Going Back to Tibet: Analytic Narrative

Abstract

This chapter sets out to investigate how China’s interprovincial economic (dis)integration has been determined in Tibet. Given the ethnic homogeneity within Tibet and the similar religious beliefs adopted by the Tibetans and Han Chinese (both of which belong to the Mongoloid group), the harmonious Han–Tibetan relations had once ever been achieved. It is found that Tibet’s spatial economic disparities are much smaller than Xinjiang’s, which could be responsible for its long-term economic progress and social stability. Finally, we also find that China’s development policies toward Tibet have been more successful than those toward Xinjiang. This may be witnessed not only by the Tibetan’s better social and economic performances than Xinjiang’s but also by the less tensed (at least compared to the Han–Uyghur relations in Xinjiang) Han–Tibetan relations in Tibet.

5.1 A Bird’s-Eye View of Tibet

5.1.1 International Connections

Tibet adjoins Bhutan and Nepal on the south, Myanmar on the southeast, and India on both the southeast and the northwest. Most of these land boundaries are set along the water parting of high-elevation mountains (including the Altai, the Tianshan, the Pamirs, the Karakoram range, and the Himalayas) and at uninhabited places, not suitable for cross-border communication and transportation. Tibet has much more complicated boundary and external conditions than, except Xinjiang, other frontier provinces in China.

Tibet’s frontier railway system was built much later than those of other Chinese frontier provinces. On September 26, 2010, China started to construct a 253-km long railway connecting Lhasa and Rikaze (see Fig. 5.1). This project, which was completed in August 2014, extends Tibet’s railway system to China’s boundary with Nepal. If the rail line that has reached up to Rikaze from mainland China could be extended up to Kathmandu, the whole time of goods transportation from inland Chinese cities to Nepal will be cut to less than a week from 12 to 18 days (via sea route).¹ As a result, the economic ties between Nepal and China could be taken to a new height; and, undoubtedly, economic infrastructure could be further developed on the Himalayan transit points between Nepal and China.

Fig. 5.1

The railway systems of western China. Source Author

Even though Tibet’s frontier railway system has been built much later, it is going to play an important role in the promotion of international trade in Tibet. While the Qinghai–Tibet Railway has announced extending the railway southward to Rikaze, a land bridge concept from time to time rumors. This land bridge connects the Pacific and Indian oceans, linking the east coast port city of Lianyungang in East China, Xi’an, Lanzhou, Xining, Lhasa, through Nepal, and finally arriving in India and Pakistan. If the land bridge is completed, it will benefit all the countries involved (including, but limited to, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and China). Since it is located between China and India—the world’s two most populous and fastest-growing economies, Tibet will be in a crucial geographical position. Regardless of a demand that may have strategic geopolitical implications for India, Nepal has asked China to extend the Beijing–Lhasa railway line to Kathmandu and offered that it is committed not to allow anti-China activities from its soil (Pradhan, October 12 2009).

There have been worries in India that the cross-border rail connectivity will make Nepal and Bangladesh–India’s traditional partners—come closer to China. In addition, India also fears that China now has the capability to deploy and sustain more than half a million troops for over a month on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in case of a high-threat scenario with India (Gupta, May 11 2011). The China–Indian relations have been shadowed by the territorial disputes in Jammu and Kashmir. India lays claim to vast territories of land that is in the possession of China. For a long time, the demarcation of China’s land boundaries with India has been the subject of political argument. The whole disputed area includes Aksai Chin (which is currently under the administration of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region) and some small pieces of land (which is currently under the administration of Tibet autonomous region). India, however, claims the area as part of Ladakh district of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. In 1962 there was a short border war between China and India. The war lasted from October 20 to November 22. It ended with a Chinese victory and the birth of the LAC that India never accepts (Guo 2012, p. 65).

There is a different story about the China–India boundary dispute in Tibet. The dispute began at the early 1910s. In 1913 and 1914, the British administrator in India, Sir Henry McMahon, drew up the so-called McMahon Line as the boundary between China and India. China has never recognized the validity of the McMahon Line. In 1962, China and India fought a battle in this area, with a Chinese victory. After the war, the Chinese army withdrew from the McMahon Line. This disputed area acquired an independent political status on January 20, 1972, when it was declared as Union Territory, an administrative division of India ruled directly by the national government, under the name of Arunachal Pradesh. The state of Arunachal Pradesh bill was passed by the Indian Parliament in 1986 and, with effect from February 20, 1987, Arunachal Pradesh became the 24th state of Indian Union (Guo 2012, pp. 57–59). Since it was China that withdrew its army from this disputed area, the Sino-India territorial dispute is now dormant.

Thanks to Tibet’s geocultural connections to India, the Dalai Lama XIV was able to establish its government-in-exile in Dharamsala, North India. Dharamshala had been connected with Hinduism and Buddhism for a long time, with many monasteries having been established there in the past, by Tibetan immigrants in the nineteenth century. Following the 1959 Tibetan uprising there was an influx of Tibetan refugees—who followed the Dalai Lama XIV—in India, Nepal, and Bhutan. As soon as the Dalai Lama and several thousand other Tibetans fled to India, the Indian government settled them in the Dharamshala area where the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) was also established. Now most of these Tibetans and their descendants have lived in and around the McLeodGanj village in Upper Dharamshala, where they have built monasteries, temples, and schools. As a result, McLeodGanj is sometimes known as the “Little Lhasa”—after the Tibetan capital city of today’s Tibet autonomous region in China—or “Dhasa” (a compound of the words “Dharamshala” and “Lhasa”). Today, the Dalai Lama’s presence and the Tibetan population have made Dharamshala a popular destination for tourists.

In terms of religion, Tibet and its neighboring countries are almost homogeneous. Even though different schools of Buddhism have been adopted, they are not conflicting with each other. This is quite different from that in other frontier regions in China. For example, there are at least three different—and sometimes incompatible—religious beliefs in Xinjiang:

• Buddhism (which is also adopted in northern India and Mongolia).

• Islam (which is also adopted in Afghanistan, part of Kazakhstan, part of Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan).

• Eastern Orthodox (which is also adopted in part of Kazakhstan, part of Kyrgyzstan, and Russia).

Table 5.1 shows a brief summary of Tibet’s international and boundary conditions (for ease of comparison, the data of both Tibet and its neighbor, Xinjiang are included). For example, during the past decades, even though many other domestic issues have played some roles in Xinjiang’s social unrest, it seems that the fact that Xinjiang’s geographical proximity to Afghanistan and Pakistan is also a critical factor. The most illustrating case is the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). The ETIM, which was found in 1997, is believed to organize various terrorist attacks in southern Xinjiang near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. On September 11, 2002, the ETIM was at the UN Security Council list of entities associated with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.²

Table 5.1 Boundary and external conditions: Xinjiang and Tibet

5.1.2 Interprovincial Linkages

The interprovincial boundaries of Tibet are much simpler than their international boundaries. Tibet autonomous region has four neighbors (Qinghai, Sichuan, Xinjiang, and Yunnan). Without good reason, interprovincial boundaries are usually more geographically accessible and less politically sensitive than international boundaries. As a result, there are always, ceteris paribus, strong interprovincial vis-à-vis international socioeconomic links in the contemporary world. Tibet has no exceptions.

