Publications

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Annual Report 2004

DEVELOPMENT

Introduction

The United Nations (UN) has defined the right to development as a “universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human rights law”. It views development as a process in which “fulfillment of civil and political rights and the freedom to participate in both the decision making processes and the enjoyment of the fruits of development in all spheres.” Right to Development (RTD)¹ places the human being at the center of development. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has defined “development” as a “comprehensive process directed towards the full realisation of all human rights and fundamental freedoms’

The Right to Development belongs fundamentally to all peoples, and originates in their right to self-determination. Article 1.2 of the 1986 UN Declaration on the Right to Development (UNDRD) guarantees the “full realization of the right of peoples to self-determination², which includes the exercise of their inalienable right to full sovereignty over all their natural wealth and resources” based on the principles of equity, justice, meaningful participation. In a 1986 speech to the UN General Assembly, Chinese Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian has said, “the two covenants International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)) have played a positive role in realising the purposes and principles of the UN Charter concerning respect for human rights. The Chinese government has consistently supported these purposes and principles”.³ Both these covenants stipulate the right to self-determination.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has ratified, or acceded to 21 international human rights conventions including the ICESCR most of which reaffirm the Right to Development. China has not yet ratified the ICCPR signed in 1999. However, it has yet to adequately live up to its commitments under the agreements it has ratified, specifically the ICESCR, the Convention on the Rights of Child, and the Convention Against Torture. Following the Vienna Declaration, the right to development has been reinforced at the International Population and Development in Cairo (principle 3 of the Cairo Programme of Action), the World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen, the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (Article 213 of the Beijing Platform of Action), and the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg.

The PRC has emphasised the “right to live and develop” as the “most urgent demand of the Chinese people”.⁴ China also considers the “right to subsistence as the most important of all human rights, without which other rights are out of the question.”⁵ The provision of basic subsistence for all Chinese is considered the greatest achievement of the Chinese Communist revolution, the fundamental condition for which was the “preservation of national independence and state sovereignty and the freedom from imperialist subjugation”.⁶ “Only when exploitation is eradicated, production boosted, and people are free from hunger and coldness, can primary rights to existence and development be obtained.”⁷

The Third Work Forum on Tibet held in 1994 put forward key strategic policies on accelerating Tibet’s development and safeguarding social stability. Hence, the forum is considered as the starting point and a new milestone for Tibet’s development. China’s Constitution and the Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law of 1984 provides for Tibet’s autonomy in areas of politics, economy, religion, culture, economic undertakings, natural resources, education and others. China’s White Paper on Regional Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet released by the Information Office of the State Council on 23 May 2004 has said, “In the past 40 years, the Tibet Autonomous Region has fully exercised autonomy in economic and social development in accordance with the law, and formulated and implemented Tenth Five Year Plan for Economic and Social Development in light of Tibet’s reality. It has independently arranged its economic and social development projects, and has thus guaranteed the rapid and healthy progress of Tibet’s modernisation drive and the development of Tibet’s society and economy in line with the basic interests of the Tibetan people… The ordinary people in Tibet are the direct beneficiaries of all the support, aid and policies.”

The recurrent theme in Beijing’s discourse on Tibet has been its “developmental” and “beneficial” role in Tibet. Often, the Chinese government has attempted to negate criticism of its human rights record by asserting that the Tibetan people have benefited as a result of the development policies implemented by Beijing authorities. Through its policies and propaganda, constitutional guarantees and international legal provisions to which it has committed, Beijing claims to accelerate economic and social development and to ensure equal right to development for its citizens. However, TCHRD research, corroborated by refugee testimonies and other research materials on Tibet, confirms a pattern of the violation of the right to development of the Tibetan people. While China claims to prioritise economic rights for its people, it has failed to employ rights-based and need-based approach to development in Tibet.

The violation of Tibetans’ right to development occurs in the context of a calculated failure to apply real autonomy in the region where effective Tibetan participation is denied and policy-making power at all levels are not devolved. Secondly, China’s economic and development policy in Tibet is laden with stability concerns. Thirdly, Beijing has opted for a top-down-approach with regard to its development policy and implementation mechanism. Fourthly, instead of being the main beneficiaries of China’s development, the majority of Tibetans have remained marginalized and discriminated against in all spheres of life.

China is bound by Agenda 21 to provide rights to minority in terms of involving in policy and strategic decisions. The section 20.46 of China’s Agenda 21 has said, “Mechanisms should be set up to allow minority nationalities, and minority nationality districts to participate at State or local levels in the process of formulating policies and strategies concerning sustainable development, as well as their implementation.”⁸ Similarly, section 20.50 states that “the right to autonomy of the minority nationalities to manage their land and other natural resources should be protected by law. National minority citizens should be given a greater role in policy-making concerning economic development, environmental protection, and natural resource utilization in their respective regions.” However, in reality, the situation is different as the central authorities in Beijing make all the decisions and formulate all the strategies without taking into account participation and an assessment of the local inhabitants.

The Western Development Strategy (WDS) launched in June 1999 pledges more effort to develop western parts of the country. The key projects include building the Qinghai-Tibet railway; transmitting electricity and natural gas from western areas to the east; protecting natural forests, grasslands and rivers; promoting elementary, occupational and higher education; fostering specialized farming; setting up mining bases; building tourist facilities with local characteristics; improving infrastructure in large cities; and expanding the wide-band digital transmission network.⁹

Beijing uses economic growth and development as an antidote to Tibetan nationalism. Its economic policies are fueled by an underlying agenda to further dilute the Tibetan population and to intensify the process of sinicisation in Tibet. China’s Fourth Tibet Work Forum held in June 2001 and the Tenth Five Year Plan (2001-2005) of “TAR” endorses top down approach to development in Tibet. Despite provisos and avowals of real autonomy in Tibet, the Beijing government formulates economic policy for Tibet, which in the end is devoid of meaningful participation by Tibetans. The amended Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law of February 2001 ensures that the “development of Ethnic Autonomous Regions (such as ‘TAR”) will be carried out under the unified plans of the central authorities in accordance with market demand.” Through all its economic policies and provisions, China continues to seek to integrate Tibet into the rest of China by “increased migration of the importation of people, ideals and models from China.”

The developmental role of the Chinese Government in Tibetan regions violates many of its international legal commitments. Tibetans have found themselves pauperized by the regional development strategies antagonistic to many of the needs of the region. Furthermore, the broad principles of the current economic strategy, intensified under the 1999 Western Development Strategy perpetuate many of the structural features that have led most Tibetans into their current poverty trap. Of additional concern is the fact that he Chinese government is seeking out foreign aid and investment to support various elements of its current strategies.¹⁰ In contrast to official reports of rapid economic growth and improved subsistence and development rights, the actual condition of Tibetans tells a different story. By any measure Tibetans are poor, with low Human Development Index levels, with evidence of systematic exclusion, deprivation and discrimination in all areas of life.

Large-scale development in Tibet, more specifically the Western Development Strategy has rarely benefited local Tibetans. Money spent on Western Development generally has supported non-Tibetan businesses and Han Chinese immigrants or builds unproductive infrastructure and aids in resource extraction. New highways, dams, mineshafts, and wellheads funnel natural resources out of Tibet and bring tens of thousands of non-Tibetans in to work on such projects, leaving a legacy of environmental harm and social dislocation that falls most heavily on its inhabitants.¹¹

It is the human development of the Tibetan people that is most needed, rather than the development of resources. As the so-called economic growth circumvents majority of the Tibetans, the growth is concentrated on the state sector or on “hard infrastructures” such as trade, transport, services, and government and communist party administration. The productive sectors like agriculture, mining and industry, are stagnant or growing much slower than the economy in general. Therefore, since over 80 percent of the Tibetan population is nomads and farmers they have been marginalized from the economic growth. This has resulted in inequalities between urban and rural population and in the urban areas between Han immigrants and Tibetan population.

After 20 years of central government efforts that include generous state subsidies, the “TAR” has continued to remain China’s poorest administrative unit.¹² Systematic discrimination in the spheres of employment, health, housing, education and political representation continues to restrict Tibetan involvement and participation in the development of their own country. The discrimination and population influx of Han Chinese has denigrated and marginalised the status of Tibetans.

The real situation in Tibet, in terms of socio-economic conditions and eradication of poverty, has been diluted through exaggerated claims of economic development and falsified figures of prosperity. Gyaltsen Norbu, the former “TAR” Chairman, said in 1997, “We should do away with this unhealthy trends in boasting and exaggeration and hiding the truth from the higher levels in the work of aiding the poor”.¹³ Hence, the government’s denial, censorship and falsification of facts violate people’s right to know (Ch: zhiqing quang) and further impedes in presenting the actual situation to the world.

Therefore, the development policies in Tibet has failed to benefit the Tibetans and this failure has originated from several areas: economics are viewed and used as political control; contradiction between official provisions and actual implementation; the use of a top-down development approach; urban-oriented rapid growth strategies resulting in income inequality; population transfer programs causing marginalisation and discrimination of the Tibetan population; denial of meaningful local participation, disregard of local interests in the development process and exaggeration of the actual situation through questionable figures.

Development: Policies and Practicalities

The process of development and the right to development is wound up with freedom. Development is conceptualised as a “process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy”.¹⁴ This conception of development is particularly powerful in the case of Tibet, where non-participation of Tibetans in the processes of development and their lack of basic freedom has led to inertia in the state of development in Tibet and a disintegration in the Tibetan people’s quality of life.

