Beijing's "people first" development initiative for the tibet autonomous region's rural sector-a case study from the shigatse area

China Journal

Volumn , Issue 63, 2010, Pages 57-75

  Goldstein, Melvyn C ^a   Childs, Geoff ^a   Wangdui, Puchung ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AUTONOMY; COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT; RURAL DEVELOPMENT; RURAL POPULATION;

BEIJING [CHINA]; CHINA; XIZANG;

EID: 77249153675     PISSN: 13249347     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/tcj.63.20749194     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. "Tibet" in this paper refers to the Tibet Autonomous Region, which corresponds roughly to the territory ruled by the Dalai Lama at the time that it was incorporated into the PRC in 1951.
2. For a discussion of the 1987-90 riots and the Chinese responses, see M. C. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet and the Dalai Lama (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
3. Http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/20050301/IV.htm, "Government White Paper, Part 4: The Central Government's Support and Assistance for Ethnic Autonomous Areas", accessed October 2008, and "Scientific Outlook on Development", in China Daily (12 October 2007), Http://www. chinadaily.com.cn/language-tips/2007-10/12/conten-6170884.htm, accessed 26 March 2009.
4. The explicit goals of the campaign were to "eliminate regional disparities gradually, consolidate the unity of ethnic groups, ensure border safety and social stability, and promote social progress".
5. See Shishi xibu da kaifa zongti guihua he zhengce cuoshi (The Overall Plan of Western Region Development and Related Policy Measures) (Beijing: Zhongguo Jihua Chubanshe, 2002), cited in Heike Holbig, "The Emergence of the Campaign to Open Up the West: Ideological Formation, Central Decision-making and the Role of the Provinces", The China Quarterly, No. 178 (2004), p. 349.
6. Andrew M. Fischer, State Growth and Social Exclusion in Tibet: Challenges of Recent Economic Growth (Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2005).
7. DIIR (Department of Information and International Relations), Tibet: A Human Development and Environmental Report (Dharamsala: Central Tibetan Administration, 2007).
8. Ben Hillman, "Rethinking China's Tibet Policy", The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, accessed online at http://japanfocus.org/ -Ben-Hillman/2773, 10 September 2009.
9. "Rural Construction II", China Tibet Information Center, 21 May 2007 (http://eng.tibet.cn/culture/, accessed 15 April 2009).
10. This was first articulated by Hu Jintao in 2003 as part of what he called the "scientific outlook on development". It called for improvement of social quality along with growth of GDP in a sustainable and economically sound fashion for all of rural China ("China's 'Two Sessions' to Use 'Scientific Outlook on Development' to Tackle Problems", www.chinaview.cn, 27 February 2008 [http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/27/conten-7679089.htm] and "Scientific Outlook on Development", in China Daily (12 October 2007), http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/language-tips/2007-10/12/conten-6170884. htm), last accessed 11 May 2008.
11. Xinhua News Agency, 26 August 2005.
12. Http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-06/20/conten-6267366.htm, "Chinese Central Government Increases Investment in Tibet", accessed September 2008.
13. Http://english.gov. cn/2008-01/22/conten-865626.htm, "Tibetan Government Lists Better Lives of Farmers, Herdsmen as Top Priority", accessed September 2008.
14. China View, 9 March 2009, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009- 03/09/content-10977938.htm, accessed 6 April 2009.
15. Tibet Facts and Figures 2008, www.en. showchina.org./features/08/ 06/200903/t277316.htm (last accessed 12 August 2009). In this paper we use a conversion rate of 7.5 yuan per US$1, which is approximately the average rate from 2005 to 2008.
16. In 2007 the population of Tibet was 2.84 million, 92 per cent of which was Tibetan, of whom 82 per cent lived in rural areas in households with an average size of 5.3 residents. Accordingly, in 2007 there were about 2.14 million rural Tibetans living in roughly 400, 000 households.
17. Http://www.china-un.org/eng/gyzg/xizang/t420200.htm, "China's Central Government Helps Tibet Develop Economy and Society", accessed September 2008. Pu Qiong, the deputy Party secretary of Tibet, reported recently that 8 billion yuan will be invested in 2009 and 2010, the last two years of the 11th Five-Year Plan, so that by 2010 the safe drinking water problem will be solved and 200, 000 households will have bio-gas units for cooking. At the same time, village-to-village telephone communication will be completed (http://www.sina.com.cn 2009 China Government Internet).
