(TibetanReview.net, Jul28’24) – The focus of China’s new development plans in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), which includes the establishment of New Economic and Technology Development Zones (ETDZs), are on pockets of the Han populated areas. Already, the Tibetan economy is largely under Han control (except for in the agriculture and livestock sectors), and Han people constitute the majority group in many of Tibet’s urban centres, noted a jamestown.org report Jul 26.
Besides, the potential for exports, a major thrust of the development plans, cannot be realised due to the continuing border tension with India, the report added.
The zones have been set up by the TAR government to import practices from elsewhere in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and shift the region’s economy away from traditional sectors and toward export-oriented industries, construction, and even high-tech manufacturing.
In June, TAR’s Party Secretary Wang Junzheng, made an inspection tour of the Lhasa ETDZ in the regional capital’s Doilungdêqên (Tibetan: Toelung Dechen) District. While there, he instructed officials to improve various aspects of the zone to help boost businesses such as cross-border e-commerce and support Tibetan products to “go out,” creating a new source of growth for the region’s foreign trade, the report said, citing Lhasa Daily, Jun 13. The readout of Wang’s visit reflects a concerted focus on ETDZs and expanding overseas trade as local growth drivers.
The report noted that although the region has registered growth rates above the national average since the 1990s, this has largely been fuelled by massive subsidies and transfer payments by the central government.
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Since 2008, the government has focused on developing the tourism, mining, and construction industries, but their potential to help shift to indigenous growth remains limited. Provincial policymakers therefore have launched an array of initiatives that broadly replicate the growth model of inland provinces, hence the establishment of the ETDZs to attract investments, promote exports, and incubate industries as a key feature of the emerging strategy.
The policy of setting up ETDZs has been articulated and endorsed politically at higher levels, underscoring their significance in overall economic planning, the report noted. The provincial-level ETDZs have been established in Chamdo City in 2013, Lhokha in 2018, and Shigatse near the border with Nepal, and Nyingchi (Tibetan: Nyingtri) near the border with India in 2019. Before these, China’s State Council established an ETDZ in Lhasa in 2001.
The new ETDZs seek to promote industrialization, help reduce the urban-rural gap, and pursue other policy objectives through encouraging urbanization, export-oriented industries, commercialization of agro-pastoral products, and tourism.
ETDZs are designed to create functional linkages with local industrial parks and rural commercial enterprises like farmers and herders’ cooperatives. Both industrial parks and ETDZs aim at incubating more “non-public economic organizations” to increase local tax revenue.
In the long run, the flourishing of such enterprises is also intended to incentivize Han private entrepreneurs to invest in the region, the report noted.
Industrial parks are a portion of the city that are specifically reserved for industrial use. These zones are not for the use of commercial or residential needs. They generally include ports, oil refineries, distribution centres, warehouses, and factories.
The TAR has 74 industrial parks, three-quarters of which are based in Lhasa city, followed by Nyingchi, Shigatse, and Lhokha. Besides, Nagqu (Nagchu), Chamdo, and Ngari each have one industrial park. This geographic distribution reflects the economic focus of the government on the “central economic zone”, a term used in previous regional planning documents.
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TAR has also launched a related set of initiatives under the umbrella of “Five Cities and Three Hours Economic Belt”, centering on Lhasa and Lhokha prefecture-cities and creating linkages with Shigatse in the west and Chamdo in the east. This regional integration plan, begun in 2018 and set to complete its second phase of implementation in 2025, will improve railway connectivity by completing the Lhasa-Nyingchi line of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, as well as road and air transport infrastructure.
At the regional planning level, these interrelated projects and initiatives are crucial for creating local sources of revenue and growth. Lhasa and Lhokha, whose combined populations equate to 41% of the TAR’s total, contribute 48% of the region’s GDP and 58.8% of total revenue. This population has grown significantly since 2016 due to the massive relocation of farmers and herders from Nagqu to Lhasa, Nyingchi, and Lhokha, the report said, citing Human Rights Watch, May 21.
The report cites the development of strategic border towns facing Nepal, India and Bhutan as another important policy, as referenced in the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for the TAR. These include Shiquanhe (Sengge Khabab) and Burang (Purang) town in Ngari Prefecture, Yadong (Yatung or Dromo) in Shigatse city-prefecture, Longzi (Lhuntse) Town in Lhokha city-prefecture and Mainling in Nyingtri city-prefecture, among others. As part of this urbanization push, the government has upgraded several county-level administrative units to city (urban) status since 2013 to facilitate further devolution of resources and administrative power to local governments.
Currently, the PRC has five land border ports in this Tibetan region, namely Zhangmu (Dram) in Nyalam County, Gyirong (Kyirong) in Gyirong County, Riwu (Ra’og) in Dinggye (Tingkye) County in Shigatse on the Nepal border, Burang in Ngari on the Indian border, and Yadong in Shigatse on the India-Bhutan border.
Being an extension to the TAR of key pillars of the PRC’s economic strategy that began in coastal regions in 1978, the provincial leadership has pursued central directives in attempting to develop the region’s foreign trade profile over the last decade.
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However, the report cites the heavy subsidization, Han control of the Tibetan economy (except for in the agriculture and livestock sectors), and the marginalization of ethnic Tibetans as potential causes of problems for both the local economy’s prospects. And the government’s more recent initiatives could simply exacerbate the problems, particularly as the new parks and zones are focused on pockets of the rising Han population.
Ma Rong, a sociologist of population in Tibet, has noted that the TAR’s Han population has increased overall but especially in certain pockets. Gar County in Ngari had a Han population ranging from 10% to 30%, Nyalam and Yadong in Shigatse had between 5 and 10% of total population from the 1990s up to the early 2000s.
However, these estimates, at best, underestimate the Han population by excluding or undercounting the “floating population” of Han temporary migrants and small businesses. The latest official socio-economic survey statistics suggest that Han people now constitute a majority or close to a majority of the population in specific urban centres like Bayi District in Nyingchi (around 39%) and Gar County in Ngari (around 57%), the report said.
ETDZs are designed in part to support exports, but the TAR’s external trade is currently limited to Nepal, due to ongoing border tensions with India. Meanwhile, infrastructural challenges hampering the development of the Sichuan-Tibet railway or national highways connecting the TAR with other provinces suggest that further integration with the rest of the PRC remains some way off, the report concluded.