China to reinforce control over Tibet with development plan

Beijing - China's leaders have outlined a 10-year development plan for Tibet, aimed at improving incomes and infrastructure to stabilize a region plagued by ethnic tensions, state media reported Saturday. At the first high-level meeting on Tibet since deadly ethnic clashes broke out in 2008, President Hu Jintao said the government would aim to raise the per-capita net income of farmers and herders in Tibet to the national level by 2020, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Hu also said promised more public investment in infrastructure and public services, including medical services and education.

But the president stressed that awareness of being part of the Chinese nation must be enhanced, and said the government would continue its efforts to stamp out "penetration and sabotage" by Tibetan separatists.

In March 2008, ethnic clashes broke out on the streets of the Tibetan capital Lhasa, leaving 18 people dead and hundreds injured according to official figures.

Since then, the government has tightened controls in Tibet and surrounding areas, turning away journalists, limiting access of foreign tourists and cutting off communications in some places.

Recent shifts in Tibet's leadership look set to reinforce Chinese control.

"Stability is of overwhelming importance. We will firmly oppose all attempts at secession, safeguard national unification and security, and maintain unity among different ethnic groups in Tibet," the region's new governor, Pema Trinley, was quoted as saying last week by Xinhua.

With hardliner Zhang Qingli still in top position as Tibet's Communist Party Secretary, "there is no evidence in this case that the changes signal any new approach on policy," the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet said on Saturday.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/305336,china-to-reinforce-control-over-tibet-with-development-plan.html.