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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BEIJING 000468 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/26/2030 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV SOCI ECON CH
SUBJECT: TIBET WORK CONFERENCE: EXPANDING DEVELOPMENT FOCUS 
BEYOND THE TAR 
 
REF: 09 BEIJING 1242 
 
Classified By: Political Minister Counselor 
Aubrey Carlson.  Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary:  Although the Communist Party's 
Fifth Tibet Work Conference January 18-20 did not 
result in major policy changes, it signaled shifts 
in emphasis intended to address economic tensions 
that led to the March 2008 violence throughout 
Tibetan areas of China.  Contacts at two Party think 
tanks noted that, unlike previous Tibet work 
conferences, the latest meeting included 
unprecedented discussion of developing Tibetan areas 
outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). 
Mindful that Tibetans in Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, 
and Yunnan provinces have grown resentful of 
subsidies lavished on the TAR, Party leaders realize 
this development gap between the TAR and non-TAR 
Tibetan areas contributed to the 2008 unrest.  A 
Central Party School contact predicted that, as a 
result of the conference, the "help Tibet" program 
of sending cadres on temporary duty to the TAR will 
be expanded to Tibetan areas in other provinces. 
Another theme of the conference, we were told, was 
increasing rural incomes and ensuring central 
government spending benefits ordinary Tibetans.  The 
Chinese public is growing skeptical of annual 
central government subsidies amounting to nearly 
US$3,000 per capita in the TAR.  Party leaders are 
under pressure to show that this spending will lead 
to greater stability in minority areas.  Tibetan 
dissident blogger Woeser (protect) was critical of 
the Fifth Work Conference, saying the exclusive 
focus on economic development will only encourage 
more Han migration into Tibetan regions.  Slogans 
about boosting rural income, she said, will, in 
practice, mean more unregulated mining and 
environmental destruction on the Tibetan Plateau. 
End summary. 
 
"Completely Correct" 
-------------------- 
 
¶2. (U) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central 
Committee and the State Council held the Fifth Tibet 
Work Conference in Beijing January 18-20.  All nine 
members of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee 
attended the meeting, according to official news 
releases.  In his speech at the conference, General 
Secretary Hu Jintao praised the party's handling of 
Tibet, declaring that "practice proves" that guiding 
policies are "completely correct."  According to 
Xinhua News Agency transcripts, Hu made no direct 
mention of the March 2008 unrest in his speech, 
though he said development and stability were the 
best methods to counter the "contradictions" created 
by the "separatist forces led by the Dalai clique." 
Hu's remarks, which included the goal of bringing 
rural incomes in Tibet in line with the national 
average by 2020, encapsulated the Conference focus 
on economic development.  Premier Wen Jiabao, in his 
speech at the conference, listed the government's 
priorities in Tibet as 1) improving people's 
livelihoods and boosting employment opportunities 
for farmers and herders; 2) developing better social 
services, including education and medical care; and 
3) increasing infrastructure and investment in 
transportation. 
 
New Attention to Greater Tibet 
------------------------------ 
 
¶3. (C) Several Beijing-based Tibet experts said that 
the most significant change from the previous four 
Tibet work conferences, the last of which was held 
in 2001, was an expansion of focus beyond the Tibet 
Autonomous Region (TAR) to include Tibetan regions 
of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. 
(Note:  Roughly half of China's 5.4 million ethnic 
Tibetans live outside the TAR.)  Tanzen Lhundup 
(Danzeng Lunzhu), Vice Director of the Institute for 
Sociology and Economics at the Chinese Center for 
Tibetan Studies, a think tank associated with the 
Communist Party's United Front Work Department, told 
PolOff February 5 that including the development of 
Tibetan areas of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan 
on the agenda for the Fifth Tibet Work Conference 
was, in part, a reaction to the protests of March 
 
BEIJING 00000468  002 OF 004 
 
 
¶2008.  Not only did many migrants from non-TAR areas 
participate in the rioting in Lhasa, he said, but 
the regions bordering the TAR, particularly Tibetan 
Sichuan, experienced some of the worst unrest. 
Given the increasing mobility of Tibetans, Tanzen 
Lhundup said, the government could no longer talk 
about developing the TAR without considering the 
difficulties facing all Tibetan areas. 
 
