- Title: China showcases stability in restive Tibetan region of Sichuan
- Date: 24th May 2016
- Summary: PHOTOS OF 9TH PANCHEN LAMA CHOEKYI NYIMA (LEFT), 10TH PANCHEN LAMA CHOEKYI GYALTSEN (CENTRE), 11TH PANCHEN LAMA GYAINCAIN NORBU (RIGHT) ON ALTER PHOTO OF 10TH PANCHEN LAMA CHOEKYI GYALTSEN ON ALTER
- Embargoed: 8th June 2016 08:39
- Keywords: China Tibet Sichuan investment tour Chinese government restive region Kanding City Chinese Foreign Ministry Garze autonomous region
- Location: KANGDING CITY AND DANBA COUNTY, GARZE TIBETAN AUTONOMOUS PREFECTURE, SICHUAN PROVINCE / HONG KONG, CHINA
- City: KANGDING CITY AND DANBA COUNTY, GARZE TIBETAN AUTONOMOUS PREFECTURE, SICHUAN PROVINCE / HONG KONG, CHINA
- Country: China
- Topics: Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA0024J623ID
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: As a group of foreign journalists tour the mostly Tibetan-populated Kangding City in the Tibetan region of Sichuan province, all seems stable and the future promising.
The region has seen pockets of unrest in recent years but, on tour, evidence of this is nowhere to be seen.
Hosted by China's foreign ministry, the trip was intended to showcase China's boosted investment in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, one of many Tibetan-populated areas being targetted with investment to strengthen chances of stability.
Reports of Tibetan self-immolations in the region are not uncommon. In 2014, there were reports of paramilitary police firing upon crowds of ethnic Tibetan protesting the detention of a respected villager.
Activists have expressed concern that China's main aim with such investment programs is to control a restive population, and that Tibetans have been given little option but to cooperate.
Among the sites visited during the foreign ministry tour was Kangding Middle School, one of the city's top educational institutions, comprised of both Tibetan and Han students.
High school student Mima Qijun, said the school has a rigorous curriculum. "It is more difficult here," she said. "Our mother-tongue is Tibetan, so in that aspect we have more pressure compared to other students."
The school's administration boasts that it has effectively eliminated "thoughts of ethnic separatism among the students".
"We provide them with education and activities, so the unity and harmony among our students should be quite obvious," said Wang Huaben, the school's deputy Communist Party secretary.
Another stop on the tour was Kangding Number Two People's Hospital, a modern-looking institution where local officials say it is possible for people within the region to come to the city to receive healthcare for free.
"We don't pay attention to their payments," said Jiang Jicun, the hospital's chief administrator. "They basically don't have to pay. This is something that the Communist Party did."
Hong Kong-based Joseph Cheng, an expert in Chinese politics, says that Chinese efforts to improve the infrastructure as well as provide free health care and education may stabilize ethnic Tibetan regions like Garze, but only in the short-term.
"I do not believe that simply raising the living standards of the people can win the hearts of the Tibetans," Cheng said. "The Chinese authorities naturally still have not shown respect for the Tibetans' religion, for the Tibetans' culture and language, and this is a very important weakness in their policy towards Tibet."
China has ruled Tibet with an iron fist since troops took over the region in 1950, and those controls often extend to ethnic Tibetan areas in other parts of China. Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule.
China fears that any unrest in Tibetan regions could pose a threat to their rule. It rejects any criticism that it has repressed Tibetan religious freedom and culture, saying its rule has ended serfdom and brought development to a backward region.
At a local temple, another stop on the tour, photographs of the state-supported Panchen Lama and his predecessors were openly displayed.
Experts such as Cheng say Chinese authorities have cracked down on religious Tibetans openly displaying images of the Dalai Lama in recent years.
Silang Gyatso, a monk at Buke Temple, said Garze was a harmonious region with little ethnic tension. "Personally I don't think there are any issues (between the Tibetan and Han peoples)," he said.
Despite numerous requests from the foreign reporters on the trip to Garze, they were not shown the nearby grasslands where authorities have aimed to resettle the nomadic population. This trip was mostly confined to urbanised areas around the growing Kangding city. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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