18. HRW (Human Rights Watch) 2006, "Tibet: China Must End Rural Reconstruction Campaign", http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/12/20/ china14903.htm, accessed 12 June 2008.
19. This is an NSF-sponsored research project (# 0527500) that is being conducted in collaboration with the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences in Lhasa.
20. Melvyn C. Goldstein, Ben Jiao (Benjor), Cynthia M. Beall and Phuntsog Tsering, "Fertility and Family Planning in Rural Tibet", The China Journal, No. 47 (2002), pp. 19-39;
21. Melvyn C. Goldstein, Ben Jiao (Benjor), Cynthia M. Beall, and Phuntsog Tsering, "Development and Change in Rural Tibet: Problems and Adaptations", Asian Survey, Vol. 43, No. 5 (2003), pp. 758-79;
22. Melvyn Goldstein, Geoff Childs and Buijung Wangdui, "'Going for Income' in Village Tibet: A Longitudinal Analysis of Change and Adaptation, 1997-2007", Asian Survey, Vol. 48, No. 3 (May/June 2008), pp. 514-34.
23. New houses are also built in new "poverty-alleviation villages", which are comprised of impoverished households who have been relocated from other villages. One of these, located near our study area, was built by the government roughly a decade ago, and consists of two long rows of concrete houses built in a uniform style beside a road. While we did not study this village, we learned that four households from our poorer study village, Sogang, had moved there around 2001. They were given new houses and furniture and larger irrigated fields (four mu per person), at no cost. The government's logic for these villages is that concentrating very poor households in a new village near a road would make it easier to provide oversight, services and technical help to raise the living standard of these chronically dependent households. However, because moving from one's natal village to a new village is not an easy decision, even with the promise of economic improvement, the government allowed people to retain their house and fields in the original village for a year so that they would be able to return if they wished. In the case of, only two daughters from one family returned. They were given two people's shares from the family's original land. Such poverty-alleviation villages will not be discussed in this paper.
24. See Melvyn Goldstein, Geoff Childs and Buijung Wangdui, "'Going for Income' in Village Tibet", for a discussion of the phenomenon of "going for income".
25. Anonymous, interview. It should be noted that, although we found no coercion with respect to CHP in our area, we cannot discount the possibility that some officials in other areas could have tried to coerce villagers.
26. Françoise Robin, "The 'Socialist New Villages' in the Tibetan Autonomous Region: Reshaping the Rural Landscape and Controlling the Inhabitants", China Perspectives, No. 3 (2009), p. 58. It should be noted that a partial cause of such divergent accounts stems from the Chinese government's policy of limiting academic fieldwork in rural Tibet, which forces many scholars to assess the situation in Tibet based on the interpretation of official Chinese press reports and, in some cases, impressionistic observations from brief trips and anecdotal reports that are difficult to verify. It is hoped that in the future the Chinese government will reverse this policy, so that more in-depth fieldwork will be possible.
27. David Blumenthal and William Hsiao, "Privatization and Its Discontents: the Evolving Chinese Health Care System", New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 353, No. 11 (2005), pp. 1165-70.
28. Although the basic system is the same and the percentages have increased throughout Tibet, the precise percentage increase varies slightly across counties.
29. Zhou Wei and Sun Yong (eds), Zhongguo Xizang nongcun anju gongcheng baogao 2006 (The Rural Comfortable Housing Project Report 2006) (Beijing: China Tibetan Study Publishing House, March 2008), pp. 5-6.
30. Www.gov. cn, "Tibet Innovates to Eradicate Poverty", 16 December 2006, accessed October 2008.
31. A mu is a unit of land measurement used in China equivalent to 0.067 hectares.
32. A similar subsidy has been proposed for nomads, but has not yet been approved.
33. "Net income" refers to the income that individuals actually turned over to their households, so does not include the amount of wages they spent on food, housing and so on, nor does it include agricultural production and sales.
34. Melvyn Goldstein, Geoff Childs and Buijung Wangdui, "'Going for Income' in Village Tibet".