Tibet’s interprovincial railway system has been built much later than any other Chinese provinces. In 2006 the construction of the 2,000 km Qinghai–Tibet Railway was completed (see Sect. 2.4 of Chap. 2 for more details). This stretches from Xining—capital of Qinghai province—to Lhasa, and across the Kunlun Mountains and Tanggulashan. The railway makes Tibet more accessible, with direct passenger trains running from Lhasa to major inland cities (as shown in Table 3.3 of Chap. 3). With the operation of the Qinghai–Tibet Railway—the world’s highest railway—the cost of transportation of both passengers and goods should be greatly reduced, allowing for an increase in volume—the cost per ton-kilometer will be reduced from 0.38 yuan to 0.12 yuan (Cnradio, November 10 2006). According to a report released by the Qingzang Railway Corporation, in 2012 a total number of 6.83 million passengers and 40.22 million tons of cargos were transported from and to Tibet (Askci 2013).

Since the 1980s, China has implemented a more flexible policy to ease interprovincial migration. As a result, interprovincial labor flows have been increased. It is noteworthy that these flows have also been conducted by people coming from the inland, ethnic minority, areas and moving into the coastal, Han-majority areas. Consequently, China’s interprovincial ethnic networks have been enhanced. Using the data released by China’s Fifth and Sixth National Population Censuses (which were conducted on November 1, 2000 and 2010, respectively), the Tibetans (the ethnic majority of Tibet) are illustrated below as an example.

The Tibetans were found to have stronger interprovincial links in 2010 than in 2000. Specifically, Tibet autonomous region has the largest Tibetan links with the following provincial administrations (represented by the share of Tibetan population):

• 1. Qinghai (24.44 % in 2010, up from 22.53 % in 2000),

• 2. Gansu (1.91 % in 2010, up from 1.76 % in 2000),

• 3. Sichuan (1.86 % in 2010, up from 1.54 % in 2000),

• 4. Yunnan (0.31 % in 2010, up from 0.30 % in 2000),

• 5. Xinjiang (0.04 % in 2010, up from 0.03 % in 2000),

• 6. Beijing (0.03 % in 2010, up from 0.02 % in 2000),

• 7. Shaanxi (0.02 % in 2010, up from 0.01 % in 2000),

• 8. Tianjin (0.01 % in both 2010 and 2000),

• 9. Inner Mongolia (0.01 % in both 2010 and 2000),

• 10. Chongqing (0.01 % in both 2010 and 2000),

• 11. Shanghai (0.01 % in both 2010 and 2000),

• 12. Ningxia (0.01 % in both 2010 and 2000),

• 13. Guangdong (0.01 % in both 2010 and 2000), and

• 14. Zhejiang (0.01 % in 2010, up from 0.00 % in 2000).³

5.2 Internal Economic Performance

5.2.1 General Situation

Tibet, averaging more than 4,000 m above sea level, forms the main part of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau and is well known as the “Roof of the World.” Mount Everest (about 8,848 m above sea level), located on the border with Nepal, is the highest mountain on earth. Several major rivers have their source on the Tibetan Plateau (mostly in Qinghai province). These include the Yangtze, the Yellow, the Indus, the Mekong, the Ganges, the Salween, and the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) rivers. The Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon is among the deepest and longest in the world. The Indus and Brahmaputra originate from western Tibet.

The atmosphere is severely dry for 9 months each year, and the average annual snowfall is only 460 mm. The Indian monsoon exerts some influence on eastern Tibet. Northern Tibet is subject to high temperatures in summer and intense cold in winter. Western passes receive a small amount of fresh snow each year but remain traversable all year round. Low temperatures are prevalent throughout these western regions, where bleak desolation is unrelieved by any vegetation bigger than a low bush, and where wind sweeps unchecked across vast expanses of arid plain.

There are more than 90 known mineral types in the area, of which 26 have proven reserves and 11 rank among the top five in China. The minerals include chromite, lithium, copper, gypsum, boron, magnesite, barite, arsenic, mica, peat, kaolin, salt, natural soda, mirabilite, sulfur, phosphorus, potassium, diatomaceous earth, iceland spar, corundum, rock quartz, and agate. In 2007 Chinese central government issued a report outlining the discovery of a large mineral deposit in Tibet. This may double China’s previous reserves of zinc, copper, and lead. Government sees this as a way to alleviate the nation’s dependence on foreign mineral imports for its growing economy. However, the exploitation of these vast resources could harm Tibet’s fragile ecosystem and also undermine its culture.

Tibet is rich in hydro, geothermal, solar, and wind energy. It produces approximately 200 million kw of natural hydroenergy annually, about 30 % of the nation’s total. It has 354.8 billion cubic meters of surface water resources, about 13.5 % of the nation’s total, and 330 billion cubic meters of glacial water resources. The region has 56.59 million kw exploitable hydroenergy resources, about 15 % of the nation’s total. It also leads China in geothermal energy. The Yangbajain geothermal field in Damxung county, Lhasa, is the country’s largest high-temperature steam geothermal field and also one of the largest in the world.

Due to limited arable land, the primary occupation on the Tibetan Plateau is raising livestock, such as sheep, cattle, goats, camels, yaks, dzo, and horses. The main crops grown are barley, wheat, buckwheat, rye, potatoes, and assorted fruits and vegetables. The development of agriculture and animal husbandry has been given top priority in the Tibetan economy. The major agricultural products, such as broad beans, barley, wheat, rapeseed, garlic, and mushrooms, have great competitive advantage in terms of quality due to several unique natural conditions. As of 2010, “public management and social organization” and “culture, sports and entertainment” are relatively strong, while “services to households and other services,” “real estate,” “manufacturing,” and “mining” are relatively weak.⁴

The economy of Tibet autonomous region is dominated by subsistence agriculture, though tourism has been growing in recent decades. In 1981 there were only 2,005 foreigners visiting Tibet; while the number has reached 214,136 persons in 2010 (TBS 2011). At present, priorities for foreign investments are infrastructure (such as transportation and communications), education, agriculture (plateau agriculture, water-conservative agriculture, food processing), and Tibetan medicine. Foreign investments come mainly from Nepal, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Denmark, Canada, and Australia.

5.2.2 How Tibet Differs from Xinjiang

Located at the westernmost end of China, both Xinjiang and Tibet have large, sparsely populated areas. However, compared with Xinjiang, Tibet is still far sparser, with an average population density of less than 2.5 persons per square kilometer (see Table 5.2). In addition, Tibet is the least urbanized area in China, with an economy that depends on agriculture, finance from central government, and a thriving tourism industry. Economic development in the area is stunted by high transportation costs and high exploration costs.

Table 5.2 Socioeconomic performances: Xinjiang versus Tibet

In terms of the UNDP’s Human Development Index, Tibet is ranked the lowest among China’s 31 provinces (UNDP 2010). Tibet has had a much higher illiterate rate of population than any other Chinese provinces. For example, the proportion of ethnic Tibetans over age 15 in the Tibetan autonomous region recorded as illiterate or semiliterate in the 1990 census was as high as 72.8 % compared with China’s national average of 22.8 % (Ma 1996, p. 51). In 2000, its illiterate rate of population aged 15 or over was 32.5 %, which is much higher than that of Xinjiang (5.56 %); in 2010, the ratio has reduced to 24.42 %, but it is still higher than that of Xinjiang (2.36 %) (see Table 5.2).

