Joshua Kurlantzick: Losing Lhasa

In the New Republic, Joshua Kurlantzick writes about Beijing’s new strategy of co-option in Tibet that he says is a more “insidious danger” than blatant repression:

To be sure, China still cracks down, as it did after large-scale protests last spring, when it declared martial law and reportedly threw hundreds of Tibetans jail. But Beijing now hands out carrots, too. “China’s central government has been intensifying its program of support for Tibet,” noted China’s state-owned CCTV International earlier this year. “These projects aim to speed up infrastructure development and bring more benefits to Tibet’s farmers and herdsmen.” After a 2000 visit to the region, China’s former vice-premier Li Lanqing echoed this sentiment, as paraphrased by the Communist-owned People’s Daily Online: “China’s strategy on large-scale development of the western region will bring Tibet into a new economic development era.”

Indeed, the national government spends more state money on the Tibet Autonomous Region, the province that makes up much of historic Tibet, than any other province in China. It shows. Outside of the Barkhor, the old Tibetan area of town, I found the city looked much like other provincial capitals, with its rows of hotpot restaurants catering to Sichuan migrants and squat office towers housing neon-lit Chinese shopping malls selling mobile phones, jewelry, and other expensive items.

The government is spending the money strategically. Much of it has gone to ethnic Chinese, who have migrated to Tibet in search of jobs building new roads, office towers, and the high-elevation railway linking the region to the rest of China. Though Beijing usually refuses to admit this ethnic strategy, Chinese state officials have actually reported that Lhasa, heart of Tibetan culture, is no longer a majority Tibetan city.

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