China’s White Paper on Regional Autonomy has advocated that the central government has exercised full autonomy in economic and social development. Under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Declaration on the Rights of People Belonging to National, Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, states are duty bound to protect the rights of ethnic minorities in their political, economic, cultural, religious, educational and social life.¹⁵ The United Nations General Assembly has stated that in order to achieve social development, governments will make a “renewed commitment to effective, transparent and accountable governance and democratic institutions that are responsive to the needs of people and enable them to take an active part in decision-making about priorities, policies and strategies.¹⁶

Two models of development in Tibet were discussed in the 1980s. One model of economic development advocated that Tibetans should be trained and encouraged to take leading roles in the “TAR” market economy and modernization process. The rapid development would be tempered somewhat, but the citizens of the minority autonomous area would be the primary beneficiaries and active participants of economic growth. In the other model, rapid development in Tibet would be emphasised with the door being open to all Chinese without restraints. Subsequently, Han Chinese with experience in rapid growth and economic reforms would play the leading role in economic development, particularly in the early period. The debate over these alternatives was settled in the mid-1980s when China opted for the second model.

At China’s Third Work Forum on Tibet held in 1994, a paradigmatic shift in China’s development policy on Tibet took place when stronger emphasis was laid on “security control” through economic development. The social determinist strand in Chinese Marxism held a viewpoint that people who have evolved to a higher economic plane would no longer be tempted by irredentist notions.¹⁷ The former “TAR” Party Secretary of Tibet, Mr. Chen Kuyian, said that through economic development, people would become rich and give up their purpose of splitting the country.”¹⁸ The report of the Fourth Tibet Work Forum of June 2001 also averred that economic development could not take place without “stability”.

In 1980, the then general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Hu Yaobang, visited Tibet. He acknowledged that the Chinese rule in Tibet had done more harm than good. He advocated the empowerment of the Tibetans through handing back most of the decision-making power to the Tibetans and the reduction of Chinese cadres. Unfortunately it was not long before Beijing reverted to its old development pattern on Tibet. Beijing’s logic is that since Tibet lacks “quality human resources”, it is the prerogative of the Chinese to help Tibetans develop and progress. China continues bringing in skilled Chinese personnel or pioneers to Tibet, to help in the development of Tibet’s economy.¹⁹

A series of economic reforms were introduced to facilitate the migration of Han populations willing to seek their fortunes in the “TAR”. These included simplified legal procedures for Han entrepreneurs, more flexible work arrangements for Han professionals, and the declaration of Lhasa as a special economic zone.²⁰ The result has been a huge influx of non-Tibetan migrant labourers and business people. At this time, the majority of residents in Lhasa are Han Chinese and other towns are moving in that direction.

China has talked about encouraging Tibetan participation, devolving policy-making power, and the importance of real autonomy, but in practice Tibetans are totally neglected. Tibetans have no role to play in the market economy of Tibet, which is practically under direct control and command of the PRC. Since the launch of the Western Development Strategy in 1999, China extracted Tibet’s natural resources for their own needs and channeled coal, oil, natural gas and other mineral resources into its industries in the eastern coastal region. The biggest benefit seemed to go to Chinese migrants living in the region and not the local residents “leaving the chasm between rich and poor wider than ever,” according to an article of USA Today dated 19 September 2003.²¹

The Chinese authorities have chosen the easiest and the most destructive path towards the development of Tibet, which basically means a huge investment in the administrative section, while supporting and maintaining a large population of Chinese settlers, who feed on state subsidies and support. In return, Tibet’s natural resources from timber, oil and gas, minerals and power are transferred to supply Chinese industries outside Tibet thus making the authorities and Chinese industries as the main beneficiaries of Tibetans resources.

From the human security perspective, the developmental discourse and policies shift its emphasis on nationalistic goals to meeting basic needs of people. A condition of existence must be created where human dignity, including meaningful participation in the life of one’s community is realised. However, due to strong security interests of Beijing in the “TAR”, it is clear the Tibetan development policies reflect the concerns of the central authorities, as opposed to meeting the development needs of the Tibetan people.

China’s development model and logic is based on Chinese experiences and conditions, assumes the presence of common processes and features throughout the country.²² Implicitly this model ignores the possibility that differences in Tibet’s social and natural conditions can be of value in determining the model and nature of development.

Western Development Strategy

The western region of China comprises 10 autonomous regions and provinces and one municipality including Tibet. In June 1999, China’s former President Jiang Zemin officially launched the Western Development Strategy [Ch; xibu da kaifa] in which the government intended to reduce the disparities between coastal and interior regions in China²³, and spur the overall development of China’s western regions in an ecologically sustainable manner. There are five major components in this strategy – infrastructure construction, environmental protection and improvement, adjustment of the industrial structure, promotion of science, technology and education and further economic reform and open door policy.

The launch of the WDS has in some ways coincided with the success of East Timor’s struggle for self-determination and NATO’s intervention in Kosovo. Mr. Jiang Zemin, emphasized the close relation between the WDS and national unity and social stability of Tibet. A Chinese economist, Hu Angang, echoed similar concerns, “The worst case scenario - and what we’re trying to avoid - is China fragmenting like Yugoslavia. Already, regional [economic] disparity is equal to - or worse than - what we saw in Yugoslavia before it split.” Therefore, it is apparent that the WDS has an underlying political agenda to maintain stability as well as to further integrate the restive regions of the west into China.

In practice, the combined forces of polity and economy has raised the level of urban wealth in Tibet, and consequently increased the urban/rural poverty gap. Moreover, it gave little impetus to economic production or to the primary or secondary sectors, while at the same time diverted economic control towards the increasing population of Chinese immigrants in the area. Robert Barnett, a Tibet scholar and a Lecturer in Modern Studies at Columbia University in New York, called this economic policy as “using the methods of the command economy to engineer socio-political results.”

The two most politically restive regions in China’s west — Tibet and Xinjiang — are also the most distant from Beijing. It has become essential for China to stabilize these regions and to increase control. The effects of globalisation combined with strategic and military concerns have acted as additional impetus. Beijing believes that economic development and improved transportation can solve “nationality problems” and will help consolidate control. Under the umbrella of achieving stability, the authorities violate many fundamental human rights and freedom of the Tibetan people.

China’s economic revolution, which has transformed the far east of this massive country, is now moving west with international capital and technology on a scale never before seen in these isolated regions. The object is Tibet’s natural resources — the flecks of gold locked in the dried-up seabeds; the deposits of copper, zinc, and other minerals; and the rich fields of natural gas and oil. China is pursuing these resources to fulfill its own national development goals, goals not shared by the people of Tibet.²⁴ Thus, economic profit from the western region is another propelling factor behind the launch of WDS. The role of western regions is essentially as a resource provider to facilitate development in the central and eastern regions by transferring natural resources from west to east.

The WDS is described as a “leap over” model of development for Tibet, whereby the Beijing government will provide special assistance to overcome the region’s “backwardness”.²⁵ The target looks difficult to achieve as investments in local agriculture and livestock, as well as soft infrastructure including health, education, employment and local participation have been given the least priority. Little of the development largesse is trickling down to the 80 percent of Tibetans living in rural areas. WDS is rather focused on investment in “hard infrastructure” such as highways, railways, pipelines, mineral extraction, dams, power stations and irrigation facilities.

The benefits of the WDS have not been accessible to the large majority of ethnic rural Tibetans. Rather, they have been oriented more towards urban sector and have become a source of additional employment resulting in income disparities between Chinese migrants and local Tibetans. It is crucial that the development of any kind should prioritise capacity building of Tibetans. China’s population transfer policy under the banner of development further exacerbates the marginalisation of Tibetans and has the potential to ultimately erode the essence of Tibetan culture and identity.

Lama Dorjee, a 38-year-old farmer from Bugod Village, Gonjo County, Chamdo Prefecture reported to TCHRD about impacts that highway construction has in his native area. Lama Dorjee said,

“In April 2004, the Chinese authorities started to broaden the road in my area into a highway, approximately 120 km in length. The highway project has made the farmers anxious, as it requires covering the farmland of many farmers. Many farmers lost their land to the highway project. Yet most of the farmers are frightened to raise their concerns to the authorities. The 400 odd farming families in the area have sustained themselves for many generations by growing grain, mustard, beans, potatoes etc in their fields. The objective behind building the highway is to transport timber. There are lots of trees in Sa-ngan Med area in Gonjo County. By building the highway, the Chinese can easily transport the timber. The Chinese have already cut thirty percent of the trees in the past and when the highway becomes functional, they can easily transport the rest. ”²⁶

China’s WDS faces significant dual challenges of policy-making and policy implementation. This can be seen, first in decision-making tensions inside the political “centre” involving political elites and intra-bureaucratic negotiations over the WDS; and second, in central-local political tensions over WDS policy implementation. Cumulatively, the tensions hinder the effectiveness, consistency and coherence of this latest regional development initiative in China. Since the formal initiation of the WDS in 1999, the government has attempted to institutionalise the decision-making, policy review, administration, and program/project evaluation processes for the WDS by establishing a three level²⁷ core decision-making structure, which consists of three main levels.²⁸ The core level formulates policies and strategies of the WDS without consulting the Tibetans of their needs and aspirations. The most important and necessary precondition for successful WDS in Tibet is the active participation of Tibetans themselves. At present Tibetan people are not free to speak their minds, and usual methods of consultation, surveys and appraisal will not work reliably in Tibetan areas as long as Tibetans feel the omnipresence of state power which makes them afraid to speak their minds.²⁹

Where freedom of expression is restricted as in Tibet, Tibetans have neither a say nor a part in policy decisions affecting their development and economic rights. A former aid worker reported to Tibet Information Network (TIN), a London-based human rights monitoring agency, that China’s development policy could have been “dropped out of the sky”. The worker said, “This policy is just the latest in a series of centrally generated initiatives, and as usual, local input was zero.”³⁰ In this context, top-down policies based on a political rather than developmental agenda have tended to exclude the local inhabitants of western regions from participation in the shaping of their environment and in the development of their economy. The WDS has so far failed to deliver appropriate and much needed development to the Tibetans.

