Tibet Autonomous Region

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Tibet Autonomous Region
Chinese : 西藏自治区 Xīzàng Zìzhìqū Tibetan : Bod-rang-skyong-ljongs
Abbreviations: 藏  (pinyin: Zàng)
Origin of name	See Origin of name
Administration type	Autonomous region
Capital (and largest city)	Lhasa
CPC Ctte Secretary	Zhang Qingli
Chairman	Qiangba Puncog
Area	1,228,400 km2 (474,300 sq mi) (2nd)
Population (2004)  - Density	2,840,000 (32st) 2.2 /km2 (5.7 /sq mi) (33st)
GDP (2008)  - per capita	CNY 39.59 billion (32st) CNY 13,861 (28th)
HDI (2006)	0.621 (medium) (31st)
Ethnic composition	92.8% Tibetan 6.1% Han 0.3% Hui 0.3% Monpa 0.2% others
Prefecture-level	7 divisions
County-level	73 divisions
Township-level*	692 divisions
ISO 3166-2	CN-54
Official website http://www.xizang.gov.cn/
Source for population and GDP data: 《中国统计年鉴—2005》 China Statistical Yearbook 2005 ISBN 7503747382 Source for nationalities data: 《2000年人口普查中国民族人口资料》 Tabulation on nationalities of 2000 population census of China ISBN 7105054255 *As at December 31, 2004
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The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), also called Xizang Autonomous Region (Tibetan: ; Wylie: Bod-rang-skyong-ljongs; simplified Chinese: 西藏自治区; traditional Chinese: 西藏自治區; pinyin: Xīzàng Zìzhìqū, literally: western "Tsang" automonous region; "Tsang" derived from the Chinese name for Ü-Tsang (simplified Chinese: 卫藏; traditional Chinese: 衛藏; pinyin: Wèizàng)), is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC).

Within the People's Republic of China, Tibet is identified with the Autonomous Region, which includes about half of cultural Tibet, including the traditional provinces of Ü-Tsang and Kham (western half). Its borders coincide roughly with the actual zone of control of the government of Tibet before 1959. The Tibet Autonomous Region is the second-largest province-level division of China by area (spanning over 470,000 sq mi/1,200,000 km²) after Xinjiang.

Unlike other autonomous regions, the vast majority of inhabitants are of the local ethnicity. As a result, there is debate surrounding the extent of actual autonomy of the region. The Chinese government argues that Tibet has ample autonomy, as guaranteed under Articles 112-122 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China as well as the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy of the People's Republic of China, while some human rights organizations accuse the Chinese government of persecuting and oppressing the local population.^[1]

The Central Tibetan Administration, commonly referred to as the Tibetan Government in Exile and headed by the Dalai Lama considers the administration of Tibet by the Chinese government as an illegitimate military occupation and holds that Tibet is a distinct sovereign nation with a long history of independence, though the Dalai Lama currently does not seek full independence for Tibet, but would accept Tibet as a genuine autonomous region within the People's Republic of China.

[edit] History

From 1912 to 1949, the present extent of the Tibet Autonomous Region (comprising Ü-Tsang and western Kham) was ruled by the government of Tibet headed by the Dalai Lama. Other parts of historic Tibet (eastern Kham and Amdo) were not under the administration of the Tibetan government during the twentieth century; today they are distributed among the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan.

Following Soviet practice, there is a convention that the governor of the Tibet Autonomous Region is an ethnic Tibetan, while the general secretary of the local Communist Party committee is an outsider, usually Han Chinese. Notable general secretaries of the local party committee include Hu Jintao, who served in the 1980s.

In 1950, the People's Liberation Army entered the Tibetan area of Chamdo, crushing minimal resistance. In 1951, the Tibetan representatives, under Chinese military pressure, signed a seventeen-point agreement with the Chinese Central People's Government affirming China's sovereignty over Tibet. The agreement was ratified in Lhasa a few months later.^[2][3] Western Government secret intervention into Tibet began before the 1959 CIA supported insurrection. British MI6 agent Sidney Wignall, in his recent autobiography, ^[4] reveals that he travelled to Tibet with John Harrop in 1955 posing as mountaineers. Captured by the Chinese authority, Wignell recalled that he was surprised to find two CIA agents were already under Chinese detention. Tibetan exiles trained in a CIA camp in Colorado clashed with Chinese forces in 1959 during the celebration of the Tibetan New Year, after which the 14th Dalai Lama, with CIA help, went into political exile in India. After 1959, the CIA trained Tibetan guerrillas and provided funds and weapons for the fight against China. However, the effort stopped when Richard Nixon decided to seek rapprochement with China in the early 1970s. Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, in The CIA's Secret War in Tibet ^[5], reveal how the CIA encouraged Tibet's revolt against China — and eventually came to control its fledgling resistance movement. The New York Times reported on October 2, 1998 that the Dalai Lama's administration acknowledged that it received $1.7 million a year in the 1960s from the CIA, but denied reports that the Tibetan leader benefited personally from an annual subsidy of $180,000. The money allocated for the resistance movement was spent on training volunteers and paying for guerrilla operations against the Chinese, the Tibetan government-in-exile said.^[6][7]

Though minimally active within the TAR, the international Tibet independence movement seeks autonomy within the PRC or independence for the TAR and other Tibetan regions.

