TIBET WORK CONFERENCE: EXPANDING DEVELOPMENT FOCUS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BEIJING 000468

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/26/2030
TAGS: PHUM PGOV SOCI ECON CH
SUBJECT: TIBET WORK CONFERENCE: EXPANDING DEVELOPMENT FOCUS
BEYOND THE TAR

REF: 09 BEIJING 1242

Classified By: Political Minister Counselor
Aubrey Carlson. Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: Although the Communist Party's
Fifth Tibet Work Conference January 18-20 did not
result in major policy changes, it signaled shifts
in emphasis intended to address economic tensions
that led to the March 2008 violence throughout
Tibetan areas of China. Contacts at two Party think
tanks noted that, unlike previous Tibet work
conferences, the latest meeting included
unprecedented discussion of developing Tibetan areas
outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
Mindful that Tibetans in Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan,
and Yunnan provinces have grown resentful of
subsidies lavished on the TAR, Party leaders realize
this development gap between the TAR and non-TAR
Tibetan areas contributed to the 2008 unrest. A
Central Party School contact predicted that, as a
result of the conference, the "help Tibet" program
of sending cadres on temporary duty to the TAR will
be expanded to Tibetan areas in other provinces.
Another theme of the conference, we were told, was
increasing rural incomes and ensuring central
government spending benefits ordinary Tibetans. The
Chinese public is growing skeptical of annual
central government subsidies amounting to nearly
US$3,000 per capita in the TAR. Party leaders are
under pressure to show that this spending will lead
to greater stability in minority areas. Tibetan
dissident blogger Woeser (protect) was critical of
the Fifth Work Conference, saying the exclusive
focus on economic development will only encourage
more Han migration into Tibetan regions. Slogans
about boosting rural income, she said, will, in
practice, mean more unregulated mining and
environmental destruction on the Tibetan Plateau.
End summary.

"Completely Correct"
--------------


2. (U) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central
Committee and the State Council held the Fifth Tibet
Work Conference in Beijing January 18-20. All nine
members of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee
attended the meeting, according to official news
releases. In his speech at the conference, General
Secretary Hu Jintao praised the party's handling of
Tibet, declaring that "practice proves" that guiding
policies are "completely correct." According to
Xinhua News Agency transcripts, Hu made no direct
mention of the March 2008 unrest in his speech,
though he said development and stability were the
best methods to counter the "contradictions" created
by the "separatist forces led by the Dalai clique."
Hu's remarks, which included the goal of bringing
rural incomes in Tibet in line with the national
average by 2020, encapsulated the Conference focus
on economic development. Premier Wen Jiabao, in his
speech at the conference, listed the government's
priorities in Tibet as 1) improving people's
livelihoods and boosting employment opportunities
for farmers and herders; 2) developing better social
services, including education and medical care; and
3) increasing infrastructure and investment in
transportation.

New Attention to Greater Tibet
--------------


3. (C) Several Beijing-based Tibet experts said that
the most significant change from the previous four
Tibet work conferences, the last of which was held
in 2001, was an expansion of focus beyond the Tibet
Autonomous Region (TAR) to include Tibetan regions
of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.
(Note: Roughly half of China's 5.4 million ethnic
Tibetans live outside the TAR.) Tanzen Lhundup
(Danzeng Lunzhu),Vice Director of the Institute for
Sociology and Economics at the Chinese Center for
Tibetan Studies, a think tank associated with the
Communist Party's United Front Work Department, told
PolOff February 5 that including the development of
Tibetan areas of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan
on the agenda for the Fifth Tibet Work Conference
was, in part, a reaction to the protests of March

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2008. Not only did many migrants from non-TAR areas
participate in the rioting in Lhasa, he said, but
the regions bordering the TAR, particularly Tibetan
Sichuan, experienced some of the worst unrest.
Given the increasing mobility of Tibetans, Tanzen
Lhundup said, the government could no longer talk
about developing the TAR without considering the
difficulties facing all Tibetan areas.

Expansion of the "Help Tibet" Program?
--------------


4. (C) Hu Yan (protect) the head of the ethnic and
religious studies department at the CCP's Central
Party School, told PolOff February 24 that, as a
result of the Fifth Work Conference, he expected the
government to expand its "help Tibet" (yuan zang)
program to include Tibetan areas outside the TAR.
(Note: Under the program, government and party
cadres are sent to the TAR for temporary assignments
of three years.) Hu, who himself served as vice
director of the TAR Party School in Lhasa 1998-2000
as a "help Tibet" cadre, said Tibetan regions
outside the TAR needed to be included in such
assistance efforts. Hu and Tanzen Lhundup both
noted that the bulk of central government subsidies
were channeled into the TAR and this was causing
resentment among officials and ordinary Tibetans in
neighboring provinces. Cadres working in the TAR
made significantly more, in some cases double, what
civil servants made in Tibetan regions of Qinghai,
Gansu and Sichuan, Tanzen Lundup said. Tibetans
outside the TAR, according to Hu, saw the huge
amount spent on public works in the TAR while their
own communities were starved of resources.


