statement on the contribution of the PRC to Tibet's development since
1950, including reference to the preferential policies introduced after 1979, is provided in
"White Paper Gives Facts on Tibet", China Daily, Thursday, February 26, 1998.
China's Tibet , Vol. 6, No. 4 1995 p. 2. This edition provides information on gains over
30 years since the TAR was founded.
TPAF, op cit p. 6
Ibid. p. 20
Information gathered by the author in discussions with a senior official of the TAR
government responsible for oversight of TAR poverty alleviation programs.
The high level decisions taken by the senior leaders at the time, and the resulting
population movement to Tibet, are summarized in Graham E. Clarke, "The Movement of
Population to the West of China: Tibet and Qinghai" in Judith M. Brown and Rosemary
Foot, Migration: The Asian Experience, New York: MacMillan/St. Martin's Press, 1994
Based on discussions of the author with an official of the TAR Bureau of Commerce and
Industry
China Daily, op cit
Discussion with Hu Xiaojiang, Harvard doctoral student doing research on perspectives
of Han entrepreneurs in Lhasa, Tibet. According to Hu, over investment by Han
entrepreneurs in many industrial sectors has contributed to squeezed profits and slowing
investment in new commercial enterprises. (July 2000)
China Daily, op cit
The section on TAR Policy for Tibetan Education and Skills Training draws heavily on
the information and perspectives of Catriona Bass, Education in Tibet: Policy and
Practice since 1950. Zed Books (London: 1998).
Ibid. p. 39
Ibid. p. 141
Ibid. p. 162
Ibid. p. 149
This section draws on discussions the author has had with TAR officials, but also Zeng
Peiyan, Minister in Charge of the State Development Planning Commission, "Report on
the Implementation of the 1999 Plan for National Economic and Social Development and
on the Draft 2000 Plan for National Economic and Social Development" (delivered at the
Third Session of the Ninth National People's Congress on March 6, 2000) and "Western
Development Strategy: One Strategy, Multiple Agendas" in chinabrief, Vol. III, No. 3,
Autumn 2000. pp. 24-27
15