The Dalai Lama\u2019s envoys traveled to China for talks this week just days after the conclusion of a high-level meeting attended by President Hu Jintao, setting out Tibet policy for the coming years.<\/p>\n
The Fifth Tibet Work Forum, held on January 18-20, is the most recent in a series of rare strategy meetings on Tibet that have now been held just five times since the Chinese took over Tibet in 1949-50. The meeting last week was attended by more than 300 of China\u2019s most senior Party, government and military leaders. Notably, the Fifth Tibet Work Forum concluded days before envoys of the Dalai Lama, led by Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, arrived in China for the ninth round of Sino-Tibetan dialogue, some 15 months since the previous round. Speculation on the timing of the ninth round of dialogue so soon after the Fifth Tibet Work Forum has raised expectation that this could be a pivotal moment for Tibet.<\/p>\n
The Fifth Tibet Work Forum was the first since the protests and crackdown beginning in March, 2008; the fourth was held in June, 2001. It was not announced in the official media until two days after the meeting was over, and the only prior indication that it was about to take place was a series of brief online articles in the state media in English referring to previous Tibet Work Forums. Since then, a carefully-chosen selection of statements from the meeting has been published in the official press, including speeches by Party Secretary and President Hu Jintao, and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. This ICT report analyzes the approach to Tibet revealed by published statements from the Fifth Tibet Work Forum, and that could provide context for the current round of Sino-Tibetan talks.<\/p>\n
Summary points from official media reports<\/strong><\/p>\n The Fifth Tibet Work Forum: rhetoric on Dalai Lama toned down, no policy shift evident<\/strong><\/p>\n The emphasis of the forums since the Third Tibet Work Forum in 1994, which set the hardline policies on Tibet that are still in place today, has been on consolidating central control by furthering assimilation of Tibet into a \u2018unified\u2019 Chinese state. While this is still prioritized and clearly set out by the Fifth Tibet Work Forum, there appears to be a slight shift in approach in that rhetoric against the Dalai Lama is distinctly toned down and there are fewer references to the struggle against \u2018separatism\u2019 in contrast to previous significant statements and meetings on Tibet. There is no reference in published statements from the Forum that the Dalai Lama was to blame for inciting the unrest in March 2008, which was the standard Party line taken after the protests began and has been reiterated strongly by central and regional leaders since then. The carefully crafted published statements from the Fifth Work Forum do not mention the protests at all, although there are opaque references to \u201cdifficulties,\u201d for instance, in Hu Jintao\u2019s statement: \u201cWe must also soberly understand that Tibet\u2019s development and stability are still faced with many difficulties and challenges and have encountered many new situations and new issues.\u201d (\u201cFifth National Conference on Tibetan Work held in Beijing,\u201d China Tibet Information Center, January 22, 2010.)<\/p>\n The emphasis of the Fifth Tibet Work Forum is on plans for \u201cleap forward development,\u201d and bringing levels of income and other economic indicators into line with those in other parts of the People\u2019s Republic of China. The first reference to propelling the economy from \u2018accelerated development\u2019 to \u201ca \u2018leap over [or forward]\u2019 model of development\u201d was made during the Fourth Tibet Work Forum in 2001, with the aim of further assimilation of Tibet into the wider Chinese economic and cultural model. The large-scale extraction of resources and the strengthening of the state\u2019s authority and control over Tibetan areas underpin China\u2019s ambitious \u2018Western Development Strategy\u2019 (xibu da kaifa) which has now been in place for a decade. But despite the years of investment under this policy, the vast majority of Tibetans remain severely disadvantaged both socially and economically by the inadequate provision of education, welfare and healthcare, and marginalized by the influx of Chinese migrants attracted by these strategies. The implementation of policies to settle Tibetan nomads, and to resettle Tibetans in towns, is now threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. There is increasing frustration that Chinese policies of development, which are based on an urban industrial model in an area that is predominantly rural, are counter-productive; they have increased rather than closed the gap between urban and rural, rich and poor, Chinese and Tibetan, and have degraded Tibet\u2019s fragile ecosystem. (ICT report, \u201cTracking the Steel Dragon,\u201d www.savetibet.org\/documents\/reports\/trackingthesteeldragon [1].)