Tibetan Review
By Bhuchung K. Tsering
A new UN report that includes information on the quality of life of the
Tibetan people indicates that Tibetans are virtually at the bottom of
the economic and social ladder. In addition to being worse of than
others in China, there is a growing disparity between Tibetans in rural
areas and in urban areas. Some other information in the report also
makes me feel that there is a new social division; between a group that
is becoming the elite class, composed predominantly of officials, and
the rest of the Tibetan society.
I draw the above conclusion
after a look at the China Human Development Report 2005, containing the
Human Development Index (HDI), released on December 16, 2005 by UNDP.
“Unlike the previous reports, which were written by foreign experts and
institutions, this fourth “China Human Development Report” was written
by a Chinese team of experts organized and coordinated by China
Development Research Foundation,” a UNDP press statement said.
Additionally, the report is based on the official source, the China
Statistical Yearbook 2004.
I have looked at the statistics in
the report for Qinghai as well as the provinces of Yunnan, Gansu and
Sichuan to get a broader understanding of the situation rather than
restricting myself to just to “Tibet”, which is but the Tibet
Autonomous Region (TAR). However, I am using the statistics only of TAR
and Qinghai. There is no prefectural level statistics for the other
provinces where Tibetans are located.
The report shows that
the regions in which Tibetans are located fall in the lowest eight
ranks in the overall Human Development Index (HDI), with the TAR being
the 31st, which is the lowest rank, and Qinghai being the 27th. The HDI
“is a comparative measure of poverty, literacy, education, life
expectancy, childbirth, and other factors for countries worldwide” and
is being used by UNDP in its annual reports.
If we look at life
expectancy, the TAR has the lowest ranking with the expectancy being
65.81. Qinghai has 68.78. In terms of illiteracy percentage, 54.86 per
cent (more than half the total population) in TAR is listed as being
illiterate with Qinghai scoring better at 23.45 per cent. As for school
attendance rate, the percentage for TAR is 77.9 while the overall
percentage for China is 98.7 per cent. Concerning employment structure,
which reflects the composition of the society, 55.1 per cent of people
in the TAR are involved in the primary industry (agriculture) whereas
31.7 per cent are in the tertiary industry (the service sector that
includes the officials). This indicates that a sizable employed
population is composed of civil servants. This is further corroborated
if we look at the figures for per capita income from wages and
salaries. For the TAR, income from this category per person is 6220
Yuan, which is nearly the same as the national average of 6410 and that
of Beijing, which is 6664. It is interesting that while the overall per
capita disposable income for the TAR is 7174 Yuan, that of rural
citizens is just 1691 Yuan. More interestingly, there is no figure for
rural citizens on income from wages and salaries, most probably
reflecting the insignificance of the amount.
If we look at the
figures for ownership of durable goods, in the urban areas of TAR, out
of every 100 households, 91 own washing machines, 84 own refrigerators,
132 own colour TV sets, and 73 own video disc players These figures are
similar to or more than the national average. In Qinghai, the
comparative figures in the urban areas are 99.10 for washing machines,
78.45 for refrigerators, 119.25 for colour TVs, and 59.70 for video
disc players. But in the rural areas of TAR, while no direct ownership
figures are given, we can get an idea from the per capita expenditures
on some of these goods. Rural people in the TAR spent 3.5 Yuan in 2003
(the year for which the statistics are reflected in the China
Statistical Yearbook 2004) on washing machines, 3.1 Yuan on
refrigerators, and 26.5 Yuan on colour TVs. The situation in the rural
areas in Qinghai seems to be slightly better in this category.
There
the per capita expenses are 23.2 Yuan for washing machines, 6.5 for
refrigerators, and 56.8 for colour TVs. In terms of ownership of other
modern amenities, again, in the urban areas of TAR, out of every 100
households, 45 own videocorders, 16 own computers, 24 own microwave
ovens, four own air conditioners, 87 own telephones. For Qinghai, the
figures in this category are: 13.71 for videocorders, 13.27 computers,
26.76 for microwave ovens, .29 for air conditioners and 88.46 for
telephones. But if we look at the rural areas for TAR, the per capita
expenses on videocorders for 2003 was 7.5
Yuan and 4.8 Yuan for telephone. There is no figure for air conditioners.
If
we look at figures in the health sector, in TAR, the number of health
agencies are 5166 while the national figure for China is 291323, the
number of hospitals in TAR are 97, which is the lowest in China. In
Qinghai, the figures are better with 5166 health agencies and 131
hospitals. There are 4299 practicing physicians in the TAR, which is
again the lowest number, while the numbers are 9099 in Qinghai.
In
terms of social security, only 4.4 employees out of 10,000 people in
TAR participate in the basic pension insurance whereas even Guizhou
Province has 120 people. Similarly, in Qinghai there are only 40.5
people in this category. As for the basic medical insurance, only 4.2
employees in the TAR and 38.6 in Qinghai out of 10,000 are
participating in it.
Given the comfortable life style of the
elite class, as revealed by the report, it could be assumed that this
class supports the maintenance of status quo in Tibet. That is
something to think about.
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