Expansion of the "Help Tibet" Program? 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (C) Hu Yan (protect) the head of the ethnic and 
religious studies department at the CCP's Central 
Party School, told PolOff February 24 that, as a 
result of the Fifth Work Conference, he expected the 
government to expand its "help Tibet" (yuan zang) 
program to include Tibetan areas outside the TAR. 
(Note:  Under the program, government and party 
cadres are sent to the TAR for temporary assignments 
of three years.)  Hu, who himself served as vice 
director of the TAR Party School in Lhasa 1998-2000 
as a "help Tibet" cadre, said Tibetan regions 
outside the TAR needed to be included in such 
assistance efforts.  Hu and Tanzen Lhundup both 
noted that the bulk of central government subsidies 
were channeled into the TAR and this was causing 
resentment among officials and ordinary Tibetans in 
neighboring provinces.  Cadres working in the TAR 
made significantly more, in some cases double, what 
civil servants made in Tibetan regions of Qinghai, 
Gansu and Sichuan, Tanzen Lundup said.  Tibetans 
outside the TAR, according to Hu, saw the huge 
amount spent on public works in the TAR while their 
own communities were starved of resources. 
 
¶5. (C) In a February 3 meeting, Yangling Dorje 
(protect), a retired senior Tibetan CCP cadre and 
the former Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region's 
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, 
told Chengdu Consul General that the Fifth Tibet 
Work Conference was the first time the entire 
Politburo had come together for a meeting about a 
minority region.  He said the Fifth Conference could 
prove to be the most important event for Tibetans 
since the Second Tibet Work Conference in 1984, 
providing the recommendations of the January meeting 
were fully implemented.  (Note:  The Second Tibet 
Work Conference was convened by then-CCP General 
Secretary Hu Yaobang and, along with the First 
Conference in 1980, resulted in further relaxation 
of culturally repressive policies of the 1960s and 
70s.)  A great admirer of Hu Yaobang, Yangling Dorje 
characterized general CCP Tibet policy as "wise" but 
sometimes suffering from poor implementation.  Too 
many corrupt officials, he said, made use of the 
"splittism issue" to suppress loyal people who made 
honest criticisms.  He added that, while development 
of the TAR had been the primary focus of the 
conference, the issue of developing the other 
Tibetan areas had been included on the agenda 
because the development gap between the TAR and 
Tibetan areas outside the TAR had become too large. 
Yangling Dorje expressed hope that, as a result of 
the Fifth Conference, the central government would 
make good on some long-standing promises to end the 
salary gap between officials working in the TAR and 
those working in other Tibetan areas. 
 
Income, Not Just GDP 
-------------------- 
 
¶6. (C) In addition to the new focus on non-TAR 
Tibetan areas, Tanzen Lundup cited the Fifth Tibet 
Work Conference's look at rural incomes as another 
shift of emphasis, one that was meant to address the 
economic tensions that contributed to the March 2008 
unrest.  The discussion of "people's livelihoods" 
and income at the conference reflected a growing 
realization among CCP leaders that massive central 
government investment was not reaching many 
individual rural Tibetans (reftel).  While Tibetans 
in Lhasa and major urban centers, he said, were 
benefiting from booming tourism and service industry 
growth, the incomes of Tibetan farmers and herders 
had remained low despite the dramatic increases in 
central government spending.  The government was 
aware there had been an "economic background" to the 
rioting that started in Lhasa on March 14, 2008, he 
 
BEIJING 00000468  003 OF 004 
 
 
said, and Party leaders sought to more directly link 
projects with personal income rather than just GDP 
growth. 
 
