By Benjamin Kang Lim
BEIJING – China marked the 40th anniversary of Tibetan “autonomy” on Thursday with a pledge to boost the economy of the backward Himalayan territory and maintain stability and its grip on power.
Critics say there is no real autonomy in Tibet, where Buddhist monks and nuns loyal to the region’s exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, have been jailed and sometimes tortured.
But China defends its rule in Tibet, saying life has improved tremendously for countless “serfs” emancipated after a failed uprising which saw the Dalai Lama, flee into exile in India in 1959.
“Only under the leadership of the Communist Party … can Tibet have today’s prosperity and progress,” the party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, said in an editorial.
Tibet’s gross domestic product surged to 21.154 billion yuan ($2.6 billion) in 2004 from 327 million yuan in 1965, it said.
Tibet has been ruled by China since the People’s Liberation Army invaded the Himalayan territory in 1950.
The vast, sparsely populated region known as “the roof of the world” was designated the Tibetan Autonomous Region in 1965, a gesture Beijing made to other areas with large ethnic minority populations too to give them more say over their own affairs.
The Chinese central government sent a delegation to Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, led by Jia Qinglin, ranked fourth in the Communist Party hierarchy, for festivities marking the anniversary.
“Tibet has undergone tremendous changes. Tibet has a great potential and a broad prospect for development. Tibet now faces two major tasks: one is development and one is stability,” the state news agency Xinhua quoted Jia as saying this week.
The state-owned China Development Bank opened a representative office in Lhasa on Wednesday and pledged to provide 6 billion yuan in policy loans from 2006 to 2010 to help improve Tibet’s infrastructure and key industries.
Each herdsman will be given a solar energy panel, media said.
Jia lauded the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which marched into Tibet in 1950, for crushing an uprising in 1959 and rioting in 1989.
BOLD SOLDIERS, PATRIOTIC MONKS
PLA troops were “not afraid of bloodshed, not afraid of sacrifice, fought heroically, successfully completed their mission and put down the rebellion … and put down the disturbance,” the People’s Daily quoted Jia as saying.
Xinhua said 13 ethnic Tibetans had been promoted to the rank of major general or lieutenant general in the PLA or the paramilitary People’s Armed Police.
Jia shook hands with a group of Buddhist monks and urged them to be “patriotic”.
About 23,000 people watched a flag-raising ceremony on the vast square at the foot of the Potala Palace, home of the Dalai Lama before he fled into exile, which will be followed by a parade later in the day and a fireworks display in the evening.
The London-based Free Tibet Campaign criticised the celebrations as “a major propaganda opportunity for China to promote its version of autonomy”.
Tibet is one of China’s five autonomous regions populated by ethnic minority groups, but international watchdogs say human rights abuses are widespread and there is no autonomy.
Some analysts say that, 40 years on, society is more fractured than ever, with Tibetans becoming an underclass lacking the skills to participate in Beijing-driven industrialisation.
The Free Tibet Campaign said recent visitors to Lhasa had noticed a visible increase in police presence, following a pattern of stepped up security around other major dates, such as the 50th anniversary of China’s founding in 1999.
The group called on visiting U.N. human rights chief Louise Arbour to urge Beijing to drop pre-conditions for direct contact with representatives of the Dalai Lama.
The Dalai Lama says he wants real autonomy for his homeland and denies Chinese accusations he is seeking independence.
Last September, private envoys of the Dalai Lama visited China as part of a delicate and slow-moving process to pave the way for dialogue on the future of Tibet and possibly the religious leader’s eventual return.
(Additional reporting by Guo Shipeng)
