Publications

---

Racial Discrimination in Tibet (2000)

Discrimination in Employment

Introduction

Article 5 (e) (i) of the ICERD states that everyone, without discrimination, should enjoy the right to "work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work, to protection against unemployment, to equal pay for equal work and favourable remuneration."

The Labour Act of The People's Republic of China (1994) also states that:

"Labourers shall not be discriminated against in employment, regardless of their ethnic community, race, sex or religious belief."

Despite these provisions, a number of official studies have concluded that Tibetans continue to suffer systematic discrimination in the field of employment, primarily as a result of the continuing uncontrolled influx of Chinese migrants seeking work in Tibet.

The policy of "developing" and "opening up" Tibet introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1987 carried with it the implication that economic success was the sole objective of the CCP, regardless of who was doing the developing or who were the ultimate beneficiaries. It also put into practice the broad discriminative mentality that communist propaganda had cultivated in the Chinese people, by asserting that settlers would require "special allowances" and "preferential treatment" in this "backward" region. Chinese economists proclaimed in 1991 that "personnel" brought in from developed regions cannot be expected to live on the local fare of tsampa (roasted barley flour) and raw meat. They need good housing, hospitals, cinemas and schools for their children."

One year later the "TAR" government promulgated a set of Provisional Regulations on the Encouragement of Foreign Investment in Tibet, Article 17 of which specified that three to five family members of Chinese personnel in Tibet would receive automatic employment opportunities or "[a]rranged to work in the enterprises". Gyaltsen Norbu, chairman of the "TAR" government, also stated that "[w]e must open our door wide" and formulate preferential policies to attract qualified personnel." These policies finally became official in 1994 with the advent of the Third Tibet Work Forum, which announced 62 construction projects in the "TAR", many of which would be undertaken by contractors using imported workers or Chinese already living in Tibet.

In 1996, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination cited as one of its Principal Subjects of Concern in China "reports concerning incentives granted to members of Han nationality to settle in autonomous areas." Chinese settlers all over the "TAR" now enjoy a number of beneficial conditions unavailable to Tibetans, such as higher salaries, selective tax exemption, improved pension opportunities and favourable investment. Introducing development via this "implantation" technique is hardly advantageous to the Tibetan population, who are subsequently marginalised in the employment sector at the expense of the Chinese. Yet the current chairman of the "TAR" People's Government, Legchog, continues to insist, as recently as 1999, that Tibet welcomes "[e]ver more economic migrants from outside the region setting up businesses in the "TAR".