Full Text: Tibet's Path of Development Is Driven by an Irresistible Historical Tide
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E-mail Xinhua, April 15, 2015
In order to help Tibet develop rapidly and get rid of poverty and backwardness, the central government has fully exploited the institutional advantages of the socialist system to pool nationwide strengths to support the construction of Tibet, and a series of preferential policies have been adopted and great financial and material resources as well as manpower have been amassed to inject new impetus to its development. For the past six decades and more, the financial department of the central government has steadily increased transfer payments for Tibet. In the period from 1952 to 2013, the central government provided 544.6 billion yuan to Tibet in financial subsidies, accounting for 95 percent of Tibet's total public financial expenditure. Since 1980, five national symposiums have been called on work in Tibet, working out integrated blueprints for Tibet's development by proceeding from the perspective of the country's overall drive for modernization. Since the Third National Symposium on Work in Tibet in 1994, the central government has put into effect the policy of pairing-up support for Tibet where 60 central state organs, 18 provinces or municipalities directly under the central government, and 17 centrally managed state-owned enterprises have been paired up with and made to provide assistance to specific areas of Tibet. Over the last two decades, a total of 5,965 of China's best officials have been appointed to work in Tibet, 7,615 assistance projects have been carried out, and 26 billion yuan has been invested in Tibet and mainly directed at improving infrastructure and quality of life. All of this assistance has made an enormous contribution to Tibet's social and economic development. After the Fifth National Symposium on Work in Tibet in 2010, the central government determined that the 17 provincial and municipal governments involved in the paired-up support program should provide Tibet with 0.1 percent of their yearly fiscal revenues as aid funds, thus establishing a mechanism to ensure a steady growth in such aiding funds.
- The development path of new Tibet ensures that the people are masters of their own fate.
The transformation of the old serf-owning Tibet into a new Tibet where the people are masters of their own fate was an essential precondition of Tibet's social development and also a fundamental aspiration of the people of all ethnic groups in Tibet. Within the framework of socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics, Tibet has embarked on a road of modern democracy, and all political rights of the people are fully respected and protected.
In Tibet there are Tibetans, Monbas, Lhobas, Naxi's, Huis, Han's and peoples of some other ethnic groups; they all enjoy the right to equally participate in the administration of state affairs. The system of people's congress, as a basic political system of China, serves as the main channel through which the people exercise their democratic rights. Now, the Tibet Autonomous Region has 21 deputies to the National People's Congress, of whom 12 are Tibetans, and even the Monba and Lhoba ethnic groups, despite their small populations, are each represented by one. The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) is unique to China's socialist democracy; it is an important platform for the Chinese people to exercise deliberative democracy. At present, Tibet has 29 members on the CPPCC National Committee, including 26 from the Tibetan and other ethnic minorities. Among the 34,244 deputies to the local people's congresses at all four administrative levels in Tibet, 31,901 are from the Tibetan, Monba, Lhoba, Naxi, Hui, Zhuang and other ethnic minorities, accounting for more than 93 percent. The 44-member standing committee of the tenth Tibet regional people's congress has 25 representatives from Tibetan and other ethnic minorities, who occupy eight of the 14 positions of chairpersons or vice-chairpersons. Community-level democracy is also subject to constant enhancement. More than 95 percent of Tibet's villages have established the system of villagers' representative meetings and elected villagers' self-governance organizations. All villages have made their affairs public and exercise democratic management, and more than 90 percent of them have set up billboards to guarantee the rights of the general public to be informed about, to participate in, to make decisions on, and to scrutinize local government. All of Tibet's 192 urban communities have also set up community residents' congresses and community committees, providing a solid organizational mechanism for the self-governance of local urban residents.
China's system of regional ethnic autonomy is based on the national conditions. Tibet is one of the five ethnic autonomous regions of China. According to the Constitution and the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy of the People's Republic of China, the Tibet Autonomous Region enjoys extensive autonomy in legislation, language, culture and education, and flexible application of relevant state laws as well as fiscal management and official appointments. Since their establishment in 1965, the regional people's congress and its standing committee have passed more than 290 local laws and regulations or resolutions and decisions of a legislative nature, and formulated measures for the flexible application of some state laws in Tibet in order to adapt them to local conditions.
Tibet created alternative regulations in 1981 and 2004, in which the legal age of marriage for both men and women was reduced by two years relative to the Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China, and polyandrous and polygynous relationships that had existed before the regulations took effect would be allowed to continue if no one involved proposed dissolution. Tibet also issued the Interim Measures for Family Planning in Tibet Autonomous Region (Trial). Han Chinese officials and workers and their families are authorized to have only one child per couple; as regards Tibetan, Naxi, Hui and Zhuang officials and workers, and their family members whose hukous (residency registration) are in relevant urban enterprises, are allowed to have two children per couple at reasonable intervals; farmers and herdsmen in farming and pastoral areas are not subject to any restrictions, likewise there are no restrictions on couples from the Monba, Lhoba, Sherpa and Deng ethnic groups.
In addition to the national holidays, Tibet has also established other public holidays, mostly traditional Tibetan festivals such as the Tibetan New Year and Shoton Festival.
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