5. (C) In a February 3 meeting, Yangling Dorje
(protect),a retired senior Tibetan CCP cadre and
the former Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region's
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference,
told Chengdu Consul General that the Fifth Tibet
Work Conference was the first time the entire
Politburo had come together for a meeting about a
minority region. He said the Fifth Conference could
prove to be the most important event for Tibetans
since the Second Tibet Work Conference in 1984,
providing the recommendations of the January meeting
were fully implemented. (Note: The Second Tibet
Work Conference was convened by then-CCP General
Secretary Hu Yaobang and, along with the First
Conference in 1980, resulted in further relaxation
of culturally repressive policies of the 1960s and
70s.) A great admirer of Hu Yaobang, Yangling Dorje
characterized general CCP Tibet policy as "wise" but
sometimes suffering from poor implementation. Too
many corrupt officials, he said, made use of the
"splittism issue" to suppress loyal people who made
honest criticisms. He added that, while development
of the TAR had been the primary focus of the
conference, the issue of developing the other
Tibetan areas had been included on the agenda
because the development gap between the TAR and
Tibetan areas outside the TAR had become too large.
Yangling Dorje expressed hope that, as a result of
the Fifth Conference, the central government would
make good on some long-standing promises to end the
salary gap between officials working in the TAR and
those working in other Tibetan areas.

Income, Not Just GDP
--------------


6. (C) In addition to the new focus on non-TAR
Tibetan areas, Tanzen Lundup cited the Fifth Tibet
Work Conference's look at rural incomes as another
shift of emphasis, one that was meant to address the
economic tensions that contributed to the March 2008
unrest. The discussion of "people's livelihoods"
and income at the conference reflected a growing
realization among CCP leaders that massive central
government investment was not reaching many
individual rural Tibetans (reftel). While Tibetans
in Lhasa and major urban centers, he said, were
benefiting from booming tourism and service industry
growth, the incomes of Tibetan farmers and herders
had remained low despite the dramatic increases in
central government spending. The government was
aware there had been an "economic background" to the
rioting that started in Lhasa on March 14, 2008, he

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said, and Party leaders sought to more directly link
projects with personal income rather than just GDP
growth.

Closing the "Skills Gap"
--------------


7. (C) Tanzen Lhundup, who said he was closely
involved in the planning of the Fifth Work
Conference, said conflicts occurred when centrally
planned infrastructure projects met the "realities
of local economies" on the Tibetan Plateau. For
example, when the government decided to build a road
in a remote area, there were typically no Tibetan-
owned companies with the required capital and
experience to bid on the contract. The need to
complete the road efficiently and at the lowest cost
invariably meant the contract would be awarded to
large state-owned construction firms based outside
of Tibet. Adding to this problem was the "skills
gap" between Tibetan and non-Tibetan workers, which
he said was the main reason why Han companies were
reluctant to hire more Tibetans. "Well-intentioned"
attempts by the TAR government to better employment
conditions for Tibetans, he said, had made matters
worse by denying contractors the flexibility to hire
low-skilled Tibetans at lower wages than more
qualified Han migrants. For example, according to
Tanzen Lhundup, former TAR Chairman Qiangba Puncog
(Chamba Phuntsog) had once attempted to implement a
rule to force public works contractors to hire a set
quota of Tibetans at a minimum wage of RMB 30
(US$4.40) per day. The policy had failed due to
resistance by contractors, who had felt the wage
exceeded that of more experienced Han migrants and
forced them to take on too many unskilled workers.
As a result of the Fifth Work Conference, Tanzen
Lhundup said he expected the government to increase
vocational training programs for Tibetans to help
them compete against Han workers.

Huge Cash Infusions Unpopular With Public
--------------


8. (C) Ma Rong (protect),a Peking University
sociologist and frequent advisor to the Communist
Party's United Front Work Department (UFWD),echoed
Tanzen Lhundup's assessment that the recent
conference's focus on boosting incomes represented
an indirect acknowledgment that massive central
government subsidies were not translating into real
income growth for average Tibetans. Ma told PolOff
February 9 that the infusion of central government
money into the TAR was also becoming a public
relations problem for the CCP. Following the
Tibetan unrest of March 2008 and the July 2009
violence in Xinjiang, the Chinese public had grown
more skeptical of subsidies for minority regions.
In 2007, according to Ma, central government
investment in Tibet amounted to RMB 10,000 (US$1470)
per person. Now, almost two years after the Tibet
riots, that figure was close to RMB 20,000 (US$2940)
per person. "Chinese people think this is waste of
taxpayer money," Ma said, adding the government was
under pressure to show that this investment was
contributing to greater social stability. Although,
like Tanzen Lhundup and Hu Yan, Ma cited the new
emphasis on Tibetan areas outside the TAR as an
important step, he was less positive about the
conference as a whole. Overall, the Fifth Work
Conference revealed little new thinking on Tibet, Ma
said, and the meeting primarily served to bolster
existing policies.

"Development" Just Means More Han Migrants
--------------


9. (C) Tibetan poet and blogger Woeser (protect)
offered a critical assessment of the Fifth Work
Conference in a meeting with PolOff February 4,
saying the emphasis on economic development would
only mean more Han migrants and further destruction
of Tibet's culture and environment. Woeser said
that the platitudes by Hu Jintao and other party
leaders about boosting rural incomes would translate
on the ground into even faster development of mining
enterprises, which she cited as the greatest single
threat to Tibet's environment. Unregulated mining,
she said, was creating tremendous ecological damage,

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including polluting waterways vital to Tibetan
herders, all while providing few jobs to ethnic
Tibetans.


10. (U) This cable was coordinated with ConGen
Chengdu.
HUNTSMAN