Ever since the initiation of China’s opening-up and reform drive in 1979, Xinjiang’s economy has been changed dramatically. As of 2010, industry leads with a contribution of 47.70 % to the gross regional product (GRP). The service sector also makes a substantial contribution at 32.50 %; while agriculture contributes the remaining 19.80 % (see Table 2.3 of Chap. 2). In Tibet, industry is playing an increasingly important role in the economy although service sector has still been the major economic player over the last few decades (see Table 3.1 of Chap.  3). Industrial products such as minerals, medicine, Qingke barley wine, carpets, and building materials are renowned globally. Traditional Tibetan medicine, in particular, boasts a long history in Tibet. While Tibet could be a large producer of natural resources and raw materials, there have been few advances in these areas. The focus is on expanding secondary industries, in particular energy, mining, and new building materials. Due to limited arable land, the primary occupation of the Tibetan Plateau is raising livestock, such as sheep, cattle, goats, camels, yaks, dzo, and horses. The main crops grown are barley, wheat, buckwheat, rye, potatoes, and assorted fruits and vegetables.

From 2000 to 2010, Tibet’s net income level of rural residents has increased at a much faster rate than its income level of urban residents. For example, in 2000, the urban/rural income ratio of Tibet is as high as 5.58, which is much higher than that of Xinjiang (3.49). After 10 years, in 2010, Tibet has dramatically reduced its urban/rural income ratio to 3.62, which is much close to that of Xinjiang (see Table 5.2). A simple comparison of the income levels between Xinjiang and Tibet also reveals that the people’s living conditions in Tibet have been improved more significantly than those in Xinjiang during the period from 2000 to 2010, especially in urban areas. For example, Xinjiang’s per capita gross regional product (GRP) is 1.75 and 1.50 times that of Tibet in 2000 and 2010, respectively. However, in 2010 its per capita incomes of urban and rural residents have been only 90 % and 99 % those of Tibet, respectively (see Table 5.2).

When referring to Xinjiang’s regional (especially its rural area) economic development, one must pay attention to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Crops (XPCC) (see Guo (2015, Chap. 2) for details). In general, the XPCC equipped with the well-educated staff and with strong support from the Chinese central government, has much higher economic growth rate than the rest of Xinjiang (Shao, 3 April 2012). However, after excluding the XPCC, the rest of Xinjiang has made less social and economic progress than Xinjiang as a whole. For example, since the rural residents of the XPCC has much higher income level than the other rural residents of Xinjiang, the inclusion of the XPCC’s agricultural areas into Xinjiang’s rural areas has automatically increased the net income of rural residents and therefore reduced the urban–rural income ratio in Xinjiang.

Last but not least, Xinjiang and Tibet are different from each other in terms of spatial economic disparity. Tibet’s economy is a rather convergent among its regions. And its interregional gap of per capita gross regional product (GRP), represented by the ratio of the richest region’s per capita GRP to the poorest one, has reduced from 3.76 to 1.63 from 2000 to 2010. Given China’s great spatial economic disparities,⁵ Tibet can be treated as an exception. By way of contrast, Xinjiang has much greater spatial economic disparities than Tibet and any other inland Chinese provinces. In 2000, the per capita gross regional product (GRP) of the richest region (i.e., Karamay municipality) was 25.62 times that of the poorest region (i.e., Ili prefecture). In 2010, this ratio was slightly reduced to 23.43 times but still much higher than other places in China.

Then, what is the driving force behind the large spatial economic inequality and how will it imply to Xinjiang’s regional economic development and social stability? We will give more detailed analyses in the next section.

5.3 External Economic Performance

5.3.1 An Export–Import Puzzle

China’s border development has mainly benefited from its “open-door” policy and rapprochement with the neighboring countries since the mid-1980s. In 1984 the Chinese government promulgated the “Provisional Regulations for the Management of ‘Small-volume’ Border Trade” and opened up hundreds of frontier cities and towns. Inspired by Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Speech in early 1992, China has embarked on a deeper outward-looking policy in an attempt to promote development in the frontier regions. As for Tibet, favorable and flexible measures have been granted to international trade and economic cooperation. They include: “Resolutions Concerning the Further Reform and Opening up to the Outside World” (issued by the State Council on July 14, 1992).⁶

In 2010, Xinjiang’s exports amounted to US$12.9 billion (which is 38.68 times that in 1990), while its imports turned out to be only US$4.2 billion (which is 55.48 times that in 1990) (XBS 2011). Major imports in the region include rolled steel, medical equipment, crude oil, oil products, and fertilizers; major exports are clothing and other daily consumers’ goods. Compared with Xinjiang, Tibet had only US$771.02 million of exports and US$64.92 million of imports in 2010, which are 55.31 times and 27.66 times those in 1990, respectively (TBS 2011). Tibet’s major exports include light industry products, livestock products, traditional Chinese medicine, and carpets; while its main imports are motor vehicles and machinery products.

At present, Xinjiang and Tibet have far poorer foreign trade performances than their coastal counterparts. This is simply due to the fact that in China the frontier provinces have always disadvantageous locations in conducting trade and economic cooperation with the world’s major market economies. However, compared with other inland Chinese provinces, Xinjiang and Tibet still have locational advantages in cross-border trade and economic cooperation with their respective adjacent nations.

By cross-border trade (or border trade for short), it generally refers to the flow of goods and services across the international borders between jurisdictions. In this sense, it is a part of normal trade that flows through standard export/import frameworks of nations. In China, border trade is defined as the one that is conducted by people living on the frontier areas within 15 km (sometimes 20 km) away from an international boundary (Cihai 1999, p. 1250). Subject to the government approval, border trade may enjoy tariff exemption for a certain amount of goods (in monetary value) and may be able to receive a reduced tariff rate for remaining goods.

Generally, cross-border economic cooperation and trade are facilitated by both geographical factor and also the fact that people on both sides of the border either belong to the same ethnic group or share similar cultural characteristics. Although both have international geographical adjacencies, Xinjiang has cross-border trade advantages over Tibet. For example, China’s first border free trade zone (i.e., the Horgos Free Trade Zone) is located at the Xinjiang–Kazakhstan border city of Horgos. Horgos is the largest “land port” in China’s far western region and it has easy access to the Central Asian market. In March 2006, Xinjiang opened its second border trade market—called the Jeminay Border Trade Zone—near its border with Kazakhstan.

Xinjiang’s cross-border trade was very small before 1990; since then, it has grown steadily. This is because Alashankou (the Ala Pass), which is located on the China–Kazakhstan boundary has been the only railway station connecting Xinjiang and its neighboring nations (i.e., Afghanistan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, and Tajikistan); it was constructed in the 1980s and went into operation in September 1990. As a result, most of Xinjiang’s cross-border trade has been directed to and from Kazakhstan. In 2010, for example, Xinjiang’s exports to and imports from Kazakhstan account for 60.82 % and 87.65 % of its total exports to and imports from all the neighboring nations, respectively (XBS 2011). Xinjiang’s cross-border trade has followed a nonlinear pattern of growth during the period from 2000 to 2010 (shown in Fig. 5.2). Specifically, the sharp declining of exports in 2009 and 2010 may have stemmed from the following two factors:««

• (i) The 2008 US financial crisis which resulted in worldwide trade stagnation; and

• (ii) A series of violent riots that occurred in Urumqi in 2009 and damaged the business environment in Xinjiang.⁷

Fig. 5.2

Xinjiang’s cross-border trade (1990–2010). Source Author based on XBS (2011)

Tibet’s lower level of foreign trade volume is mainly due to the fact that Tibet has disadvantages in social production. In addition, the less-developed transportation network in Tibet has also been a factor retarding its cross-border trade. Before 2000, Tibet has very small volumes of cross-border trade; since then, especially since 2005, Tibet’s cross-border exports have grown sharply (see Fig. 5.3). If this has been promoted by the operation of the Qinghai–Tibet Railway in 2006, one can expect that, after the Lhasa–Rikaze Railway is completed, Tibet’s cross-border trade will be further fostered. Regardless of its sharp growth of exports, Tibet’s imports have only maintained at a very small size during the past decades. This is an issue that needs further clarifications.