[edit] Geography

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The Tibet Autonomous Region is located on the Tibetan Plateau, the highest region on Earth. In northern Tibet elevations reach an average of over 4,572 metres (15,000 ft). Mount Everest is located on Tibet's border with Nepal.

The Chinese areas of Xinjiang, Qinghai and Sichuan lie to the north and east of the region; It has border disputes with the Republic of India to the south including the McMahon Line of South Tibet. The disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir is to the west, and its boundary with that region is not demarcated/undefined; other countries to the south are Myanmar, Bhutan and Nepal. Tibet also shares a short southeastern border with the People's Republic of China autonmous province of Yunnan.

[edit] Government

The Tibet Autonomous Region is a province-level entity of the People's Republic of China. It is governed by a People's Government, led by a Chairman. In practice, however, the Chairman is subordinate to the branch secretary of the Communist Party of China. As a matter of convention, the Chairman has almost always been an ethnic Tibetan, while the party secretary has almost always been a non-Tibetan. The current Chairman is Qiangba Puncog, who is a native of Qamdo Prefecture. The current party secretary is Zhang Qingli, who was previously the party secretary of Tai'an and Lanzhou, and commander of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

[edit] Administrative divisions

Tibet Autonomous Region is divided into one prefecture-level city and six prefectures.

Map	#	Name	Hanzi	Hanyu Pinyin	Tibetan	Wylie	Administrative Seat	Type
	1	Ngari	阿里地区	Ālǐ Dìqū	མངའ་རིས་ས་ཁུལ་	Mnga'-ris Sa-khul	Gar County	Prefecture
	2	Nagqu	那曲地区	Nàqū Dìqū	ནག་ཆུ་ས་ཁུལ་	Nag-chu Sa-khul	Nagqu County	Prefecture
	3	Qamdo	昌都地区	Chāngdū Dìqū	ཆབ་མདོ་ས་ཁུལ་	Chab-mdo Sa-khul	Qamdo County	Prefecture
	4	Xigazê	日喀则地区	Rìkāzé Dìqū	གཞིས་ཀ་རྩེ་ས་ཁུལ་	Gzhis-ka-rtse Sa-khul	Xigazê	Prefecture
	5	Lhasa	拉萨市	Lāsà Shì	ལྷ་ས་གྲོང་ཁྱེར་	Lha-sa Grong-khyer	Chengguan District	Prefecture-level city
	6	Shannan	山南地区	Shānnán Dìqū	ལྷོ་ཁ་ས་ཁུལ་	Lho-kha Sa-khul	Nêdong County	Prefecture
	7	Nyingchi	林芝地区	Línzhī Dìqū	ཉིང་ཁྲི་ས་ཁུལ་	Nying-khri Sa-khul	Nyingchi County	Prefecture

These in turn are subdivided into a total of seventy-one counties, one district (Chengguan District, Lhasa) and one county-level city (Xigazê).

[edit] Demographics

The Tibet Autonomous Region has the lowest population density among China's province-level administrative regions, mostly due to its mountainous and harsh geographical features.

In 2000, 92.8% of the population were ethnic Tibetans, who mainly adhere to Tibetan Buddhism and Bön.

Han Chinese comprised 6.1% of the population ^[8] However, the region has seen some Han migrants began early in the decade, especially since the 2006 completion of a railway line linking Tibet with the rest of China. ^[9]

Muslim ethnic groups such as the Hui and the Salar have long inhabited Tibet Autonomous Region. Another Muslim group is the Tibetan Muslims, who are ethnically Tibetans but believe in Islam. They are counted as Tibetans by the Chinese government. ^[10]

Smaller tribal groups such as the Monpa and Lhoba, who follow a combination of Tibetan Buddhism and spirit worship, are found mainly in the southeastern parts of the region.

In 2009, the American organization Freedom House put Tibet in the “Worst of the Worst” list of most repressive disputed territories and nations in the world, together with Russia’s Chechnya and South Ossetia.^[11]

[edit] Towns and villages in Tibet

The Potala Palace in Lhasa, the capital of the TAR

[edit] Economy

The Tibetans traditionally depended upon agriculture for survival. Since the 1980s, however, other jobs such as taxi-driving and hotel retail work have become available in the wake of Chinese economic reform. In 2008, Tibet's nominal GDP topped 40 billion yuan (US$5.7 billion), nearly triple the 11.78 billion yuan (US$1.47 billion) in 2000. In the past five years, Tibet's annual GDP growth has averaged 12%.