<\/p>\n Tibetans in some of the most developed areas of Tibet in close proximity to urbanizing centers in mainland China \u2013 such as Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (Chinese: Gannan TAP) in Gansu province and eastern Qinghai \u2013 were at the forefront of the protests from March 2008 that transformed the political landscape. Urban Lhasa in particular, which in many regards is a showcase of China\u2019s development plans in Tibet, was the scene of protests and violence which were an unequivocal rejection of not only the transformations that these development policies have brought to rural and urban Tibet, but even a rejection of China\u2019s rule altogether. The coming of the railway from Golmud in Qinghai to Lhasa resulted in a major influx of Chinese migrants that some Chinese analysts had earlier warned could lead to unrest.<\/p>\n Scholar Tseten Wangchuk, a Research Fellow at the University of Virginia, notes that while Party and government strategy documents usually list major infrastructure projects costing millions of yuan, this aspect was notably absent from Fifth Tibet Work Forum statements. Tseten Wangchuk said: \u201cThe commitment to develop rural areas outlined in the document may be a positive step, but the same strategy is in place \u2013 policies are imposed from the top-down with little regard for the communities where they are implemented. It\u2019s about how the money is spent, not the amount of money that is thrown at Tibet. If the authorities are really seeking to resolve the situation, they need to adopt new approaches from the grass-roots up that genuinely involve Tibetans in decision-making on development issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Luorang Dramdul, a specialist in development economics at the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing, was quoted after the conference by Reuters as saying: \u201cThis time we are really focusing on improving livelihood, whereas previous policies were mostly concerned with industry and infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n While the Fourth Work Forum focused on the Tibet Autonomous Region, the Fifth includes all Tibetan areas in Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces \u2013 encompassing the eastern Tibetan regions of Amdo and Kham. Official statements have tended before to characterize only the Tibet Autonomous Region as \u2018Tibet,\u2019 although Tibetan areas incorporated in four other provinces are defined as \u2018Tibetan autonomous\u2019 prefectures and counties. This implies increasing official recognition that the various Tibetan autonomous areas share far more in common with each other than the Chinese provinces to which they are assigned. This was underlined by the fact that protests across Tibet from March 2008 onwards were far more widespread geographically than in the past, demonstrating the commonality of Tibetan concerns across all Tibetan areas of the PRC, from remote villages in Qinghai to monasteries in central Lhasa, and an invigorated sense of Tibetan solidarity and pride in Tibetan identity.<\/p>\n The strategic significance of Tibet: Work Forum emphasizes water and security issues<\/strong><\/p>\n The Fifth Tibet Work Forum places more emphasis on Tibet\u2019s environment than earlier major conferences on Tibet and links the ecology of the plateau as a source of water explicitly to security issues. The intention is to protect China\u2019s influence and control over Tibet\u2019s water supply, which is leading to tensions downstream \u2013 the Tibetan plateau is of critical importance to the highly water-dependent societies inside Tibet and hundreds of millions of people in Asia. Referring to the strategic importance of Tibet, President Hu Jintao stated: \u201cIt is all the more necessary to pay attention to [\/\/] turning Tibet into an important national security screen, an important strategic resources reserve base.\u201d (\u201cFifth National Conference on Tibetan Work held in Beijing,\u201d China Tibet Information Center, January 22, 2010.)<\/p>\n The sustainable management of Tibet\u2019s water is increasingly becoming a serious security issue in the region and leading to tensions due to China\u2019s economic and environmental policies. The stakes are higher than before because both China and India face the prospect that their modernization may stall in an era of serious water shortages. There are tensions in Tibet due to the exploitation of natural resources, and also between China, India and Bangladesh on water-related issues. China plans to build nearly one hundred dams across the Tibetan plateau and several water diversion projects to move water into northern and eastern China \u2013 plans that will disrupt the already-overstressed water supplies of hundreds of millions of people in south and southeast Asia.