Fig. 5.3

Tibet’s cross-border trade (1953–2010). Source Author based on TBS (2011)

Till now, there is still one puzzling issue. As mentioned in Sect. 5.1.1, Xinjiang currently has a much more developed cross-border railway network than Tibet. However, its foreign trade growth has been much slower than the latter during the past decade. Even worse, regardless of the fact that Tibet’s cross-border exports had increased by 110.20 % from 2008 to 2010, Xinjiang’s cross-border exports had declined by 51.33 % during the same period.⁸ If the US financial crisis, which had resulted in the globe-wide trade stagnation, had affected Xinjiang’s foreign trade from 2008 to 2010, why did Tibet not experience a declining of foreign trade for that period of time? If the Han–Uyghur unrest from 2007 to 2010 (see Chap. 3 for details) had been responsible for Xinjiang’s foreign trade stagnation from 2008 to 2010, why did Tibet (in which there was also serious social unrest in 2008) not experience a decline in foreign trade for that period of time?

In addition, as shown in Fig. 5.3, Tibet’s remarkable growth in foreign trade for the period from 2000 to 2010 has only happened since the mid-2000s when the Qinghai–Tibet Railway went into operation. Since we cannot find any other key events or factors contributing to this remarkable foreign trade growth of Tibet, we must presume that it was the Qinghai–Tibet Railway that helped Tibet to serve as an entrepot by which China’s inland provinces conduct exports to or imports from the South Asian nations. For example, with the operation of the Qinghai–Tibet railway, the cost of transportation of both passengers and goods should be greatly reduced, allowing for an increase in volume—the cost per ton-kilometer will be reduced from 0.38 yuan to 0.12 yuan (Cnradio 2006). As a result, more commodities will be carried to and from Tibet by the railway.

If Tibet’s robust cross-border exports have benefited from the Qinghai–Tibet Railway which was completed in 2006, why have its cross-border imports been decreased by 36.96 % from 2006 to 2010 (see Fig. 5.3)? Nevertheless, the above presumption seems to be reasonable since Tibet’s exports have been much larger than its imports.⁹ Tibet has natural and economic conditions similar to, and has no obvious industrial advantages over, its neighboring nations. Obviously, without the participation by inland provinces, Tibet could not have sustained such large amount of cross-border trade surplus.

Compared with Tibet’s stagnation in cross-border import from 2006 to 2010, Xinjiang’s cross-border import has enjoyed an 87.26 % growth during the same period. How to explain the Xinjiang–Tibet differences in both exports and imports? We must mention the fact that Xinjiang has a much more developed railway networks than Tibet. However, the railway system is, though still important, not a sufficient factor by which to explain the Xinjiang–Tibet puzzle. In order to have a concrete account of Tibet’s (vis-à-vis Xinjiang’s) remarkable foreign trade (export in particular) growth, we must pay some attention to their social and economic ties with China’s inland provinces.

It should be noted that the interprovincial ethnic linkages (represented by population shares) of Tibet stated in Sect. 5.1.2 are quite small in percentages. However, there are huge numbers of population in most of the Chinese provinces. Therefore, the above population shares—along with the other, even smaller population shares still denote the significant presence of interprovincial ethnic links for Tibet (in terms of the Tibetan ethnic group).

5.3.2 Explaining the Puzzle

What have the above interprovincial ethnic links implied to the trade puzzle of Xinjiang and Tibet? To have a concrete understanding of this issue, let us first look at the estimated results reported in Chap. 4. Since the estimated coefficients on Uyghur and Tibetan ethnic groups are statistically insignificant for 2000 (see Table 4.6 (2000) of Chap. 4), we may simply assume that, the interprovincial Uyghur and Tibetan links—no matter how large they are—do not have any significant influences on the interprovincial trade of Xinjiang and Tibet, respectively. However, since the estimated coefficients are statistically significant for 2010, the interprovincial Uyghur and Tibetan links will tend to influence interprovincial trade in 2010.

To go further, let us use the estimated coefficients reported in Tables 4.6 (2010) to calculate each ethnic group’s contributions to interprovincial trade in 2010 (the results are reported in Table 5.3). The figures reported in the third and fifth columns of this table denote percentages by which provinces that are linked by an ethnic group—Uyghur or Tibetan—would increase (or decrease if the figures are negative) bilateral trade as opposed to those that are not linked by the same ethnic group. From Table 5.3, one may observe that ethnic links have exerted different influences on interprovincial trade performances in Xinjiang and Tibet in 2010. For example, while the presence of the Tibetans has only slightly increased Tibet’s trade with most inland Chinese provinces by percentages of less than 0.5 %, it has increased Tibet’s trade with the four neighbors of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan—where certain amounts of Tibetans reside—by as high as 2740.4746, 29.8863, 29.0254, and 4.3294 %, respectively.

Table 5.3 How the Uyghurs and Tibetans influence interprovincial trade, 2010

However, ethnic links have not always promoted interprovincial trade in China. In fact, the Uyghur ethnic group has already been proved to retard interprovincial trade in 2010 (as stated in Table 4.6 (2010) of Chap. 4). This is a quite unusual phenomenon. After further calculations (see Table 5.3), one may observe that Xinjiang’s interprovincial trade has been reduced by its Uyghur presence at the inland Chinese provinces, with the reductions ranging from 6.5999 % (with Hebei) to as high as 86.7273 % (with Beijing).

How to explain the negative correlation between Uyghur links and interprovincial trade in Xinjiang? It seems that our 2010s estimated results on Xinjiang and the Uyghur ethnic group in particular might have closely stemmed from the various incidents of Han–Uyghur unrest from 2007 to 2010.¹⁰ Among the many other incidents that could have affected Xinjiang’s interprovincial trade in 2010, the Shaoguan incident and the Urumqi riots (both in 2009) and the Aksu bombing (in 2010) are worth mentioning. However, we should be cautious of any arbitrary conclusions before more concrete theoretical and empirical findings are discovered. In addition to the above-mentioned factor, other factors—especially the differing natural resources, geographical and cultural features, and regional development policies—may also have some influences on the differing trade performances of Xinjiang and Tibet.

Next, let us explain how Tibet’s large foreign trade surplus has been determined by China’s interprovincial trade. After replacing the dependent variable “ln(TRADE _ij )” in Eq. (4.3) of Chap. 4 with ln(EXPORT _ij ) and ln(IMPORT _ij ), we may quantitatively test the determinants of China’s interprovincial export and import, respectively (see Annex 1 at the end of this chapter for the estimated results). Note that sometimes the terms “export” and “import” may be interchangeable. For example, Xinjiang’s export to Anhui is also Anhui’s import from Xinjiang. Since all province pairs are arranged in alphabetic order, the bilateral export and import between Xinjiang and Anhui are only reported in the “Anhui-Xinjiang” entry. As a result, in most circumstances the export and import concepts used in this section can also be known as inland Chinese provinces’ export from and import to Xinjiang or Tibet, respectively.¹¹

The marginal effects of the ethnic links on interprovincial exports and imports can be obtained by deriving the first-order differential of the dependent variable—ln(EXPORT _ij ) and ln(IMPORT _ij )—with respect to Ethnic _ijk , respectively. From Table 5.4, we may observe that the marginal effect of the Tibetan ethnic links on interprovincial exports in 2010 (denoted by 17.124–0.119x) follows a decreasing law with respect to x (denoted by the natural log of per capita GDPs of two trading provinces). However, this marginal effect is always positive since x is much less than 17.124/0.119 = 143.90. In the meantime, the Tibetan ethnic links are not found to exert any influences on interprovincial imports. Obviously, this indicates that the Tibetan ethnic links tend to promote interprovincial exports vis-à-vis imports. Since the negative marginal effect of the Han ethnic links on interprovincial imports are always larger than that on interprovincial exports, it can be judged that interprovincial imports are more seriously retarded by the Han ethnic links than interprovincial exports.

