Tsethang, Tibet – In an attempt to extend its influence over the Himalayan region, the Chinese government has been throwing vast sums of money into infrastructure in impoverished Tibetan areas, officials said Friday.
Since a 2001 directive by the central government, all Chinese provinces have been required to raise investment funds for the over 70 counties of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), De Ji, the administrative commissioner of Shannan prefecture said.
“The GDP for our prefecture in 2002 was 1.3 billion yuan (156 million dollars), up 17.3% over the previous year,” De Ji said.
“Fixed assets investment in the prefecture equaled 1.0 billion yuan (120 million dollars), up 34.8% over last year.”
The funds in Shannan have been spent on roads, bridges, tunnels telecommunications, hydroelectric plants and other infrastructure projects, she said.
Along with such investments, all sorts of support industries have sprouted up in the urban towns and cities of Shannan, which are largely being brought in by Chinese Han traders, but which also supports the local economy.
“A lack of infrastructure has always been the bottleneck for further development in our region,” De Ji told visiting journalists on a rare reporting trip to Tibet arranged by the central government.
According to decisions made by the 2001 central working symposium on Tibet, a grouping made up of the highest leaders of the ruling Communist Party, the policy of funding Tibetan construction would last for 10 years, De Ji said.
“After that, we don’t know what will happen,” she said.
The policy, formulated in the late 1990s, appeared amid widespread international criticism of Beijing’s handling of Tibetan issues, especially its economic policy that has left Tibet the poorest region in China, and its religious policy which ignores the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader.
According to De Ji, Shannan prefecture is made up of 12 counties and has a population of some 320,000 people with an annual per capita net income in 2002 of 1,680 yuan (200 dollars), up 7.9 percent over the previous year.
About 90% of the population is ethnic Tibetan, while 90 percent of these people are farmers or herdsmen.