<\/p>\n From the First to the Fifth Tibet Work Forums<\/strong><\/p>\n The First Tibet Work Forum was held in 1980 during the period of liberalization following the Cultural Revolution, and the second in 1984. Both the First and Second Forums were influenced by Party moderates such as Hu Yaobang and set out relatively liberal policies for Tibet work. The Third Tibet Work Forum, held in 1994 following the large-scale demonstrations of the late 1980s, was the most sweeping policy change since 1980. The leadership criticized previous Tibet policy for being too liberal and making too many concessions to Tibetan nationalists and effectively ruled out the possibility of any \u2018Tibetan-ized\u2019 form of development. Instead policies laid down at the Third Forum were directed at the integration of Tibet into the wider economic and cultural model of the PRC, endorsing the policy of fast-track economic development and \u2018opening up\u2019, resulting in the increased influx of Chinese migrant workers and entrepreneurs into Tibet.<\/p>\n The Third Tibet Work Forum marked both an official end to moderate policies discriminating in favor of Tibetan culture and religion and to an increasing role for Tibetans in government and the economy. It resulted in a dramatic increase in political repression; it led to tighter internal security, longer sentences for political offenses, increased control over monasteries and nunneries, intensified political education in schools, and more detentions. Officials at the Third Work Forum described the Tibetan independence movement as a snake, and their attempts to \u201ccut off the serpent\u2019s head\u201d led to restrictions of the spread of Buddhism and a political campaign to destroy the religious as well as the political standing of the Dalai Lama.<\/p>\n The Fourth Tibet Work Forum provided a central mandate for the policies currently being implemented in Tibet, along with broad guidelines that Tibet Autonomous Region leaders and officials must follow in all future work and projects. Unlike the Third Forum, which marked a major shift in policy from the First and Second Forums in response to events in Tibet, the Fourth Forum endorsed the general policies laid down at the Third Forum and carried them forward.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most important thing in the work of Tibet at present and for some time to come\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n In contrast to the language published on the Fourth Work Forum, there is less hardline rhetoric on religion in the Fifth Tibet Work Forum reports, and an unusual reference to \u201cthe material and intangible cultural heritage of Tibet\u201d in a speech by Premier Wen Jiabao in the closing ceremony of the conference.<\/p>\n Although the rhetoric has been toned down, the reality is that since the protests broke out in March 2008, sweeping new measures imposed in various areas have revealed a systematic attempt to further weaken and diminish the institutions and influence of Tibetan Buddhism that has been reminiscent of the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Campaigns directed against Tibetan culture and religion over the past two years mean that virtually any expression of Tibetan identity not directly sanctioned by the state can be branded as \u2018reactionary\u2019 or \u2018splittist\u2019 and penalized with a long prison sentence, or worse.<\/p>\n Soon after the conclusion of the Fifth Tibet Work Forum in Beijing, various government and Party bodies in the five provincial-level administrations that cover Tibet convened meetings where senior local officials \u201cstudied and conveyed the spirit\u201d of the meeting in Beijing. Jia Qinglin, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and Chairman of the main legislative advisory body in China, the Chinese People\u2019s Political Consultative Conference (“Fifth National Conference on Tibetan Work held in Beijing,” China Tibet Information Center, January 22, 2010) emphasized the importance of the meeting, saying it was: \u201cThe most important thing in the work of Tibet at present and for some time to come\u201d.<\/p>\n In the TAR, for example, a meeting of the TAR\u2019s \u201cParty personnel and leading cadres\u201d was convened on January 24, 2010 and chaired by TAR Party Secretary Zhang Qingli. Officials at the meeting in Lhasa \u201cstudied and mastered the spirit\u201d of the forum, and \u201cpointed out that the study, propagandizing and grasping of the Fifth Tibet Work Forum would be a main task in the region\u2019s work for the present and for the coming period.\u201d (Tibet Daily, January 26, 2010.) A similar meeting was held in Qinghai Province on January 21, 2010, which was chaired by Qiang Wei, the Qinghai Province Party Secretary, and which produced almost identical comments and conclusions from the assembled officials, according to reports in the local official media. (Qinghai Daily, January 24, 2010.)<\/p>\n\n