Table 5.4 The marginal effects of interprovincial ethnic links on trade (2000 and 2010)

The above results suggest that most of the inland Chinese provinces’ exportation to Tibet is always more robust than their importation from Tibet. In the meantime, we can also conclude that it was China’s inland provinces that have fostered Tibet’s exportation to its neighboring nations in 2010. Unfortunately, since Tibet’s interprovincial trade data are not available for the year 2000, we are not able to clarify the differences of ethnic influences on trade between 2000 and 2010.

How to explain Xinjiang’s robust cross-border importation (vis-à-vis exportation) from 2006 to 2010? Different from Tibet which is mainly dominated by a single ethnic group (Tibetan), Xinjiang is ethnically diverse (see Sect. 5.4.2 for details). In order to clarify how these ethnic groups have exerted different influences on Xinjiang’s interprovincial exports and imports, let us employ the estimated coefficients on seven major ethnic groups (i.e., Dongxiang, Han, Hui, Kazak, Manchu, Mongol, and Uyghur) to calculate their marginal effects on interprovincial exports and imports (see Table 5.4). Specifically, these ethnic groups’ influences on trade have different patterns:

• Dongxiang: its marginal effect on imports is always larger than that on exports in 2010. And its marginal effect on imports in 2010 is always larger than that in 2000.

• Han: its marginal effects on exports and imports in 2010 are always smaller than those in 2000. And, for both years its marginal effects on imports are always smaller than those on exports.

• Hui: its marginal effect on exports in 2010 is smaller than that in 2000; by contrast, its marginal effect on imports in 2010 is larger than that in 2000.

• Kazak: its marginal effects on exports in both 2000 and 2010 cannot be determined. However, its marginal effect on imports in 2010 is always smaller than that in 2000.

• Manchu: its marginal effects on exports and imports in 2010 are always smaller than those in 2000. However, its marginal effects on imports are always larger than those on exports in both years.

• Mongol: its marginal effects on imports in both 2000 and 2010 cannot be determined. However, its marginal effect on exports in 2010 is always smaller than that in 2000.

• Uyghur: its marginal effects on exports and imports in 2010 are always smaller than those in 2000. However, its marginal effect on imports is always larger than that on exports in 2010.

After taking into account of all these ethnic groups, we may conclude that the ethnic determinants of inland Chinese provinces’ importation from and exportation to Xinjiang are quite complicated. Specifically, the Dongxiang and the Manchu ethnic groups have fostered China’s inland provinces’ importation from Xinjiang as well as from its neighboring nations for which Xinjiang has served as an entrepot. In the meantime, the Uyghur ethnic group has retarded China’s inland provinces’ exportation to Xinjiang as well as to its neighboring nations for which Xinjiang has served as an entrepot. All these have made Xinjiang different from Tibet in terms of cross-border trade.

5.4 Understanding the Tibet Problem

5.4.1 Focusing Tibetans

The differences between two ethnic groups can be identified according to various criteria. Obviously, linguistic difference is an important indicator. Although it is not the only tool for building trusting relationships, doors usually open more quickly when knocked on by someone who speaks a familiar language. Sharing a common language, however, does not necessarily mean effective communication in technical terms. More importantly, religion can have a deep impact not only on attitudes toward economic matters but also on values that influence them. Specifically, religious attitudes and values help to determine what one thinks is right or appropriate, what is important, what is desirable, and so on (Guo 2007).

The Tibetans and the Han Chinese belong to the Mongoloid group.¹² This group, including most peoples of East Asia and the American Indians, has been described as having skin of saffron to yellow or reddish brown. The hair is dark, straight. The eyes are from black to dark brown. In addition, Chinese and Tibetan—two major languages adopted by the Han and Tibetans, respectively—encompass the most important part of the Sino-Tibetan family of language. The Tibetan language is spoken in numerous regional dialects which generally cannot be understood by the speakers of the different oral forms. Although spoken Tibetan varies according to the region, the written language, based on Classical Tibetan, is consistent throughout. This is probably due to the long-standing influence of the Tibetan empire, whose rule embraced (and extended at times far beyond) the present Tibetan linguistic area, which runs from northern Pakistan in the west to Yunnan and Sichuan in the east, and from north of Lake Qinghai to south as far as Bhutan.

Unlike the Tibetans and the Han Chinese, the Uyghurs—the ethnic majority of Xinjiang—belong to the Caucasoid. The Caucasoid group, found in Europe, North Africa, and from the Middle East to North India, is characterized as having skin of pale reddish white to olive brown. The hair is light blond to dark brown. The color of the eyes varies from light blue to dark brown. In addition, Uyghur—one of the Turkic languages—belongs to the Ural–Altaic Phylum. The other Turkic languages adopted in Xinjiang include Kazakh, Uzbek, Kirgiz, and so on.

Religion is extremely important to the Tibetans and has a strong influence over all aspects of their lives. Tibetan Buddhism, a distinctive form of Mahayana and Vajrayana, was introduced into Tibet from the Sanskrit Buddhist tradition of northern India. Tibetan Buddhism is practiced not only in Tibet but also in Mongolia, parts of northern India, and some other parts of China. While Buddhism is adopted by both the Tibetans and the Han Chinese in most part of China, the Uyghurs and many other ethnic groups in Xinjiang are Muslims. In the mid-seventh century, Muslim Arab and Persian merchants came overland through Central Asia to today’s Xinjiang, bringing with them the Islamic faith. Now, Muslim people in Xinjiang include not only the Uyghurs but several other ethnic groups such as the Uzbeks, the Kyrgyz, the Tatars, the Kazakhs, and the Hui Chinese.

In short, the Tibetans, not like the Uyghurs, have several similarities with the Han Chinese. And, since the Uyghurs, the Tibetans and the Han Chinese represent the ethnic majorities of Xinjiang, Tibet, and the other Chinese provinces as a whole, respectively, this may have largely contributed to the differing interprovincial trade patterns of Xinjiang and Tibet (see Table 5.3).

5.4.2 Tibet Is Culturally Homogeneous

Ethnic diversity is another key factor by which to distinguish Tibet and Xinjiang. Unlike Xinjiang, which is an ethnically heterogeneous place, Tibet is ethnically homogeneous, with 90 % of its population being the Tibetans.

After 1949, the Han Chinese began to return to Xinjiang. And till 1964, they comprised 33 % of the population (with the Uyghurs being 54 %), a share similar to that of the Qing times. A decade later, at the beginning of the Chinese economic reform in 1978, the demographic balance was 46 % of the Uyghurs and 40 % of the Han Chinese (Toops 2004). Military personnel are not counted and national minorities are undercounted in the Chinese population census, as in most censuses (Starr 2004, p. 242). In addition to the Uyghurs, the Han Chinese, the Kazakhs, and the Hui Chinese, other ethnic groups in the region include the Uzbeks, the Kyrgyz, the Tatars, the Mongols, the Daurs, the Dongxiang, the Russians, the Xibes, and the Manchus.

