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Chinese development trends in Tibet
By Khedup Waiser*
Introduction
FOR over 2000 years Tibet has been an independent country, with its own unique development of culture, religion, economy and political system. The livelihood of Tibetans was largely sustained through cultivation, animal husbandry and trade, all taking place within the harmonious relationship that existed between people, animals and the environment. Tibetans today, continue to show an abiding respect for and co-existence with, all other living things, which permeates every aspect of this society.The country's natural isolation and cultural tradition which shows such respect for the environment, made Tibet until recent times, one of the world's richest repositories of wildlife species.
In the past, "development" in a modern sense was thought to be the cause of immense disturbance to the ecology as a whole, and because of this very slow progress was made in the fields of material and technological developments in Tibet.
This situation was drastically changed after the occupation of Tibet by China in 1949. The Chinese government has taken serious detrimental steps, in the name of development, which have changed the chemistry of Tibet entirely. These steps are described below.
Political power and economic interest
During the period from 1959 to the 1970s, Chinese propaganda claimed Tibet, was an integral part of China'. In an attempt to prove this point, all sorts of measure were implemented. The Tibetan culture, system of government, society, religion and economy were all abused, with the Tibetan way of life being criticised as barbarous'. Under Chinese rule, Tibet's development' was to support the growing Chinese population in Tibet and provide raw materials and products for China's industries.
The craving for political power and deep economic interest are seen as the two main reasons which prompted China to invade Tibet. While chairing a meeting in Beijing on 16 April 1997, on economic growth in Tibet, Politburo member Li Ruihan made a statement which reflects China's motive behind the economic opening up of Tibet. "Expanding Tibet's economy is not merely an economic issue, but a major political issue, that has a vital bearing on Tibet's social stability and progress. This work not only helps Tibet, but is also related directly to the struggle against the Dalai Lama's splittist attempts."
Principle 23 of the Rio Declaration, the final document of the Earth Summit', Stipulates that, "The environment and natural resources of people under oppression, domination and occupation shall be protected." China, however, is hell bent on exploiting the natural resources of Tibet, trampling all international rules and norms. In the process, the critical life support system and environmental quality of the Tibetan Plateau is being drastically affected.
The determination of China to completely remake Tibet, by acts of socialist revolutionary will, paid little heed to environmental consequences. There were decades in which revolutionary slogans included, Win war between man and grass' and all that was old was swept aside, including the entire rich Tibetan knowledge of ecosystem sustainability. As a result, the drain on Tibet's economy is alarming and enormous. A short analysis is produced for the following pertinent sections.
Deforestation
An authoritative statement of principles on the management of forests, adopted at the Rio Conference on 13-14 June 1992, stresses that forest resources and forest lands should be sustainably managed to meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual human needs of present and future generations'.
Tibet sustained 25.2 million hectares of forests in 1959. By 1985 this had declined to 13.57 million hectares, a 46 percent destruction. In some areas, upto 80 % of the forests have been destroyed. By China's own estimates, it removed over US $ 54 billion worth of timber from Tibet between 1959-1985 alone.
Over the 36 years between 1949 and 1995 the profitability of deforesting Tibet averages 833 million yuan (US $104 million) a year,The total subsidy has been about 19,000 million yuan (US $ 2,375 million) over the same period, averaging 528 million yuan a year. According to these figures, the Chinese state has apparently profited an average of at least 305 million yuan (US $ 38 million) a year, from one industry (Wang & Bai,1991).
In most areas where forests were cut, there is no sign of replanting. Forests were clearfelled, leaving no seed trees. Clearfelling altered the micro-climate, increasing water runoff and reducing availability of rain to feed regrowth. The effects are irreversible.
China's investment on reforestation is minimal. Tibet's cold climate requires very lengthy rotations, a process which government policy fails to acknowledge, and with the population increasing dramatically due to Chinese settlement, there is extra pressure.
On the remaining forest resource. A Chinese scientist at the Sichuan Forestry Research Institute states that, "Forest regeneration after cutting is difficult (in Eastern Tibet) owing to high relief, bad weather and environmental changes associated with cutting"(BBC TV, 1996.)
The rate of destruction, by various estimates, is three to four times more than the forest can regrow - a practice which results in a renewable resource becoming non-renewable. Vaclav Smil terms this extraction the "planned destruction" of the portion of Tibet annexed to the Chinese province Sichuan.