Closing the "Skills Gap" 
------------------------ 
 
¶7. (C) Tanzen Lhundup, who said he was closely 
involved in the planning of the Fifth Work 
Conference, said conflicts occurred when centrally 
planned infrastructure projects met the "realities 
of local economies" on the Tibetan Plateau.   For 
example, when the government decided to build a road 
in a remote area, there were typically no Tibetan- 
owned companies with the required capital and 
experience to bid on the contract.  The need to 
complete the road efficiently and at the lowest cost 
invariably meant the contract would be awarded to 
large state-owned construction firms based outside 
of Tibet.  Adding to this problem was the "skills 
gap" between Tibetan and non-Tibetan workers, which 
he said was the main reason why Han companies were 
reluctant to hire more Tibetans.  "Well-intentioned" 
attempts by the TAR government to better employment 
conditions for Tibetans, he said, had made matters 
worse by denying contractors the flexibility to hire 
low-skilled Tibetans at lower wages than more 
qualified Han migrants.  For example, according to 
Tanzen Lhundup, former TAR Chairman Qiangba Puncog 
(Chamba Phuntsog) had once attempted to implement a 
rule to force public works contractors to hire a set 
quota of Tibetans at a minimum wage of RMB 30 
(US$4.40) per day.  The policy had failed due to 
resistance by contractors, who had felt the wage 
exceeded that of more experienced Han migrants and 
forced them to take on too many unskilled workers. 
As a result of the Fifth Work Conference, Tanzen 
Lhundup said he expected the government to increase 
vocational training programs for Tibetans to help 
them compete against Han workers. 
 
Huge Cash Infusions Unpopular With Public 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (C) Ma Rong (protect), a Peking University 
sociologist and frequent advisor to the Communist 
Party's United Front Work Department (UFWD), echoed 
Tanzen Lhundup's assessment that the recent 
conference's focus on boosting incomes represented 
an indirect acknowledgment that massive central 
government subsidies were not translating into real 
income growth for average Tibetans.  Ma told PolOff 
February 9 that the infusion of central government 
money into the TAR was also becoming a public 
relations problem for the CCP.  Following the 
Tibetan unrest of March 2008 and the July 2009 
violence in Xinjiang, the Chinese public had grown 
more skeptical of subsidies for minority regions. 
In 2007, according to Ma, central government 
investment in Tibet amounted to RMB 10,000 (US$1470) 
per person.  Now, almost two years after the Tibet 
riots, that figure was close to RMB 20,000 (US$2940) 
per person.  "Chinese people think this is waste of 
taxpayer money," Ma said, adding the government was 
under pressure to show that this investment was 
contributing to greater social stability.  Although, 
like Tanzen Lhundup and Hu Yan, Ma cited the new 
emphasis on Tibetan areas outside the TAR as an 
important step, he was less positive about the 
conference as a whole.  Overall, the Fifth Work 
Conference revealed little new thinking on Tibet, Ma 
said, and the meeting primarily served to bolster 
existing policies. 
 
"Development" Just Means More Han Migrants 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶9. (C) Tibetan poet and blogger Woeser (protect) 
offered a critical assessment of the Fifth Work 
Conference in a meeting with PolOff February 4, 
saying the emphasis on economic development would 
only mean more Han migrants and further destruction 
of Tibet's culture and environment.  Woeser said 
that the platitudes by Hu Jintao and other party 
leaders about boosting rural incomes would translate 
on the ground into even faster development of mining 
enterprises, which she cited as the greatest single 
threat to Tibet's environment.  Unregulated mining, 
she said, was creating tremendous ecological damage, 
 
BEIJING 00000468  004 OF 004 
 
 
including polluting waterways vital to Tibetan 
herders, all while providing few jobs to ethnic 
Tibetans. 
 
¶10. (U) This cable was coordinated with ConGen 
Chengdu. 
HUNTSMAN