Using the method and the data shown in Annex 2 at the end of this chapter, we can calculate the ethnic diversity scores for Xinjiang and Tibet:

• Xinjiang: 0.6242 (for 2000); 0.6194 (for 2010), with a slight reduction of 0.77 % from 2000 to 2010.

• Tibet: 0.1357 (for 2000); 0.1733 (for 2010), with an increase of 27.71 % from 2000 to 2010.

Note that the increase of ethnic diversity score in Tibet mainly results from the faster growth of the Han Chinese minority (with the rate of 54.67 %) from 2000 to 2010; during the same period, however, the total amount of the Tibetan majority has only increased by 11.92 % (see Annex 2 at the end of this chapter for details). It should be noted that many of the Chinese population in Tibet were cadres and government workers sent to Tibet to participate in economic development as well as to further the PRC’s political control there. Since the early 1990s, there has been another upsurge of Han immigration. There are still Han military, who are not counted in the census, and various other Han government employees. However, since the 1990s, the balance of Han immigrants has shifted to entrepreneurs or others keen to take advantage of the economic opportunities that derived from the newly invigorated policies of economic development (Iredale et al. 2001, pp. 157–158).¹³

Xinjiang is much more ethnically diverse than Tibet. Moreover, the spatial distribution of ethnic groups is quite uneven in Xinjiang. For example, the Uyghurs are the majority in southwestern Xinjiang, including the prefectures of Kashgar, Hotan, Kizilsu, and Aksu (about 80 % of Xinjiang’s Uyghurs live in those four prefectures), as well as Turpan prefecture in eastern Xinjiang. The Han Chinese are the majority in eastern and northern Xinjiang (Zungar), including the cities of Urumqi, Karamay, Shihezi and the prefectures of Changji, Bortala, Bayingolin, Ili (especially the city of Kuitun), and Kumul. The Kazakhs are mostly concentrated in northern Xinjiang, especially in Altay prefecture in the northernmost part of Xinjiang (see Guo 2015, Table 5.6 for a more detailed account of Xinjiang’s ethnic diversity).

There have been two divergent views on the development of multiculturally based economies. On the one hand, some global-scale cities, such as New York and Los Angeles, are amongst the most troubled in terms of racial relations; at the same time they are constant producers of innovation in the arts and business. As a matter of fact, the United States itself is an economically successful melting pot, but many of its social problems are related to racial and ethnic cleavages (Alesina and Ferrara 2005). On the other hand, the “tragedy of Africa” is, according to Easterly and Levine (1997), largely a result of ethnic conflict, which is indeed pervasive in many parts of the developing world.

It has been found that (i) religious diversity tends to retard growth in high inequality nations and to encourage growth in low inequality places; and (ii) income inequality tends to encourage growth in religious homogeneous (but not in heterogeneous) nations (Guo 2009, pp. 120–129). The above finding supports the presumption that lower inequality economies will not only be less sensitive to the measures of religious diversity than higher inequality places in which religious diversity leads to barriers to intranational trade or, more significantly, to violence. A brief comparison of Tibet’s and Xinjiang’s interethnic unrest cases (see Table 6.3 of Chap. 6) can further support—at least in part—that Tibet’s relatively lower frequency of social unrest has stemmed from its lower ethnic diversity or lower income inequality and that Xinjiang’s relatively higher frequency of social unrest has stemmed from its higher ethnic diversity and higher income inequality.¹⁴

5.4.3 Development Policies

Historically and culturally, Tibet and Xinjiang had been quite far away from China proper. While Xinjiang has only become China’s provincial administration till the 1880s, Tibet had been already an independent kingdom throughout much of the past 2,000 years. It did not come under Chinese rule until the Yuan dynasty (AD 1279–1368) and declared as an independent state from 1912 to 1950.

Since the PRC was founded in 1949, the Chinese central government has made various efforts in order to stabilize Xinjiang and Tibet and to fully assimilate them into China. At present, the Chinese central government exempts Tibet from all taxation and provides most of Tibet’s government expenditures. Xinjiang has also received huge amount of fiscal subsidies from the central government.

The establishment of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Crops (XPCC), which has been organized as over a dozen of quasi-militaristic development zones, is not new in Chinese history. Similar organs had been established in the Qing dynasty (AD 1644–1911), especially during the period from AD 1760 to 1830 when “state farms” were opened and the Chinese in Xinjiang grew rapidly. At the start of the nineteenth century, there were something like 155,000 Han and Hui Chinese in northern Xinjiang, and somewhat more than twice that number of Uyghurs in southern Xinjiang (Millward 2007, p. 306). However, as described in Guo (2015, Chap. 2), the XPCC is much larger in size than Qing’s state farms. With more than two and a half million of population, the XPCC is now in fact a quasi-sub-provincial level administration in Xinjiang and in China as well.

The XPCC has played a critical role in China’s effective rule of Xinjiang during the most years of the PRC era. In the meantime, it has also contributed positively to Xinjiang’s local economic development (Shao, 3 April 2012). But it also has negative effects on the Uyghurs, the Han Chinese living in Xinjiang as well as on the Han–Uyghur relations.¹⁵ If it was a necessary measure that the Chinese established the XPCC as quasi-militaristic development zones in politically instable areas such as Xinjiang during the early stage of the PRC, now it is time for the Chinese policymakers to reevaluate the legality of the XPCC. Along with China’s calling for a harmonious society, it is not a good policy for the Chinese government to keep so many quasi-militaristic administrative zones in Xinjiang (we will discuss this issue in details in Sect. 6.3 of Chap. 6).

In general, large construction projects have different functions from the above-mentioned aid programs. A large construction project, as its name suggests, will bring about huge amount of capital flows. It will also promote local economic development by stimulating the developments of both the upper and lower chains of small and medium enterprises as well as by offering a large number of jobs to local residents. Restricted by its natural and geographical conditions, Tibet has hosted far less number of China’s large construction projects. The Qinghai–Tibet Railway is the only largest one that China has ever constructed in Tibet during recent history. In 2006 the construction of the 1,956 km Qinghai–Tibet Railway was completed. This stretches from Xining—capital of Qinghai province—to Lhasa, and across the Kunlun Mountains and the Tanggulashan Pass. As the world’s highest railway, it makes Tibet more accessible (see Sect. 2.4 of Chap. 2 for a detailed description). In Xinjiang, China has constructed far more large construction projects.¹⁶

Even though it is the driving force for the fast economic development of a region as a whole, the construction of large construction projects also have several unwanted effects. First of all, as in many other authoritative places throughout the world, the construction of large state-owned industrial projects in China is always accompanied by corruption and rent-seeking activities (Rodrik 2007; Qian 2012). Second, the construction of a large project in a single place—instead of several smaller ones in different places—will, ceteris paribus, inevitably result in interregional economic disparities and the unequal income distribution.¹⁷ Last but not the least, the construction of large construction projects also implies the large consumption of nonrenewable natural resources as well as the damages to the environment.

While the local communities and residents in Xinjiang may have not been the major beneficiaries of the large construction projects that China built, they may easily become the major victims whenever disasters and environmental accidents occur there. In Tibet, however, there is a different story. Compared with the large industrial projects constructed in Xinjiang, such as the West–East Gas Pipeline whose consumers are in eastern coastal areas (Guo 2015, Chap. 2), the Qinghai–Tibet Railway—the only largest infrastructure project built in Tibet till present—can benefit more local residents in Tibet. Even though the construction and operation of the railway may also bring about some impacts on Tibet’s fragile environment and natural ecology, these negative impacts are far less serious than those of the large industrial projects in Xinjiang.

