China increases subsidies for Tibetans to better manage and control border town

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Lhasa, Tibet. (Photo courtesy: etramping.com)
Lhasa, Tibet. (Photo courtesy: etramping.com)

(TibetanReview.net, Sep11, 2017) – In order to to motivate them to “manage and control” the border, the government of the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) has been giving subsidy to its residents since 2012, reported China’s official globaltimes.cn Sep 10. And the amount of the subsidy had been rising, with the number of people covered under its reaching 160,000, the report said.

“Manage and control” can be a euphemism for lot of things, ranging from winning the loyalty and obedience of the people to getting them to spy and inform on others perceived to be engaged in alleged anti-China activities.

The report cited Jiang Guojie, deputy head of the regional finance department, as saying at a press conference on Sep 8 that the subsidies the government had been offering to the border residents aged above 16 years had been rising in the past five years.

The amount of raise for those in first-tier border towns was stated to be from 1,000 yuan in 2012 to 2,700 yuan in 2017, while for those in second-tier border towns the raise was from 800 yuan to 2,500 yuan.

The report cited the regional party mouthpiece Tibet Daily as saying that around 1.2 billion yuan ($185 million) was transferred to border areas of the TAR in 2016 ostensibly to increase the income of border residents, improve their living and working conditions and motivate them to manage and control the border.

The report said the TAR was the first provincial-level region in the People’s Republic of China to create a border subsidy system.

The report also said that six billion yuan had been pooled to support the economic and social development of the border areas.

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