Global Times
2015-02-05
The Chinese government has in recent years been striving to improve people’s livelihood across remote and poverty-stricken areas including Tibet Autonomous Region through massive financial input. The endeavor is well received among the general public. By engaging in this large-scale project, China is actively fulfilling its obligations stipulated in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. However, what is inexplicable is that the World Report 2015 by New York-based Human Rights Watch distorts the support by the Chinese government. The report says, “China’s mass rehousing and relocation policy has radically changed Tibetans’ way of life and livelihoods, in some cases impoverishing them or making them dependent on state subsidies.”
Do people in Tibet have access to healthcare through regional development? Tibet is among the first of China’s provinces and autonomous regions to set up the new rural cooperative medical care system. At the beginning of the 1980s, farmers and herdsmen in Tibet received free medical care of 5 yuan ($0.79) per capita annually, which was increased to an average of 340 yuan by 2014.
When we conducted investigations in agricultural and pastoral areas in Tibet, all the farmers and herdsmen we met presented their healthcare cards to us.
Monks and nuns used to depend on earnings of temples and donations from religious adherents, but now they can live on the basic medical insurance provided by the government.
Do the impoverished in Tibet get appropriate assistance? Tibet was also among the first of all the provinces and autonomous regions across the country to establish the minimum living allowance system. In 1996 when urban areas in Tibet began to experiment with this system, individual income stayed at 130 yuan a month. By 2013, this figure amounted to 1,700 yuan.
Plus, since they have been included in the social security system since 2012, clergy can receive 400 yuan a month as the minimum living standard. If their earnings in temples fall short of this standard, the government will pay to close the gap.
Are the elderly in Tibet looked after properly? Currently, there are 200,000 people aged over 60 in this autonomous region. In as early as 1987, urban workers were covered by basic pension insurance and unemployment insurance, and since 2009 the new insurance system in rural areas has been fully implemented.
Meanwhile, Tibet is unifying its pension insurance systems for urban and rural residents. And the days when elderly monks and nuns relied on believers’ donations to support themselves are gone forever.
Last but not least, are people in Tibet fully employed? The government has officially launched the employment assistance policy by providing public service jobs since 2006, endowing the underprivileged with not only stable income but also opportunities to participate in social life. Survival of the fittest is the golden rule of the market, various factors of which marginalize to some extent those with poorer labor, language and communication skills.
This is a common phenomenon that takes place repeatedly in many places of the world. But we can see from the analysis above that the development policy for Tibet is truly inclusive, with the aim to minimize the negative impacts of the market economy. Tibet’s farmers and herdsmen share the country’s reform and opening-up dividend, thus improving their living standards.
The inclusive development policy of Tibet targets people of various ethnicities. Not only Tibetans, but also Moinba, Lhoba and Han people live in Tibet.
It’s rather parochial to interpret the special care from the central government toward Tibet as merely benefiting Tibetans or those whose permanent residences are registered in Tibet. Those living in Tibet for generations and the people heading there to work and live need particular care and support.
Tibet’s inclusive development policy should be understood in a comprehensive way. If not for its malicious political intention, the Human Rights Watch would not have reached such a shallow conclusion.
The author is a professor with the Faculty of Social Development and Western China Development Studies at Sichuan