During the past decades, the PRC has undertaken a massive, benevolent, and patriotic policy by which to encourage the wealthier eastern coast to help the western parts of China, including Tibet, catch up in prosperity and living standards. As a result, Tibet has achieved a more social and economic progress than what was usually predicted by the outside sources during the past decades. In a paper written for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Mackerras (2005, p. 20) points out:

[S]ince the early 1960s, the Tibetan population has been increasing, probably for the first time for centuries. What seems to follow from this is that the TGIE’s [Tibetan Government in Exile] allegations of population reduction due to Chinese rule probably have some validity for the 1950s but are greatly exaggerated. However, since the 1960s, Chinese rule has had the effect of increasing the population of the Tibetans, not decreasing it, largely due to a modernization process that has improved the standard of living and lowered infant, maternity and other mortality rates.

After more than 30 years of practice in China, the pairing-aid program has been recognized an effective management measure, especially when dealing with disaster relief and recovery work. For example, within 2 years after the Wenchuan Earthquake happened in May 2008, about 90 % of the affected infrastructure and residential areas were reconstructed (Qian et al. 2012, pp. 67–74). As described in Guo (2015, Chap. 2) and Sect. 2.1 and Annex of Chap. 2, China’s pairing-aid programs have had different effects on the regional developments of Xinjiang and Tibet. Specifically, the pairing-up Tibet programs have entirely benefited the Tibetan-based areas, while the pairing-up Xinjiang programs have only partially benefited the Uyghur- and other non-Han-based areas (see Table 5.5).

Table 5.5 Availability of interprovincial pairing-aid programs, Tibet and Xinjiang

China’s pairing-up Tibet programs have also been combined with the other similar aid program (that is, “aid-Tibet cadres”—see Sects. 2.2 of Chap. 2 for details). All of these programs have had significant effects on the social and economic developments of Tibet, especially in its poor, rural areas. By way of contrast, the pairing-up Xinjiang programs seem to be limited to certain geographical areas and industrial sectors, not the entire Uyghur community.

What are the differences between the “inland middle-school classes for Xinjiang” program and the “inland middle schools and classes for Tibet” program? As their names suggest, as for Xinjiang, there are only inland middle school classes; as for Tibet, however, there are both inland middle schools and the inland middle school classes. For example, as of 2014, there are five inland middle schools that are solely established for Tibetan students, which are Beijing City Tibetan Middle School (Beijing municipality), Kunming Army Seminary Affiliated Tibetan Middle School (Yunnan province), Shaoxing Tibetan Middle School (Zhejiang province), Changzhou City Tibetan Ethnic Middle School (Jiangsu province), Ji’nan Tibetan Middle School (Shandong province), and Chengdu City Tibetan Middle School (Sichuan province) (see Table 2.4 of Chap. 2 for more details). However, there is still no inland middle school that is solely established for either the Uyghur or other ethnic minority students from Xinjiang.

As is shown in Table 5.6, with the exception of the Han students, in which case the College Entrance Leading Group for the Tibet and Xinjiang Students in Inland Provinces, the Ministry of Education, has set higher college entrance scores for Tibet than for Xinjiang, the minority (mainly the Tibetan) students from Tibet have received more preferential treatments than the minority (mainly the Uyghur, the Hui, the Kazak, etc.) students from Xinjiang.¹⁸

Table 5.6 A comparison of college entrance criteria between Tibet and Xinjiang

In addition, after quantitatively comparing the cases of Tibet (see Fig. 2.1 of Chap. 2) and of Xinjiang (see Guo 2015, Table 2.5), we may find that:

• (i) For Xinjiang, the “inland middle-school classes” program was not implemented until 2000. However, for Tibet, the “inland middle schools and classes” program was implanted in as early as 1985 (for junior classes) and 1989 (for senior classes).

• (ii) After being divided by their respective total populations, the relative number of Tibet’s students enrolled in the inland middle schools is much larger than that of Xinjiang’s (see Fig. 5.4).

  Fig. 5.4

  

  How the “inland middle schools and classes” program differs between Xinjiang and Tibet, 1985–2014. Source Author based on SEAC (various years) and TBS (various years) (for Tibet) and Guo 2015, (Table 2.5) and XBS (various years) (for Xinjiang)

• (iii) For Xinjiang, students can only enroll in inland provinces’ senior middle school classes. However, for Tibet, students can enroll in both junior and senior middle school classes in inland provinces.

What do the above findings imply? They only imply that the “inland middle-schools and classes” program has had much greater effects in Tibet than in Xinjiang.

5.4.4 Interethnic Policy

Chinese history is dotted with examples of interethnic marriage as a strategy to maintain peace and harmony. One of the most famous stories is the marriage between Chinese Princess Wencheng of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) and Songtsan Gambo (AD 604–650), then king of the Tibetan empire, which sealed a peace treaty between China and Tibet.

Since the first Han–Tibetan marriage in AD 641, more than 1000 years have passed. In the summer of 2014, officials in Tibet autonomous region began to reemphasize ethnically mixed couples. So far, the government push has seen some success. According to a report released by the Research Office of the Tibetan CCP Committee, the interethnic (mainly Han–Tibetan) marriages have been growing dramatically in Tibet, from 666 cases in 2008 to 4,795 cases in 2013, with an average annual growth rate of 48.8 % for this period. Among the married couples are civil servants, staff of enterprises and institutions, as well as urban residents, farmers, and herdsmen.¹⁹

The local governments in Tibet have also been offering a series of favorable treatments to these intermarriage couples and their children. This includes a series of preferential policies on birth control, education, employment, social security, and so on, all of which are to encourage the interethnic exchange and marriages between the Tibetan, the Han, the Hui, and other ethnic minorities in Tibet. The government-run newspapers in Tibet have featured happy mixed couples in which the children of intermarriage families love both cultures and equally speak Tibetan and Mandarin.

The following story, for example, was reported by the Tibet Daily—an official newspaper of Tibet autonomous region’s Party Committee:

The deep, blue sky is dotted by pieces of white clouds … For a long time, the sacred and beautiful scenes of Tibet—the roof of the world—had attracted Zhang Jiajia who was a Han student from an inland college. Finally, she decided to come to Yala town of Suo county, Nagqu prefecture, and married a Tibetan guy there.

In August 2009, after her graduation, Zhang got a job in Tibet. At first, she did not adapt to the local habits there. Without knowing Tibetan language, she could not communicate with the Tibetans. But the local residents liked the young girl and gave many helps to her. And, gradually, Zhang was accustomed to eating tsampa and butter tea and learn to communicate with local Tibetans through body language. At the end of 2009, Zhang met Kelsang Wangdu who is an official in charge of the Gajia Temple. Both of them had favorable impressions to each other. As a graduate from an inland middle school and thus being fluent in Chinese, Kelsang gave various supports to Zhang. With this help, Zhang began to have a deeper understanding of Tibet and its people.

In March 2010, Zhang decided to marry Kelsang. At first, none of their parents agreed this marriage. But, with some persuasive efforts, the young couple smoothly completed their Tibetan- and Han-style wedding ceremonies in Yala town and Zhang’s hometown in Henan province, respectively. On September 2, 2011, their son, Zhang Lingxiao, was born.

