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Dalai Lama supporters 'Sabotage' Tibet development: China

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The Dalai Lama seen in a October 2008 file photo. China criticised him and his supporters for “sabotaging” the development of Tibet.File photo/Tibet Sun/Lobsang Wangyal/India

Tibet could have developed faster without “sabotage” by supporters of the Dalai Lama, said China’s ruling Communist Party chief in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

“It’s the current Tibet that allows Tibetans to enjoy the fruits of the reform and opening up and the feeling of being their own masters,” Xinhua news agency quoted the region’s Communist Party secretary Zhang Qingli as saying.

Zhang has said he was confident that “the next five years would be one of the Tibet’s best development periods.”

The regional government is planning to construct its first four-lane expressway of 37.9 km, which is expected to be completed in 2011. All the counties will be connected with roads by next year and electricity by 2015.

Despite China’s investments and developmental projects, Tibetans have remained loyal to the Dalai Lama and opposed the Chinese rule in Tibet due to repressive policies aimed at destroying Tibetan culture, language and their environment.

Tibetans across the Tibetan plateau rose against the Chinese government in one of the biggest protests in two decades in March and the following months last year, especially in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in August.

The protests in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), and some other areas turned violent, and was cracked down on by Chinese security forces, killing 219 Tibetans, according to the Tibetan government-in-exile.

China blamed the Dalai Lama for plotting the unrest and accused him of being a “splittist,” or separatist. The Dalai Lama denied the charges and offered conciliatory talks for greater autonomy, not independence, for all the Tibetan-inhabited areas.

The TAR is expecting to have more than 10 percent gross domestic product (GDP) this year. Xinhua, the Chinese communist party news agency, reported that the region saw a 10.1 percent increase in GDP in 2008.

As tourism in the TAR was disrupted by the 14 March unrest in Lhasa, the local government allocated 46 million yuan to revitalize the tourism industry in 2008.

To resume local tourism, measures such as lowering the prices of transportation and accommodation, and sales promotions to boost the industry, have been taken. The regional government is expected to allocate 50 million yuan for encouraging tourism in the TAR in 2009.

Rights groups say the development projects benefit the ethnic Han Chinese settlers, migrating in large numbers from China. The Tibetan government-in-exile say that the Han Chinese are outnumbering the ethnic Tibetans in their own land, posing a threat to their culture, language and the environment.

The development projects are urban-oriented, where the Han settlers are. Tibetans are in the rural areas where facilities remain poor and unattended, and hence the poverty, unemployment and illiteracy remain a major problem among ethnic Tibetans.

Anti-China protests could hit again this year across the Tibetan plateau as Tibetans on 10 March will mark the 50th anniversary of the Chinese invasion of Tibet, which led to the flight of the Dalai Lama into exile in India.

Copyright © 2009 Tibet Sun

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