The growing degradation and desertification of the Tibetan Plateau is continuing. The Tibetan Plateau influences atmospheric circulation and jet stream patterns over Asia and according to scientists, the is a factor in the destabilisation of weather patterns over the northern hemisphere.
Biodiversity
According to a Chinese researcher, Li Bosheng (1995), there are 81 endangered species on the Tibetan Plateau, of which there are 39 mammals, 37 birds, four amphibians and one reptile.
Due to extreme conditions of altitude and temperature variation, Tibet has a high rate of endemism in the area of both flora and fauna. Nearly a quarter of Tibet's known plant species are endemic. These plants are of high cultural and economic value.
Biodiversity in Tibet has suffered dramatically since the Chinese government occupation of Tibet. Its wildlife and natural resources have been heavily exploited by poaching and destruction of natural habitats.
If the unrestricted hunting of wildlife by Chinese officials and by commercial hunting "tours" organised for wealthy foreign clients and Chinese illicit trade in wildlife products, were to be continued at the same rate, the present scenario is likely to result in the irrevocable loss of many Tibetan species.
Neglect of traditional source of living
One of the major causes of unprecedented economic problems in Tibet was the undermining and neglect of traditional sources of living, such as handicrafts and the establishment of certain industries, which have a limited need of raw materials.
The livelihood of most Tibetans who live in small rural communities, has been neglected, receiving little Chinese investment. The benefits from "development" in Tibet went largely to mainland China, with only a small share going to the people of Tibet.
Chinese statistics on Tibetan rural employment, electricity production, farm mechanization and production of fodder, all show Tibetan economy chronically starved of development capital, unable to increase productivity and falling further and further behind rural China's level of development. On all these measures, TAR' and Amdo (Ch: Qinghai) lag far behind the Chinese average. (China Agriculture Yearbook, 1995).
What receives very little publicity in the international media is the outflow of capital from Tibet. Profitable returns to China is generated by the monopoly of state enterprises reliant on Tibetan raw materials, obtained at prices below market rates. Because of the power of the state to set prices, sometimes these prices are even below production rates.
Chinese agricultural and grassland policy
The traditional Tibetan agricultural system which operated under the organic principles of crop rotation and cultivation of mixed crops is sustainable and appropriate to a fragile mountain environment. Before Chinese occupation the total area under cropland was 2%. However after the occupation of Tibet, new methods of farming were introduced and all kinds of modern farm tools were used. Attempts to change the nomads to sedentary farmers resulted in failure, because the land was unable to adapt in spite of all modern chemical stimuli. Efforts to coax Tibetans away from their staple crop of barley to winter wheat also failed. The wheat species was unfit for Tibet's soil, as it depleted the soils essential nutrients at a quicker rate than did the native barley - resulting in rapidly diminishing outputs after some initially huge harvests.
The mechanical implementation of policies, the forced planting of wheat, the setting of unreasonably high targets for production and the low prices at which the state purchases these products are some of the major drawbacks in the Chinese agricultural policy, which has brought Tibetan farmers virtually to the point of starvation.
In his 70,000 Character Petition submitted to Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, the late Panchen Lama said, "Each person in the broad masses of the working people (Tibetans) only had about five kilos of grain per month, but some places did not even have this amount. The grain was not enough to feed even those with the lowest requirements. To dispel the daily hunger, (Chinese officials) gathered tree bark, leaves, grassroots and grass seeds, which really were not edible. After processing this, they mixed it with bit of food stuffs, made it into a thin gruel like pig food and gave it to people to eat, and even this was limited in amount and could not fill their stomachs."
He further added, "Anguish of such severe hunger had never been experienced in Tibetan history and was such that people could not imagine it even in their dreams. The masses could not resist this kind of cruel torment, and their condition declined daily. As a result in some places, colds and other such minor infectious diseases caused a percentage of people to die easily. In some places, many people directly starved to death because the food ran out; in some places, there was a even a phenomenon of whole families dying out."
Seventy percent of Tibet's total landmass is grassland. It forms the backbone of the country's animal husbandry dominated agrarian economy. Tibet's nomads have traditionally adapted themselves well to the needs of their fragile grasslands.
Today, the stocking rates on the Tibetan grasslands are being pushed to the limit as a result of a 36 % increase in China's herd (ICJ,1997). Overgrazing is leading to desertification. Grassland degradation is primarily related to extensive areas being enclosed for Chinese military purposes.