Population Transfer: Impacts

Population transfer is defined as the “movement of people as a consequence of political and/or economic processes in which the State government or State-authorised agencies participate.” Population transfer has been condemned as “prima facie unlawful and violative of a number of rights affirmed in human rights and humanitarian law for both transferred and receiving population.³¹ Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention provided that “the occupying powers shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”. The UN Special Rapporteur on Population Transfer has stated in their reports that population transfer constitutes a violation of basic principles of conventional and customary international human rights laws”.

While the principles of international law concerning population transfers address the rights of the subject group of transfers, it has also been clarified that population transfers cannot be used as a policy which threatens the identity, culture and livelihood of a minority group living in an area in which the transfers are purported to be made.

According to China’s 2000 population census, China has a population of 1.26 billion in 31 provinces and municipalities and autonomous regions. About 38.9 of China’s population is in the eastern region, and 28.1% in the west region (including Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Xinjian). The provincial population ranges from 92.56 million in Henan Province, 90.79 million in Shangdong Province, and 86.42 million in Guangdong province to 5.18 million in Qianghai province and 2.62 million in Tibet.

China’s policy and practice of populating Tibet with people of non-Tibetan origin is the most serious threat facing Tibet. The Dalai Lama, the Tibet’s leader in exile, has stated in an interview with the International Commission of Jurist on 3 December 1996 in Dharamsala, “The most serious threat to the survival of Tibet’s culture and national identity is presently China’s population transfer program, which is reducing the Tibetans into an insignificant minority in their own land at an alarming rate.”

The Chinese government has consistently rejected allegations that it is practicing a policy of population transfer into Tibet. Yet Chinese policy statements and other evidence confirm that the increasing influx of Chinese into Tibetan areas has resulted from government policies and programmes to transfer Chinese, particularly cadres and professionals, and ordinary Chinese. Over the past decade and particularly after 1992, state policies of administrative, economic and infrastructural measures have facilitated and further encouraged the migration of Chinese, including less skilled workers and petty workers, to Tibet.³²

The Third Work Forum in 1994 officially confirmed the population transfer policy. Gyaltsen Norbu, the then Chairman of the “TAR”, reiterated the policy when he called to “get qualified personnel to Tibet through various channels and transfer a certain number of skilled workers here.³³ The Fourth Tibet Work Forum of June 2001 formed 10,000 cadres into work groups for agricultural and pastoral areas to rectify and improve grass-roots party organizations.³⁴ In June 2002, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported that new policies had been adopted to send more government cadres, soldiers, and “skilled people” to Tibet and other western regions in order to support development.

Over the years, China has tried to lure Chinese migrants to western regions – including Tibet – by offering them incentives and job opportunities, higher wages and retirement pensions, relaxed family planning regulations along with various income supplements and financial incentives. The state relaxation of hukou (household) registration system and the increase in massive infrastructure projects in the Tibetan region has increased the influx of Chinese settlers. Many Tibetans have blamed the unrestricted flow of non-Tibetan migrant labour for the lack or loss of job opportunities. Experts like Goldstein, Arthur Holcombe cite China’s present development policies as responsible for influx of Chinese immigrant.

China has also been accused of hiding the actual number of Chinese in Tibet by not requiring many of the Chinese floating population to register and through”deliberate misinformation and the withholding of information.”³⁵ Ignoring the unregistered floating population and the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) presence, variously estimated at between 100,000 and 300,000, none of who are counted in census statistics, Chinese officials proclaimed that the population of the “TAR” was well over 90% Tibetan.³⁶

The population transfers have had great impacts on development process for ethnic Tibetans. The policy is viewed as being central to the government’s integration of the Tibetan economy into the Chinese economy. The Tibetans have been deprived of and discriminated against in their access to land, food and employment thereby threatening their livelihood. Tibetans are becoming a minority in their own land, excluded from effective participation and have not benefited from the so-called development. Chinese-sponsored infrastructure projects have mainly been directed to “encourage Chinese settlement, fulfil military objectives and to expedite resource extraction”.

There are fundamental impacts of the population transfer policy. First, Tibet’s ecology in no way can support such a huge influx of population, especially if this population chooses to live the consumptive lifestyle characteristic of Chinese cities. No calculation has ever been made as to how many human beings the plateau can sustain without degradation and overload. Secondly, the practical realities of Chinese development also means that the Tibetan people will not only become a minority in their own land, but a marginalized, excluded, repressed, and unrepresented minority. Thirdly, threatening Tibet’s environment threatens the health and well being of the 85% of Asia that gets its waters from the Tibetan plateau.³⁷

The completion of the railway project from Qinghai to Tibet will further increase migration of Chinese settlers into Tibet. The Environment and Development Desk [EDD] of the Department of Information and International Relations (DIIR) has expressed concern in its report entitled “Environment and Development in Tibet: A Crucial Issue” about the tremendous population pressures in Lhasa and its adjacent areas with the arrival of railroad. The same report provides information on the prediction made by the “TAR” authorities about the expansion of Lhasa City from the current 53 sq.km to 272 sq. km in the next 15 years. This indicates Beijing’s plan to relocate an even larger number of immigrants from China.

In a latest attempt to expedite development of Tibet, China joined hands with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to train thousands of senior professions for the country’s impoverished western region. During the 2002-2004 period, the two sides will conduct investigations, hold seminars and initiate 57 training courses to train a total of 1,050 people at home and 345 others abroad. The program will also invite a total of 29 overseas experts.³⁸ Bringing in “permanent-brand” personnel is very important, while developing talents of a “migratory bird” type is also a good strategy.³⁹

It is true that many of those who migrate to the western regions including Tibetan areas, are not “high quality” professionals. These migrants are traders, farmers, cadres and administrators who are in direct competition with Tibetans for economic opportunity, and in many cases they do win out. Tibet is a politically sensitive region where occurrence of peaceful pro-independence demonstrations is quite common causing stability concerns for the Beijing authorities. Therefore, in order to enforce control mechanisms, the migrants consisting of soldiers and paramilitary police serve as operators of an elaborate “state apparatus of control and punishment”.

As the Chinese authorities assume control over the economy, the Chinese language has become the language of commerce and administration. The Tibetan language has become a minority language and is even secondary in the education system. Education, an integral instrument in the preservation of culture, actually discriminates against the local population. Discriminatory practices resulting from massive population transfer challenge and sidelining of Tibetan language challenge not only the employment opportunities but also the Tibetan cultural autonomy.

Railway Project: Implications

In 1994, Beijing’s leaders discussed a project linking Lhasa City — the heart of Tibet — with the rest of China by rail. During China’s Ninth Five-Year Plan (1996-2000), route surveys and feasibility studies on railway to Lhasa were conducted. The Tenth Five-Year Plan (2001-2005) allocated budget for construction of a railway line between Gormo to Lhasa.⁴⁰ The Plan also underlined three other important projects along with the railway project: west-to-east gas transfer, west-to-east power transmission and south-to-east water diversion.

China’s Ninth Five-Year Plan earmarked a budget to undertake a series of studies on the feasibility of this project, Number One Survey and Design Institute of China’s Ministry of Railways were instructed to prepare a blueprint for a Gormo-Nagchu-Lhasa Route and a Lanzhou-Nagchu-Lhasa Route, and Number Two Survey and Design Institute for a Chengdu-Nagchu-Lhasa Route and a Dali-Nyintri-Lhasa Route.⁴¹ In February 2001, the Central authorities in Beijing reviewed the plans for four optional routes and gave top priority to the Gormo-Nagchu-Lhasa Railway. About 485 miles of the line run more than 14,765 feet above sea level, and 342 miles of track traverse permanently frozen earth.

Addressing the Western Forum in Chengdu on 22 October 2000, Sun Yonfu, China’s Vice Minister of Railways, said that China would build a railway to Lhasa ‘to promote the economic development of the Tibet Autonomous Region and to strengthen national defense.”⁴² The general pattern of China’s railway development shows that Beijing has paid relatively little attention to economic considerations; national defense and security have been its chief concerns.⁴³ Official statements have stressed the need for a railway to “consolidate national defense” and to “unite nationalities”. It is also feared that the railway will allow rapid deployment of troops in the event of military threats across the border as well as to suppress unrest in the region.

The Beijing government says the railroad will reduce the cost of transportation to Tibet from six cents to less than two and a half cents per kilometer/ton, which will help speed up Tibet’s economic development, generating nearly $500 million in direct and indirect income, subsequently inducing businesses to set up shop, while bringing about 900,000 tourists to Tibet each year. All along the highway from Golmud to Lhasa, work on the railroad is forging ahead, as billboards proclaim the importance of the project with slogans like: “Build the Qinghai-Tibet railway, create prosperity for people of all nationalities.”⁴⁴

The projects are officially designed to enhance national defence and domestic stability” and to further integrate the Tibetan economy with mainstream China. The construction will place great pressure on local resources, and when completed, will undoubtedly damage the fragile Tibetan ecosystem with erosion, silting and pollution. Cheap and reliable transportation will also mean large-scale Han migration into central Tibet, further endangering the cultural identity of Tibet.⁴⁵

Tibet’s railway will accelerate exploitation of natural resource through cheaper and easier transportation of raw materials from the Tibet Plateau to China. The environment experts have predicted that railway will impact the many endemic wildlife species like Tibetan antelope and wild yak, long-term damage to the vegetation in the region, and further affect the migratory pattern of wildlife in the reserves.population influx through railway will increase poaching and pollution in the region and also widen the economic gap between China and Tibet.

According to a report on Qinghai-Tibet Railway by the International Campaign for Tibet, the budgeted cost of the railroad is more than three times the amount the Chinese government has spent on health care and education in Tibet during the past 50 years.