Now, their baby is almost 3 years old, and he has been learning both Tibetan and Chinese languages. Having spent his winter in Henan and his summer in Tibet, the Han–Tibetan boy is quite proud of his special identity: “my father is a Tibetan and my mother is a Han… my yeye [father’s father] and nainai [father’s mother] teach me to cook cottage cheese, butter tea, and to speak in Tibetan language; my laolao [mother’s mother] and laoye [mother’s father] in Henan make dumplings and noodles for me, and they teach me Chinese language as well.”²⁰

The government has sold the effort in state-run media as a way to achieve interethnic unity, but critics have argued that its true aim is to further weaken Tibetan culture. Tsering Woeser—a Tibetan poet, and an activist who has frequently clashed with Chinese authorities—likened the promotion of intermarriage to the worst practices of colonization. Woeser herself is married to a Han Chinese, dissident writer, Wang Lixiong. But she said that the authorities should not use intermarriage as a tool and neither should they create policies to encourage it. She compared the Han–Tibetan marriages to the Japanese police being encouraged to marry local women during Japan’s occupation of Taiwan.²¹

For a long period of time, especially during the early PRC era, the Chinese government responded to ethnic unrest in Xinjiang and Tibet with a familiar strategy: that some suffocating security controls were put in place, that significant investment and assistance were promised in development and infrastructure, and that more Han majority were migrated into both regions. Recently, it seems that China has shifted its policy toward a concept of “interethnic fusion,” which is a move away from China’s long-standing idea of “separate but equal” ethnicities and toward a more American-style concept of a “melting pot” (Denyer, September 1 2014).

According to the Fifth National Population Census, the percentage of Tibetan’s intermarriages with the Han majority is 6.49 %, which is among the highest of all ethnic minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang (see Fig. 5.5). At present, it is still too early to tell if this interethnic policy will become successful. However, it seems that this policy has been more successful in Tibet (if the above story is true and can be successfully duplicated in Tibet) than in Xinjiang.²²

Fig. 5.5

The ethnic minorities with the lowest percentages of interethnic marriages with the Han majority. Source Author based on the Fifth National Population Census, 2001

5.5 Policy Implications

In this chapter, Xinjiang and Tibet are compared in various aspects—natural environment, geopolitics, economic development, ethnicity, and religion. The rationale for the inclusion of Tibet and Xinjiang is that both of them are the ethnic minority regions that pose the most enduring separatist challenge to the Chinese government (see Clarke (2013) for a more detailed analysis).

When different peoples meet together, it does not always indicate a conflict. However, conflict and disagreement do occur more often in heterogeneous places than in homogeneous places, especially in China’s far western regions. Uyghur independence activists claim that the Han population will dilute the Uyghur character of the region. But the Han and the Hui Chinese—who mostly live in northern Xinjiang (also called Zungar) and are separated from areas of historical Uyghur dominance south of the Tian Shan mountains (southwestern Xinjiang)—may insist that their ancestors arrived in the eastern portions of the Tarim basin about 3,000 years ago.

During the past decades, the Uyghur and Tibetan ethnic groups have been labeled as of “problematic” in China and have had cliques seeking the separations of Xinjiang and Tibet from China, respectively. In this chapter, we have found that the Tibetans (with a positively estimated coefficient in Table 4.6 (2010) of Chap. 4) are helpful for China’s interprovincial economic integration and that the Uyghurs (with a negatively estimated coefficient in Table 4.6 (2010) of Chap. 4) are found to play a negative role in China’s interprovincial economic integration. It must be noted that the above results do not imply that the Tibetans are satisfactory with their current political and cultural conditions; neither do they suggest that most people in Xinjiang want an independent state for themselves.

The findings presented at this chapter would be useful for policymakers to reappraise which of China’s ethnic groups are playing the most (least) important roles in, and to introduce the optimal informal institutions into, the promotion of interprovincial economic cooperation in China. Since there are so many differences in Xinjiang and Tibet, this chapter calls for different strategies toward these two non-Han ethnic autonomous regions. Definitely, differentiated policies will not only help Xinjiang and Tibet to enhance the spatial economic efficiencies of their own, but they will also eventually benefit China as a whole. Specifically, the development policies toward Xinjiang and Tibet can be optimized as the following.

First, given that Xinjiang’s ethnic (and also religious) diversity is already very high, Xinjiang’s income inequality would be harmful to its social stability and economic development. In this case, substantial measures must be taken in order to reduce the chance of interethnic clash in Xinjiang.²³

Second, as Tibet has a very low ethnic (and also religious) diversity score, it can tolerate a relatively high level of income inequality. In other words, policymakers are able to consider more radical reform and development measures in order to promote the economic development in Tibet.

A more detailed analysis of Tibet will be conducted in the next chapter.

Annex

5.1.1 A.1 Regressions for Interprovincial Export and Import, 2000 and 2010

The following four tables report the estimated results using the data shown in Annex of Chap. 4 (Tables 5.7, 5.8, 5.9, 5.10).

Table 5.7 Regression for interprovincial export, 2000

Table 5.8 Regression for interprovincial import, 2000

Table 5.9 Regression for interprovincial export, 2010

Table 5.10 Regression for interprovincial import, 2010

5.1.2 A.2 Measuring Ethnic Diversity

There are several different methods for the measurement of ethnic diversity (Guo 2009, pp. 113–118). The simplest method is derived from the number of ethnic groups: thus, the ethnic diversity of a society is positively related to the number of ethnic groups involved. However, this method ignores the influence of population composition among all ethnic groups. For example, given two societies having the same number of ethnic groups, but that in which population is equally distributed among all ethnic groups might be more ethnically diverse than one in which population is unevenly distributed among an ethnic majority and much smaller ethnic minorities. To demonstrate this point, let us consider an extreme case in which the ethnic majority accounts for almost 100 % of the total population, while each of the minorities retains a tiny share. Such a society can only be defined as an ethnically homogeneous, no matter how many minority groups exist.

The second method defines ethnic diversity in relation to the population ratio of the largest ethnic group. In many cases, the lower the ratio of the largest ethnic group, the greater the ethnic diversity it implies. However, as it only takes account of one (that is, the largest) ethnic group, this method may miscalculate the ethnic diversity when two or more large ethnic groups exist simultaneously. Although the understanding of ethnic diversity may vary according to the perspective taken, the number of ethnic groups and their populations should be taken into account simultaneously.

In this research, we use the ethnic fractionalization index, which measures the probability that two individuals who meet at random will be from different ethnic groups (Mauro 1995; Easterly and Levine 1997; La Porta et al. 1999; Bluedorn 2001; Ottaviano and Peri 2004; Alesina and Ferrara 2005; and Montalvo and Reynal-Querol 2005). Specifically, the ethno diversity measure is defined as follows:

$$ {\text{Diversity}} = 1 - \sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N} {S_{i}^{2} } $$

(6.1)

where s _i is the share of group i over the total of the population. This index represents the probability that two randomly drawn individuals from the population belong to different ethnic groups. This index reaches a theoretical maximum of 1 when every individual belongs to a different group. This measure implies that a country composed of, say, 100 equally sized groups is more fractionalized than a country with two equally sized groups.

Using Eq. (6.1) and data shown in Table 5.11, we may calculate the ethnic diversity scores for Xinjiang and Tibet, which are shown in Table 5.12 in which the diversity scores of other Chinese provinces are also given.

Table 5.11 Ethnic populations of Xinjiang and Tibet, 2000 and 2010

Table 5.12 Ethnic diversity scores by province (2000 and 2010)