Expansion of Tibet railway and resettlement of nomads designed to destroy Tibetan identity

Expansion of Tibet railway and resettlement of Nomads designed to destroy Tibetan identity

Chinese state media last week announced the addition of a further six railway lines to the Qinghai-Tibet railway (1) and the forced resettlement of a community of more than 73,700 nomadic Tibetans from their ancestral homeland in Kanlho (Ch: Gannan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture into permanent brick-houses over a five-year period (2).

The Chinese authorities have long argued that both the Qinghai-Tibet railway and the resettlement of nomadic Tibetan communities are development projects designed to benefit Tibetans. Wang Yongping, spokesperson for the Ministry of Railways, attempted to promote this argument when he said on August 16 that the additional railway lines would boost the Tibetan economy.

The Xinhua report argued that resettlement of Tibetan nomads in Kanlho was necessary because “a growing population and excessive grazing [had] led to the desertification of large areas of pasture in the past 30 years and a 25 percent reduction of the river water.”

In reality both projects fall under the Chinese government’s far broader “Western Development Strategy” (WDS), announced in 1999. Whatever the stated goals of the WDS may be, in reality the strategy is designed to:

• provide employment incentives for millions of Han Chinese to relocate to Tibet;

• facilitate the rapid extraction of Tibet’s vast natural resources, such as gold, copper and gas, out of Tibet for use in China’s booming eastern-seaboard industries; to ease the rapid deployment of military personnel into Tibet, and

• bolster tourism as a key “pillar” industry for Tibet.

Essentially, the WDS represents politically motivated development, designed to cement China’s political control over Tibet whilst easing China’s ability to plunder Tibet’s vast natural mineral wealth. As Andrew Fischer of the London School of Economics details in his 2007 report, “Perversities of Extreme Dependence and Unequal Growth in the TAR”(3), the WDS has provided few economic advantages to the Tibetan people.

Since the WDS was launched in 1999, a key feature has been the confiscation of agricultural and pastoral lands to make way for mining, infrastructure projects such as heavy road and dam construction and urban development. China’s oft-stated defence of resettlement of nomads is that it demonstrates a commitment to environmental protection in previously over-populated areas. This is highly questionable given the destructive and polluting nature of the infrastructure and mining projects that often spring up in the very areas from which nomads have been re-settled.

Few nomadic communities survive across the globe. The unique traditional lifestyle and livelihoods of Tibetan nomads have always been based on sustainably living in harmony with their environment. Tibetan nomads are at a loss when they are resettled in newly-built towns and villages designed to house large sectors of the rural work force who are moved into towns to become workers in the expanding urban economy. Deprived of their traditional livelihood and forced to work in urban economies for which they have no skills, nomads are facing an increasingly bleak and marginalised future. The Chinese government’s policy to resettle nomads from their traditional employment is also one strand of a broader agenda to weaken Tibetan cultural identity and distinctiveness so as to further Han domination of the region.

Marginalisation is what Tibetans fear most from the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet railway in 2006. A common theme running through interviews with Tibetan refugees their fear that the railway will encourage vastly increased numbers of Han Chinese to come and settle in Tibet. Such migration has already transformed Lhasa into a Han majority, with Tibetans unable to benefit from the booming economy in which Chinese language skills are essential (4) in the key industries such as tourism, and which has prompted the Dalai Lama to talk of China’s “demographic aggression”.

Stephanie Brigden, Director of Free Tibet Campaign, said:

“It is indefensible to see the Chinese government claim that their railway expansion and resettlement of nomads offer ‘development’ for Tibet. These are politically motivated projects designed to cement Chinese control over Tibet and its people. The effects of these policies may not be as obviously repressive as the arbitrary detention and shootings we have recently reported, but ultimately they represent a potentially catastrophic assault on the very survival of Tibetan culture and identity. These destructive policies are precisely the sort of abuses that Gordon Brown must condemn publicly when he attends the Olympics Closing Ceremony later this week.”

Ends

For more information, contact Matt Whitticase, Free Tibet Campaign, in Bangkok on +66 844 549 764 or Stephanie Brigden in London on +44 (0)20 7324 4605 or +44 (0)7530 528 264.

Notes to editors:

(1) “Qinghai-Tibet railway to get six new lines” http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/17/content_9421543.htm

(2) “Nomadic Tibetans in NW China's Gansu to settle into permanent homes” http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/15/content_9343243.htm

(3) “Perversities of Extreme Dependence and Unequal Growth in the TAR” by Andrew Fischer, Tibet Watch, August 2007. http://www.tibetwatch.org/?q=system/files/Tibetwatch+Special+Report+1.pdf

(4) Free Tibet Campaign reported earlier this year on the Chinese government’s policy to weaken Tibetan linguistic and cultural identity. See our report “Forked Tongue”: http://www.freetibet.org/newsmedia/report-reveals-determined-chinese-assault-tibetan-language