The population transfer of Han immigrants into Qinghai is a result of railroading in Tibetan . Thousands of unemployed Chinese have flooded Tibet depriving Tibetans of their jobs and diluting their tradition and culture. Dr. Robert Barnett, a Tibet scholar, said, “In public, Tibetans will not voice any criticism, But in private, they will tell you that this is the end of Tibet”. Tibetans face discrimination and marginalisation in the employment sector on the railway line. Chinese immigrants take up major proportion of employment opportunities on the excuse that Tibetans lack proper skills and technical know-how. The prevalence of corruption and lack of awareness of worker’s rights in Tibet further worsens the employment situation. The following incident gives a clear picture of the actual scenario:

A group of about 30 migrant laborers from Qinghai said the railway construction company pays their boss 2,000 yuan (about $245) per month per worker. The boss, a Hui Muslim also from Qinghai, takes half leaving each worker with 1,000 yuan for a month of backbreaking toil. With five months of work per years, the boss stands to pocket 150,000 yuan ($18,315), and the workers return home with about 5,000 yuan ($610). Asked about the absence of Tibetan railroad workers in Amdo, the boss replied: “The railway company does not like to employ Tibetan workers. The Tibetans think the land belongs to them, and that they should decide how fast to work.”⁴⁶

In Zazique Village about 60 miles north of Lhasa, 18 families earn their livelihoods by herding about 1,000 yaks and 1,500 sheep. The railroad will run through their valley, and the herders will have to bring the animals to summer pastures in the mountains through a small tunnel under the tracks.

“We don’t know whether or not the animals will refuse to pass through the tunnel”, said the village head. “We are not opposed to this project, but it is creating big losses for us.” “The radios said that we would be able to make $30 a day working on the railroad,” said a housewife in the village. “We were very happy, and thought that we could make some money. But only five or six people got work, and they were paid only $9 to $12 per day. It is unfair but we don’t know where to complain.’⁴⁷

Other analysts point to the military implications of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway saying it could be used to deploy tactical nuclear weapons. In June 2001, Jane’s Intelligence Digest reported that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “considers it necessary to build up a network of roads and mule tracks to bring military hardware and troops to the forward areas of the disputed border” with India. Writes defence analysts William Triplett, “With even a single line, the PLA could move about 12 infantry divisions to central Tibet in 30 days to meet up with their pre-positioned equipment”.⁴⁸

A Chinese journalist, Lin Gu, in a BBC article titled “Letter: Modernising Tibet” dated 22 December 2004 spent a month in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa. When Tibetan residents were interviewed about the impact of railways, they expressed concerns about greater influx of outsiders that could threaten “jobs and public security”. One Tibetan commented: “What I’ve gained is a much broader vision, but what I’ve lost is my own cultural tradition. If you ask me to be your guide in Lhasa, I can only give you a brief surface introduction, but I can never go deeper.”

State of Ecology: Obliteration

Principle 23 of the Rio Declaration, the final document of the “Earth Summit”,⁴⁹ states, “The environment and natural resources of people under oppression, domination and occupation, shall be protected.”⁵⁰ The Declaration also emphasises participation of citizens in the decision making process at all levels and access to information about environmental issues in their communities.⁵¹

The principle of environment justice as originally conceived states that regardless of race and culture, people should enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards.⁵²Environmental diplomacy is a chosen vehicle to enhance Beijing’s standing in the international community as a respected world power and a member of World Trade Organisation (WTO). In practice, China lacks in environmental protection, legislation, and policy enforcement. Development with blatant disregard for environmental protection has escalated especially in Tibet.⁵³

It is officially claimed that while developing the poor areas, the Chinese government pays close attention to the protection of the ecological environment. At a conference held in Bangkok in February 2002, Prof. Li Bingiong of the Department of Agricultural Economics, China Agricultural University in Beijing, said, “Poverty reduction by reliance on science and technology has helped to change the previous way of production by indiscriminate means at the expense of the ecology in poor areas.”⁵⁴

In the case of Tibet, the ecological and cultural conditions have been brushed aside in a very autocratic, top down approach. The Western Development Strategy of the Chinese authorities also serves as a mean toward nation building and strengthening its presence along the western border provinces. Though the ecological problems that will arise as a result of large scale developments, like the railway and highway constructions, and energy and resource extractions are officially accepted, there are no specific measures and mechanisms designed to address these problems – apart from the huge billboards and advertisement in the media extolling the importance and need of environmental protection.

Massive and rapid urbanization - along with many development projects like big mining sectors, large hydropower stations, and huge infrastructure maintenance - has caused severe environmental degradation and displacement of Tibetans and wildlife. Ecological crises such as water pollution, deforestation, extinction of rare endemic species, soil erosion, climate change, dumping of nuclear materials and wastes and unrestricted mining threaten not only Tibet, but every downstream and neighbouring region.⁵⁵

Resettlement and Displacement: Dispossession

According to the Deputy Director of the Office of the Leading Group under the State Council for Development of the Western Region, Li Zibhin, by May 2004, 920,000 ha of cultivated land were returned to forest and grassland in addition to another 680,000 ha of newly grown vegetation.⁵⁶ A Xinhua article dated 21 November 2004 titled “Afforestation helps reduce sandstorm in Tibet”, the authorities declared that number of sandstorm days in Lhasa drop to 5.2 days in 2004 from 53.8 days in the early 1950s due to afforestation projects. Li Zibin reiterated that the “policy of returning reclaimed farmland to forest will remain unchanged in the years ahead”.⁵⁷

In reality, Tibetans farmers and nomads are either resettled or forced to stop farming or herding activities as part of afforestation and conversion program. This has had devastating effects on the livelihood of the Tibetan nomads and herders. Among the 2.3 million Tibetan populations, 1.9 million are in agricultural and pastoral regions and 80 percent of the economic output of the whole region comes from agriculture and animal husbandry.⁵⁸ As part of the conversion projects, Tibetan farmers and nomads are either resettled or forced to stop farming or herding activities.

Tibetans look upon this policy as a threat to their traditional livelihood and nomadic lifestyle on which they have subsisted for generations together. An affected nomad has described the scenario as a “fish being flung out of water”.⁵⁹ Other resettled Tibetans have complained of poor farming soil, social problems and soil erosion.⁶⁰ The traditional skills and local knowledge of the inhabitants in the preservation of grassland are not respected. Such measures will ultimately destroy a viable and vital part of traditional Tibetan nomadic culture.

Chinese government claims to have instituted new regulations and policies in the 1980s, policies that the government has praised as being a model for resettlement in developing countries. In reality the provisions for people displaced by ecological and water projects generally remain severely inadequate. An investigation done by Wu Ming, a Chinese sociologist, contradicts official claims. In his experience and research on the impacts of dam and reservoir resettlement programs in China, he found serious problems in relocation process. These include official cover up of inadequacies and failures in resettlement programs, falsification of figures on their progress, misuse of resettlement funds, systematic discrimination against rural residents in the allocation of resettlement resources, and a lack of proper efforts to inform, let alone consult with population relocated.⁶¹

Forcible resettlements of Tibetan nomads and farmers have occurred in the recent years. TIN reported that nearly 1,000 families were moved out from Jomda, Markham and Gonjo counties in Chamdo Prefecture “to keep the forest intact”.⁶² In December 2001, 60 families in Gonjo County, Chamdo Prefecture were resettled in Nyingtri (Kongpo) Prefecture in “TAR”.⁶³ A 38-year-old farmer from Bugod Village, Gonjo County in Chamdo Prefecture reported to TCHRD:

“The Chinese authorities in the past had ordered the resettlement of about 2,400 families from Jangsum, Langmed, Khori, Shiri, Motsa and Jamsam Villages in Gonjo County to Kongpo. Upon eviction from their ancestral land, the authorities then cut the trees and the timber was transported in trucks. The authorities on the contrary said that the Tibetans in Gonjo County were being resettled as many of the villages fall on the banks of Drichu River.”⁶⁴

The State’s reform policies and the mismanagement by the authorities are responsible for the present ecological degradation on the Tibetan plateau.⁶⁵ The resettled Tibetan nomads and farmers are unjustly targeted for destruction of the grassland and forests to which “their ancestral way of life contributed only marginally”. So far, Tibetans have neither been consulted, nor was their input and knowledge sought in the implementation of these reforestation projects.

Mining and Resource: Extraction

China calls Tibet “Xizang” meaning “treasure house of the west”. There are more than 126 identified minerals in Tibet with significant deposits of uranium, chromite, boron, lithium, borax, and iron. Further reserves of sorundum, vanadium, titanium, magnesite, sulpher, mica, cesium, rubidium, arsenic, graphite, lepidolite and potash are some of the largest in both Tibet and China. Also, there are globally significant reserves of copper, gold, silver, zinc, oil and gas as well as other minerals on the plateau. Most of the resources are concentrated in Tsaidam Basin, Nagchu, Golok, Chamdo, Chang Thang, Kardze and Lhoka. The valuable reserves are distributed throughout Tibet’s three traditional provinces.⁶⁶

China’s Constitution asserts the state ownership of all natural resources. Between 1979 and 1999, China passed 16 environmental laws, covering a range of issues including marine pollution, forest cover, and energy efficiency.⁶⁷ Chen Kuyian, former Party Secretary of “TAR”, said at Tibet Regional Economic Work Forum held in Lhasa on 17 December 1999, that the “tapping of potential mineral resources to develop superior industries in Tibet is one of the main strategic policy decisions on the great development of Tibet”.