While traditional agricultural work and animal husbandry continue to lead the area's economy, in 2005 the tertiary sector contributed more than half of its GDP growth, the first time it surpassed the area's primary industry^[12][13]. The collection of caterpillar fungus, known in Tibetan as Yartsa Gunbu (Cordyceps sinensis), in late spring / early summer is in many areas the most important source of cash for rural households; it contributes an average of 40% to rural cash income and 8.5% to the TAR's GDP^[14] [see also Hannue]^[15]. The re-opening of the Nathu La pass (on southern Tibet's border with India) should facilitate Sino-Indian border trade and boost Tibet's economy^[16].

In 2008, the Chinese news media reported that the per capita disposable incomes of urban and rural residents in Tibet averaged 12,482 yuan (US$1,798) and 3,176 yuan (US$457) respectively. ^[17].

The China Western Development policy was recently adopted by the central government to boost economic development in western China, including the Tibet Autonomous Region.

• Lhasa Economic and Technological Development Zone

[edit] Tourism

Tourists were first permitted to visit the Tibet Autonomous Region in the 1980s. While the main attraction is the Potala Palace in Lhasa, there are many other popular tourist destinations including Jokhang Temple, Namtso Lake, and Tashilhunpo Monastery. Some areas remain restricted to tourists.

[edit] See also

• China Tibetology Research Center
• List of prisons in Tibet Autonomous Region
• List of universities and colleges in Tibet

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Further reading

• Hannue, Dialogues Tibetan Dialogues Han, travelogue from Tibet - by a woman who's been travelling around Tibet for over a decade, ISBN 9789889799939
• Sorrel Wilby, Journey Across Tibet: A Young Woman's 1900-Mile Trek Across the Rooftop of the World, Contemporary Books (1988), hardcover, 236 pages, ISBN 0-8092-4608-2.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tibet

[edit] Pro Chinese rule and policies in Tibet

• Tibet Autonomous Region official website
• China, Tibet and the Chinese nation
• China Tibet Information Center
• Chinese government white paper "Tibet -- Its Ownership And Human Rights Situation" (1992)
• Chinese government white paper, "Tibet's March Toward Modernization" (2001)
• (Chinese) Naming of Tibet
• PRC Government Tibet information
• Regional Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet (May 2004)
• (Chinese) Tibet Online
• Tibet Tour (Tibet Tourism Bureau Official Site)
• (Chinese) Tibet University
• White Paper on Ecological Improvement and Environmental Protection in Tibet
• White Paper on Tibetan Culture and Homayk
• Asia Times: Why Tibet is part of China
• Tibetan language radio (China National Radio 8, part of the time Kazakh, Korean, Mongolian and Uighur are broadcast, but Lhasa Tibetan dominates.)

[edit] Contra Chinese rule and policies in Tibet

• Central Tibetan Administration (Government in Exile)
• Amnesty International Report 2004
• Olympic Watch (Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games in a Free and Democratic Country) on Tibet-related issues
• Repression in Tibet, 1987 - 1992
• Students for a Free Tibet
• - photos and information on Tibet (and Nepal)
• Free Tibet website
• The Government of Tibet in exile
• Tibet Online - Tibet Support Group
• Tibetan Studies WWW Virtual Library
• Faith in Exile - A video by the Guerrilla News Network
• Freedom of expression violations in Tibet
• Canada Tibet Committee
• Religious repression in Tibet "getting worse" in 2007
• China deepens religious repression in Tibet-report
• China Terrorizes Tibet

[edit] Apolitical

• Large map of Tibet
• Haiwei Trails - Timeline of Tibet
• The Tibet Map Institute
• Railway map of China
• Tibet map collection

v • d • e   (Tibetan) Autonomous Region of Tibet Lhasa (Capital) History · Politics · Economy Province-level divisions Prefecture-level city Lhasa Prefectures Nagqu · Ngari · Nyingchi · Qamdo · Shannan · Xigazê List of Tibet County-level divisions

v • d • e Tibetan autonomous areas in the People's Republic of China Regions Tibet Lhasa · Nagqu · Qamdo · Shannan · Xigazê · Ngari · Nyingchi Provinces Qinghai Haibei · Hainan · Haixi (Mongols and Tibetans) · Huangnan · Golog · Yushu Sichuan Garzê · Ngawa (Tibetans and Qiang) · Muli Gansu Gannan · Tianzhu Yunnan Dêqên See also Political divisions of China

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