Minerals & Minings
Tibet has a significant share of the world's reserves of uranium, lithium, chromite, copper, borax, and iron. Tibet has proven deposits of 126 minerals. Experts believe that the total known mineral resource in Tibet is worth 650.4 billion yuan (US $ 81.3 billion) and that mineral production value was at 130 million yuan (US $ 16 million) or one-third of Tibet's industrial output (China's Tibet, 1995).
Tibet is rich in mineral resources, with proven copper reserves of 8.7 million tons and has China's largest prophyry copper belt. Proven chromite reserves amount to 5 million tons, while proven boron reserves amount to over 30 million tons'(Xinhua, 1997). The Offices for Mineral Extraction (Chi: Thi-tro-Dui) and gold mining camps are to be found in almost every region.
Norbusa chromite mine, located along the river Yarlung Tsangpo, has a potential value of about 3-4 billion yuan (US$ 360- 480 million), according to the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources. The mine has in the last five years produced 190,000 tons of chromite and paid more than 26 million yuan (US$ 3.25 million) in tax to the government (China's Tibet, # 2, 1996). The Chromite mine in Lhokha district has generated annual revenues of 12 million yuan (US$ 1.5 million).
The Tsaidam Basin (Ch.: Qaidam Basin) alone has, until 1997, produced 14 million tons of crude oil and more than seven million tons of refined oil . Production is now at 1.5 million tons of oil and gas annually and is scheduled to double by 2001, with projections showing 10 million tons a year by 2005. (China Daily, 28 May, 1997). China's valuation of the potential economic returns of the basin, once exploitation is fully implemented, is 15,000 billion yuan (US $ 1,875 billion) (China Daily, 3 June, 1997 ).
Decades of mining, resource extraction, and industrialization of Tibet have had a marked effect on the environment, resulting in soil erosion, landslides, water pollution and water shortage. Hundreds of thousands of litres of untreated polluted water have been pouring into the rivers like Drichu (Yangtse) each day, while dozens of ferro-silicon, iron, steel, aluminium and silicon carbide plants are releasing their daily dosage of thick poisonous smoke. This is all causing a hazardous situation for human health and life.
With environmental safeguards virtually non-existent in Tibet's mines, the fragile terrain has suffered slope destabilisation and land degradation, which has an extremely negative impact for the long term environmental preservation of the region.
Building of roads and railways
The initial priority of the Chinese government's development plans in Tibet was the building of roads, which managed to include both the external borders and the principal Tibetan towns. It has also helped the Chinese to carry out their transportation services, enabling them to suppress the masses of Tibet and at the same time drain large quantities of resources out of Tibet into mainland China. In the process thousands of Tibetans were forced to work as labourers.
From the beginning it was clear to Chinese planners that only a railroad could bring Tibet firmly into the industrial age'. The railroads in Tibet serve to extract Tibetan oil, gas and other minerals for Chinese industries. Extension of the railroad to the more productive and populated centers of Tibet was proposed by the Chinese planners in October 1997. The cost was put at 20,000 million yuan (US $ 2,500 million), a sum greater than the cumulative Chinese outlays on Tibet from 1950 to 1993 (Wang & Bai,1991).
Development without participation
The 1986 UN Declaration on the Right to Development stipulates "the right and duty" of states "to formulate appropriate national development polices that aim at the constant improvement of well being of the entire population and all individuals, on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in the fair distribution of the benefit resulting therefrom." This obliges states to "encourage popular participation in all spheres as an important factor in development".
The pattern of development of Tibet is top-down', Tibetans being subjected to policies and plans made in a far away place, like Beijing, by Chinese officials who have no well-found understanding of ground realities. Such development strategies usually fail to succeed as these do not conform to the needs and aspirations of Tibetans.
Poverty
Poverty has had a devastating effect on the general masses of Tibet, with China's strategy for alleviating poverty concentrating on economic growth in cities, rather than programs specifically targeting the poor Tibetans who live in the rural areas.
According to (Xinhua, 1994) using international standards, the number of poor people in TAR' rose from China's figure of 20.7% of the TAR' populationto over 70 % (Xinhua,1994). The consumption spending statistics of this group is under 2600 yuan a year or $ 1 a day at 1994 exchange rates (China Agriculture Yearbook, 1995).
Quite remarkably, the late China's Communist Party Secretary, Hu Yaobang while commenting on the deplorable life of Tibetans said, "Our present situation is no less than wonderful because the Tibetan people's lives have not been much improved. There are improvements in some parts, but in general, Tibetans still live in poverty. In some areas the living standards have even gone down".