China’s Tenth Five Year Plan and the 2020 Project outlines further exploitation of Tibet’s resources, and also envisage massive state investment in the transport and urban infrastructure needed to effectively access and convey these resources. China, with the assistance of international energy companies, is constructing an extensive gas pipeline from the Tsaidam Basin in Amdo to Shanghai, along with other similar infrastructure projects, which will only speed up the removal of Tibet’s natural resources. The present railway project from Gormo to Lhasa, once completed, will play a major role in facilitating exploitation of minerals and oil from the remote parts of Tibet.⁶⁸

In recent years, the expansion of Chinese markets in the international arena has increased the growth of the mining industry in Tibet, with unprecedented investments from multinational companies and assistance from international aid agencies.⁶⁹ Each new resource discovery and new investment in extraction, whether Chinese, foreign, or both, places considerable additional pressures on Tibet’s natural resources. The completion of Gormo-Lhasa Railway will increase extraction of minerals and other natural resources and promote Chinese migration.

In China, minings are state-owned, making state both the “profit earner and environmental regulator”. This conflict of interest has produced “rampant corruption” and negligence of the legitimate concerns of the workers and local communities near the mining areas. The acceleration of mineral extraction has created unprecedented environmental and social problems in Tibet.

The biggest profit from extraction of natural resources like coal, oil, natural gas and other mineral resources from Tibet goes to Beijing. Unfortunately, the development projects and mining activities are implemented without consulting Tibetans or assessing the impact on the environment, or the impact on Tibetan health and livelihood. Tibetans have no meaningful participation in the decision-making processes and implementation of the stated policies. Furthermore, Tibetans have been arbitrarily arrested, detained, tortured and imprisoned for exercising freedom of expression and opinions.

In July 2004, officials from the Nagchu Mining Department visited Sari Village, Yongnak Township, Sog County, “TAR”, to mine the area. The resident Tibetans protested against mining activity, and heated exchanges took place between the resident and the officials. A month later,, officials from Sog County Administration accompanied by PSB officers arrived at the village to investigate the matter. The officers identified Thartok, Dejor and Tsering Dawa as key leaders of the protest. They were arrested on 4 September 2004, and subsequently detained at Nagchu Prefecture Detention Centre.

In the aftermath of the arrest, a group of local Tibetans appealed to the authorities for the release of the Tibetan detainees explaining that their protest was based solely on environmental concern. However, the authorities dismissed the appeal on the grounds that the protest had political motivations. The family members of the three arrestees are reported to be anxious that they will get lengthy imprisonment.⁷⁰

In the mining enterprises, local participation and employment are minimal. There are reports of local inhabitants being subjected to forced labour. The use of forced labour on Tibetans is in contravention of International Labour Organisation’s Conventions number 29⁷¹ and number 105⁷². A testimony received by TCHRD on 21 October 2004, states that “when the Chinese need hand, the Tibetans are obliged to go which otherwise results in a fine of 50 yuan”.

The extensive mining activities have led to degradation of pastures, deforestation and pollution, affecting the health and livelihood of local inhabitants. Deaths, injuries, and human and animal birth deformities in nearby mining processing are some of the direct effects of the state of mining in Tibet.⁷³ The use of cyanide and mercury in the extraction and processing of some of the minerals in Tibet, especially gold and the generation of toxic wastes and dust particularly in open cast mining have been identified as the causes of loss of vision, hair, skin ulceration, respiratory problems and destruction of nervous systems and bone structures.⁷⁴ A recent escapee in his testimony to TCHRD on 21 October 2004 said,

“Tibetans have made constant appeal to stop mining because of its harmful effects on the growth of flora and fauna and on the health of the whole community. However, the authority threatened the people by warning that they hold legal authorized permission for mining and any challenge from the masses would be met with severity.”

Grassland: Degradation

Open grassland accounts for more than 60 percent of the landmass of Tibet. The degradation of the grasslands is the most pervasive environmental impact of the era of Chinese control of Tibet, and the impact, which most threatens the sustainability of Tibetan civilisation.⁷⁵ It affects the local livelihood as well as the climatic pattern of China and the world. The findings of the UNDP, Asian Development Bank, World Bank and others have attributed the grassland degradation to the development policies of Chinese government.

Based on an analysis of satellite images, the Chinese Academy of Science estimates that in the early 1990s some 375 million hectares —nearly 40 percent of the country — were affected by erosion. The main and immediate victims are the farmers who are forced to cultivate the poorer quality areas. An estimated 331 million hectares roughly a third of China’s area is at risk of desertification. The Ministry of Agriculture estimates that about 34 per cent of all grasslands in China are moderately to severely degraded and about 90 percent are degraded to some degree. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the most fundamental underlying cause has been poor governmental development policies.⁷⁶

The Grassland Law of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) came into effect in 1985. It is aimed at “enhancing property of local economies of national autonomous areas (Article 1)”, while article 4 of the same law affirms the state ownership of the grassland. At the heart of these policies is a belief that traditional migratory grazing systems do not protect the land. This is despite the recognition by international land experts, including the World Bank, that Tibetan’s traditional tenure systems are the most sustainable and efficient use of the land.

Under the Grassland Law, the nomads and farmers are allocated fixed portions of land based on their location —high mountain villages are allocated the high land while low-lying villages are given low land. Moreover, farmers and nomads are expected to carry out fencing at their own cost. The PRC justifies sedentarisation and compulsory fencing as necessary to protect lands from overgrazing and also to increase productivity. However, these policies have affected the pasture quality by reducing mobility and flexibility of rangeland management, increased pasture degradation, reducing yield which forces many many families into malnutrition and poverty. The haphazard policy of sedentarisation has also resulted in familial disputes.

From the Chinese government perspective, nomadic overgrazing and excessive stocking are blamed for the crises. China proposes to deal with the nomads not only by criminal law but also by imposing charges for the use of state property as an incentive to constrain over-utilisation. In reality, the imposition of a land use tax on top of all other taxes leveled on nomads, will only drive them to squeeze more from land they can never own. All these official assessment of the situation and subsequent policy implementation shows how “out of touch with reality the central planners are, but central planning in China is still under the command in even the remote areas of Tibet.”⁷⁷

China’s Human Development in Tibet

The concept of human development is explained on the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)⁷⁸, both as a process of widening people’s choices and the level of their achieved well-being. The Human Development Index (HDI) measures the average achievement of a country in basic human capabilities. The HDI indicates whether people lead a strong and healthy life, are educated and knowledgeable and enjoy a decent standard of living.⁷⁹

In 1997, the Chinese Government issued its National Report on Sustainable Development, which made it clear that the Chinese government defined “sustainable development” as that level of development that would support booming China’s growth rates. The report states: “In China’s Agenda 21, rapid economic development is regarded as indispensable for poverty eradication, enhancement of people’s livelihood, and strengthening of overall national strength.”⁸⁰

In his essay entitled “Development as Freedom”, the renowned economist Amartya Sen, has required development to be free from major sources of unfreedom like poverty, tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or overactivity of repressive states. He refutes the “the lee thesis” which claimed authoritarian politics actually helping economic growth.

Poverty of Development

The Human Development Report 1997 identified three indicators of the Human Poverty Index (HPI) as survival, knowledge and a decent standard of living.⁸¹ Amei Zhang in an article on “Poverty Alleviation in China; Commitment, Policies and Expenditures” in 1993 defined poverty⁸² as income poverty and human poverty.⁸³ The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has defined poverty as a “human condition characterised by the sustained or chronic deprivation of the resources, capabilities, choices, security and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.”

The “TAR” Government launched its first poverty alleviation program in 1994. Its stated aim was to abolish 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.⁸⁴ Under China’s 10th Five Year Development Plan (2000-2005), poverty alleviation efforts worth 6.46 billion RMB ($782 million) would cover all 75 counties in Tibet (having expanded from the initial 18 counties). The Western Development Strategy was stated as an effort to eradicate poverty and to lessen the income gap between eastern and western regions of China.

The Chinese government officially issued the Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China’s Rural Areas (2001-2010) setting out the objectives, tasks, guiding ideology, policies and principles for work for the coming ten years.

In China’s White Paper on Regional Ethnic Autonomy, the Chinese government describes the progress in Tibet as “leaps and bounds”. The White Paper has mentioned that from 1965 to 2003, the Gross National Product (GNP) of Tibet increased from 327 million yuan to 18.459 billion yuan, and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capital rose from 241 yuan to 6,874 yuan. In yet another White Paper entitled “Human Rights Cause in 2003”, the PRC government claimed to have improved the people’s rights to subsistence and development with the rise in the general standards of the people.

At the Global World Conference on Scaling Poverty Reduction held in Shanghai on May 26-27 2004⁸⁵, the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, said that China has managed to shake off poverty by effective “poverty alleviation through development”. In the same breath, he said that the “country has 29 million people unable to make ends meet, and to eliminate poverty will be an ardous task for it”. The Premier acknowledged that most of the poverty stricken Chinese live in the countryside, and that poverty stricken farmers are therefore, the main beneficiaries of the poverty alleviation program. China has claimed that agriculture and modern livestock gained the new ground. The pace of transforming and reorganisng the traditional industries have picked up its speed.⁸⁶ China’s western region realized a GDP increase of 8.5 percent last year, and 8.7 percent in the first half of this year, marking a good start for the country’s strategic development of the west.⁸⁷

Official figures place the number of “TAR” residents who live below poverty line at only 70,000 out of a total population of 2.6 million and falling steadily.⁸⁸ The official rural surveys, as measured by the absolute and benefit poverty⁸⁹, found poverty in the “TAR” falling up to 1999, but rising sharply in Qinghai in 2000.⁹⁰ A study on urban poverty in China by economist at the London School of Economics, Athar Hussain indicated that urban poverty rates in the “TAR” were actually the third highest of China in 1998, at around 11 percent of the official urban population.⁹¹ The poorest areas — the western provinces are characterised by high human poverty.⁹² Therefore, the development pattern in Tibet happens where increase in poverty and inequality occurs along with huge investments under the WDS.

