© DIIR, 2004

Guidelines for Development in Tibet

Rationale

Based on all available facts, including the official Chinese statistics, UNDP, Asian Development Bank and World Bank reports, and findings of non-governmental organisations working inside Tibet, Chinese economists and other researchers, it is evident that there is an acute need for a shift in the basic approach towards the development of Tibet. Beijing’s approach has led to chronic dependence on subsidies, referred to as "blood transfusion economy" by some Chinese economists. Its focus on urbanisation and infrastructure, plus skills transfer through settling the Tibetan Plateau with skilled immigrant personnel, has not really helped to improve the life of the majority of Tibetans but has increased their marginalisation. Nor has there been a transfer of skills to Tibetans; Tibet still continues to rely on outside aid-both capital and labour.

In the words of a development professional who has worked in the Tibetan region for the past two decades:

Tibet’s rapid employment and income growth has been primarily in the modern urban sector, and has been driven by a dynamic, even cut throat private sector in which Han and Hui Muslim populations have been dominant. This urban-oriented growth has contributed to rapidly increasing income disparity between urban and rural areas, and between Han and Tibetan populations. (Arthur Holcombe, Testimony to the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China, 10 June 2002)

We propose the replacement of the single development framework of the past 50 years, which has relied on the industrialisation of Tibet to create general economic growth.

Half a century of imposed industrialisation and urbanisation has not been effective as a solution to all the human needs in Tibet. The assumption that industrialisation generates economic growth that benefits everyone, including the poor and excluded, has proven factually wrong. Even where this policy has worked in Mainland China, it has failed in Tibet. Senior Chinese economists now frankly acknowledge this. Present realities in Tibet-inequality, marginalisation, deprivation, exclusion and low human development-cannot be blamed on the Tibetans themselves, as if they are inherently stupid and backward.

More than five decades of attempted industrialisation made materialism an end in itself. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has pointed out the limitations of this approach:

It has been my firm belief that in order to solve human problems in all their dimensions we must be able to combine and harmonise external material progress with inner mental development. Material progress is certainly highly necessary and is a good thing, as it is of benefit to mankind. I see nothing wrong with material progress provided man takes precedence over progress. Man must be placed above materialism, and we must realise the true value of human beings. Materialism should serve man and not man serve material progress. (14th Dalai Lama, Spirit of Tibet: Vision for Human Liberation, p123)

The Tibetan Plateau is a huge landmass, equivalent in area to Western Europe. A single top-down strategy allocated by central planners can never substitute the intimate knowledge Tibetans have of the land and how to render it habitable in sustainable and productive ways. Tibetans traditionally made use of the entire plateau, even the most arid regions, not just clinging to river valleys and towns. This unique pattern of extensive land use should become the basis for all development work, strengthening the existing knowledge base of social capital accumulated by Tibetans over many centuries of sustainable land use.

It is time for a new approach based directly on human needs, because the human needs approach is direct, observable, locally-based and not reliant on mammoth investment, grandiose visions or ideological convictions. Further, this is sensitive to actual circumstances and has its roots in actual reality. It is driven by community needs and expectations, offering maximum participation at all stages of development project work.

Development agencies have the opportunity to play a positive and proactive role in facilitating Tibetans’ move towards a decent human life. By fostering local Tibetan initiatives and enterprises, international agencies can help Tibetan communities become more self-reliant and more able to finance their own growth, and build their own schools and health clinics. In this way, the implementation of these Guidelines would empower Tibetan people locally, and thus contribute on a local level to the overall goal of achieving genuine autonomy.