China's many Tibets: Diqing as a model for ‘development with Tibetan characteristics?’

Abstract

Using Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture as a case study, this article argues that local governance and local policies have had a major impact on local Tibetan economies and societies in China. It argues that a combination of liberal social policies and smart economic policies have helped Diqing to achieve both growth and stability in recent years. While each Tibetan region in China represents a unique blend of social, cultural, economic, geographic and historical circumstances, the author argues that Diqing's experience nevertheless yields important lessons for other Tibetan areas and for policymakers in Beijing.

Keywords:

• Tibet
• Diqing
• development
• Tibet Autonomous Region

Notes

¹See Figure 1. The south eastern region is known to Tibetans as Kham, while the northeastern region is known to Tibetans as Amdo. While the Tibetan government in exile claims jurisdiction over this entire territory, not since the eighth century have Tibetan rulers exercised administrative control beyond the borders of the present day Tibet Autonomous Region, although the Lhasa-based Dalai Lamas have been influential throughout Tibetan regions in recent centuries.

²Melvyn Goldstein suggests a distinction be made between ‘political Tibet’ and ‘ethnographic Tibet’. Political Tibet refers to the areas formerly administered by the Lhasa-based Tibetan government – a region largely coterminous with the present-day TAR. Ethnographic Tibet refers to all areas in which Tibetans are have been the dominant population, including Tibetan areas in the neighboring countries of India, Nepal and Bhutan. See Goldstein, ‘Introduction’ in Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet.

³Maps courtesy of Cartography Services, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University.

⁴‘Districts’ (diqu) in the TAR are the same administrative level as the ‘prefecture’ (zhou) in other provinces – i.e. the level of administration immediately below the province.

⁵Unless otherwise stated, all Diqing statistics are taken from Diqing Prefecture Statistical Yearbook (Diqing Nian Jian). Diqing People's Government Publishing House, 2008.

⁶In many parts of Tibetan China there are long-standing tensions between ethnic Tibetans and Muslim Chinese based on religious and cultural differences and economic competition. This is especially true in Qinghai Province where there is a large Muslim Chinese community. The Muslim Chinese population in Diqing is very small by comparison.

⁷ Diqing Prefecture Statistical Yearbook (Diqing Nian Jian), Diqing Prefecture People's Government, 1995.

⁸Many of these grants were provided under the auspices of the Great Western Development Strategy – a set of policies designed to reduce inequalities between China's poorer western regions and the industrialized coastal provinces, mainly through large-scale investments in infrastructure and regional economic growth.

⁹Hillman, ‘Paradise under Construction: Minorities, Myths and Modernity in Northwest Yunnan’, 178.

¹⁰The title of the document is ‘Guanyu Yunnan Sheng Diqing Zangzu Zizhizhou Zhongdian Xian Gengming wei Xianggelila Xian de Qingshi’ (‘Application Concerning the Name Change of Yunnan Province, Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Zhongdian County to Shangri-la County’). Diqing officials generally use the original English spelling ‘Shangri-la’ or ‘Shangri-La’ in English-language documents – a practice emulated in the tourist literature. ‘Xianggelila’ is the Chinese pinyin romanization of the Chinese word for Shangri-la.

¹¹For a book-length treatment of connections between tourism development and Tibetan identity in Diqing, see Kolas, Tourism and Tibetan Culture in Transition.

¹²Authority for changing the name of any part of China's territory or an administrative unit at any level rests with the State Council.

¹³While GDP figures in China are not always reliable, they are nevertheless useful as an indication of the relative scale of economic activity.

¹⁴GDP per capita figures for Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture are from 2005 – the most recent available on the prefecture government's website.

¹⁵Hillman, ‘Money Can't Buy Tibetans Love’, Far Eastern Economic Review.

¹⁶Fischer, State Growth and Social Exclusion in Tibet.

¹⁷Hillman, ‘Monasticism and the Local State’.

¹⁸Yunnan Province is much richer than Qinghai Province where several large Tibetan prefectures compete for attention. Sichuan Province draws on large resources, but it administers one of China's largest populations, including several Tibetan prefectures with large Tibetan populations.

¹⁹At every level of government, the Communist Party secretary outranks the head of government at the same level. Because regional autonomy laws only specify that the head of government must be a member of the ethnic group to which autonomy has been granted, critics argue that the seniority of Communist Party secretaries gives the lie to regional autonomy in China.

²⁰In the past ethnic Tibetans have served as Communist Party secretaries in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, but the performance of ethnic Tibetans leadership has had mixed reviews. In some cases, possibly motivated by a need to demonstrate loyalty to the state, ethnic Tibetan leaders have overseen even more Draconian policies than their non-Tibetan counterparts. Education levels among ethnic Tibetan officials have also traditionally been low. Because of low levels of education, administrative experience and questionable loyalties among local Tibetans, prior to the 1980s most leadership positions in Tibetan areas were filled by Han Chinese from other regions. In another example of the central government's emphasis on non-local leadership, Diqing was administered by the neighboring non-Tibetan district of Lijiang until 1976.

²¹The author was in Diqing when demonstrations in Lhasa turned violent and triggered similar large-scale protests across Tibetan China. One analyst with access to senior officials reported a government estimate that the unrest involved up to 30,000 Tibetan protestors in approximately 100 separate incidents. See Willy Wo Lop Lam, ‘Hope for a Better Tibet Policy’, Far Eastern Economic Review, April 2008.