The area of cultivated land in the “TAR” is only slightly larger than that of the city-province of Beijing, only 0.28 percent of the total national cultivated land, despite the fact that the “TAR” constitutes almost 13 percent of the total national area.⁹³ Agriculture has traditionally been the foundation of the Tibetan economy. Pastoral nomadism (Tib:drokpa), grain farming (Tib:shingpa) and semi-nomadism (Tib: samadrok) are the three major forms of occupation in Tibet. Farmers are mainly concentrated in the valleys while pastoral and semi nomads are found on plateaus and mountains.

Wang Lixiong, a Chinese scholar, who spent 15 years collecting data in various areas of Tibet, argues that modernisation and development has failed in Tibet as it was imposed from the top with no consideration to local interest and local culture. He said the road building in Tibet is aimed at “creation of a stabilising group [wending jituan] of Han; administrators and soldiers” and has “little relevance for the lives of great majority of Tibetans, who live in small, dispersed communities in the high plateaus”.

Independent research and refugee testimonies have confirmed that the so-called economic growth in Tibet takes place in the state sector or in urban areas, thus having little or no effects on the Tibetan population. It was found that the government spending on education, health and agriculture in the “TAR” is less whereas priority is given to government’s large, cost-intensive projects that do not raise the local income. The government’s subsidy to Tibet has increased the GDP, but not the actual living standard of the population and their income. An article entitled “Deciphering Economic Growth in the Tibet Autonomous Region” released by TIN dated 8 April 2003 corroborates the above facts. The article says, that economic growth in Tibet is fuelled by central government spending and is overwhelmingly concentrated in the state-sector. It reinforces the fact that economic growth is a means and not an end of development. There is no automatic link between high GNP growth and progress in human development.

hus, Chinese policy is creating two economies and two societies in Tibet: the urban, wealthy Chinese economy, and the rural poor, undercapitalized Tibetan economy. Also the gap between the official discourse of development and the lives of the people is often blurred by the use of impressive facts and figures. Thus, any development that has taken place in Tibet, rather than benefiting the Tibetan people has actually occurred at their cost resulting in a violation of their socio-economic rights, or more specifically their right to development.⁹⁴

Experts have opined the failure of developmental policies on the Tibetan population. Pierre –Antoinne Donnet states, “From the point of view of economic performance, after forty years of Chinese Marxism, Tibet’s situation looks disastrous from any angle”.⁹⁵ Garbielle Laffitte, a Tibet expert, argues that despite large inputs of development funds from Beijing, Tibet would rank at the very bottom of the UN’s list of nations (if it were a nation), along with countries like Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Mozambique.⁹⁶ Another expert says that “Even a cursory glance at the Statistical Yearbook of China will confirm that the “TAR” ranks last on virtually every indicator: total revenue, taxes remitted, per capita income, literacy, and even life expectancy at birth.”⁹⁷

Until the middle of the 1980s, China was following an agriculture-driven strategy development. Since the mid-80s, its development strategy has distinctly been oriented towards export-led industralisation.⁹⁸ It is also said that this paradigmatic shift in China’s development strategy has affected the progress in poverty reduction. In its plan to eradicate poverty in Tibet, China has focused heavily on income generation in certain areas of Tibet. This is done with the hope that a rise in income statistics taken out of the context of poverty indicators, will show that the poverty has been eradicated. Hence, the development that occurs is large scale and often out of step with the traditional economy and large communities.

In contrast to rural household incomes, urban household incomes in the ‘TAR’ have consistently been above the Chinese national average. The urban population consists mostly of the Han Chinese immigrants and is comprised of a far fewer Tibetans. Hence, it only reinforces the fact that economic growth and development has helped the urban economy where the Han immigrants are in the majority and not the Tibetan population.

Livelihood: Discriminatory

The right to livelihood is the fundamental rights of people to fulfilling, dignified work or other sources of subsistence, including access to land and productive resources, and to basic labour protection.

The right to livelihood is explicitly stated in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and encompasses such rights as the right of a person not be deprived of his own means of subsistence (article 1(2)); the right to work (article 6 (1); the right to fair and equal remuneration (article 7); and above all, the right to an adequate standard of living including adequate food (article 11). The first article of the ICESCR guarantees the right of all peoples to self- determination and the right to freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. Chinese law also provides for safeguarding the right to livelihood. Article 13 of the Chinese Constitution provides that the state protects the right of the citizens to own lawfully earned income, savings, houses and other lawful property.

In contrast to the provisions on paper, China’s effort to provide protection at the implementation level has been extremely lacking. The PRC fails to recognize the right of Tibetans to self-determination and their right to freely pursue economic, social and cultural development. Secondly, the state-imposed development policies have not involved local participation and have not considered local concerns. Thirdly, the population transfer program has had immense impact on the livelihoods of Tibetans in terms of marginalisation, discrimination and denial of opportunities at both rural and urban level.

China publishes many statistics on the number of schools and hospitals, but they conceal the actual experiences of pupils and patients. Statistics on the number of buildings and employees in these institutions tell us nothing about the quality of services provided, the cost to users, or the qualifications of those providing the services. When one looks more closely at quality, qualifications, budgets and the crucial question of who pays, a very different picture emerges.⁹⁹ . It is clear that the economic development in Tibet cannot be judged by looking only at official statistics of GNP and GDP growth or some other indicators of overall economic expression.

Rural Livelihood

Over 80 percent of Tibetans sustain their living in agriculture and nomadic pastoralism. Crops such as barley, wheat, peas, and rapeseed are cultivated, while nomads herd yaks, sheep and goats.¹⁰⁰ Since large concentration of population in Tibet is engaged in labour intensive agriculture, it is concerning that the large-scale developments in Tibet have not benefited the Tibetans and their livelihood. It can be attributed to both policy failure and denial of local participation in policy-making decisions.

An American anthropologist, Melvyn Goldstein, and other international social scientists have written that the Tibetan traditional livestock management system was a time-tested model, sophisticated, and developed enough to ensure viable and sustainable management of marginal pastures. The New Rangeland Management (NRM)¹⁰¹ doctrine states that the nomads know better than urban elites how to maintain both productivity and permanence in lands that cannot be intensively used without great damage. But in China NRM is unknown, thus honouring of nomadic knowledge is unheard of, with respect for customary custodianship of the rangelands unheeded.¹⁰²

There were reports of official ruling by local authorities in certain regions of Tibet where limits were imposed on the number of livestock each family can have. Where families fail to adhere to official limits, fines are exacted. The official justification given for the ruling was that large livestock results in overgrazing of the land. However, this hampers the traditional nomadic culture and impedes the main source of livelihood for rural population.

The nomadic way of life is an essential part of Tibetan identity. The government’s policy of forced sedentarisation of nomads not only denies a large sector of the Tibetan community their livelihood but also threatens Tibet’s environment through the opening up of lands for mining.

Beijing claims in its official publications like China’s Tibet 2004 Facts and Figures that people in Tibet enjoy a preferential policy with local tax rate three percentage points lower than elsewhere around the country. Besides, the government has claimed to have “exempted farmers and herders from any fees and taxes” with “free medical care”. Tibetan farmers and nomads refute such claims when they spoke of heavy taxes. Taxes have been levied on their crop yield, number of animals, animal products, number of family members, as well as water, grass, and building taxes.

China’s taxation policy is known for is its arbitrary nature, as well as by its conspicuous absence of transparency and accountability or provision for appeal against harsh and unfair taxes. No official statistics are available which gives us detailed figures or breakdown for taxes collected at the county level or below. It seems that the decentralisation of tax has given greater powers to the local authorities but it is not clear how much tax the local authorities levies and how much is remitted to the central authorities.

The effects of sedentarisation, livestock limitation, and arbitrary taxation policy, on the Tibetan land and livelihood are evidenced by refugee testimonies received by TCHRD. Dhondup, a nomad from Golog County in Qinghai Province, reported to TCHRD:

Nomadic life has been a prominent way of life and people have been sustained on the nomad life over many generations in Golog. At present the nomads in Golog are facing lots of hardship in their livelihood. In 2003, the Chinese authorities set up a new Supervision Division in Golog region to supervise the grassland of the nomadic region. The Division formulated two new rules, which was announced across various counties in the region. The first rule stipulates that each member of the family is entitled to own only five livestock and those having more than five will be fined 500 yuan each for every additional livestock. The second rule emphasised that it is compulsory for every family to fence the land allocated to them. The new policy affects the poor families a lot as they cannot afford to fence the entire land due to high cost. Every 1000-meter length of fence cost 7,400 Chinese Yuan. The ruling is unjustified as it affects the Tibetan farmers and nomads.

In addition the Chinese government has imposed a minimum tax of 1500 yuan inclusive of grass, land and water tax from each family. The head of the Agriculture Division had warned that if a person fails to pay the tax, the person would be held in the local people’s court and the fine would be doubled every year on non-payment. As a result, almost all the families are facing severe livelihood problem and sell off their livestock to clear the tax burden.

Golog these days is reeling under heavy water and fodder scarcity to feed livestock. Families grazing their livestock in other farm’s land were charged 10 Chinese Yuan for a horse, 5 Yuan for a cattle and 3 yuan for a sheep on a daily basis. In order to meet the family daily expenses due to continued problem faced by the nomadic families, I started collecting Yartsa Gunbhu (a medicinal plant) and others to earn additional income for the family during summer season. But we were told to pay tax amounting to 1500 Yuan to the Township and County authorities from our hard earned income. Unable to bear the constant repression and the negative policies that uproot the very existence of nomadic culture and subsistence, I escaped into exile.¹⁰³

Heavy taxation, fencing and sedentarisation of nomads enforced in the nomadic regions under Qinghai Province have put many families in debt. Sonam Tsering, a 25-year-old nomad from Qinghai Province, reported to TCHRD;

“Prior to 2003, we had to give two to three sheep annually as meat tax to the local authorities and also paid 1500 Yuan in cash. All the nomadic families make sure to pay their tax on time as it is doubled the next year if one fails to do so. In 2003, the authorities distributed grassland to all the families and instructed us to fence the grassland. We were allotted five Mu (approx 67 sq mts) of land for our livestock. My family borrowed 2000 Yuan from others to buy the barbed wire. The grassland allotted to us is cleared very fast by our livestock and our animals were getting weaker. Often two or three sheep die due to lack of food. To make the matter worse, we also have to pay 2000-3000 Yuan as tax to the local authorities. This tax is inclusive of meat, wealth and grassland taxes.”