Population crisis
Chinese population growth in Tibet is the most important factor leading to various environmental problems. Since 1950 there has been a large influx of Chinese into Tibet. This has resulted from several factors; government policy and programs, particularly movement of cadres and professionals to the TAR' and other Tibetan regions; government encouragement of voluntary migration; work units bringing ordinary labourers to Tibet; and the voluntary migration of Chinese into the newly opened markets of Tibet.
Today, inside Tibet, 6 million Tibetans are outnumbered by 7.5 million Chinese. The ratio between Chinese and Tibetan is roughly 3:1. In a recent interview conducted by Mr. Ngawang Chomphel of the Voice Of America (VOA) with a new arrival from Tibet on 15 May 1998, the interviewee said "In Chamdo region of Tibet, the total number of shops, restaurants and bars is 1592. Of this number 1433 (90%) belong to Chinese and only 159 (10%) to Tibetans. Lhasa, the most holy city of Tibet, now has more than 1806 Chinese run brothels". In the Tibetan province of Amdo (Ch: Qinghai), to quote China's own statistics, only 20 % of the population are Tibetans and rest are Chinese.
Conclusion
The International Commission of Jurists, in their 1997 report on Tibet, finds that the exploitation of Tibetan resources for Chinese development and the settlement of a considerable number of Chinese in new urban centres in Tibet, impact negatively on Tibetan communities.
The 43 Chinese development projects in Central Tibet which began in 1984 have been completed and a further 62 projects have been announced. Again China's focus is on large projects, such as building dams and state industrial growth. There has been little funding allocated for education, primary health care, and poverty alleviation, all of which Tibetans desperately need because Beijing consider these projects as small, warranting no attention.
The Chinese method of developing Tibet creates more problems for Tibetans and their environment, because the real perpetrator of environmental damage is the government itself. Tibet's environmental problems cannot be solved by making superficial changes like designating parts of Tibet as nature reserves or enacting ineffective laws for the people on paper.
Development assistance to Tibet should benefit the Tibetan people. To this end, it should ensure the participation of Tibetans at all stages of project design and implementation; respect Tibetan choices regarding the environment and development and not encourage the movement of Chinese into Tibetan territory.
There should be constructive engagement and political will on the part of the Chinese leadership to restore rights over the environment to Tibetans and they should be allowed to follow their traditional natural resource conservation practices. This will ensure the conservation of the diverse natural environment of Tibet for both present and future generations.
Literature cited
BBC TV, 13 May, 1996.
Cutting Down Tibet:Eyewitness Footage of Logging in Tibet.
Tibet Image Bank,Duisburg, London.
China Agriculture Yearbook, 1995.
China Daily, 28 May, 1997. Oil and gas exploration to speed up in West.
China Daily, 3 June, 1997. Qinghai taps potential of Qaidam Basin.
"China's Tibet" no. 20, 1996. Norbusa Chromite Mine in Operation.
ICJ (International Commission of Jurists), December 1997. Tibet: Human Rights and the Rule of Law, Geneva, Switzerland.
Lama, Panchen, 1997. A Poisoned Arrow: The Secret Report of Panchen Lama, published by T.I.N. London.
Li, Bosheng, 1995. Biodiversity of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and Its Conservation, ICIMOD, Discussion Paper Series no. MNR, 95/3. Kathmandu, Nepal.
Smil, Vaclav , 1984. The Bad Earth -Environmental Degradation in China, London
Tibetan Review July 1997. China Reports Record Mineral Finds in Tibet.
Tibet Autonomous Region Population Census Office, Tibet Autonomous Region Fourth Population Census Data, Beijing, China Statistics Publishing House, 1990.
UN Declaration, 4 Dec. 1986, Arts. 2(3), 8(2), Declaration on the Rights to Development, General Assembly Resolution, 41/128.
UN Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 June 1992., UN Doc. A/CONF.151/5,3.
Wang Xiaoziang & Bai Nanfeng 1991. The Poverty of Plenty, tr. Angela Knob, London, Mcmillan.
Winkler, Daniel, 1995. The Forest of Eastern Tibet: Human Impact and Deforestation: Past and Present, paper presented to Seventh Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Austria.
World Wildlife Fund for Nature, 1995.A Review of Wildlife and Biodiversity Conservation Needs in Tibet ( unpublished internal report ).
*Khedup Waiser is the Project Officer of EDD. He has done his BA(English) from Delhi University. Post graduate diploma in journalism from Bombay University.
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Last updated: 9-Oct-1998
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