News feature: Chinese experts on Tibetan development

A delegation of top Chinese experts on Tibet met members of the press in Helsinki on Tuesday morning. They spoke on various aspects of Tibetan culture and economic development as well as current issues.

The delegation was composed of Zhu Xiaoming, Vice Director of the China Tibetology Research Center; Palpar Dodorge, professor at the Central University of Nationalities; Tanzenlhundup, professor at the China Tibetology Research Center; and Wen Quan, professor at China Foreign Affairs University.

According to the experts, Tibet has undergone comprehensive development in the past fifty years. The central and local government have made raising the living standards of the Tibetan people their priority. The Tibet Autonomous Region has sufficient legislative powers to guarantee the development of the region's political, economic and cultural conditions, they said.

The Chinese experts pointed to Tibet's rural growth as an example of the changes that have happened in the last five decades:

1. There are two targets for the government in terms of the development of the area. One is to make a fundamental change to the living standard of the Tibetan people. Another is to ensure the sustainable development of the region.

2. Since the period of reform and opening up, the rural regions of the Tibet Autonomous Region has been exempted from the agricultural tax. This exemption was implemented twenty years earlier than in other parts of China.

3. The free nine-year obligatory education system was implemented in Tibet twenty years earlier than in the rest of China.

4. Tibet enjoys the highest level of medical insurance in rural areas. The per capita medical insurance deposit reaches 30,000 yuan (3,499 euros).

5. In the past decade, the region has posted double-digit annual growth rate figures.

6. The 11th Five-Year Plan includes a project aimed at providing 80 percent of the rural population with their own homes by 2010.

7. The goal of both the central government of China and the local government of Tibet is to let the living standard of the Tibetan people lead the Western provinces by 2010.

8. To let the people in the region have more participation and a bigger share in the results and achievements of the opening-up policy, the government provides various training courses for peasant farmers.

During the meeting, Zhu Xiaoming reiterated the official central government position that Tibet has always been an inseparable part of China and emphasized the “separatist” stance by the Dalai Lama and his followers. Zhu said that the recent meeting of Tibetan exiles in Dharamsala might indicate “that there could be a shift or a change in their position.”

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