Just as taxation in Tibet is discretionary, it looks as if the livestock limitation policy across Tibet is enforced at the discretion of local authorities. This raises the issue of transparency and accountability, as government ruling is not applied uniformly. While some regions enforce a ceiling of five livestock per family member, the restriction in some regions is three. This is corroborated by Ngawang Palden, a 19-year-old nomad from Marong Village, Rusho Township, Jyekundo County, Qinghai Province, who reported to TCHRD, Livelihood of families in the nomadic region of Marong Village is based on rearing livestock. However, in August 2003, the local authorities introduced the limits on the number of livestock that a family can own. This has put us in a difficult situation and was a matter of great concern to the nomadic families. My family owned more than 80 domestic animals and now as a result of the new rule, my family can keep only 18 animals. The remaining 62 animals were sold to different Chinese slaughterhouses.”¹⁰⁴

The combined impacts of erosion, fencing, sedentarisation, debt, poverty, taxation, soil loss, and exclusion and absence of basic human services threaten the very survival of the nomadic way of life.¹⁰⁵ The formulation of all these policies occurs in Beijing, with little involvement of the Tibetans whose lives are affected by them. The result is an increasingly dissatisfied Tibetan rural sector largely untouched by massive Chinese investment in Tibet; discrimination against Tibetans in the market economy; the loss of livelihoods in both rural and urban economies and the potential for massive environmental devastation.

Urban Livelihood

The Tibetan population in the urban areas of “TAR” constitutes a little over 15-20 percent. While Tibet’s rural sector suffers, Tibetans in the urban areas face increasing unemployment, marginalisation and discrimination in all spheres of life. The dominant use of Chinese in business and the government bars the Tibetans from accessing equal opportunities alongside the Chinese migrants.

The People’s Republic of China is bound itself to “recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work” including fair wages and equal remuneration for work of equal value without distinction of any kind, safe and healthy working conditions, and reasonable limitation of working hours plus paid holidays. The Chinese Constitution declares that citizens of the PRC have the right as well as the duty to work and that all citizens be treated equally.

Nevertheless, Tibetans have to compete with Chinese migrants who enjoy preferential treatment. The use of household registration system (Ch: hukou] and flexible work arrangements for Han Chinese professionals coming from China have restricted rural Tibetans from seeking and accessing fully the opportunities available in urban areas. Additionally, urban oriented growth relying on economic reform and opening up has led to growing income disparities between urban and rural as well as between Han immigrants and Tibetan residents.

The influx of Han immigrants to the Tibetan plateau has resulted in lower priority for Tibetan skills training and capacity building. Tibetans have been excluded from the most skilled and semi-skilled job opportunities that offer higher wages and the possibility to rise above the poverty line. Rather, they have been relegated to the least skilled and lowest paid work. The labour market issue raises the point access to and control over urban economic growth that discrimination in Tibet is to a large extent played out in the access to and control over the urban growth poles of the economy.

Tibetans are given lower wages than their Chinese counterparts and are sometimes subjected to humiliating treatments. Kunsang Tenphel, a 19-year-old farmer from Chamdo Prefecture reported to TCHRD,

At the age of ten, my father and I found a manual work at a building construction site. Each of us earned a paltry sum of 25 yuan a day for working from dawn to dusk. We were even forced to wash dirty clothes of the Chinese workers and were beaten up with bamboo stick if not washed properly. We argued with the building owner over wage differences in comparison with our Chinese counterpart for performing the same job where Chinese worker earns 60 yuan a day.

Education policy in Tibet is predominated by the use of Chinese language at both the official and commercial level. Many of the businesses and enterprises in Tibet are Chinese and state controlled, and thus implicit preference for Chinese labourers is often shown. Clearly, discrimination in language and education hampers full participation of Tibetans in the economy outside the traditional activities. These are in violation of principles of equity and non-discrimination in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to which China has committed through ratification.

A number of Tibetan women from rural areas working as prostitutes has increased considerably in “TAR”. The rise in prostitution is a direct result of unemployment and poverty as well as existing development projects that have widened income disparities between rural and urban areas. The ill effects of prostitution in terms of increasing HIV and other sexually transmitted disease are well known.

It is reported that in some areas of Tibet, the level of employment is only as high as 40%. Despite huge claims of having developed Tibet through Western Development Strategy and other development projects, the Tibetans have hardly enjoyed the fruits of development. Tibetans have neither the economic resources nor the education to compete for new jobs and positions that the WDS has created.

Healthcare System: Ineffective

The World Health Organisation (WHO)¹⁰⁶ has defined health as a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. Health is the basis for job productivity, the capacity to learn in school and the capability to grow intellectually, physically and emotionally. In economic terms, health and education are the two cornerstones of human capital. The right to a reasonable standard of health is articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

While China’s Constitution does not explicitly guarantee the right to health, it recognizes the “right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, including continuous improvement of living conditions,”¹⁰⁷ and the “right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.”¹⁰⁸ China’s amended Regional National Autonomy of 2001, states that organs of self-government of national autonomous areas “shall make independent decisions” on developing local medical and health services and on advancing modern and traditional medicine (Article 40]

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen sees health as an integral part of the development agenda. He says that the deprivation of health is bad even for the economy because people’s productivity depends on their level of nutrition and health. Poor health and disease are both a cause and a consequence of poverty.

China’s White Paper on Regional Ethnic Autonomy said that medical and healthcare conditions have improved remarkably with the increase in the number of health and medical institutions.¹⁰⁹ The Tenth Five Year Plan (2001-2005) also includes setting up of medical and public health networks at the county and township level, and forging a system that “combines preventive medicine with health insurance.” In 2002, Beijing announced its plan to provide basic health care to 900 million rural residents by 2010 as part of the global fulfillment of the health for all policy of the WHO. Yet behind this facade of doing something for Tibetans, grim health and human rights realities is a common theme in most of the refugee testimonies.

The provision of healthcare within Tibet is found to vary widely between regions. The system generally operates on several levels of prefecture, county, township and village Different regulations are found to be in force in each county, indicating a high degree of localized policies. Despite injections of funds and high claims, Tibetan refugees escaping to India testify that the bulk of funds allocated to Tibet’s health sector are channelised towards developing hard infrastructure. Recent escapees identify cost and quality of treatment, the distant locations of facilities, and racial discrimination as the key problems in healthcare system in Tibet.

Although much progress has been made in primary healthcare, it remains out of reach for the majority of Tibetans. Contrary to Chinese claims that healthcare “is free in farming and pastoral areas”, prohibitive fees continue to compromise the Tibetans’ health. This is augmented by discriminatory treatment, general lack of adequate facilities and lack of public health education among Tibetans. Healthcare facilities are concentrated in urban areas, and have not been fully extended to the more isolated rural areas where the majority of Tibetans reside.

Many of Tibet’s problems such as the shortage of appropriately skilled personnel, are similar to those in other poor rural areas of China. The poor state of health of Tibetans and Chinese households living below the poverty line is inextricably linked to an inadequate diet, lack of basic facilities and sanitation, resulting in malnutrition, stunting, rickets, anaemia, gastro-intestinal problems diarrhoea, parasites, chronic respiratory infection and Iodine Deficiency. A primary reason for this may be that the laws China has enacted relating to healthcare fail to specify measures relating to the implementation of the right to health.¹¹⁰

Within Tibet, diseases such as Tuberculosis (TB), Kashin-Beck disease, leprosy and hepatitis are alarmingly common. One source estimated that in some areas in Tibet, TB levels are as high as 20 percent and it remains endemic with rates high above those in China¹¹¹ Iodine deficiency disorders are prevalent, and Tibet has the world’s highest rates of Kashin-Beck disease- upto 80% in some regions.¹¹² Hepatitis B prevalence is as high as 15% in Lhasa.¹¹³ Although HIV/Aids has not made an official appearance in the “TAR”, this situation will probably change since there is a large mobile population from neighbouring areas. Completion of the Qinghai to Lhasa rail link could also affect the rates of HIV and other infectious diseases in the “TAR”.¹¹⁴

Other common ailments on the plateau include chest conditions, diarrheal diseases, stomach disorders, rickets, goiter, eye infections and complaints of the heart, lungs and liver. The prevalence of these treatable and preventable diseases indicates that China’s health care systems, or education campaigns do not effectively extend beyond the urban centres.¹¹⁵

The latest report on maternal mortality in Tibet documents the high maternal death rate is due to inadequate healthcare. “The standard of healthcare quality in Tibet is one step below the rest of China,” said Bonds and Rosenbloom [based in Austin, Texas, are the latest to join a cluster of health workers in Tibet] in an instant message interview from Lhasa, Tibet.¹¹⁶ The Health Bureau of the “TAR” says that on average 325 women in Tibet die for every 100,000 live births. The Tibet Poverty Alleviation Fund, Cambridge, Massachusett, puts the maternal mortality rate at 500 per 100,000 live births.¹¹⁷

Arlen Samen¹¹⁸, founder of H.E.A.R.T, said, “In mainland China, most women have one child. They are not living in the middle of nowhere without help and education. Hospitals are available; there are more doctors and facilities and they probably go to the doctor early.” All of which means that depending on which set of statistics are trusted, Tibetan women are six to ten times more likely to die in childbirth than Chinese women. Their infants are up to three times less likely to survive. “Because the great majority of births in Tibet occur at home to women who receive little or no prenatal care, none of us really have any idea about how many maternal or newborn deaths occur that are never registered,” said Dr. Micheal Varner, a professor of maternal-fetal medicine at the University of Utah who is also medical director of H.E.A.R.T.

