Han Chinese migrants causing unrest in Tibet

NEW YORK - Tibet is in a state of unrest after Han Chinese migrants including workers, investors, merchants, teachers and soldiers poured into a remote part of the country.

According to The New York Post, Chinese leaders see development, along with an enhanced security presence, as the key to pacifying the Buddhist dominant region.

Beijing invested three billion dollars in the Tibet Autonomous Region in 2009, a 31 percent increase over 2008. Tibet’s gross domestic product is growing at a 12 percent annual rate, faster than China’s average.

Although the influx of money and people has ushered new prosperity, it has also deepened resentment among many Tibetans.

Migrant Han entrepreneurs elbow out Tibetan rivals, then return home for the winter after reaping profits. Large Han-owned companies dominate main industries, from mining to construction to tourism.

“Why did I come here? To make money, of course!” the paper quoted Xiong Zhahua, a migrant from Sichuan Province who spends five months the year running a restaurant on the shores of chilly Nam Tso, a lake north of Lhasa, as saying.

Some Chinese officials acknowledge the disenfranchisement of Tibetans, though they defend the right of the Han to migrate to the region.

“The flow of human resources follows the rule of market economics and is also indispensable for the development of Tibet but the current system may have caused an imbalanced distribution. We are taking measures to solve this problem,” Hao Peng, vice chairman and deputy party secretary of the region, said.

“Tibetans just get low-end jobs,” he added.

Chinese officials have said Tibetans make up more than 95 percent of the region’s 2.9 million people, but refuse to give estimates on Han migrants, who are not registered residents. (ANI)