The number of health workers in the “TAR” might seem impressive- almost 11,000 health workers and more than 3,000 barefoot doctors — people with 3-6 months’ basic health training.¹¹⁹ However, the hospitals lack proper infrastructure and equipment. In fact, one in five city hospitals has no facilities for simple surgery and there is only one CT scanner in all Tibet.¹²⁰ Where facilities do exist, hospitals may charge from 1000 yuan in rural areas to 3000 yuan at urban hospitals as a security deposit¹²¹- many months’ salary for Tibetans.

The challenge to the health and human rights of Tibetan people is exacerbated by the absence of reliable health data separate from the official sources and few NGOs in Tibet. Medicins Sans Frontieres, a health NGO in Tibet, withdrew from the region at the end of 2002, after deciding that their organisation could not improve Tibetan’s health while infrastructure was so inadequate.

According to reports by Tibet Daily on 7 June 2004, the first Aids case in “TAR” was identified in 1994. Since then eleven cases have been recorded.¹²²Aids affect mostly the poorest regions of the world and Tibet is an impoverished land. In Tibet, the rise in prostitution and influx of the Han immigrants in Tibet are causes for grave concern in spreading the Aids. The rural Tibetans are ignorant about the disease and many young Tibetan girls are lured into the sex trade in the urban areas for economic reasons. There is lack of Aids awareness educational programmes in addition to lack of HIV testing sites in Tibet. Yunnan Province is known to be the worst affected province in the whole of China followed by Sichuan Province. In both the provinces there is a large Tibetan population as the traditional Tibetan province of Kham has been incorporated in these two provinces. Tibetans outside the Tibet “TAR” are more likely to be affected due to geographical proximity to the two provinces.

WTO and Globalisation: Whose Benefit?

When China became a member of the World Trade Organisation [WTO] on 11 December 2001, it was promoted as a “win-win” and “all-win” event for China and the world.¹²³ Beijing authorities view the WTO accession primarily as a vehicle to further reform and to gain international respectability for China. WTO-driven legal reforms in China support an equitable distribution of benefits, involves underlying questions of political will, and international monitoring. Globalisation at heart is an ancient phenomenon. It is a process of trade and commerce, with the spread of cultural influences, and the dissemination of knowledge and understanding between nations and peoples. Whereas economic globalisation is commonly understood as a phenomenon where there is intensification of international trade and expansion of free trade in the world market. The role of international institutions like the WTO, IMF [International Monetary Fund], and the World Bank, have led to centralised global trade bureaucracy managing the world economy.¹²⁴

Several scholars and international human rights organisations have expressed concerns that China’s accession to the WTO with the ongoing process of globalisation could have negative implications on the Tibetan economy, livelihood and culture. In its White Paper on Poverty Reduction the PRC admits that labour and resource intensive industries, such as agriculture and herding, “may be adversely affected after China enters the WTO.” A senior economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is more precise: “There’s no doubt the peasants will have it worse under the WTO.”¹²⁵

In addition to legal reforms aimed at economic reformation, WTO accession will reinforce China’s long-standing emphasis on maintaining social stability while encouraging centralisation of political authority. In his 5 December 2001 speech, outlining political-legal work, Politburo Politics and Law Committee Chair Lu Gan underscored the Party’s emphasis on using the legal system to protect against worker unrest and social instability in the wake of WTO accession.¹²⁶

Various negative impacts of globalisation include abuse of workers’ rights, environmental degradation, privatisation of health and other social services, increased poverty, loss of autonomy, and others, but also their fundamental cultural and religious belief systems are under assault.¹²⁷ Globalisation has been described as a machine that “throws off enormous wealth and bounty while it also leaves behind great furrows of wreckage”.¹²⁸ Globalisation is said to enrich the rich and leave the poor poorer. In the case of Tibet, it is all the more worrisome because they do not have a say and part in policy-decisions affecting their lives.

There is a potential for abuse of general human rights protection when the WTO-driven legal reform is bent on achieving social stability and central government control. This could have worse implications for the marginalised and politically restive groups like the Tibetan community. On the one hand, the Tibetans owing to their marginalised status cannot access all the economic opportunities available and on the other hand, they are the targets for political control due to the political sensitivity attached to the Tibetan case.

China’s 2001 White Paper on Modernisation said the “commodities from other parts of the country and the world are flowing into Tibet in a continuous stream to enrich both the urban and rural markets and the lives of the local people.” After its entry into the WTO, Zeng Peiyan, minister in charge of the State Development Planning Commission, promised that China would, under multilateral and bilateral agreements, open its market wider, particularly in the western region. In addition, he said, China will also expand its experiments in business practices further to the west so as to attract more foreign capital.¹²⁹

The experience of other countries that enter the WTO, or who are dealing with the economic effects of globalisation, is that groups who are already excluded from mainstream national markets become even further marginalized.¹³⁰ In this context, the flow and flooding of commodities is unlikely to help the Tibetans, as they are already a marginalised community in their own land. Given the social inequalities that currently exist in Tibet, and the PRC’s discriminatory policy of refusing to allow Tibetans to participate in their own development, the WTO accession and its after-effects of cheap labour is likely to have a detrimental and impoverishing effect on Tibet.

WTO membership will have an even greater impact on Tibet’s primary producers. WTO rules dictate that the Chinese government can no longer protect local produce by imposing high tariffs on foreign imports. Tariffs on many agricultural imports into China will be slashed, allowing in cheaper foods from vast and hi tech foreign farms which can produce far cheaper products than small Tibetan farms. Without such protection, market prices for important Tibetan produce such as barley, wheat, rapeseed and meat are likely to plunge. Experts predict that nomads will also “have their markets adversely affected as they face increasing competition in their marketplaces.”

Of the current WTO Agreements, the Agreement on Agriculture [AOA] could have the most direct impacts on Tibet as more than three quarters of all Tibetans are engaged in the agricultural sector, mostly practising pastoralism.¹³¹ AOA requires governments to reduce trade distortions, limit tariffs and subsidies and allow minimum market access to all countries involved in the WTO. Another important WTO agreement with major implications for Tibet is the Trade Related Intellectual Property [TRIP].¹³² Tibet has many different plants and herbs that are endemic to Tibet. With China’s accession to WTO, there is a possibility that companies might claim patents for these plants and herbs.

China’s development method in Tibet also raises the issue of corporate social responsibility involving ethnic divisions between Tibetans and Chinese. The small-scale local projects would empower and enable the local Tibetans more than heavy infrastructure and industry.

Clearly, the companies who choose to invest in Tibet have a responsibility to help China catch up with the world’s best practices and to ensure that marginalized communities such as Tibetans are empowered and that their aspirations articulated properly. Thus, without taking the larger picture into consideration, the international involvement will only help China’s long-term goal of assimilation, negatively impacting Tibetan lifestyles, livelihoods, culture and religion.

For instance, according to information received by TCHRD, Carlsberg has signed a multi-million dollar deal with a Chinese company to make beer in Tibet. China Securities Journal reported that the new company, Tibet Lhasa Brewery, is a 50-50 partnership between Carlsberg International and Tibet Galaxy Science Technology Development. Beer is by far the popular alcoholic drink across Tibet. Overall consumption has risen dramatically in recent years with a 40 percent jump to 16.5 litres per head between 1997 and 2002. Foreign beer makers have begun aggressively pursuing the Tibetan market as barriers to trade the region have fallen.¹³³ The large-scale production of beer will make it readily available, which could lead to a host of far reaching social ills and ill health for the Tibetans.

Sadly, the indigenous population is being economically marginalized while Chinese companies and workers are snapping up contracts and jobs – often because Chinese workers are more educated and skilled. Mure Dickie, the Beijing correspondent for The Financial Times, in a lengthy article on Tibet, said that despite government assurances, not a single Tibetan worker could be found at a major job site near Lhasa. [Financial Times, August 2, 2004]¹³⁴

Conclusion

China’s policies towards the Tibetan people reveal violations of Tibetans’ civil and political rights as well as its economic, social and cultural rights. Presently in Tibet, the social cost of China’s economic policies are currently playing themselves out as the violation of the right to subsistence and development of the Tibetan people. The authoritarian governance, mismanagement and top-down development policies in Tibet have failed to deliver development to the Tibetan people and raise their living standards.

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, whose livelihoods depends on subsistence agriculture and nomadic livestock production.¹³⁵ The development activities in the “TAR” should give greater priority to Tibetan capacity building, empowerment and participation.

In the case of the Tibetan Plateau, two issues are particularly significant, the first being an appreciation for and an understanding of traditional relations between nature and economy. Secondly, China must understand the importance of achieving sustainable uses of land and natural resources, to ensure ecologically sustainable development. Unfortunately, China has neglected and undervalued the importance of traditional modes of exchange and production. At present, the current development methods based on disseminating the modern scientific knowledge to inform and uplift the rural masses, has not yet lifted the Tibetans out of poverty and food insecurity. Knowledge flows in one direction only – downwards – from those who are strong, educated and “enlightened” towards those who are weak, ignorant and in darkness.¹³⁶ Economics like knowledge should not circulate only at the top levels, but should flow in one direction.

The right to development is a “rights based approach based on empowerment and participation (of the beneficiaries) in the decision making and execution” process. China’s exploitation of Tibet’s natural resources and so-called development of Tibetans through various projects without Tibetan participation and economic benefit is inconsistent with respect for the human right to development. Only when the people of Tibet enjoy genuine self-determination, can they truly enjoy the right to development.